The mastermind of crime
©UtCon Collection / Alamy / Abaca
It is May 7, 1972. Around 4 p.m., Mary Ann Pesce and Anita Luchese, two young girls barely 18 years old, hitchhike on the road leading to Stanford University. After some time, a car approaches them.
Ed Kemper, a 24-year-old giant measuring 2.06 for 136 kg, is driving a Ford Galaxie. At first glance, Ed seems quite likeable, despite his imposing physique. Its main feature? Ed Kemper is gifted: with his 145 IQ, he was (a priori) smarter than 98% of the world’s population.
Shortly after getting back behind the wheel, Ed pulls up in a low-traffic area and pulls out his gun, hidden under his seat. He forces Anita into the trunk of his vehicle, then handcuffs Mary Ann and tries to suffocate her with a plastic bag. Impatient, Ed pulls out his knife and stabs Mary Ann, as well as Anita, repeatedly.
A few months later, in August of the same year, the police found their bodies decapitated and without hands. Despite numerous investigations, their heads will never be found.
On September 14, 1972, 15-year-old Aiko Koo waited for the bus to go to San Francisco for a dance class. Afraid of arriving late because the bus is late, Aiko decides to play sports for the first time in her life. Once again, Ed Kemper gets the girl into his Ford vehicle.
When Aiko realizes that Ed is taking the wrong road, Ed Kemper stops his car and immediately resumes his abuse. Aiko will be strangled, raped, beheaded and dismembered. His skeleton will be found in the mountain the following year, without hands and without a head.
Then begins an addictive quest for Ed: in total, Ed will have killed, beheaded, dismembered and then raped 6 women in just 9 months. The other victims were Cynthia Schall (18), Rosalind Thorpe (23), Alice Liu (21). He will therefore be nicknamed “the ogre of Santa Cruz” by the press.
But these crimes were “training” so that he could carry out the “perfect murder”, that of his mother, at the origin according to him of his murderous frenzy. Ed, who can no longer bear the hell that his mother has made him live since childhood, murders him with a hammer. After chopping off his head, he rips out his larynx to throw it in the sink grinder and puts his head on the fireplace to use as a dartboard. The next day, Ed rapes his mother’s decapitated corpse and hides it in a cupboard.
Kill a family member? This is not a problem for Ed. During the police investigations, we will learn that Ed was previously sentenced to 5 years in prison for having killed his grandmother and grandfather when they were only 15 years old, too strict to his taste.
After killing his mother, Ed visits his best friend and confidante, Sara. As soon as he arrives, Ed strangles her and kills her before fleeing to Colorado. But how far will this criminal genius go? Will he commit new barbaric acts? Answer in the new issue of Criminal Chroniclesthe magazine of the famous investigative journalist Jacques Pradel!
LR