Edmund Kemper III: The Co-Ed Killer

Murder is defined as the illegal taking of another human's life and is grounded in the intent of this action. Many murders occur at the time due to an increased passion of a situation; jealousy, anger, or a lapse in judgment that leads to someone else's death. In the case of serial killers, this is not about the passion of a onetime situation, it can be a compulsion that drives a person to kill over and over. The cause of this compulsion is motivated by mental illness, a sense of duty to a particular person or entity, or it is a way to release pent-up frustrations that the killer does not have the emotional capability to handle. This last one is the case for Edmund "Ed" Kemper III, also known as the Co-Ed Killer.
Ed grew up in a very dysfunctional

He would find them because they were hitchhiking and this was a comfortable place for him. The women would college students because his mother would say that he did not deserve these types of women, that they were too good for him (interview 1991). Ed describes the urges to kill would come in a rage state with strong emotions. These emotions would be either very positive or very negative, depending on what started them. Most of the time, the rages were triggered by fights with his mother. Edmund Kemper did not have any physiological damage to cause these rages, however, he did have severe attachment issues that led to poor intimate relationships and the inability to keep any meaningful friendships. This inability to process his emotional state because of the underdevelopment of his psycho-social skills led to brutal killings of eight women, including his

Mary Ann Pesce (18) and Anita Luchessa (18) were stabbed to death. Just over 4 months later, September 14, 1972, Ed picked up and killed his third victim, Aiko Koo (15) by strangulation. It would be another 4 months before Ed would kill again. Now 25 years old, Ed picked up and shot 19-year-old Cindy Schallner near Cabrillo College in California. There was a short time between Cindy and the next two victims, Rosalind Thorpe (24) and Alice Liu (23). Both Alice and Rosalind picked up from UC Santa Cruz and shot not far from the campus on February 5, 1973. It was between these killings in February and April that Ed decided that he had to stop this killing cycle, but he said that he had to kill his mother in order to make it end (Interview 1984). On April 20, 1973, Ed killed his mother by beating her with a claw hammer while she slept in her own bed. The next day, April 21st, he invited his mother's best friend over to the house he shared with this mother and killed her by