Interest in where Edmund “Ed” Kemper is in 2022 has resurfaced after a picture of the convicted serial killer emerged on a Reddit thread.
WARNING: Content of a disturbing nature ahead
On December 28, a Reddit user shared an image of Ed Kemper in the hallways of a prison posing next to two prison guards. Standing at 2.06m (6’9) and weighing 300 lbs, Kemper towers above the two guards with his arms outstretched to accentuate their difference in stature.
As the image was undated, some are now curious as to where Ed Kemper is as of December 2022. Let’s take a look at the sentence Ed Kemper received for his crimes and if he still remains behind bars.
Is Ed Kemper still alive?
Yes, the infamous serial killer Ed Kemper is still alive as of December 2022. Kemper was born in Burbank, California on December 18, 1948, meaning he has just celebrated his 74th birthday.
Kemper was arrested by police in a public telephone booth in Pueblo, Colorado on April 24, 1973, after calling a policeman he knew in Santa Cruz to confess to his crimes. This arrest occurred just days after Kemper had murdered his mother, Clarnell Stage, and her best friend, Sally Hallett.
Kemper confessed to being the “Co-Ed Killer” after murdering his mother. “The original purpose was gone,” Kemper explained in an interview. “It wasn’t serving any physical or real emotional purpose. It was just a pure waste of time … Emotionally, I couldn’t handle it 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.”
Where is Ed Kemper now in 2022?
After Ed Kemper turned himself in, he was convicted of eight counts of first-degree murder. He pleaded with the court for the death penalty, yet at that time a moratorium had been placed on capital punishment in the state of California.
In turn, Kemper was handed seven years to life for each of his eight counts. He was admitted to prison in September 1973, five months after turning himself in.
Kemper has been serving his sentence at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville ever since. The California Department Of Corrections And Rehabilitation (CDCR) inmate locator system has Kemper listed still under the jurisdiction of the California Medical Facility.
Ed Kemper has been denied parole several times
The CDCR inmate locator system reveals that Ed Kemper became eligible for parole in May 1979, just under six years into his sentence.
Becoming eligible for parole does not mean you will be granted such, it just means you can request a parole suitability hearing with the Board of Parole Hearings. Kemper was denied parole several times throughout the 80s and 90s.
Ed Kemper was last denied a parole hearing in 2017 and will not be eligible for another until 2024.
Ed Kemper’s story came to screens in 2022
Serial killers have always served as a source of fascination to the media. Be it journalistic investigations into the sordid crimes or the revisiting of these horrifying true stories in screen adaptations. Just earlier this year, the chilling tale of Jeffrey Dahmer was brought to life by Evan Peters in Netflix series Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.
On July 30, 2022, Ed Kemper’s story was brought to screens in A+E’s true crime series, First Blood. The sixth episode titled Ed Kemper: The Co-Ed Killer, premiered on A+E in the States, before making its way to the UK on Sky.
A year prior, Kemper’s story was explored on Investigation Discovery’s podcast, The Co-Ed Killer: Mind Of A Monster. It culminated in a two-hour TV special in 2021.
Kemper’s case was famously explored in Netflix’s true crime series Mindhunter. Kemper (portrayed by Cameron Britton) was among the many serial killers interviewed in the show, which dramatizes the founding of the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit and the beginning of criminal profiling.
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