Grace Baldridge, Amir Nikoui, and Hasan Piker talk Edmund Kemper, the 6’9 killer from Santa Cruz. They explore the rocky relationship he had with his mother that contributed to his psychological damage.
Netflix did the first season of a series called Mindhunter in 2017 – it was released in October of that year, and has a second season signed (but not released yet). It’s about the development of the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit at the training academy back in 1977, which pretty much created the current criminal psychology stuff by interviewing serial killers and murderers. Ed Kemper is one of the interviews they did, and the guy who plays him is so dead on – look and portrayal.
Series itself is amazing, but their Ed Kemper is a stand out, not just because he’s the one that Holder interviewed so extensively, but because of the performance’s accuracy.
I think he is less notorious than many other killers because it was all about his mother – not just a terrible upbringing that led him to act out, but the literal desire to kill his mother. The clip of him telling us about the moment he realized he had to kill her made all of the other murders make sense. It’s not especially mysterious or frightening to me once I understand it was just a guy that legit wanted to kill his mom and it just took him a few murders to figure it out.
I have no problem believing his tears were genuine, and I don’t think they were tears of joy. He’s obviously not crying for his mother or out of regret; he’s talking about himself at that point. He’s not a rock or a lizard, he’s human. A son. It seemed to me like he was crying because of what he might have been had his mother treated him differently.
As for making excuses for what he did, I don’t believe that’s true. He is a genius, and I think he’s simply analyzing himself and trying to get others to understand him. He doesn’t seem to show any shame or regret for hurting the women, so why would he make excuses for his actions at the same time as he calmly and coldly talks about what he did?
I agree completely with you MayleeD. He seems to be trying to put his internal processes into words so that he can figure out why he does the grotesque things that he does. Perhaps I see a little bit of myself in him. I get the impression that he is intentionally trying to understand himself.
Im in menu go to member content then to shows then to murder with friends there are the episodes. Thats where im typing this…
So i dont see any extra content?
Can someone please direct me?
Im using a samsung galaxy s7. So smartphone. In firefox. But that should not have to matter.
i wonder if he had never been introduced to killing/hunting by his grandfather with guns, would he have been steered in a different direction to cope with his feelings/emotions through less violent means.
At the top of the page is a member content section, and a shows section. You might be watching from a different page, but just goto TYTnetwork.com. Very close to the top of the page are the drop down menus.
I had never heard of this guy, wonder why not.
Also, the thing with the dolls: I had a friend who used to pop the heads arms and legs off the Barbies. Old school Barbies, you could pop those back on real easy. Once I bit the toe off my sisters fav doll, so my mom cut the toe off my fav doll. None of us turned out to be killers. Then again, I don’t know what happen to my head popping friend after age 10.
I usually don’t care for more recent murder stories (20th century), however, this one was fascinating. The nature vs nurture aspect as well as the mystery behind the legitimacy of his emotions. Great job!
Best murder with friends ever. Hassan is brilliant. Also, I have never heard of this particular serial killer before. I do not believe this killer experiences genuine human emotion the way the rest of us do : in a visceral, herd-loyal, animal way. But he may have practiced human emotion enough that he believes it is real, the same way that it really dedicated actor might begin to believe he is the character he’s playing. What I was enlightened by is the idea that a serial killer considers his activities a form of art. Kudos to our host and her guests. This was an amazing episode. I believe sociopaths will be the next recognized handicapped segment of the population. We use sociopaths whenever it’s convenient to us: as assassins, as spies, as generals who can lead fifty thousand men to certain death, as CEOs of huge companies, even as surgeons.. We only call sociopaths criminals when they don’t do what we want.
I had to come back and watch this one again when I wasn’t high. (I generally watch these before bed, after smoking. I’m weird.) But I have to say that the reason Kemper is crying in that one clip is because this woman terrorized him throughout his childhood and into adulthood. He’s crying because, when he speaks of his mother in that moment, he is thinking of all the horrible things she has said and done, and that last example is just as hurtful to him. He is crying because she hurt him deeply, and that kind of pain is hard to overcome, even after decades.
Having grown up with a narcissistic parent, I understand that moment a little bit. But he has the same narcissism. And because he is the son of a narcissistic parent, he is particularly sensitive to even imagined slights. For more info, you should google “narcissistic mother.”
Also, it’s VERY important to note that psychopaths CAN empathize when they want to. There’s an article called “Inside the Mind of a Psychopath – Empathic, But Not Always” that goes over the research on this. You really HAVE to read it. When asked to try to empathize with people, they can. For most people, our empathy switch is generally on, but to varying degrees, we can turn it off (I’m generally very empathetic, so I find this difficult) when it is in our best interests to do so. Psychopaths generally have that switch set to off, but they can turn it on when they want to, which explains how they can be so charming and seemingly genuine.
Edmund Kemper was a new story to me, and I thank you for bringing his path to light. I was surprised I hadn’t heard of him before. It’s interesting that he called the cops after killing his mother and her friend, that also surprised me… a great deal in fact. I suppose it could be true that he had finished his ‘masterpiece’ and was willing to end his killings. That mother was such an unsympathetic person you can easily say that while he may have had underlying issues, his story is very much the work of her hands. It is a true pity that his intellect was wasted and used for such ugly purpose. I suspect that, had he been given a way to stem the rage or deal with his anger issues in an appropriate manner he almost certainly could have been a great benefit to his community. A psychopath does not necessarily walk a violent path, I mean, it isn’t a requirement. I once heard a talk show host say ‘they make great used car salesmen!’ …funny, but also true. I suspect more than the usual was wrong in his head. What a chilling story and excellent illustration of why you don’t treat kids that way. If a kid with a mentality built like that in these times has a mom and/or dad who will 1)notice the precursors and 2) fight to find the ‘answer’ to train the kid how to bridge over what is missing, much grief can be avoided and even the potentially violent child can find a way to value his life as more than a sensational news story. Much as we do love the dark side, I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
Psychopaths can turn their emotions on and off, they aren’t blank slates; that’s a different psychological phenomena called the “flat effect” seen in patients with schizophrenia. Kemper has real emotions when he talks about his real life experiences. Killing people to a psychopath is similar to a defense attorney defending a client they know to be guilty. They have a moral compass, emotions and general humanity but they compartmentalize to get the task at hand completed II will admit that it is far healthier to legally defend someone than murder them but as far as the human brain is concerned its just a technicality).
I don’t think you guys have covered Albert Fish yet! He’s horrible and what he did was seriously terrifying. Between the self mutilation and murdering then eating a little girl this guy is one of the most twisted killers I’ve ever heard of.
The Sistine Chapel wasn’t Michelangelo’s masterpiece the statue of David was. He hated the Sistine Chapel the Pope at the time ordered him to do it. Michelangelo loved sculpting not painting. Hidden in the painting of the Sistine Chapel was a whole bunch of fuck you’s to the church including the Italian equivalent to the middle finger, god set within a brain shaped robe and instead of a apple tree for Adam it was a fig tree making a definite connection to it’s Jewish origins rather than it’s Roman anti-Semitic white-washing of it. Also it gave him a crick-neck.
Kempers response to his sister breaking his toy is a lot like US death penalty in many instances. Person killes someone in panic or rage, then the state coldly calculates and kills them back.
Different level, but same culture.
Comments
Netflix did the first season of a series called Mindhunter in 2017 – it was released in October of that year, and has a second season signed (but not released yet). It’s about the development of the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit at the training academy back in 1977, which pretty much created the current criminal psychology stuff by interviewing serial killers and murderers. Ed Kemper is one of the interviews they did, and the guy who plays him is so dead on – look and portrayal.
Series itself is amazing, but their Ed Kemper is a stand out, not just because he’s the one that Holder interviewed so extensively, but because of the performance’s accuracy.
I think he is less notorious than many other killers because it was all about his mother – not just a terrible upbringing that led him to act out, but the literal desire to kill his mother. The clip of him telling us about the moment he realized he had to kill her made all of the other murders make sense. It’s not especially mysterious or frightening to me once I understand it was just a guy that legit wanted to kill his mom and it just took him a few murders to figure it out.
I have no problem believing his tears were genuine, and I don’t think they were tears of joy. He’s obviously not crying for his mother or out of regret; he’s talking about himself at that point. He’s not a rock or a lizard, he’s human. A son. It seemed to me like he was crying because of what he might have been had his mother treated him differently.
As for making excuses for what he did, I don’t believe that’s true. He is a genius, and I think he’s simply analyzing himself and trying to get others to understand him. He doesn’t seem to show any shame or regret for hurting the women, so why would he make excuses for his actions at the same time as he calmly and coldly talks about what he did?
I agree completely with you MayleeD. He seems to be trying to put his internal processes into words so that he can figure out why he does the grotesque things that he does. Perhaps I see a little bit of myself in him. I get the impression that he is intentionally trying to understand himself.
@Tothmetres
Im in menu go to member content then to shows then to murder with friends there are the episodes. Thats where im typing this…
So i dont see any extra content?
Can someone please direct me?
Im using a samsung galaxy s7. So smartphone. In firefox. But that should not have to matter.
I see only episodes… :(
I heard on NPR that people can only really make 150 friends, the rest being only acquaintances… I’m curious if ‘Dunbar’s Number’ had a subtle effect on this man… – http://www.npr.org/2011/06/04/136723316/dont-believe-facebook-you-only-have-150-friends
i wonder if he had never been introduced to killing/hunting by his grandfather with guns, would he have been steered in a different direction to cope with his feelings/emotions through less violent means.
Can someone tell me grace tells us as members there is extra content.
Where????
I watch this here. Not on YT but i assume the show is the same there as its here so where is the extra content?
At the top of the page is a member content section, and a shows section. You might be watching from a different page, but just goto TYTnetwork.com. Very close to the top of the page are the drop down menus.
I had never heard of this guy, wonder why not.
Also, the thing with the dolls: I had a friend who used to pop the heads arms and legs off the Barbies. Old school Barbies, you could pop those back on real easy. Once I bit the toe off my sisters fav doll, so my mom cut the toe off my fav doll. None of us turned out to be killers. Then again, I don’t know what happen to my head popping friend after age 10.
I usually don’t care for more recent murder stories (20th century), however, this one was fascinating. The nature vs nurture aspect as well as the mystery behind the legitimacy of his emotions. Great job!
Best murder with friends ever. Hassan is brilliant. Also, I have never heard of this particular serial killer before. I do not believe this killer experiences genuine human emotion the way the rest of us do : in a visceral, herd-loyal, animal way. But he may have practiced human emotion enough that he believes it is real, the same way that it really dedicated actor might begin to believe he is the character he’s playing. What I was enlightened by is the idea that a serial killer considers his activities a form of art. Kudos to our host and her guests. This was an amazing episode. I believe sociopaths will be the next recognized handicapped segment of the population. We use sociopaths whenever it’s convenient to us: as assassins, as spies, as generals who can lead fifty thousand men to certain death, as CEOs of huge companies, even as surgeons.. We only call sociopaths criminals when they don’t do what we want.
I had to come back and watch this one again when I wasn’t high. (I generally watch these before bed, after smoking. I’m weird.) But I have to say that the reason Kemper is crying in that one clip is because this woman terrorized him throughout his childhood and into adulthood. He’s crying because, when he speaks of his mother in that moment, he is thinking of all the horrible things she has said and done, and that last example is just as hurtful to him. He is crying because she hurt him deeply, and that kind of pain is hard to overcome, even after decades.
Having grown up with a narcissistic parent, I understand that moment a little bit. But he has the same narcissism. And because he is the son of a narcissistic parent, he is particularly sensitive to even imagined slights. For more info, you should google “narcissistic mother.”
Also, it’s VERY important to note that psychopaths CAN empathize when they want to. There’s an article called “Inside the Mind of a Psychopath – Empathic, But Not Always” that goes over the research on this. You really HAVE to read it. When asked to try to empathize with people, they can. For most people, our empathy switch is generally on, but to varying degrees, we can turn it off (I’m generally very empathetic, so I find this difficult) when it is in our best interests to do so. Psychopaths generally have that switch set to off, but they can turn it on when they want to, which explains how they can be so charming and seemingly genuine.
Edmund Kemper was a new story to me, and I thank you for bringing his path to light. I was surprised I hadn’t heard of him before. It’s interesting that he called the cops after killing his mother and her friend, that also surprised me… a great deal in fact. I suppose it could be true that he had finished his ‘masterpiece’ and was willing to end his killings. That mother was such an unsympathetic person you can easily say that while he may have had underlying issues, his story is very much the work of her hands. It is a true pity that his intellect was wasted and used for such ugly purpose. I suspect that, had he been given a way to stem the rage or deal with his anger issues in an appropriate manner he almost certainly could have been a great benefit to his community. A psychopath does not necessarily walk a violent path, I mean, it isn’t a requirement. I once heard a talk show host say ‘they make great used car salesmen!’ …funny, but also true. I suspect more than the usual was wrong in his head. What a chilling story and excellent illustration of why you don’t treat kids that way. If a kid with a mentality built like that in these times has a mom and/or dad who will 1)notice the precursors and 2) fight to find the ‘answer’ to train the kid how to bridge over what is missing, much grief can be avoided and even the potentially violent child can find a way to value his life as more than a sensational news story. Much as we do love the dark side, I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
Psychopaths can turn their emotions on and off, they aren’t blank slates; that’s a different psychological phenomena called the “flat effect” seen in patients with schizophrenia. Kemper has real emotions when he talks about his real life experiences. Killing people to a psychopath is similar to a defense attorney defending a client they know to be guilty. They have a moral compass, emotions and general humanity but they compartmentalize to get the task at hand completed II will admit that it is far healthier to legally defend someone than murder them but as far as the human brain is concerned its just a technicality).
I don’t think you guys have covered Albert Fish yet! He’s horrible and what he did was seriously terrifying. Between the self mutilation and murdering then eating a little girl this guy is one of the most twisted killers I’ve ever heard of.
Love it~!
Don’t forget Leopold and Loeb.
~Upaya~
The Sistine Chapel wasn’t Michelangelo’s masterpiece the statue of David was. He hated the Sistine Chapel the Pope at the time ordered him to do it. Michelangelo loved sculpting not painting. Hidden in the painting of the Sistine Chapel was a whole bunch of fuck you’s to the church including the Italian equivalent to the middle finger, god set within a brain shaped robe and instead of a apple tree for Adam it was a fig tree making a definite connection to it’s Jewish origins rather than it’s Roman anti-Semitic white-washing of it. Also it gave him a crick-neck.
Kempers response to his sister breaking his toy is a lot like US death penalty in many instances. Person killes someone in panic or rage, then the state coldly calculates and kills them back.
Different level, but same culture.
Great episode! Loved the Hannibal reference! I’d be interested to see you guys discuss Armin Meiwes (the Rotenburg Cannibal)
Thank you, Grace & Hasan! Since finding your show, I now look forward to Tuesdays.
Loved the episode! Can you guys do Gary Ridgway, the Green River Killer from Washington?
Anthony Sowell is another fascinating lesser known serial killer, especially how the police (didn’t) handle the reports of missing women.