As a child, Kemper witnessed his father decapitating two chickens for dinner. The sight of headless chickens, twitching in their final moments, made him queasy as he watched them die. In his distress, he pedaled his bicycle down the driveway, fleeing in fear.

That night, he couldn't bring himself to eat the meal, but his father reassured him, explaining that there was no need to be frightened, as taking the lives of these animals was not considered a sin. The chickens had served their purpose in nourishing their family's hunger.

From a young age, Kemper displayed antisocial tendencies, including acts of cruelty towards animals.

At age 10, he committed a disturbing act by burying a pet cat alive, only to later unearth it, decapitate it, and mount its head on a spike. Kemper later admitted to taking pleasure in successfully deceiving his family about the cat's demise.

On another occasion, he waited for hours with a rifle over a squirrel’s hole to blow its head off when it peeked out.

By the time he reached 13, he had killed another family cat, believing it showed favoritism towards his younger sister.

On August 27, 1964, at the age of 15, Kemper was sitting at the kitchen table with his grandmother when they had an argument. Enraged, Kemper stormed off and retrieved a rifle that his grandfather had given him for hunting. He then re-entered the kitchen and fatally shot her in the head before firing twice more into her back. Kemper stabbed her with a kitchen knife multiple times after she had died.

When Kemper's grandfather returned from grocery shopping, Kemper went outside and fatally shot him in the driveway next to his car. Not knowing what to do next, he phoned his mother, who told him to call the police. Kemper was taken into custody.

Kemper was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic by court psychiatrists and was sentenced to the Atascadero State Hospital as a criminally insane juvenile. He was released at the age of 21 after convincing psychiatrists that he had been rehabilitated.

When Kemper was released from the state hosipital, he went to live with his mother in Aptos, California. She worked a short drive away as an administrative assistant at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC)

Kemper's vehicle was a secondhand yellow 1969 Ford Galaxie 500 with a black hardtop, featuring a matching black interior.

Inside, Kemper had meticulously customized and arranged his car to facilitate his crimes.

Radio Equipment:
Kemper had equipped his car, which bore an uncanny resemblance to an unmarked police vehicle, with a radio transmitter, microphone, and a sizable whip antenna. He initially used this setup to eavesdrop on police transmissions. However, as he embarked on his deadly spree, he realized that the vehicle was becoming too conspicuous, prompting him to remove the antenna.

Passenger Door:
Kemper rigged the passenger door to ensnare his hitchhiker victims. Once they entered the vehicle, he would pretend that the door was not securely closed. With a slight maneuver, he would insert an object, most frequently a Chapstick tube, into the locking mechanism, rendering it impossible to open the door from the inside.

Driver's Seat:
While driving, Kemper concealed his .22-caliber automatic pistol beneath his seat. Some weeks before his eventual arrest, the police had paid him a visit to confiscate his .44-caliber magnum, which he had stored in the trunk of the car. This action was taken due to concerns stemming from his previous confinement at Atascadero. Kemper feared that this encounter might lead to his capture, but, to his relief, it did not.

The "A" Sticker:
On the rear bumper of Kemper's Ford Galaxie, there was an "A" sticker. His mother, yielding to her son's insistence, eventually acquired this "A" parking sticker for his car, securing it by paying a nominal additional fee alongside her own parking permit. This sticker system was typically intended for use by employees or students who had a legitimate need to park near campus buildings. Kemper found this arrangement convenient, as it extended to other UC campuses, including Berkeley.

Trunk of the Car:
Kemper utilized the car's trunk as a concealed location to conceal his victims' bodies after their murders. He had committed two of these murders inside the trunk itself. Additionally, he decapitated several of his victims in this space before relocating their remains inside his house, where he subjected them to further abuse and dismemberment. The severed heads of his victims were often stored in the trunk for several days before disposal, whenever the opportunity arose.

Kemper would drive around in a 1969 Ford Galaxie, witnessing a large number of young women hitchhiking. He began storing plastic bags, knives, blankets, tools, and handcuffs in his car. At first he would pick up girls needing rides and just let them go.

But then Kemper started to kill. He would offer female students rides and take them to isolated areas where he would shoot, stab, smother, or strangle them. He would drive home with the bodies, decapitate them, and perform oral sex on their severed heads. He would have intercourse with their corpses, and then dismember them. Between May 1972 and April 1973, Kemper murdered eight people. He was nicknamed the "Co-Ed Killer" as these victims were mostly college students.

After Kemper killed and dismembered his victims, he would put the body parts into plastic bags, and place them in different locations included the Loma Prieta Mountain, a ravine, and various wooden areas.

Kemper stood a towering 6'9" tall and weighed about 300 pounds. He would routinely go to a bar called The Jury Room, where his nickname was "Big Ed." There, he became friendly with the local police department, whom he would converse about the murders happening in the area.

Kemper concealed his .22-caliber automatic pistol beneath his seat. Some weeks before his eventual arrest, the police had paid him a visit to confiscate his .44-caliber magnum, which he had stored in the trunk of the car. This action was taken due to concerns stemming from his previous confinement at Atascadero. Kemper feared that this encounter might lead to his capture, but, to his relief, it did not.

Kemper's mother, Clarnell, was an alcoholic with borderline personality disorder. Kemper described her as extremely abusive, frequently putting him to sleep in the basement to ‘protect his sisters’ from him, and constantly saying that "no young woman would ever love him."

Kemper decided he wanted to kill his mother and on April 20, 1973 (Good Friday) he went forward with his plan.

He attacked his sleeping mother with a claw hammer. He then cut his mother's dead body into pieces and raped her severed head. After that, he placed it on the mantle and threw darts at it, screaming at it for over an hour.

Regarding his sexual fetish with the heads of his victims, Kemper explained: “The head trip fantasies were a bit like a trophy. You know, the head is where everything is at, the brain, eyes, mouth. That’s the person.”

After having sex with his mother's head, he 'smashed' her face in, then cut out her tongue and larynx, shoving them into the garbage disposal. It turned out that the vocal cords were too tough for the disposal and they spat back out into the sink. "That seemed appropriate - as much as she'd bitched and screamed and yelled at me over so many years," Kemper has remarked.

After Kemper murdered his mother, he telephoned her close friend, Sally, luring her to the house, saying that he wanted to surprise his mother and take them to dinner that night. He set the scene for murder by distributing weapons around the apartment.

Sally arrived prematurely: “I came up behind her and crooked my arm around her neck, and I squeezed and just lifted her off the floor. She just hung there and, for a moment, I didn’t realize she was dead … I had broken her neck and her head was just wobbling around with the bones of her neck disconnected in the skin sack of her neck.” He attempted to have intercourse with Ms. Hallett’s body, and then stuffed her in a closet.

Her and stole her car and fled. He arrived in Colorado, and expected to hear about his murder in the news. When he didn't, he himself called the police from the phone booth and confessed to all his crimes.