Edmund Kemper is a man who attracted much attention to himself in the second half of the 20th century. He is an American serial killer whose case is rather interesting because it includes some unique elements that can rarely be met. Being convicted for murders, he is currently serving his life imprisonment.
According to the interview, Kemper used to torture animals, perform strange sexual rituals with dolls, and have poor relations with mother and peers, which is a rather common behavior for those individuals who hurt other people and become criminals in the future. It means that if he had got enough attention and care, he could have become another person and his antisocial actions could have been taken under control. It is also interesting that Ed is very clever, and his IQ is more than 135. In this way, the man was able to become a prominent scientist or a great professional in almost any sphere. However, Kemper used his intelligence to trick his psychologist and get released. The fact that he was put under his mother’s care is rather surprising because she failed to take care of him as he was a child and suffered from a mental disease. In addition to that, it is strange that being caught by the police before his final imprisonment, Kemper would still have an opportunity to return to his ordinary life and kill many people (Serial Killers Around The World, 2016).
Ed claims that he killed his grandparents just because he wondered how it would feel like, and then was afraid of anger in response. When killing girls, he thought of murders as of triumphant things. For him, this process was connected with fishing or hunting. However, he was also triggered by his negative emotions, such as anger because of a quarrel with his mother. What is more, he claimed that killed her just to protect her from suffering and shame that she would have experienced when got to know that he was a serial killer. Still, he also revealed that she had humiliated him, which can be one more reason for such behavior. All in all, Kemper can be called a disorganized serial killer because he did not plan his murders or was targeted at particular people. Being extremely clever, he had an opportunity to plan his actions so that he could hardly be caught by the police, but Ed did not try to conceal traces of a crime. Moreover, he attracted a lot of attention to the murders of his relatives.
This and the other interviews in the documentaries can be rather useful for sex crime investigations because they provide an opportunity to get to know how criminals think. Being used efficiently, this knowledge allows preventing serial crimes because it provides enough insights to define how such people act, what triggers them, and who they are targeted at (in the majority of cases) (InvestigatingCrimes.com., 2016). In addition to that, professionals receive an opportunity to focus on a criminal’s behavior during the interview, which helps to reveal their attitudes and thoughts that are not pronounced aloud. Finally, it cannot be denied that analyzing these videos, professionals obtain background knowledge and get a chance to focus on the way their colleagues worked some time ago. As a result, it can be identified whether some practices are really helpful or just cause confusion during the investigation process.
References
InvestigatingCrimes.com. (2016). Edmund Kemper interview in 1984. Web.
Serial Killers Around The World. (2016). Edmund Kemper, “The Co-ed Killer”: serial killer documentary. Web.