Ed Kemper: Conversations with a Killer; The Shocking True Story of the Co-Ed Butcher

Targeting young women hitchhikers, Edmund Kemper, aka the Co-ed Killer, terrorized California in the early 1970s. His crimes extended beyond kidnapping and murder to mutilation, necrophilia, and possibly cannibalism, though the details may never be fully known. Matera (Charles Manson: Conversations with a Killer) begins this account of the Co-Ed Killings with a disclaimer that Kemper (who’s still incarcerated in California) varies his narrative depending on whether he is speaking with sensation-seeking journalists, criminal profilers, or parole boards. Matera says that further complicating matters are Kemper’s extreme intelligence, his questionable sanity, and the cunning he developed as a teenager when he was institutionalized (and released) after murdering his grandparents. In spite of the book’s title, this isn’t a Silence of the Lambs–style sit-down with a serial killer. Instead, Matera presents a retelling of Kemper’s criminal career and subsequent imprisonment; any “conversations” are pulled from previously published material. Matera’s original contributions to the narrative are often intrusive and speculative.