Ed Kemper's house

This is Ed Kemper's former house.

It is located at 609A Harriet Avenue in Aptos, California.

The correct address is actually 609A Ord Street. However, Google Maps misidentifies the property.

Kemper was a serial killer who murdered eight women between 1972 and 1973. He was nicknamed the "Co-ed Killer" because he targeted young college students.

Kemper murdered his grandparents in 1964

Although his serial killings began in 1972, he committed his first murders in 1964, when he was just 15 years old.

On August 27th, 1964, Kemper shot and killed his grandmother with a hunting rifle after the pair had a heated argument. When his grandfather returned home from the grocery store, he decided to shoot him as well.

Kemper claimed that he shot his grandfather because he wanted to spare him from finding out that his wife was dead. He was also reportedly afraid of what his grandfather might do if he walked into the kitchen and found her body.

After killing his grandparents, the large, 6'9" teenager called 911 and calmly waited on the porch for the police to arrive.

Following his arrest, a court psychiatrist incorrectly diagnosed him with paranoid schizophrenia. As a result, he was sent to Atascadero State Hospital for the Criminally Insane.

Mental health specialists at Atascadero quickly realized that Kemper was highly intelligent, as tests showed that he had an IQ of 145.

They also disagreed with the court psychiatrist's diagnosis that he had schizophrenia. In their opinion, the 15-year-old exhibited no signs of paranoid delusions, bizarre thoughts, or hallucinations. Instead, he was extremely logical, introspective, and astute.

Release

In December 1969, a parole board released Kemper into the care of his mother, who was divorced and living at this house in Aptos, California. Following his release, he began attending a local community college. He also started hanging out at a Santa Cruz cop bar called the Jury Room.

Although "Big Ed" had hopes of becoming a police officer, he was ultimately rejected due to his large size.

The Co-ed Killer

Kemper's serial killings began on May 7th, 1972, when he picked up two college hitchhikers called Anita Mary Luchessa and Mary Ann Pesce in Berkeley. After agreeing to take them to Stanford University, he drove for an hour before eventually pulling into a secluded, wooded area.

Once there, he handcuffed his victims and stabbed them to death. He then brought their bodies back to this duplex on Harriet Avenue, where he proceeded to engage in necrophilia.

In the nine months that followed, Kemper killed four more coeds.

In the case of 18-year-old student Cindy Schall, he buried her severed head in the garden of this house, facing upward towards his mother's bedroom window.

Kemper did this because he despised his mother, whom he claimed was a "sick, angry woman" who refused to give him affection as a child. He later postulated that he had started killing young women because he didn't have the courage to face the true source of his rage.

Kemper murdered his mother at this house

However, all of that changed on the night of April 20th, 1973, when his mother made a sneering, dismissive remark towards him.

After waiting for her to fall asleep, he crept into her bedroom and murdered her with a claw hammer. He then decapitated her body and spent an hour screaming and throwing darts at her severed head.

Later, he invited his mother's friend, Sally Hallett, over to the house and strangled her to death as well.

Following the double homicide, Kemper drove away, expecting to become the target of a major manhunt. However, he became somewhat puzzled when the local radio stations failed to mention anything about the crime.

As he was driving through Colorado, he came to the realization that his original motivation for killing people was now gone. Consequently, he decided to pull over, call the police from a payphone, and confess to his crimes.

The first person who picked up the phone refused to believe his story. However, when Kemper called back several hours later, he spoke to an officer that he personally knew.

This time, his confession was taken seriously, and the police arrived to take him into custody.

Arrest and imprisonment

Following his arrest, Kemper admitted to killing his mother and her friend, as well as six female college students.

During his trial, court-appointed psychiatrists testified that he was sane and that he had been fully aware of what he was doing throughout the course of his crimes.

In November 1973, he was found guilty of eight counts of first-degree murder. Although he asked for the death penalty, the court was unable to grant his request, as the Supreme Court of California had recently ruled that the state's capital punishment laws were unconstitutional.

As a result, Kemper was given eight concurrent prison sentences of seven years to life.

The 74-year-old is currently incarcerated at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville, California, due to a stroke that he suffered in 2015.

Over the past four decades, he has been repeatedly denied parole. His next parole hearing is in July 2024.

Photos

Photos of the house and other related images.

Ed Kemper's house

This is a "then and now" image of the house at 609A Harriet Avenue. The Google Street View image at the bottom was captured in March 2015.

Ed Kemper lived at this duplex with his mother, Clarnell.

Notably, there seems to be some confusion about the address. Although Kemper's address was 609A Ord Street, Google Maps lists the duplex as 609A Harriet Avenue.

Furthermore, when you search for 609A Ord Street on Google Maps, it shows a property that sits behind Kemper's former house.

This confusion has led to people misidentifying the wrong location.

Clarnell Kemper

Kemper's relationship with his mother, Clarnell Strandberg (nee Kemper), was extremely toxic.

Various reports state that she was an abusive, domineering alcoholic who regularly belittled her son and made him feel inadequate.

When he was a child, she purposely refused to show him any love or affection in case it "turned him gay." Clarnell also made him sleep in a locked basement, as she feared that he might harm his sisters.

Growing up, he exhibited many of the attributes that we now associate with serial killers. He engaged in voyeurism, killed small animals, and developed deviant sexual fantasies. These fantasies often involved him dismembering his sexual partner and "possessing" them.

On the night of April 20th, 1973, he walked into his mother's bedroom while she was reading a book. When she saw him walk in, she reportedly sneered, "I suppose that you want to sit up all night and talk now."

After hearing this comment, he quickly said goodnight and left. However, a few hours later, he returned with a claw hammer and beat her to death while she was sleeping.

Victims

Kemper murdered six coeds between May 1972 and February 1973.

The victims were Mary Ann Pesce (18), Anita Luchessa (18), Aiko Koo (15), Cindy Schall (18), Rosalind Thorpe (23), and Alice Helen "Allison" Liu (20).

His preferred modus operandi was to pick up female hitchhikers and drive them to secluded wooded areas, where he would kill them with a knife, gun, or via manual strangulation.

Following the murders, he brought their remains back to his mother's house on Ord Street and engaged in necrophilia.

Once he was finished, he would dismember his victims' bodies, put the remains into plastic bags, and then dump them in remote locations.

Aerial image

This aerial map shows the location of Kemper's former duplex. As you can see, Ord Street and Harriet Avenue are both part of the same loop street.

Google Maps misidentifies 609A Ord Street as the house behind the duplex.

609A Ord Street

This Google Street View image shows the western side of the property.

Kemper and his mother lived on the ground floor.

Crime scene

Image source: CBS

The image above is from archived news footage of police officers investigating the property.