Edmund Emil Kemper III grew up in Helena, Montana with his mother and sisters. His parents divorced when he was nine years old. His mother and sisters banished Edmund to the basement as he got older because they thought it was inappropriate for him to share a room with his sister. Even as a child, Edmund displayed the classic signs of a serial killer. His favorite game was to have his sister tie him up to a chair so that he could pretend he was dying in the gas chamber. He also liked to cut the heads and hands off his sister’s dolls. Once he mutilated and killed the family’s two cats with a pocket knife and a machete. Edmund couldn’t make friends with other children, and he had violent sexual fantasies. He was sent to live with his father and stepmother in Los Angeles because his mother couldn’t handle him. Life with his father wasn’t much better. He too felt that he couldn’t handle Edmund, so he sent his son to live with his paternal grandparents in North Fork, California.
At first, he seemed to be making progress living with them. He was doing well in school and keeping himself busy by hunting. One day, he became so annoyed with his grandmother’s nagging that he shot her in the back of the head with his .22 rifle. Once she slumped over onto the table, he shot her twice in the back. Then he wrapped her head in a towel and dragged her corpse into the bedroom. Ed was afraid of his grandfather’s reaction, so he shot him too. Shortly after the murders, Ed called his mother in Montana and told her the whole story. She advised him to call the police. When the police asked Edmund why he had committed the murders, he said, “I just wanted to see how it felt to shoot grandma.”
Ed's Experience at Atascadero
