After 1972’s body count in Santa Cruz stood at six victims of two serial killers, in the new year of 1973, the communities of Santa Cruz hoped for an end to a terrifying murder spree. But it was just the start of the bloodiest months in the city’s history as Herbert Mullin and Ed Kemper would claim fifteen more victims in a manic rampage between January and April. We detail the convergence of extreme violence, obsessions, killer frenzies, and God-complexes in a trail of increasingly bizarre incidents that baffled police who struggled with a total lack of motive, evidence, and suspects. And considering the city’s ominous history of odd cults such as the “Holy City” and deep mountain enclaves turned into killing fields, we see a convergence of vengeful influences that defied the desperate attempts to connect or make sense of what appeared to be terrifyingly random.
After 1972’s body count in Santa Cruz stood at six victims of two serial killers, in the new year of 1973, the communities of Santa Cruz hoped for an end to a terrifying murder spree. But it was just the start of the bloodiest months in the city’s history as Herbert Mullin and Ed Kemper would claim fifteen more victims in a manic rampage between January and April. We detail the convergence of extreme violence, obsessions, killer frenzies, and God-complexes in a trail of increasingly bizarre incidents that baffled police who struggled with a total lack of motive, evidence, and suspects. And considering the city’s ominous history of odd cults such as the “Holy City” and deep mountain enclaves turned into killing fields, we see a convergence of vengeful influences that defied the desperate attempts to connect or make sense of what appeared to be terrifyingly random.
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