‘I wanted to see “The Co-Ed Killer” in a wheelchair, old and broken down’: Revisiting Edmund Kemper

Emerson Murray is the author of the 2021 book “Murder Capital of the World,” an oral history examining the three unrelated serial killers who haunted Santa Cruz County in the early 1970s. Last week, Murray witnessed the parole hearing of one of those murderers, Edmund Kemper. We asked him to write about his impressions of the hearing, the Kemper case and his emotional reaction to writing about a dark and violent chapter in local history.

On July 9, Santa Cruz serial killer Edmund Kemper was denied parole. The hearing took place without him as he chose to remain in his cell. Despite two attempts by his attorney to meet with him beforehand, Kemper remained uncooperative. He is confined to a wheelchair, incontinent and generally in poor health. His recent psychological assessment labeled him a “high risk” for recidivism, partly due to a 2022 incident where he inappropriately touched a prison staff member during a diaper change. It’s been a rough time for the infamous killer.

Last week the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) asked me to be the “pool reporter” for Kemper’s parole hearing. I was the only member of the press allowed to attend. My role was to take comprehensive notes and share them with other media outlets. I was sick to my stomach over the next week, anxious about this responsibility. 

The hearing was conducted via videoconference.

Edmund Emil Kemper III is the last of the notorious 1970s Santa Cruz killers. Kemper and fellow serial killer Herbert Mullin murdered close to two dozen people in 1972 and 1973. Their crimes came on the heels of John Linley Frazier’s horrifying mass murder of the Ohta family and Dorothy Cadwallader in 1970, which unhinged Santa Cruz residents. The crimes all occurred at a time when Santa Cruz County was already in a whirlwind of cultural revolutions: The counterculture, women’s liberation, UCSC changed dynamics in age, the anti-war movement; changes in welfare laws and voting laws; increases in drug use and cases of sexual violence. Remote parts of the county were known as body dumping grounds for murders committed elsewhere. 

John Linley Frazier took his own life in his prison cell in 2009. Mullin died in prison in 2022.  

I had attended Mullin’s last parole hearing, in March 2021, and completely forgot about what was in the view of my webcam. As the hearing moved along, my German Shepherd played in the background during the hearing. I thought I was going to be kicked out for being a distraction. It was worse. 

Mullin and I had been exchanging interview questions and answers through the mail. My wife was not too pleased when our dog received a Christmas card from Mullin that December. 

This time around, I took the paintings off of my living room wall and cleared the background. I prepared my notebook and tested the videoconference software several times. Ten minutes later, my monitor flared up and several faces flickered to life on my screen: three CDCR officials, Kemper’s attorney, Santa Cruz County District Attorney Jeff Rosell, two victim advocate employees, and Patricia Kemper, a cousin of Ed Kemper, were all present at the hearing.

Despite a motion from Kemper’s attorney to postpone the hearing, the parole board proceeded “in absentia,” asking questions as if Kemper were present. This added a surreal quality to the proceedings, with board members frequently prefacing their questions with, “If Inmate Kemper were present I would ask him …” and “I would follow up that question asking him …” then pausing for responses that could not come. 

The parole board reviewed Kemper’s latest psychiatric evaluation, highlighting his own statements about his traumatic childhood and sexual history. Notably, Kemper admitted to lying about experiencing auditory hallucinations when he was first incarcerated as a teenager for the murder of his grandparents, a deception that led to a diagnosis of schizophrenia. The doctor who wrote this recent report noted that Kemper “chuckled” upon revealing this deception from 60 years ago.

The board then detailed the horrific crimes Kemper committed in 1972 and 1973. Kemper had been convicted of the murder of seven women and a 15-year-old girl; several of the murders involved dismemberment and the sexual abuse of a corpse. During this recounting, Kemper’s attorney visibly reacted, placing his hand to his forehead, shaking his head. The board also reviewed Kemper’s behavior in prison, including the incident in May 2022, where he grabbed a female staff member’s buttocks. When questioned about this, Kemper had responded then, “I just wanted to change the mood.”

DA Rosell emphasized Kemper’s continued danger to society, citing the 2022 incident as evidence, “He grabbed someone in his target range.” Rosell’s stark assessment painted Kemper as an untreated, unchanged threat who remains as dangerous as ever.

After a brief break, a powerful letter from Patricia Kemper was read aloud by a victim’s advocate. Patricia Kemper was at the hearing representing the families of the victims. While she is Kemper’s cousin, she is also the niece of Kemper’s last victim, his mother, Clarnell Strandberg. She is also the granddaughter of his first victims, their grandparents. When he was 15 years old, Kemper had murdered his grandparents while living with them in North Fork, California. He was incarcerated in Atascadero State Hospital and with the California Youth Authority. He was released to the custody of his mother in Santa Cruz in the summer of 1971. Patricia Kemper described the devastating impact of his crimes on their family: “The killings tore up our extended family. … Our lives became bleak.” I furiously wrote down the following quotes from her letter:

“He laughed about the killings.”

“In the end, he beheaded his mother and her best friend.”

“He loves murder. He loves killing people. Particularly women.”

The board then took another 20-minute recess before returning to deliver its decision: parole denied. It took the board more than 10 minutes to read the decision, indicating to me that the bulk of the decision had been made and written prior to the start of the hearing. 

It was a thorough, legally bulletproof decision: “He had no empathy for his victims and he used a shocking level of violence. He subjected his victims to calculated and unusual pain and fear. He has a history of psychological diagnosis that includes severe mental illness with the offense.”  

It felt like the board went to the thesaurus and found the very worst words to describe Kemper’s crimes: “His actions then and now were deemed to be heinous, cruel, hateful, vicious, frightening, deplorable, disturbing, reckless, troubling, reprehensible, and demonstrated a shocking level of violence to innocent victims.” 

I would not argue with their choice of words. 

That shock captured the attention of so many, including my grandmother. She collected newspaper clippings from all these crimes. I remember looking at the photos of the surviving Ohta daughters and hearing my grandmother talk about the crimes. Kids in Santa Cruz County didn’t need a bogeyman growing up; we all had horror stories about Ed Kemper to frighten us away from hitchhiking. We had Herbert Mullin, killer of men, women and children. He killed a priest and even killed my dad’s friend Jim Gianera. 

My dad always had a picture of him and Jim, and their friend Mouse, hiking up on his wall. My brother and I grew up knowing Herbert Mullin had killed Jim and his wife. 

It seemed natural that in 2019 I started writing a book about the subject. I had toyed with the idea of a TV script, a film script, a book, for 30 years. I had an absolute mountain of research and I already knew many people involved. Many wonderful people involved in the era and crimes, both professionally and personally, gave me some of their time for interviews. The writing and editing was quick, like it was already in there just bursting to come out. “Murder Capital of the World” was published in 2021.

What I thought would be a small, local history book concentrating on the victims of these terrible crimes blew up when the true-crime enthusiasts picked up on the book. I am so thankful to everyone involved from the interviewees to the readers. 

After conducting book interviews via mail for a few years, in December 2021, I visited Herbert Mullin in Mule Creek State Prison, eight months before he died. I had spent my entire life afraid of him. 

Talking with a confused, tiny shadow of a person in prison completely wiped the fear away. It was a cleansing experience and I left the prison feeling a few inches taller and strangely liberated.

Last Tuesday, I was disappointed that Kemper did not appear. I couldn’t imagine the voice I had heard in old YouTube videos coming out of the Steve Bannon-look-alike mugshot the CDCR had provided. I wrote to Kemper twice while conducting research for my “Murder Capital of the World” book. He did not respond to either letter. 

Emotionally, I wanted closure. I wanted to see “The Co-Ed Killer” in a wheelchair, old and broken down. I wanted to tuck him away with all my other childhood fears as I had with Herbert Mullin. Oh well.  

In our community, these killers continue to haunt a lot of people. I am reminded every time I post an update on my book or on anything involved with the murders on social media. Many people want to forget and ask, “Why bring this up?” Accusations of lurid and morbid curiosity are oftentimes hurled in the direction of those interested. My feeling is that these dark periods in our past are important parts of Santa Cruz history. They are not fun or happy. They are events that directly impacted the way things are now. They should never be forgotten. 

I was talking with Lark Ohta, whose brothers, parents, and a family friend were murdered by John Linley Frazier in 1970. It was November 2020 and the 50th anniversary of Frazier’s crimes had just passed. She told me that she had braced herself for the calls from the media and the press, as had happened at every 10-year, and sometimes five-year, anniversary: “It was a big deal to me. I was sort of preparing myself for it for a long time. And then nothing. I always had mixed feelings, but it was surprising that no one called.” 

We went back and forth: Is this healing or is this forgetting? 

“Healing” feels safe and positive. “Forgetting” feels dangerous. 

Emerson Murray is the author of “Murder Capital of the World,” a local history looking back at the murder sprees of John Linley Frazier, Herbert Mullin and Edmund Kemper in the early 1970s.

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