Ed Kemper: Conversations with a Killer: The Shocking True Story of the Co-Ed Butcher

by Dary Matera

Overview

The third title in our Conversations with a Killer series focuses on one of the most notorious serial killers of the 1970s, Ed Kemper, a key character in the hit Netflix series Mindhunter.

If there ever was a human monster that walked this earth, it was the highly intelligent, psychotic, 6’9” killer Edward “Big Ed” Kemper. As a troubled 15-year-old, Kemper shot and killed his grandparents. Eight years later, he went on an 11-month reign of terror slaughtering and dismembering six college co-eds in California, brutally killing his mother with a hammer, and breaking her best friend’s neck. Kemper, 71, remains alive at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville, more intimidating now than ever. Masterful crime writer Dary Matera tells Kemper’s full, shocking story, interweaving insights from the killer himself.
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781454943167
Publisher:	Union Square & Co.
Publication date:	07/20/2021
Series:	Conversations with a Killer , #6
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	929,804
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Dary Matera is the author of 14 books, including the bestseller Are You Lonesome Tonight and Sterling’s Charles Manson: Conversations with a Killer, co-authored with Edward George. He’s worked closely with the FBI on such previous books as Quitting the Mob, The FBI’s Ten Most Wanted, and John Dillinger. His books have been featured on 20/20, 60 Minutes, 48 Hours, Primetime Live, Nightline, Good Morning America, Inside Edition, and CBS This Morning, among others. They have been reviewed and featured in The New York Times, The  Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Newsweek, Time, People, Life, and many additional publications. Matera has appeared in more than a dozen TV documentaries featuring his book subjects, and on the TV series America: Fact or Fiction and William Shatner’s The UnXplained.

Table of Contents

Introduction xiv

1 A Sociopathic Giant is Born 1

2 TO Grandmother's House We Go 15

3 A Place of Comfort and Healing 24

4 A Very Sick Monster is Released into Society 33

5 The Hitchhiker Highway to Hell 43

6 The Tiny Dancer Can't Breathe 60

7 Eddie's Got a Brand New Gun 74

8 The Second Quinella 84

9 Training Day Has Ended 106

10 The Homesick Giant Calls It a Career 121

11 A Most Horrifying Trial 144

12 Charles Manson's New BFF 168

13 Free Big Ed? 200

Epilogue 221

Acknowledgments 223

Appendix I A Few of The Books on Tape Read by Edmund Kemper III 224

Appendix II Edmund Kemper III Guest Essays 225

Appendix III Ed Kemper: "Superstar" In Popular Culture 235

Sources 238

Bibliography 260

Index 263

Picture Credits 272

Editorial Reviews

07/09/2021

Targeting young women hitchhikers, Edmund Kemper, aka the Co-ed Killer, terrorized California in the early 1970s. His crimes extended beyond kidnapping and murder to mutilation, necrophilia, and possibly cannibalism, though the details may never be fully known. Matera (Charles Manson: Conversations with a Killer) begins this account of the Co-Ed Killings with a disclaimer that Kemper (who's still incarcerated in California) varies his narrative depending on whether he is speaking with sensation-seeking journalists, criminal profilers, or parole boards. Matera says that further complicating matters are Kemper's extreme intelligence, his questionable sanity, and the cunning he developed as a teenager when he was institutionalized (and released) after murdering his grandparents. In spite of the book's title, this isn't a Silence of the Lambs—style sit-down with a serial killer. Instead, Matera presents a retelling of Kemper's criminal career and subsequent imprisonment; any "conversations" are pulled from previously published material. Matera's original contributions to the narrative are often intrusive and speculative. VERDICT Recent Netflix programming has sparked renewed interest in the Co-Ed Killings, and Matera provides a modern update on Kemper, who's now in declining health and likely unaware of his internet presence. However, the book's tone often feels more indulgent than instructive.—Terry Bosky, Madison, WI

Library Journal