Edmund Karler: An Active Serial Killer: Edmund Kemper

Young, yet Violent

Edmund Kemper, an active serial killer in the 1970s, was also known as the Co-ed killer. When Kemper was young, his parents had gotten a divorce. He then moved with his mother and two sisters. Moving in with his mother seemed like a good idea in the beginning, but then began to be his biggest nightmare. He had a difficult relationship with his alcoholic mother, who abused him as a child and would lock him in the basement, scared he would hurt his sisters. Kemper found interest in taking lives of cats away. His mother could not handle him anymore, therefore she sent him off to his grandparents. Kemper’s first murder was when he was only 15, he murdered his grandmother and then grandfather minutes later. He was then sent to

I couldn’t get her to shut up!” (Mc Clymont, Astrid). His mother was abusive physically and mentally with him. An example of her abuse is when she locked her son in the basement alone at night. This often made him think about killing her during the early years, but he didn’t because he wanted to perfect his skills before he killed her. She continuously nagged and insulted his manhood. He explained that his killings were “Revenge against his feeling of emasculation”(Corry, John). Though this was his only purpose of killing, he did not have an actual motive to kill the hitchhikers, unlike his family members. Edmund began to develop a strong hatred for women, which is why all of his victims, with the exception of his grandfather, were all women. In his mind, women were evil and all had the same motive. As for his grandparents, Edmund stated that he only killed her because he wanted to know what it felt like and out of pure curiosity. This led many to think if he was either a sociopath or a psychopath. Though there has been many speculation on whether he is either, it is proven through his actions that he is in fact a

These acts did not go unnoticed. He cut off the heads of his sister’s dolls and convinced his sisters into playing a game he then called "gas chamber". Where he would have them blindfold him and take him to a chair. His mother noticed this and immediately took action by locking him up, in order to prevent him from hurting his sisters. Instead of helping him, she was hurting him and frustrating him even more. Her abuse towards him only caused more destruction than ever. A great amount of people would state that sociopaths’, such as Edmund Kemper, only intention is to harm and inflict pain on others. There is no doubt that they are incredibly dangerous, but their true intentions seem to feel right to them because they do not have emotions or a conscience. This causes them to deal with people as if they were objects. Sociopaths usually have the urge to destroy people that are the closest to them, but instead of emotionally doing this, they physically do it. Because sociopaths usually contain deep anger, they feel that it is alright to act out of rage. Nothing for them is planned out, they simply do as they please, thinking that it is alright. None of the acts that Edmund committed were planned out. When he saw a woman he wanted to kill, he simply did