COLD BLOODED KILLERS (Killers from around the World) (3 page)

Brenda was the next to die and her death was caused by multiple stab wounds. She was stabbed through the heart and lung plus the right scapula and a shoulder stabbing that was 5 inches deep.

Erik died from excessive head injuries. He was beaten on his head, face, torso and arms. The fractures and bruises on his arms indicated that he tried to defend himself from the aluminum bat.

The prosecution again announced that if the boys admitted to first-degree murder they would receive life in prison and not the death penalty. Both declined as their lawyers again thought they would be tried as juveniles. But as time went by, it was evident that if the lawyers continued to press for a juvenile trial, they would likely lose and then their strategy would be revealed to the prosecution.

So on December 7, Bryan ended the possibility of a trial by admitting to killing his mother. A week later, David also admitted his guilt and told the judge that he had taken part in the killing of his father and brother. Both were sentenced to life in prison. Nelson “Benny” Birdwell was only convicted of first-degree murder in the death of Dennis Freeman and was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

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Edmund Kemper

AKA The Co-ed Killer

Edmund “Big Ed” Kemper III stands 6' 9” and weighs in at over 300 pounds and was an active serial killer in the early 1970's in California. At the age of 15 years old, he murdered his grandparents. He would later go on to kill six female hitchhikers as well as his mother and her friend.

At an early age, Kemper exhibited sociopathic behavior including playing with his sister's dolls, stabbing cats, and weird sexual rituals. His mother was an alcoholic and would verbally abuse him. She would also make him sleep in the basement in fear that he would rape his little sister. Unlike his mother, Edmund had a close relationship with his father so when they divorced he was devastated and blamed his mother.

In 1963, Edmund, 15, ran away from home and searched for his father in Van Nuys only to find out that his father had remarried and had another son. His father sent him back to his mother who in turn sent him to live with his grandparents, Edmund and Maude Kemper, in Montana. Considering the rejections from his parents it is not surprising that he never had a good relationship with them.

On August 27, 1964, Edmund and his grandmother got into an argument and he fatally shot her in the head. Then he stabbed her repeatedly. He waited until his grandfather returned from the grocery store and also killed him with a gun. Edmund called his mother and she encouraged him to call the police and turn himself in, which he did.

He was committed to a state hospital where he stayed for almost five years before being released to his mother's care. He later convinced psychologists that he was mentally recovered and thus had his juvenile records sealed. In 1972, Kemper started his serial killings.

Kemper was driving in Berkeley on May 7, 1972 when he picked up hitchhikers Mary Ann Pesce and Anita Luchessa, students from Fresno State. He drove to a secluded wooded area near Alameda where he smothered Pesce and then stabbed both her and Anita to death. He carried their corpses to his apartment in the trunk of his car. In the apartment, he dismembered both bodies, took pictures of the body parts and even had oral sex with Mary Ann's decapitated head. He then disposed of the body parts in a ravine.

September 14, 1972, Aiko Koo, 15, was waiting for a bus when she decided to hitchhike instead. Kemper drove up, pointed a gun at her to get in the car and then proceeded to strangle her. This time he took her body back to his mother’s house where he raped and dissected her body.

After dismembering Aiko, he buried the head in his mother's flower garden as a joke. He later said that his mother 'always wanted people looking up to her'. The remaining body parts were buried in his mother's backyard.

Kemper was driving around Cabrillo College Campus on the night of January 7, 1973 when he picked up Cindy Schall, 19, and drove her to a wooded area where he killed her with a .22 caliber handgun. Again, he brought the body home in his trunk to his mother's house where he had sex with the body before dissecting it in the bathtub. He removed the bullet from the girls head and buried the decapitated head in the garden. The remaining body parts were discarded in a ravine.

On February 5, 1973, Edmund went hunting for victims after having a heated discussion with his mother. He encountered Rosalind Thorpe, 24, and Allison Liu, 23, at the UC Santa Cruz Campus. After getting in his car, Kemper shot and killed both girls with his .22 handgun. After wrapping the bodies in a blanket, he drove to his mother’s house again where he dismembered them while his mother was in the backyard tending to her garden. He had sex with their bodies and discarded them off a cliff.

On April 20, 1973 (Good Friday), Kemper killed his mother with a hammer while she slept. He then cut off her head which he first used for oral sex before using it as a dart board. He put her vocal chords in the garbage disposal because he said 'she bitched and screamed at me for years'. He then invited his mother's friend Sally Hallett, 59, to come over to the house. Upon her arrival he strangled her to death and left the crime scene as it was, without cleaning anything up.

Kemper left California and while driving through Colorado he heard about the murder of his mother and her friend on the radio. He called the police and confessed then he waited for a patrol car to come and arrest him.

He pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, however, in November 1973 he was convicted of eight counts of murder.

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Stephen Arnold Ford

Steve, 38, and his wife Kathleen, 37 had two children, Stephen 17 and Jennifer 15. They were a normal, average family. They lived on a quiet street in Airdrie, Alberta, Canada.

Despite normal everyday family issues, their only big concern was Stephen. When he was 9 years old, he was assaulted by a babysitter and was quite traumatized. He received several years of treatment and counseling but to no avail. At age 10, he tried to commit suicide by slashing his wrists.

Stephen became a rebellious teen. He would stay out late at night, sometimes using alcohol or drugs. He turned to petty crime, then to breaking and entering and finally armed robbery. He was out of control at 16. The tension mounted in the house, and the neighbours reported constant nightly screaming and fighting. Kathleen became depressed and began suffering from nightmares and migraines. Her doctor prescribed Valium to help calm her anxiety as well as anti-depressants. Steve was also stressed to the point he had developed heart problems and palpitations.

At age17, Stephen attempted suicide again when he swallowed 62 of his mother's anti-depressants pills. A friend found Stephen and his suicide note and called an ambulance. He was revived but the doctors doubted his chances of a full recovery and thought he might remain in a coma or die. But, a week later he did recover fully and underwent extensive psychiatric treatment. Prior to being released from hospital, Steve and Kathleen sought additional advice from counselors and they attempted to instigate rules in the house. They sold their home and moved to Calgary hoping to start a new life, a new beginning for the family of four. But it seemed that his parents were afraid to enforce the rules in fear that he would retaliate or try to commit suicide again. Tough-love also didn't seem to work. Stephen quit school, started committing criminal acts again, and was diagnosed with an anti-social disorder.

On August 1, 1989, Stephen’s sister, Jennifer was babysitting overnight for her cousin. Her dad was to pick her up at 9:30am the next morning.

This same evening Stephen and a few friends watched “Bat 21” a violent Vietnam war movie on TV, while his parents slept upstairs. Stephen was drunk and in the mood to party. According to Stephen, their dog urinated on his foot and at that point, he lost control and became violent. He went out to the shed, picked up an axe and proceeded to his parent’s bedroom where he hacked his father to death with twenty-two blows. His mother woke in a panic, screaming. He silenced her as well by chopping her with the axe twenty times.

Stephen then stole his parents cash, credit cards and vehicle and headed to Swift Current, Saskatchewan, where he stopped at a mall and using his father’s Visa card, went on a shopping spree. Arriving in Moose Jaw he took a small room at the Park Lodge Motel and called the RCMP in Airdie to report his crime. He confessed to killing his parents. He told the officer, “I don't want to be hurt. I just want to be treated good.”

Prior to this, Jennifer was at her cousins waiting for her father to pick her up. Calling the house and receiving no answer, she knew something was terribly wrong. She called a cab and went home, only to find both her parents lying on their bed with blood everywhere. Had she not been babysitting, she too may have been a murder victim.

Stephen was found guilty on two counts of second-degree murder and was sentenced to life with no chance of parole for twenty years. On August 1, 2009, exactly twenty years after killing his parents, Stephen was granted a full parole and walked out of prison.