A Killer Intellect
Sociopathy and intellect are not correlated. Serial killers have a remarkably broad range of I.Q.s. What happens when a serial killer is also a genius?
From Crimes in Progress editorial: We’ve never hidden our disdain of serial killers. The romanticized version of the brilliant monster that stalks victims with purpose and precision just doesn’t exist. For the most part. Still, a killer comes along once in a while to shock and amaze with their own particular flavor of demented genius. Discussing these crimes should be less about the gory details or marveling at unthinkable horror. It’s an opportunity to better understand how intellect and psychology create a unique individual. Even when the result is something better left to the theoretical.
378
- Run time of The Godfather Parts One and Two. The crime classic has been licensed for airings in the United States by AMC Networks for nearly twenty years.
I didn’t see The Godfather until I was twenty-five years old. No one ever made me sit down and watch it. It never appeared on cable and, to be perfectly honest, it never occurred to me to rent it. But one day, AMC announced consecutive nights of commercial free showings of the Coppola classic. They did all three but I only bothered with the first two.
It was a slightly disappointing experience because after watching the first movie, I realized something strange. While I had never sat down and watched The Godfather, I had seen it before. Through endless parodies, tributes, and references (many from The Simpsons), I recognized damn near every scene the moment it started.
I still watched and enjoyed both films but the lesson was certainly clear. Some things have a dumbfounding amount of impact. The Godfather helped shape the future of cinema. So iconic as to be recognizable without even watching it.
In a weird way, California-born Edmund Kemper has had a similar impact on Hollywood. He never picked up a camera or acted. He never produced or wrote a film.
Instead, he killed a lot of people.
94
- Average I.Q. (intelligence quotient) of American serial killers. Before quibbling on the exact definition of a serial killer, approximately 2,700 total “serial killers” were identified by psychology professor Dr. Mike Aamodt but his Serial Killer Information Center at Radford University (a public university in Virginia) now lists 4,473 serial killers.
Serial killers aren’t usually intelligent. In fact, the average I.Q. of a serial killer is slightly below the general average.
But Edmund Kemper was always a little different. A difficult upbringing with a single alcoholic mother in Montana quickly manifested into troubling behavior. He started with his sister’s dolls but graduated to the family cats. Unsure what to do with Kemper, the family shuffled him around, first to his father, then back to his mother, and in 1964 to his paternal grandparents in rural North Fork, California. Living in the country, the fifteen-year old soon developed an interest in guns.
After killing a number of his grandmother Maude’s birds, she took away his rifle. Blind with rage, he grabbed one of his grandfather’s and shot Maude in the back of the head. He shot his grandfather, Edmund Kemper, Sr., when the elder arrived home. Kemper’s motive for shooting his grandfather was to spare him finding his wife dead. (Editor’s note: …bullshit.)
He turned himself into authorities after consulting his mother and confessing his crimes. They took the calm Kemper into custody.
145
- The highest reported IQ of serial killer Edmund Kemper
Stephen Hawking once famously said, “People who boast about their I.Q.s are losers.” Depending on the test (and a variety of other historical and psychological factors), Kemper is a genius or, at the very least, pretty damn close. He didn’t know his I.Q. until his incarceration.
An initial evaluation diagnosed the teenager as paranoid schizophrenic and he was sent to a state mental hospital. His crimes were deemed incomprehensible for a child to understand.
Once at Atascadero State Hospital, Kemper was subjected to a battery of additional screening. Eventually, doctors noticed that Kemper wasn’t stupid. In fact, he even appeared downright sane.
By all accounts, Kemper was the model prisoner, even assisting hospital staff with supervision and therapy of other patients. He was released on his 21st birthday perceived as posing no threat to society. Moving in with his mother, Kemper lived a quiet life, further demonstrating his rehabilitation and his juvenile record expunged just three years later.
The arguments with his mother continued and grew worse. Kemper was interested in a career in law enforcement. He was turned down from the California Highway Patrol not for his previous crimes but his size. At 6’ 9”, Kemper was simply too big to be a cop.
Still, he befriended a couple of cops and hung out at a bar they frequented in Santa Cruz. His life was going fairly well, all things considered, but the arguments with his mother began to compound. He started picking up female hitchhikers and fantasizing about how to kill them. One day, he decided to act on his desire.
10
- Number of people killed by Edmund Kemper. His victims were Maude Matilda Hughey Kemper, Edmund Emil Kemper, Mary Ann Pesce, Anita Luchessa, Aika Koo, Cindy Schall, Rosalind Thorpe, Allison Liu, Clarnell Elizabeth Strandberg, and Sally Hallet.
Kemper started ambitiously. Though already an experienced killer, he had learned a few things from other patients at the hospital. For example, the practiced sex offenders cautioned against leaving witnesses.
After agreeing to give two girls a ride to Stanford University, Kemper drove them to an isolated area. He later stated he only intended to rape Mary Ann Pesce and Anita Luchessa but remembered the advice he received about leaving witnesses. He killed the girls in a gruesome way and proceeded to engage in various acts of necrophilia with their remains.
For the next eleven months, Kemper would follow arguments with his mother then abduct and kill a female college student. He was only captured after turning himself into police following the murder of his mother and her best friend, Sally Hallett.
When asked his motivation for turning himself in, Kemper said, “The original purpose was gone … It wasn’t serving any physical or real or emotional purpose. It was just a pure waste of time … Emotionally, I couldn’t handle much longer. Toward the end there, I started feeling the folly of the whole damn thing, and at the point of near exhaustion, near collapse, I just said to hell with it and called it all off.”
Patrick Bateman: Do you know what Ed Gein said about women?
David Van Patten: Ed Gein? The maitre’d at Canal Bar?
Patrick Bateman: No, serial killer, Wisconsin, the ‘50s.
Craig McDermott: So what did he say?
Patrick Bateman: “When I see a pretty girl walking down the street, I think two things. One part wants me to take her out, talk to her, be real nice and sweet and treat her right.”
David Van Patten: And what did the other part think?
Patrick Bateman: “What her head would look like on a stick… “
- Quotes from American Psycho (2000) that was misattributed to the more famous serial killer Ed Gein. A version of the original was actually said by Edmund Kemper.
In the wake of Kemper’s conviction, a range of movies and TV shows about the “Co-Ed Killer” were produced. He served as inspiration for Dean Koontz. A number of heavy metal bands from across the planet have mentioned him or paid tribute to Kemper in their songs.
But his biggest claim to fame is as a source of inspiration for Patrick Bateman, the deranged but intelligent and posed serial killer at the center Bret Easton Ellis’s late 80s classic, American Psycho. Much of the book, written from Bateman’s perspective, involves detailed lists of characters’ clothing or cosmetic choices rather than physical descriptions. In this approach, Ellis seems to understand the compulsive tendencies behind a serial killer. Rather than seek intellectual glee in their crimes, they’re acting on desires they can’t control.
Edmund Kemper didn’t become a serial killer because he was smart or a psychopath. He killed due to an overwhelming desire to do so.
In his excellent book, Why We Love Serial Killers: The Curious Appeal of the World’s Most Savage Murderers, Scott Bonn writes, “The image of the evil genius serial killer is mostly a Hollywood invention. Real serial killers generally do not possess unique or exceptional intellectual skills. The reality is that most serial killers who have had their IQ tested score between borderline and above average intelligence. This is very consistent with the general population. Contrary to mythology, it is not high intelligence that makes serial killers successful. Instead, it is obsession, meticulous planning and a cold-blooded, often psychopathic personality that enable serial killers to operate over long periods of time without detection.”
Bonn further notes that serial killers generally don’t attempt insanity defenses because they don’t often qualify. Serial killers know what they do is wrong but their desire to kill overrides that sense of legality.
In the case of Edmund Kemper, it allowed him to manipulate trained professionals to release and hide his past. When the urge returned, he acted on it but collapsed under the weight of his actions.
By the end of his crime spree, Kemper probably didn’t feel guilt or empathy about his murders. At least he was smart enough to recognize it couldn’t last.
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Andrew Egan is writer and editor of Crimes In Progress. His work has appeared in Forbes Magazine, ABC News, Atlas Obscura, Tedium, and more. You can read his article, “Any Which Way but Down or A Fair Amount of Male Nudity in the American West” in the December 2016 issue of Blue Skies Magazine. He is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin. His novel, Nothing Too Original, is available now for Kindle and paperback.
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