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The Real-Life Edmund Kemper Interviews Prove How Scary Accurate Mindhunter Is

Photo: Patrick Harbron/Netflix/Everett Collection
One of the scariest parts of Netflix's MINDHUNTER is that the show is based in reality. The David Fincher-helmed series is inspired by FBI agent John Douglas' 1995 book, Mind Hunter: Inside The FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit, with Jonathan Groff's character, Agent Holden Ford, interviewing many of the same murderers that Douglas did in the early days of criminal profiling.
One such murderer is "Co-Ed Killer" Edmund Kemper, who first appears in the second episode of the show's first season and is portrayed to creepy perfection by Stitchers actor Cameron Britton.
"Cameron had come in with research like crazy, and had a very specific idea of what he wanted to do with Kemper," Groff told Rolling Stone of working with the actor who portrayed the Co-Ed Killer. "I got to read with him once, and he just walked in, and started saying his lines in character, and...he had the voice, and everything...To be sitting in this room with him in Los Angeles, all by myself, was terrifying."
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However, to truly appreciate Britton's work on the series, one might want to look at the real Kemper. Several interviews with Kemper — who, according to Biography, killed six women in the Santa Cruz, California area as well as both his grandparents and mother — are available to watch on YouTube.
Naturally, they are all highly disturbing in content. However, perhaps the most unsettling part of the interviews is how calm, collected, and open Kemper seems while talking about his heinous crimes.
"I lived as an ordinary person for most of my life," said Kemper in one 1984 interview. "[But] I was leading a parallel, and increasingly sick life. Other life."
You can watch the videos below. Please be advised that the videos contain disturbing content.

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