When he was 15-years-old, Ed Kemper was sitting at the kitchen table with his grandmother when an argument broke out. Enraged, Ed went outside and retrieved his grandfather's rifle from the shed. The rifle had previously been hidden from the budding serial killer after he used it to kill animals. Upon seeing her grandson holding the gun, Maude Kemper shouted "You better not be shooting the birds again!" With that, Ed re-entered the kitchen and shot his grandma in the back, killing her instantly.
When his grandfather, Edmund Kemper Sr. returned from grocery shopping, Ed waited until he got out the car before shooting him dead. Unsure what to do, he phoned his mother who told her son to phone the police. When they turned up, a remorseless Kemper told them "I just wanted to see what it felt like to kill Grandma."
John Douglas (who wrote Mindhunter) believed that civilian people are attracted to the true crime genre because it has a basic sense of storytelling;
- the crime becomes a ‘morality play’
- with its own heroes, villains and victims
- and the denouement usually ends with the killer being caught.
Other theorists argue that people love true crime out of a simple intrigue in the macabre. Or sense of lawlessness. Viewers are not endangered or threatened themselves; yet they can observe horror on a screen. For the same reason that we watch scary movies, or read shocking headlines in the news each day.
As with fiction, storylines are based on dangerous situations, on complication and resolve. True crime may have an upper hand on fiction, because it actually happened, making its shock value more powerful.
When FBI Agent Robert K. Ressler conducted interviews with Edmund Kemper in prison, they were situated in a compact room equipped with a panic button under the table.
This button was intended to notify the guards when Ressler required assistance or when the interview concluded.
During one interview session, after its completion, Ressler pressed the panic button, but there was no immediate response from the guards.
Kemper, perceiving Ressler's growing anxiety, spoke calmly, making a chilling statement: "If I went apeshit in here, you'd be in a lot of trouble, wouldn't you? I could screw your head off and place on the top of the table to greet the guard!"
The guards casually arrived in the room about 30 minutes later.