Edmund’s mother was living in Santa Cruz, California. She was an administrative assistant at the University of California. She got Ed a university parking sticker so he could park on campus. Ed had always dreamed of being a cop, but it was impossible for him because of his height. He bought a car that looked like an unmarked police vehicle, and he equipped it with a radio transmitter , microphone, and a large whip antenna. Then he started picking up female hitchhikers. He took them to their destinations, but the whole time he was dreaming up violent sexual fantasies. Eventually he removed the antenna, rigged the passenger side door so that it couldn’t be opened inside, and placed plastic bags, knives, guns, and blankets in the trunk.
His first two hitchhiker murders were Anita Luchese and Mary Anne Pesce. He was giving them a ride to Stanford University. He took his gun out and pulled over off the road. He locked Anita in the trunk so he could kill Mary Anne first. Somehow he panicked and locked himself out of the car, but Mary Anne let him back in. He then handcuffed her and attempted to suffocate her with a plastic bag, but she bit through it. He pulled out his knife, stabbed her repeatedly, then cut her head off. After Mary Anne was dead, he took Anita out of the trunk and stabbed her to death. Next, he took the two bodies home where he undressed and dissected Mary Anne’s corpse and beheaded Anita. He disposed of the torsos, but kept the heads for souvenirs.
His next victim was a fifteen year old Korean dancer. Aiko Koo was on her way to dance class when Ed picked her up. He took her off the main roads, into the mountains, where he taped her mouth shut and suffocated her. Then he removed her body from the car and raped her on the ground. For the rest of the night he drove around with her body in his trunk. When he got home, he dissected her body and disposed of her head and hands separate from her torso. On the day that the state psychiatrist deemed him no longer a threat to society, he had her head in the trunk of his car.
He killed three more hitchhikers in a similar fashion. He would pick them up and kill them, in these cases using a .22 caliber automatic pistol. Then he would cut off they’re heads and hands, dissect and rape their corpses, eat parts of their torsos, dispose of their torsos, and keep their heads as souvenirs. In one of the murders, he buried the head in his backyard facing his window, so he could talk to it at night.
Victims
Ed Kills Mom and Sara Hallet
