It was here that he killed his first victim, grandmother Maude Matilda Hughey Kemper, with a rifle. He was also known to decapitate his victims and engage in necrophilia.Īt the age of 15 Ed ran away from home and ended up being sent to live with his grandparents in their farmhouse in central California. He was 24 years old on conviction and had killed 10 people, including his grandmother, grandfather, his mother and her friend, as well as a number of young, female hitchhikers.
MINDHUNTER NETFLIX ED SERIES
Kemper, sometimes known as the Co-ed Killer, was convicted in 1973 for a series of murders and is currently serving eight consecutive life sentences. It doesn't need to be said that while Kemper's mother may have been responsible for creating Ed Kemper, Ed Kemper is entirely responsible for his own actions: "It does not mean that everyone is going to grow up to be a predator," says Douglas.ĪP/Shutterstock Ed Kemper's true story: What did he do? Had he been taken out of that environment, he could have made something or done something positive in his life but that was not the case."ĭiscussing the concept of nature versus nurture in Kemper's case, Douglas concludes that "it's definitely, with him, nurture". What he did is horrific but, what I'm thinking as I'm doing the interview, is he's a result of this abusive early childhood by his mother. He added: " extremely bright, personable guy. "Even though he was a big guy, his mother just demeaned him, degraded him, broke him down as a kid so when he went to school, being as big as he was, he was the one being bullied."
Ed Kemper was 6 ft 9 and he was 300 pounds," Douglas says. "The real Ed Kemper is even bigger than Cameron, who played an unbelievable job.