FIENDISH KILLERS (True Crime) by Anne Williams, Vivian Head, Amy Williams Read Free Book Online Page A
with, country life seemed to suit the teenager and he spent his days shooting animals and birds with a rifle. However, tragedy struck when, on August 27, 1964, Kemper turned the gun on his grandparents, shooting his grandmother dead as she put the finishing touches to a children’s book she was working on. When his grandfather came home from grocery shopping, Kemper shot him dead as well. Asked later why he had done it, all he could find to reply was, ‘I just wondered what it would feel like to shoot grandma and grandpa.’
Kemper was pronounced to be mentally ill and sent to a secure hospital at Atascadero, where he remained for the next five years. He was then judged to be much improved with regard to his mental health and was paroled into his mother’s care in Santa Cruz, a college town in San Francisco Bay. Once released, he applied to join the police, but was turned down on the grounds that he was too tall (by now he was 6 ft 9 in). After that, he did numerous odd jobs, never settling for long at any one task. He began to drink regularly at a police bar called the Jury Room, where he befriended numerous detectives and bought himself a car similar to those used by the police as undercover vehicles.
He started using the car to pick up young female hitch-hikers, customising the car by making it impossible to open the passenger side door from the inside. In retrospect, it seems clear that he was waiting to claim his next victim – it was just a matter of time until he found the right moment.
M URDER, RAPE AND NECROPHILIA
On May 7, 1972, the next tragedy struck when he picked up two eighteen-year-old students, Mary Ann Pesce and Anita Luchessa, who were hitching to Stanford University. He drove them down a dirt road, stabbed them both to death and then took them back to his apartment. There he sexually assaulted the bodies and took photographs of them, before cutting their heads off, putting the bodies in plastic bags, burying them on a nearby mountainside and throwing the heads into a ravine. Four months later, he killed again. This victim was fifteen-year-old Aiko Koo, whom he strangled, raped and then dissected. The next day, with her head in the boot of his car, he met with court psychiatrists, who declared him to be sane.
Another four months went by, and then Kemper murdered another student, Cindy Schell. By this time he’d bought a gun, which he used to shoot Schell dead after forcing her into the boot of his car. Now following a pattern, he raped, beheaded and dissected her corpse before disposing of it, burying the head in his mother’s garden.
Less then a month passed before he struck again, shooting hitchhikers Rosalind Thorpe and Alice Lin before putting both bodies in the boot and leaving them there while he went to have dinner with his mother. When they had finished eating he decapitated them, taking Lin’s headless corpse home to rape.
T HE FINAL VICTIM: HIS MOTHER
Clearly, Kemper’s madness was now out of control, and over the Easter weekend of 1973 he finally turned on his mother. He lay in wait for her at her home and when she appeared he beat her to death with a hammer. He then decapitated and raped her, before attempting to throw her larynx into the waste disposal unit. In a confused attempt to cover his tracks, he then invited one of his mother’s friends over, Sally Hallett, and when she arrived he murdered her as well. Having committed the two murders, he took to his heels and fled, driving west to Colorado. When he got there, he telephoned his buddies on the Santa Cruz police force and told them what he’d done. At first they thought he was joking and did not believe him, but after visiting his mother’s apartment, they saw only too well that he was telling the truth and immediately ordered his arrest. He gave himself up without a fight and seemed relieved that his killing spree had now come to an end.
When Kemper was brought to trial, the jury concluded that
Kemper was pronounced to be mentally ill and sent to a secure hospital at Atascadero, where he remained for the next five years. He was then judged to be much improved with regard to his mental health and was paroled into his mother’s care in Santa Cruz, a college town in San Francisco Bay. Once released, he applied to join the police, but was turned down on the grounds that he was too tall (by now he was 6 ft 9 in). After that, he did numerous odd jobs, never settling for long at any one task. He began to drink regularly at a police bar called the Jury Room, where he befriended numerous detectives and bought himself a car similar to those used by the police as undercover vehicles.
He started using the car to pick up young female hitch-hikers, customising the car by making it impossible to open the passenger side door from the inside. In retrospect, it seems clear that he was waiting to claim his next victim – it was just a matter of time until he found the right moment.
M URDER, RAPE AND NECROPHILIA
On May 7, 1972, the next tragedy struck when he picked up two eighteen-year-old students, Mary Ann Pesce and Anita Luchessa, who were hitching to Stanford University. He drove them down a dirt road, stabbed them both to death and then took them back to his apartment. There he sexually assaulted the bodies and took photographs of them, before cutting their heads off, putting the bodies in plastic bags, burying them on a nearby mountainside and throwing the heads into a ravine. Four months later, he killed again. This victim was fifteen-year-old Aiko Koo, whom he strangled, raped and then dissected. The next day, with her head in the boot of his car, he met with court psychiatrists, who declared him to be sane.
Another four months went by, and then Kemper murdered another student, Cindy Schell. By this time he’d bought a gun, which he used to shoot Schell dead after forcing her into the boot of his car. Now following a pattern, he raped, beheaded and dissected her corpse before disposing of it, burying the head in his mother’s garden.
Less then a month passed before he struck again, shooting hitchhikers Rosalind Thorpe and Alice Lin before putting both bodies in the boot and leaving them there while he went to have dinner with his mother. When they had finished eating he decapitated them, taking Lin’s headless corpse home to rape.
T HE FINAL VICTIM: HIS MOTHER
Clearly, Kemper’s madness was now out of control, and over the Easter weekend of 1973 he finally turned on his mother. He lay in wait for her at her home and when she appeared he beat her to death with a hammer. He then decapitated and raped her, before attempting to throw her larynx into the waste disposal unit. In a confused attempt to cover his tracks, he then invited one of his mother’s friends over, Sally Hallett, and when she arrived he murdered her as well. Having committed the two murders, he took to his heels and fled, driving west to Colorado. When he got there, he telephoned his buddies on the Santa Cruz police force and told them what he’d done. At first they thought he was joking and did not believe him, but after visiting his mother’s apartment, they saw only too well that he was telling the truth and immediately ordered his arrest. He gave himself up without a fight and seemed relieved that his killing spree had now come to an end.
When Kemper was brought to trial, the jury concluded that
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