Ed Kemper - the Co-ed Killer

Ed Kemper is an American serial killer who murdered 8 people, including a 15-year-old girl, his own mother, and her best friend, from May 1972 to April 1973. Years earlier, at the age of 15, Kemper had killed his paternal grandparents. His mother sent him to live with his grandparents, and in a moment of disagreement with his grandmother, he shot and stabbed her. Later, when his grandfather arrived home, Kemper fatally shot him as well.

Kemper became known as the Co-ed Killer because most of his non-family victims were college students hitchhiking near Santa Cruz County, California. The majority of his murders involved dismembering bodies, decapitation, and engaging in sexual acts with the corpses.

Found sane and guilty in his 1973 trial, Kemper requested the death penalty for his crimes. When asked about the method of execution he preferred, he responded: by torture. However, the death penalty was suspended in California at the time, and instead, he received eight consecutive life sentences. Since then, he has been held at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville.