Creepy Santa Cruz History: "Murder Capital of the World" Edmund Kemper, Herbert Mullin
What a Creep
Margo Donohue
4.6 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 21 May 2022
⏱️ 52 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Season 15, Episode 8
Creepy Santa Cruz
Santa Cruz is one of those wonderful, sleepy destinations in the mountains of Northern California. Known for its Boardwalk and being close to the Redwoods--it is both a travel destination and the home for over 270,000 in a truly diverse population. The tension between the Mexican heritage and modern “progress” is a part of the culture that really changed when the University of Santa Cruz opened there creating a youth population in the 1960s which changed the area from being seen as a tourist destination in the summer and a religious/conservative to the hippie culture.
In the early 1970s, it was, for a time, known as “The Murder Capital of the World” with several mass killers and serial rapists who preyed on the population with victims as young as four and up to the elderly.
Today we talk about the history of the region, the most famous crimes of the 20th century, and why you should still visit if you ever get the chance.
Trigger Warnings: Murder, sexual assault, & basic creepiness
Sources for this episode:
· Santa Cruz Wikipedia
· Herbert Mullin Wikipedia
· John Linley Frazier
· Edmund Kemper Wikipedia
· Netflix Mindhunter
· Salon.com” Ronald Regan’s Shameful Legacy: Violence, the homeless, mental illness”
· Santa Cruz Waves
· Murder Capital of the World by Emerson Murray
· Haunted Santa Cruz by Maryanne Porter
· Serial Killers of Santa Cruz by Aubrey Graves
· Real Crime “Was Herbert Mullin Born to Kill?”
· Edmund Kemper Audiobooks “Flowers in the Attic” (40 seconds)
Capitola Birds Attack 1961 (San Jose Mercury News)
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Transcript
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| 0:46.5 | Welcome to What a Creep, the show with Margot Donnie and Sonia Mansfield talking about creeps |
| 0:51.2 | from the past to the present. This is your quick guide to the biggest creeps, |
| 0:55.7 | jerks, assholes, and losers, the best of the worst. |
| 0:59.6 | From two nice ladies who want the world to be a little less creepy. |
| 1:12.7 | Welcome back to What a Creep, this is Margot Donnie and my cohort in creepitude. |
| 1:17.2 | As always is the amazing Sonia Mansfield. |
| 1:19.8 | Hey Sonia, hello my friend. |
| 1:22.0 | Hello my friend, we are late in May Sonia, it's almost summer. |
| 1:28.8 | It's almost here. |
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| 1:38.8 | We are the podcast that talks about creeps from the past to the present. |
| 1:42.5 | Today we are talking about actually a region of the country that has kind of a creepy |
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