Edmund Kemper - Early Life

Early Life

Kemper was the middle child and only son born to Edmund Emil Kemper, Jr. (1919–1985) and Clarnell E. Strandberg (1921–1973). As a child he was extremely bright, but cruel to animals; he purportedly fatally stabbed a pet cat at age 13. He acted out bizarre sexual rituals with his sisters' dolls and exhibited a dark fantasy life. He recalled later that his eldest sister pushed him into the deep end of a swimming pool and he had to struggle to get out and nearly drowned. She also pushed him within yards of a moving train.

Kemper had a close relationship with his father and was devastated when his parents divorced in 1957 and he had to be raised by his mother in Helena, Montana. He had a horrible relationship with his mother Clarnell, a violent alcoholic who would constantly belittle and humiliate him. Clarnell often made her son sleep in a locked basement, because she feared that he would rape his younger sister. It is alleged that she had borderline personality disorder.

In the summer of 1963, Kemper ran away from home in search of his father in Van Nuys, California. Once there, he learned that his father had remarried and had another son. Kemper stayed with his father for a short while until the elder Kemper sent him back to Montana. Clarnell, however, was unwilling to let Kemper back into her household and instead sent him to live with his paternal grandparents, Edmund and Maude Kemper, who lived on a 17-acre (6.9 ha) ranch in the mountains of North Fork, California. Kemper hated living in North Fork; he referred to his grandfather as "senile" and claimed that his grandmother "was constantly emasculating and grandfather."