On this day in 1964: Fifteen-year-old Edmund Kemper III murdered his grandparents, beginning his life as a serial killer.
Kemper, who became known as the Co-ed Killer, shot both grandparents with a rifle while visiting their ranch in North Fork, Calif. Then he called his mother and reportedly told her, “I just wondered how it would feel to shoot Grandma.”
Kemper was sent to a state hospital, where he tried to convince psychiatrists that he should never be released. But he was let go in 1969. Kemper, who grew to 6-foot-9, later killed and dismembered six female hitchhikers in the Santa Cruz area. He then murdered his mother and her friends before turning himself in. Kemper, 59, remains among the general population at Vacaville State Prison in California.
