FIENDISH KILLERS (True Crime) by Anne Williams, Vivian Head, Amy Williams Read Free Book Online

nobody came forward to claim Heidnik’s body for burial.

Ed Kemper

     
    The notorious Co-ed Killer, Edmund Emil Kemper, got his nickname by killing and dismembering six young women whom he picked up as hitchhikers in the area of Santa Cruz, California. However, he also committed a number of other murders, including killing his grandparents and his mother. He was only a teenager when he shot both his grandparents dead, having been sent to live with them on their farm. As an adult, he committed a series of murders, mostly of young female hitchhikers and committed gross acts of necrophilia and cannibalism on their corpses. During this time he covered his clues, but as time went on and his madness took hold, he lost all sense of caution. Finally, he murdered his mother and a friend of hers in a fit of furious rage, before finally giving himself up to the authorities. His behaviour was never explained, and at his trial he was seen as a sociopath rather than a psychopath. As a result he was judged to be sane, even though he had spent a good deal of time in mental hospitals as a teenager. The reason he gave for killing the women and the members of his own family, was, he said, ‘to see what it felt like’. Words that struck a chill into all who followed his horrific exploits, and persuaded the judge at his trial to give him a life sentence for murder.
     
    K ILLING THE FAMILY CAT
     
    Edmund Kemper III was born on December 18, 1948, in Burbank, California, into a troubled family. His father, who went by the nickname E.E., had been decorated in World War II; his mother, Clarnell, a domineering, critical woman, was not happy with her husband, and after a tempestuous relationship the couple parted. His mother took Ed, who was then aged nine, and his sister to live in Helena, Montana. It was here that Ed began to show the first signs of serious mental disturbance. One of the strangest aspects of his behaviour was that he tortured animals in the most horrible way. In an incident that defies belief, he buried the family cat alive in the back garden and when it was dead, cut off its head and put it on a stick. He kept the head on the stick in his bedroom, along with other unpleasant animal parts. How his mother managed not to notice what was going on is still a mystery. He also mutilated his sister’s dolls, pulling their heads, arms and legs off and acting out peculiar sexual rituals on them. At this time, he also fell in love with a teacher at his school and confided his feelings to his sister. His sister asked him, as a joke, whether he would like to kiss the teacher, and Ed replied that if he did, he would have to kill her beforehand. Later on, these words were to become prophetic.
    Kemper’s mother Clarnell seems to have exacerbated the situation, humiliating her son on every occasion that she could and continually berating him in front of others. Eventually, she forced him to sleep in the basement under lock and key, because she was afraid that he would attack his sisters and subject them to sexual acts. She herself was also afraid of him. By this time he had grown into an extremely tall young man, inheriting his height from both parents. His size marked him out from his contemporaries and he was teased at school, but seemed unable to fend for himself and became extremely afraid of being bullied. Thus, although he was a large, violent young man, he was also timid and very awkward with people in general.
    Edmund’s relationship with his mother soon deteriorated to the point where she declared that she had washed her hands of him. She referred to him as ‘a real weirdo’ and when his behaviour became completely out of control, sent him to live with his estranged father. His father proved equally inadequate to deal with the situation, and in turn sent him to live with his elderly paternal grandparents on their farm at North Fork, Carolina.
     
    C OUNTRY LIFE – WITH A RIFLE
     
    By now, Kemper was fifteen. To begin