When Kemper awoke the next morning, he started heading east. Kemper listened attentively to the radio, expecting to be a national celebrity, but heard nothing. Disappointed and exhausted, Kemper pulled over at a phone booth outside of Pueblo, Colorado to call the Santa Cruz police. Because Kemper was friends with some of the officers, the police did not believe what he was telling them. After repeated attempts on Kemper's part, the police began to take him seriously and dispatched the local police to pick him up. In his detailed confession to the Santa Cruz police, Kemper admitted to eating the flesh of at least two of his victims as a means of "possessing" his prey.
The court convicted Kemper on eight counts of first-degree-murder, and he was found sane by court appointed psychiatrists. When asked what an appropriate sentence would be, Kemper replied, "Death by torture." …
