How Serial Killer Ed Kemper Was Unintentionally Immortalized In Star Wars

Ed Kemper, known as the Co-Ed Killer, murdered 10 people, including his mother and best friend. He was found guilty and received eight concurrent life sentences in 1973, ultimately being incarcerated at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville. Despite the brutality of the killings and him being sentenced a full four years before the first "Star Wars" movie came out, he shares an unusual connection with the property. 

A 1987 Los Angeles Times article chronicled how a group of inmates at the California Medical Facility were part of a program to record audiobooks for people who are blind. Kemper ran this program and recorded more books than anyone else at the prison. Between 1977 and 1987, it's estimated he spent more than 5,000 hours in a recording booth, using four million feet of tape in the process to record audio for books like "Flowers in the Attic," "The Glass Key," "Dune, Book 4: God Emperor of Dune," "The Rosary Murders," and "Star Wars."

Kemper even spoke about what having access to the program meant to him, "I can't begin to tell you what this has meant to me, to be able to do something constructive for someone else, to be appreciated by so many people, the good feeling it gives me after what I have done."

There are snippets of Ed Kemper's recordings available online, and while it may be disturbing to some to listen to a confessed serial killer, many individuals in the blind community were thankful for his contributions. The Los Angeles Times article followed Toni Ann Gardiner and Ed Eames, a blind couple from New York, who traveled to California to meet some of the prisoners who helped record audiobooks. Gardiner explained, "These prisoners are doing so much for the unseeing population. We just wanted to come here, to meet them and to thank them personally for their dedication to a program that means so much to the blind."

Kemper even received two trophies for his commitment to the program, which were presented by supporters not affiliated with the prison. Eames even commended the prisoners for doing something positive even with their pasts, "Despite those awful crimes they've committed, those fellows are doing something positive for their fellow man. For that they've got to be complimented."

Kemper's involvement with this program even came up in Netflix's "Mindhunter." The serial killer was played by Cameron Britton, and there's a scene where Holden (Jonathan Groff) and Bill (Holt McCallany) go to see him while he's recording. Kemper's crimes have inspired components of books, films, and even songs, and he's also affiliated with "Star Wars," albeit in a tangential way. But comedian Patton Oswalt brought up a very good point in 2019, "Wait — Ed Kemper recorded an audiobook of STAR WARS?!? [There's] audio of the co-ed killer saying, 'May the Force be with you?'"