Disbelief Can Kill.

When I say disbelief can kill, I'm not speaking metaphorically. I'm thinking of Aiko Koo.

She was a fifteen year old hitchiker who made the terminal mistake of accepting a ride from Edmund Kemper, the "Coed Butcher," on September 14, 1972. He drove to a deserted spot and showed her a gun. It should have been clear what was going on, and what the stakes were. But disbelief must have offered its siren song.

Kemper got out of the car and locked himself out of it. "She could have reached over and grabbed the gun," he said later, in an interview, "but I think she never gave it a thought." She wanted so much to think this wasn't really happening. She must have wanted to think of it as a delusion, a mistake, a joke.

She unlocked the door and let him back in.

Let me repeat that.

She unlocked the door and let him back in.

Her remains were not found until the following May.

Edmund Kemper had a high IQ, and despite his large size, an ingratiating manner. The day after he killed Aiko Koo, Kemper was questioned by two psychiatrists, since he was still on parole for killing his grandparents. He'd enrolled at a community college where he'd made good grades. He'd become drinking buddies with local police officers. No one knew about his extra-curricular activities. So the two psychiatrists declared him no longer a danger to society and he was a free man.

It's somewhat understandable that a bright person who had become adept at hiding his true nature fooled psychiatrists and cops. He was on his best behavior with them. He wasn't in front of Aiko Koo. She had every reason to believe he meant her harm, but she didn't want to believe it.

We are all confronted with unpleasant facts. We know, intellectually, that not facing unpleasant facts allows them to become more unpleasant. Yet, all too often, we don't face them anyway.

Usually it is not as clear as the situation in a out-of-the-way spot in a California September. There is wiggle room, there are extenuating circumstances, there are abundant rationalizations for us not to face unpleasant facts. Facts are rarely as unpleasant as they were for Aiko Koo, not as stark.

Yet... and yet...

She unlocked the door and let him back in.

That is the power of disbelief.

And it could kill you. Metaphorically, or otherwise.