If you’ve been reading what I’ve been writing about working with Ed Kemper, you know that I was reluctant, at first, even to meet him, because of the horror of his crimes and their vicious impact on a community that I was part of.
What I came to appreciate about working with Kemp and dealing with our time together afterwards, was the fact that he did not seem to gloat over his actions or take perverse pride in what he had done; rather he had, of necessity I’d guess, developed a respect for his inner turmoil — the rage that drove him to commit those anti-human acts. What Garcia Lorca wrote about as “el duende” — the inner demon & well-spring of creative expression — is also the combination to a lock on darker capacities.
If you remember a conversation I wrote about earlier, the first question I asked Edmund Kemper was: “How does it make you feel when people come from all over the world to interview you?” To which Kemp answered: “How would you feel if people came from around the world to talk to you and all the EVER wanted to talk about was the 13 worst things you EVER did?” I realized that even though my hit-singles were not in the same league with cutting my mother’s head off and shoving her voice box down a garbage disposal, on a human level, what he asked me to think about made me feel bad. This man who had, unquestionably, done terrible things; was now facing the rest of — what could be and has turned out to be — a long life in prison to contemplate the evil forces that drove him to commit unpardonable acts.
It is sad that Ed Kemper will never be released from prison, but it is not unjust. Kemper’s demonstrable capacity to commit otherwise unimaginable horrors is undeniable. The risk of Kemp’s liberty would be too great, yet, in the same breath, it must be acknowledged that Ed Kemper has used his life sentence in the service of his prison community while he did work that benefited the community at large.
Imperfect criminal justice systems execute the innocent along with the guilty — Kemper’s case does not fit that rubric. However, Kemper’s execution would have done nothing to change the unpardonable acts of his past, while it would have precluded every decent, useful and beautiful that he has done in prison. Considering the lives of his victims, Kemper’s execution could not fairly have been called an injustice, but considering the life he has lead in prison, it would have been a mistake. However, it is Kemper's remarkable art work that, ultimately, confirmed my faith in the futility of the death penalty.
Because of powerful forces beyond his control Edmund Kemper is too high-risk to be on the street, but in 41 years of incarceration, he has been a model prison-citizen, an effective functionary and a very interesting artist, whose ceramic designs have amazed me and astonished my friends for almost 35 years. The cup Kemp mailed to me, almost 35 years ago, continues to delight me every day.
NOTE: Above is my photograph of an amazingly intricately-glazed, slip-cast cup. It was made on the dock near my home in the South of France. Below it is my photograph of Ed Kemper making that cup, in his house in California State Correctional Facility — Vacaville.
blakekathryn
romaincrisis
janainaart
origamiaround
germansingergirl
2087
