During an interview conducted shortly after his conviction, Edmund Kemper, known as the “Co-ed Killer”, described one of the most disturbing contradictions in his mind.
When talking about what he thought when he saw an attractive woman on the street, he explained that two ideas could arise at the same time:
“One part of me thinks: ‘What an attractive woman. I’d like to talk to her, go out with her, and treat her well.’ The other part thinks: ‘I wonder what her head would look like on a desk’”.
The quote is often shared as though it came from Kemper’s interviews with the FBI, but its documented origin is an interview published in Front Page Detective in March 1974, conducted by journalist Marj von Beroldingen. The idea was also popularized by American Psycho, although the film incorrectly attributes the quote to Ed Gein.
What is unsettling is not only the content of the statement, but also the way Kemper described his thoughts: as if he could separate seemingly normal social behavior from violent and profoundly dehumanizing fantasies.
The investigators and specialists who interviewed him were seeking to understand precisely that kind of mechanism: how a killer could appear articulate, calm, and even charming while recounting horrific impulses and crimes.
The quote does not, by itself, demonstrate how the minds of all serial killers work. It does reveal, however, the way Kemper acknowledged and verbalized the coexistence of a social facade and a homicidal fantasy.