It was obvious from an early age that something wasn't right with Ed Kemper. Born in 1948 in Burbank, California, Kemper's family life was troubled right from the start. His mother and father frought constantly and eventually divorced and their son was bounced around between each parent, finally ending up living with his paternal grandparents on a farm in rural California. already a strange child who enjoyed killing and mutilating cats, cutting the heads of his sister's dolls, and playing death games, he soon took a severe downward turn into homicide. On August 27, 1964, at only the age of 15, Kemper walked up behind his grandmother and shot her in the head with .22 rifle and proceeded to stab her lifeless corpse repeatedly with a knife. He then waited patiently for his grandfather to come home and confronted him in the yard, also shooting him dead.

Kemper was sent to the Atascadero State Hospital for being criminally insane and stayed there until he was 21. Though his psychiatrists objected, he was released into the custody of is mother in Santa Cruz, who he clearly despised. Now a hulking 6-9 and about 300 pounds, Kemper did not assimilate well with the outside world. He was an outsider even with his own flesh and blood and on May 5, 1972, he took his frustration and anger out on a fellow human being again. He picked up hitchhiking Fresno St. roomates Mary Anne Pisce and Anita Luchese and drovethem to a secluded area where he proceeded to stab both girls to death. Taking the corpses to his mother's house he disected them while he took pictures and cut off the girls heads. Eventually he buried the remains in the mountains near Santa Cruz.

Fifteen-year-old Aiko Koo was next on Septeber 14, 1972. Kemper picked her up and soon suffocated her and had sex with her corpse. He then took her to his mothers and performed his trademark decapitation and mutilations. He eventually buried her remains but not before he kept his psychiatrist appointment, which he attended while Koo's head was resting in his trunk. Just after the New Year Kemper shot and killed Cindy Schall, again disecting her and having sex with her body. He discarded Schall's body into the ocean but buried her head in the yard facing his mother's bedroom window. Kemper managed to pull off another double murder on February 5, 1973, when he shot Rosalind Thorpe and Alice Lui. He didn't bother covering up their dumping very carefully and they were discovered a week later. Lui's hands had been cut off.

Kemper's hatred for his mother, Clarnell, had finally boiled over. On the night before Easter in 1973 he crept into his mother's bedroom as he had many times before. On this night he finally worked up his nerve and bludgeoned her to death with a clawhammer, decapitated her and raped her corpse. he even attempted to stuff her larynx down the garbage disposal but ironically, the disposal unit spit it back out at him. Apparently not sated, Kemper called up a friend of his mother's and invited her over for supper. Sally Hatlett unwisely accepted the offer and upon her arrival was clubbed and strangled to death. He cut Hatlett's head off, put her body in his bed, and spent the night with his mother's body in her bed.

On Easter morning her put the two women's heads in a bag in his trunk and took off, turning on the radio so he would know when the gruesome scene was discovered. He was still driving aimlessly when he reached Pueblo, Colorado, where he finally got disappointed that the murders had not been discovered and took the reins, calling Santa Cruz police from a payphone and confessing to the serial killings. He had to make several seperate calls before police would believe that Kemper, who often chatted with officers amiably at their popular hangouts and had himself applied to be a California Highway Patrolman, was telling them the truth. Arrested at last, Kemper was eventually sent to Folson Prison for life, though he had asked for the death penalty.