Everyone has listened to at least one audiobook in their life. But what you may have been unaware of while listening to the story in your car or at the gym, is that there is a chance that you may have been hearing the voice of a serial killer.
Run by serial killer Edmund Kemper III, there was a program at the California Medical Facility State Prison called Volunteers of Vacaville aka the “Blind Project”. The inmates in the program recorded thousands of books, novels, textbooks, and even cookbooks on tape. Some of those recordings have been transferred to digital copies. From 1977 to 1987 alone, Kemper spent over 5,000 hours recording more than four million feet of tape. The project is still alive and well today and continues to operate at the prison.
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,” Kemper is quoted as saying about the program.
There has renewed interest in Kemper’s life recently with the airing of Netflix’s new hit series ‘Mindhunter‘. Kemper’s character in the series is played by Cameron Britton. In real life, the 6 foot 9-inch tall killer was known by the nickname “The Co-ed Killer”. He is serving eight life sentences for the brutal murders of six female college students, his mother, and his mother’s friend. This was after he had already served time and been released from the Atascadero State Hospital for the murder of his grandparents. Kemper was known to kill, mutilate, rape, perform necrophilia, and dismember his victims, not necessarily in that order.
