Cannibals (13 page)

The next day there were reports buzzing around about the dismembered body of a girl being found. Ed decided that the safest thing to do was to bury Cindy’s head in the front garden.

About a month after the killing of Cindy Schall, the mother and son had another blazing row. Ed stormed out of the house taking his gun with him. He had an evil glint in his eyes and he drove down the road in a rage. Rosalind Thorpe was just coming out of a lecture and wondering how she was going to get home, when a kind young man stopped and offered her a lift. Seeing the student sticker in his window she accepted his kind offer and they chatted away like old friends. A little further down the road they spotted Alice Lui hitch-hiking, and she too jumped into the back of the car. However, the joviality of the situation was soon to change because as they went over the brow of a hill, Ed pulled his gun out of his jacket and instantly fired it into Rosalind’s temple. Alice starting screaming in terror as Ed leaned over the seat and shot her in the head. Although Alice was no longer moving she started to make a strange guttural moan, which got on Ed’s nerves. He was starting to feel rather weak and nauseous – perhaps the reality of his actions was starting to hit home. He decided to stop the car and finish off Alice for good before heading off for home.

It was about 11.00 p.m. when Ed arrived home, but seeing that his mother was still up decided he would come back later and drove off to buy some cigarettes. He drove off to a secluded spot, grabbed his hunting knife and promptly decapitated both the girls.

The following morning, back at home, Ed was lying in his bed when he felt all his sexual frustrations rising up within him. He went down to the car and brought Alice’s headless body into his room where he had sex with the corpse after ritually cutting off both her hands. As for Rosalind, he left the body where it was but brought her head back to his room where he desperately tried to remove the bullet that was lodged in her skull. He did not want to be traced through the bullet, and when he had finished he stuffed everything back in the car and drove out of town to dispose of the bodies. This time he dumped the torsos in the ravine but threw the heads and hands into a nearby canyon called Devil’s Slide.

At the time of Ed’s killing rampage two other maniacs were wreaking havoc – John Lindley Frazier and Herbert Mullin. Police were baffled by the amount of bodies that were turning up on their normal peaceful patch. Ed, who had always wanted to be a policeman, took great interest in their investigations and he used to frequent their favourite haunts so that he could hear all the grisly details.

By April 1973, Ed felt like his life was falling apart and decided to pack up all the evidence of his murders in one case, together with his gun, and toss it into the ocean. He felt that the stress of killing was becoming too much and he was also constantly in discomfort from stomach ulcers.

On Good Friday, April 20, Ed sat drinking beer with his mother, pondering about what he should do with his life. Suddenly he came to a decision. He had always hated his mother, after all she had locked him in a black cellar full of evil spirits that were trying to harm him when he was only a child. Now he knew it was time for revenge.

Later that day Ed crept into his mother’s bedroom. She was still awake and, feeling that something was really troubling her son, asked him if he needed to talk. He said no he was okay, but returned shortly afterwards carrying a hammer and a knife in his hands.

By this time she was asleep and Ed brought the hammer down full force onto her skull. With anger racing through his veins he turned his mother onto her back and started to saw into her throat until she was decapitated. Cutting off his mother’s head gave him a lot of satisfaction but he wasn’t finished yet. The part of her that he hated the most was the area around her vocal cords, because this was the part that had given him the most misery. He removed her larynx and angrily tried to push it into the waste disposal, but it jammed. When the waste disposal started to spit pieces of tissue back at him, Ed wasn’t surprised. He felt that she had bitched and screamed at him for years and even in death she wasn’t going to stop.

Ed Kemper was now totally out of control, the killing had not calmed him in the way he had hoped. Still on a sexual high, Ed had sex with his headless mother. He then decided he would go out for some beers before coming back home and deciding what to do next. He called a friend of his mother’s, Sara Hallett, and told her that he was doing a surprise dinner for his mum and would she like to come as well.

Back at home he propped his mother’s head onto a hatbox and used it as a dartboard, all the while she just sat there staring at her deranged son – between them they were not a pretty sight.

Sara Hallett had been delighted by the invitation to come round for dinner, after all the old friends had a lot of gossip to catch up on. She arrived all dressed up for dinner and slumped down in a chair innocently saying, ‘Let’s sit down. I’m dead.’ And what do you know, within a few minutes she was. Ed killed the poor woman by placing his enormous hands around her throat, squeezing all the life out of her. A little later on that evening, with the initial excitement of the kill over, Ed started to feel bored. So he stripped the now headless Sara Hallett, dragged her to his bed, committed necrophilia and then went to sleep in his mother’s bed.

Ed Kemper now felt that enough was enough and that he didn’t want to kill any more. He drove away from his last two murders leaving a note behind him, and then reflected on all his previous murders. He had been nick-named the ‘Co-Ed Murderer’ by the press and he had murdered six pretty hitchhikers. They were shot, stabbed, strangled, decapitated and he had even cooked and eaten their flesh, and he still hadn’t been caught. Due to his immense size Ed decided to dump the small car he was driving and opted for a larger one that would afford him more comfort. He drove for 18 hours arriving at Pueblo, Colorado, where he set about finding some digs. The town was buzzing with tourists and it was easy for the big man to go unnoticed. He scanned the newspapers and listened to the radio to hear the reports of the ‘Co-Ed Killer’ and of his two latest victims. But there were no reports and this made Ed really angry. He felt like running out into the streets and shouting at the top of his voice that he was the one they were looking for. He was the evil behind all those killings.

He was even more incensed when he got stopped for speeding and, having given his correct name and details, still wasn’t recognized. He paid his fine, drove away, and suddenly decided it was all too much. Feeling totally desperate he reached for a phone and called the Santa Cruz police headquarters:

It’s me . . . Ed Kemper. K-e-m-p-e-r . . . I’m the guy you’re looking for. I am the Co-Ed Killer. If you want me I’m here in Pueblo.

He gave his address and waited. However, back at the busy police station the policeman who took the call simply slammed the receiver back into place and muttered something about it being another damned crank. Frustration rising in his body, Kemper tried again, almost pleading with them to arrest him. He told them they couldn’t miss the great hulk of a man who was 6 ft 9 in tall. This time someone was prepared to listen. An officer who knew about Ed Kemper sent a fleet of squad cars with their sirens blaring to go and pick up the man from the telephone booth.

Ed’s confession to the police was long, articulate and detailed – after all he had spent many many hours fantasizing about each and every minute of his killings. The details were horrendous even down to the slaying of his mother and her friend. He confessed to eight murders and gave details of cannibalism. The more Kemper revealed to the police the more and more relaxed he became, he seemed to be basking in the attention.

He was charged on eight counts of first degree murder on October 25, 1973 and on November 8 he was found guilty on all counts. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in California Medical Facility in Vacaville. Although his crimes were serious enough to receive the death penalty this was not available at the time in California.

When Ed was asked what he thought would be a fitting punishment for his crimes, he replied, ‘Death by Torture’. Edmund Emil Kemper was definitely a misfit from the moment he was born.

Henry Lucas was to meet his lover and friend Ottis Toole in a soup kitchen in Florida and they were soon to become the ‘Team from Hell’

Henry Lee Lucas and Ottis Toole were indeed the team from hell. No one can be sure how many people they actually killed – it has been said as many as 600 – but whatever the number they certainly left a wake of destruction wherever they went. Toole openly admitted to being a cannibal whereas Lucas abstained because he said ‘he didn’t like the taste’.

Henry Lee Lucas was the epitome of a child who would grow up to be a killer. Born on August 23, 1936 in the back woods of Virginia, he lived with his family in a two-room log cabin with dirt floors. He had eight brothers and sisters who were all either placed in institutions, looked after by relatives or put into foster care, but for some reason Henry stayed at home with his parents. His mother, Viola appears to have hated Henry right from the start and would seize every moment to make his life a living hell. He was constantly subjected to abuse and was thoroughly mistreated. He was undernourished, uneducated and forced to watch his mother, Viola, carrying out the tricks of her trade as a prostitute. His father was an alcoholic and was known by the name of ‘No Legs’ due to an unfortunate incident involving a train earlier in his life. His father eventually committed suicide to escape the repeated humiliation he received at the hands of his wife.

Once, when little Henry was playing with one of his brothers with a knife he accidentally sliced his own eye. His uncaring mother, probably preoccupied in another direction, declined from taking the poor lad to a doctor and his eye simply withered away and eventually had to be removed and replaced with prosthetic glass. He was beaten so badly by his mother on one occasion that it left him in a semi-conscious state for three days. Viola’s boyfriend at the time, ‘Uncle Bernie’, eventually showed some compassion for the lad and took him to the local hospital where he received treatment. Finally, as if all this was not enough for a young boy, his mother often sent him to school barefoot, wearing a dress and with curlers in his hair. Obviously he became the subject of ridicule and dropped out by fifth grade, which left him semi-literate for the remainder of his life. Henry was lonely and when he turned to animals to receive the affection he craved, his mother would simply kill the animal and consequently Henry grew up thinking that life – just like sex – was cheap.

Subjected to such untold horrors as a young child, Lucas began indulging in sadistic depravity. By thirteen, he was having sexual relations with his older half-brother, who also introduced him to the excitement of bestiality and animal torture. One of their favourite games was to slit the throat of a small animal and then sexually violate the corpse.

At the age of 15 Lucas became desperate to have sex with a girl and he picked up 17-year-old Laura Burnley near Lynchburg, strangled her when she refused his clumsy advances, and then buried her body in the woods. Her disappearance would remain unsolved until Lucas confessed to the murder in 1983.

As Lucas grew older he became bitter and distant, with little food and education he never really managed to put any real value to his life. His teenage years were spent in and out of correctional institutions, starting in 1954 when he carried out a string of burglaries in and around Richmond. He was sentenced to six years, but managed to escape and fled to his older sister’s home in Tecumseh. He was captured three months later and returned to Virginia, where he tried to escape again one month later. This time he was recaptured on the same day, but, despite the two escapes, was released on September 2, 1959. He went back to live with his sister in Tecumseh where he received numerous calls from his mother ordering him to go back and live with her. He ignored her pleas, and so Viola followed him to Michigan.

On the evening of January 11, 1960 Lucas and his mother went out for a drink together at a local bar. They both got very drunk and Lucas was getting tired of Viola’s incessant nagging for him to return to Virginia with her. Lucas kept refusing and eventually told her that he really didn’t want anything further to do with her. When they got back home later that night they were still arguing, which continued until the early hours of the morning. At one point the dispute got so heated that Viola hit her son over the head with a broom, but he had had enough and he struck back – with a knife.

The next day, 74-year-old-Viola was found dead on the bedroom floor with a fatal stab wound to her neck. Lucas, who everyone immediately suspected, was nowhere to be found.

Lucas was picked up five days later in Toledo, Ohio. When questioned about the death of his mother he openly admitted that not only had he killed her but he had also committed necrophilia. The pocket knife that was consistent with his mother’s wounds was found in his pocket, and that was all the evidence they needed to prosecute him.

The trial was held in the nearby town of Adrian, Michigan in March 1960. Since Lucas had already confessed to the crime the main issue at his trial was the degree of sentencing. He was convicted of second degree murder and given a 40-year sentence to be served at Jackson State Penitentiary in southern Michigan. After two attempts at suicide, Lucas was transferred to a state psychiatric facility for the criminally insane, where he was diagnosed as a suicidal psychopath, sadist and sexual deviant.

Despite his own admission that he was not ready to be released, Lucas was paroled in 1970 after having served only ten years. This was to be a very big mistake on the part of the authorities, because this dangerous and sick man had in no way reformed.

Following his release things certainly didn’t improve. Lucas had an unsuccessful marriage which ended when his wife found out that he was having sex with her two young girls. Next he went to live with his sister, Wanda, but she also asked him to leave after accusing him of abusing her young daughter.

In December 1971, Lucs was back in prison, this time on a charge of molesting two teenage girls. The charge was reduced to kidnapping at his trial and he was sent back to the Jackson State Penitentiary. He was released in August 1975, once again protesting with the authorities that he was not ready to be released and that he knew he would kill again. For a short time Lucas found employment on a mushroom farm in Pennsylvania. In December 1975 Lucas again tried his hand at marriage, this time to Betty, the widow of his cousin. After three months they moved to Maryland but the marriage only lasted until the summer of 1977, due to the fact that Lucas had been sexually abusing her daughters from a previous marriage.

Following his second failed marriage, Lucas became a drifter. Lucas met Ottis Toole in 1978 after a chance meeting in a Jacksonville soup kitchen. The pair shared a meal together and as they got talking Lucas discovered that his new-found friend, a part-time transvestite and a vicious psychopath, was erotically stimulated by arson and had a penchant for human flesh. They started to exchange grisly stories about their homicidal adventures and thrived on each other’s excitement. They soon became friends and part-time lovers and Lucas went to live with Toole at his mother’s house. Toole’s ten-year-old niece, Becky Powell, and her brother Frank lived at the same house. Becky was of unsound mind and she found in Lucas the affection she so desperately craved. In return her love for him helped him feel special for the first time in his life and they formed a very intimate relationship.

In 1981, Toole’s mother died and shortly after his sister, and the family were forced to break up. Becky and Frank wre placed in juvenile homes, but with the help of Lucas managed to run away. The four of them took to the road, drifting around the country surviving on the proceeds of robberies. They satisfied their lust for blood by picking up random hitchhikers and they just went from killing to killing, sometimes enlisting the help of the juvenile Becky and Frank.

In 1982 the authorities came looking for Becky, and Lucas thought it was wise for the murderous partnership to split up and so he and Becky headed west. They took jobs as hired hands with a couple named Jack and O’Bere Smart who lived in California. After they had been with the family for four months, O’Bere suggested that the couple should go to Texas to take care of her 80-year-old mother, Kate Rich. They arrived on May 14, but after only four days it was discovered that the couple had cashed two $50 cheques on Mrs. Rich’s account and were subsequently asked to leave.

As the couple thumbed for a lift out of town, they were picked up by a man named Ruben Moore who invited them to join his religious commune – the ‘All People’s House of Prayer’. An abandoned old chicken ranch provided shelter for many ‘lost souls’ and Lucas and Becky settled there posing as husband and wife. One day Becky unfortunately lost her temper with Lucas and slapped him in the face. Lucas was incensed and grabbed a large carving knife and stabbed her in the heart. She died instantly and, after raping her corpse, he dismembered her, stuffed her body parts into a pillowcase and then left her remains spread over a field. Back at the commune Lucas told Ruben Moore that his wife had left him and had accepted a ride by a passing truck. Then Lucas resumed his life in the commune as if nothing had happened.

Three weeks later, on September 16, the elderly Kate Rich went missing. The police became very suspicious when Lucas left town the next day and his car was found abandoned in Needles, California. Lucas was tracked down by the police and apprehended. He denied any involvement in the killing of Kate Rich and was later released when charges of car theft couldn’t be upheld.

Lucas was arrested again in June 1983 on a weapons charge and was held in the Montague County jail. After several days and being deprived of his craving for cigarettes, Lucas was ready to talk. He confessed to killing Kate Rich and then over the next 18 months confessed to a seemingly endless number of murders. All the time the numbers were increasing, until eventually he had admitted to killing around 500 people.

Ottis Toole, who was serving time in Florida on an arson charge, was also implicated in many of the crimes. Lucas got great pleasure in describing the heinous acts and went on to say that Toole sometimes ate the flesh of the victims they had killed. When the investigators asked Lucas why he hadn’t joined him, he gave the reason that he didn’t like the taste of the sauce he put on the meat. When Lucas had finished his statement, he told investigators that there was something he needed to get off his chest and told them about the murder of Becky Powell. The police were quite amazed by this confession because by all intent and purposes they believed that she was still alive.

They found enough evidence at The House of Prayer – human bone fragments in the stove and Rich’s eyeglasses in the yard – that meant Lucas could be charged with first-degree murder. Meanwhile he gave details on the Powell murder and took investigators to the scene of the crime. They found the remains of a white girl around the same age and height of Becky Powell, and Lucas was charged with murder number two.

Due to the number of people that Lucas had claimed to have killed over the years, a task force was set up to handle all the inquiries that were coming in from around the country. Lucas was revelling in the fact that he was becoming the centre of attention and for once could be useful in the daily business affairs of the task force. Before long, Lucas was touring the country as a ‘star killer’ uncovering evidence of his so-called handiwork. I suppose in his warped mind Lucas felt that he had become someone of importance.

Day by day his stories became more and more outrageous making claims that were soon proved to be untrue. He said he was the hitman for a Satanic cult named the ‘Hand of Death’ and that he had committed murders in Spain and Japan, even though he had never even been out of the country. He also claimed to have killed a Virginia schoolteacher who the police later discovered to be still alive. Many investigators still believe that Lucas was in fact only responsible for a couple of murders and that officers just fed him information on unresolved crimes. Although his outlandish confessions have drawn a certain amount of scepticism, it is still believed that Lucas was a prolific serial killer.

Lucas stood trial in 1985 and was convicted of ten homicides, which was more than enough to get him the death sentence. He was granted a stay of execution in September 1995 so that his claims of false confessions could be investigated, but this stay was to be lifted one year later. On June 27, 1998, Governor George W. Bush spared Lucas’s life because of overwhelming evidence that he did not kill one of the victims that he had been charged with. He is undoubtedly guilty of other despicable crimes and he has been sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison.