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A chill settles over the farmlands of central Wisconsin.
It's a kind of place where life moves slowly, where neighbors nod politely on the street and where secrets are thought to be small, ordinary things.
But behind the doors of one weather-worn farmhouse, a darkness was festering.
A man who seemed quiet, even harmless, carried with him obsessions too grotesque for the imagination.
And when the truth finally surfaced, it shocked not only a town, but the entire nation.
Crime, conspiracy, cults, serial killers, and murder.
All things that I love to consume and I know you do too.
You sick twisted, beautiful intellectually minded thought I'd switch it up a little bit.
But yes, today, today we are talking about the infamous Ed Gein.
He's inspired many different shows, movies, even music.
But who really was Ed Gein?
And how did he come to be one of the most infamous killers of all time?
So, without further ado, let's unbuckle our seatbelts, go Mach 5 to the highway, slam on the brakes and bust through this windshield into this infamous killer together.
At the start of the 20th century, Wisconsin had a strong rural character.
Small farming communities dotted the landscape and life on these farms was hard, but simple.
Families worked their land, raised livestock and lived off what they produced a simple life, the good old days, if you will.
And this fostered a strong sense of self-reliance, but also isolation, as they could be quite remote.
And this physical isolation meant that a family's home was its own little world, largely hidden from the outside scrutiny.
And the social fabric of rural Wisconsin was tight knit, yet pretty conservative.
And many communities were anchored by churches, modest schools and maybe a general store in the nearest.
So traditional values prevailed in this part of America.
And people were expected to be industrious, devout, and reserved in personal matters.
And mental health as we think of it today was not openly discussed basically at all, because at the time there was a strong stigma around psychological troubles.
And those suffering from severe mental illness might be sent to distant asylums, but more often families just coped in private silence.
In fact, the early 1900s were a low point in public attitudes toward mental illness.
And in Wisconsin and elsewhere, society's approach was often to hide away or ignore those deemed quote unstable, unquote.
And emotional issues or strange behavior within a family were usually kept behind closed doors.
And family life in these farming communities was frequently authoritarian.
And fathers were traditionally the heads of the household, but mothers too could wield fierce influence over the children's upbringing.
And strict discipline was seen as a virtue.
Parents would teach obedience and morality as they understood it, and sometimes with an iron hand, if you know what I mean.
And religious fundamentalism was common, especially among immigrant communities.
And sermons about sin and virtue filled Sunday mornings, and many households carry those fiery teachings into everyday life.
So in this environment, a domineering parent who imposed rigid moral codes on their family wouldn't have been seen as particularly unusual.
And outsiders generally didn't interfere in family matters, even if things were dysfunctional behind the scenes.
So within this rural background lies the tiny village of Plainfield, Wisconsin.
And in the early 1900s Plainfield was a speck on the map of central Wisconsin, surrounded by wetlands and farms.
And the population in 1900 was only around 728 people, peaking at the time and then declining in subsequent decades, down to about 580 people by 1920.
But it was the kind of place where everyone truly knew everyone and daily life revolved around basic commerce and farming.
And a handful of family-run businesses lined Main Street, serving the needs of local farm families.
And an old opera house built in 1902 doubled as a dance hall, church bar and even a movie theater over the years, illustrating how one building often wore many hats in a small community.
And Wisconsin was becoming America's dairy land around this time.
And there was a practical, no frills ethos among the townsfolk.
And people worked hard during the day and looked out for their neighbors when they could.
Yet despite the friendliness on the surface, Plainfield's remoteness fostered a mind your own business mentality.
And if a family chose to keep to themselves on a farm outside of town, few would pry.
So it was easy for someone to live a fairly reclusive life without drawing much attention.
A very important factor for the story to come.
But overall, early 20th century Plainfield offered a picture of secluded, small town America quiet, insular and set in its own ways.
And the stage was set for a future tragedy, a tragedy that would seem utterly inconceivable against such an unassuming rural backdrop.
And little did those farmers and shopkeepers know that one of their own would become the stuff of American nightmares.
So the Gein saga begins with two people who, on the surface, appeared unremarkable for their time.
And that is George Philip Gein and Augusta Wilhelmine Lurk.
So George and Augusta were both children of German immigrants and were raised in Wisconsin in the late 19th century.
And George, born in 1873, grew into a hefty, hardworking man, but one beset by personal demons because he had a reputation for being an alcoholic and he drifted through various jobs, never able to hold anything steady for long.
And over the years George worked as a carpenter and even a tannery hand, but his lack of discipline and heavy drinking kept sabotaging any chance of success.
And he by all means appeared to be a man who would rather drown his disappointments in whiskey than confront them.
And in contrast, Augusta born in 1878 was George's polar opposite in personality.
Because Augusta came from a strict old Lutheran family of Prussian Germans.
And the old Lutherans were known for their ultra conservative fire and brimstone brand of faith.
It's God's word or nothing, basically.
So, from a young age, Augusta was taught that the world is a wicked place and not wicked as wicked, awesome.
Wicked as in like evil, infected with sin in every thought and deed.
And this creed became the core of her being.
And she developed a formidable, no-nonsense character and deeply religious, proudly self-righteous and utterly convinced of her moral superiority.
So Augusta was not necessarily warm or affectionate, if you catch my drift.
Instead, she was described as domineering and obsessively pious.
And she believed it was her God-given duty to steer others, especially her family, away from evil, which will become extremely ironic as we make our way through this case.
But George and Augusta would marry on December 11th, 1900.
And George would be 27 and Augusta would be 22.
And she likely hoped marriage would offer her stability and children to raise in righteousness.
And George, for his part, probably saw Augusta as a strong woman who could keep him anchored.
And in their early years.
Together, Augusta took charge of the household finances and opened a small grocery store in La Crosse.
By all accounts, she was the breadwinner, a rather unusual arrangement for 1900.
And her shop did well enough to support the family when George couldn't because remember, he's just off drinking and just being shitty at his jobs.
And meanwhile, George's pride suffered under the shadow of his wife's competence and open contempt.
And Augusta would openly berate George.
Yet because of her strict Lutheran beliefs about marriage, divorce was unthinkable, could not happen.
And so resentment festered in their home.
Very healthy.
And in January 1902, the Geins welcomed their first child, a son named Henry George Gein.
And Augusta had desperately wanted a daughter, someone she could mold into her own devout image an obedient girl, safe from the corruption of men.
So the birth of a boy was a disappointment to her.
Not a great start for this little guy.
But still, Augusta was determined to raise Henry right.
So she quickly established herself as the ultimate authority over the child, essentially sidelining George's role as a father.
And those early family years were dominated by Augusta's growing control.
And she preached and scolded, making it clear that sin lurked around every single corner, just molding a extremely paranoid child.
And George, increasingly emasculated, drank even more and grew abusive when inebriated.
So domestic life became a kind of tug of war, because there was Augusta's stern discipline on one side and George's drunken outbursts on the other hand.
So as the years went by, Augusta's influence only expanded.
And on August 27th, 1906, she gave birth to a second son in La Crosse.
And that was Edward Theodore Gein, known as Ed, the guy we're talking about today.
And this child, too, was not a girl.
Oh, two strikes and she's pissed.
So if she couldn't have a daughter, Augusta resolved that her sons would be kept pure at all costs.
From the moment Ed was born, Augusta's word was law in the Gein household.
Again, not a good start to this little guy's life.
So she would tolerate no dissent from George or the boys.
Augusta was queen bitch of this house.
So a stern, joyless routine was established in this household.
And that is that the children would attend to their chores and Augusta would attend to their souls.
Basically, they're souls that were just just just caked with evil in Augusta's opinion.
So every afternoon, she set aside time to read the Bible to her sons, often selecting fire and brimstone verses from the Old Testament or revelation about divine punishment and the evils of depravity.
Old Testament, if anybody's read it, man, that that's that shit is crazy.
All right.
I got it read to me as a kid.
It's the stuff of nightmares.
Highly recommend New Testament, Little Lighter.
But she drilled into Henry and Little Ed that the world outside was filthy and a very immoral place.
And in Augusta's eyes, nearly all women herself accepted were harlots and instruments of the devil out to seduce and destroy men.
So just a classic boy mom.
Basically, i'm just kidding, i'm just kidding, i'm kidding.
Okay, my sister's a boy mom.
She's a great boy mom.
I'm kidding, but we all know who i'm talking about.
All right, those moms that just like never want their boys to like have a girlfriend or a wife or whatever.
It's a little weird anyway.
So drinking alcohol was a damnable sin, Intercourse was evil, and only total obedience to God and to Augusta as God's emissary could save her family from hellfire.
So, within this fervent atmosphere, George Gein receded into irrelevance, and Augusta's scorn for her husband was never concealed either.
And like we said, she openly berated him as a useless drunk who was headed for hell.
Just very healthy household and just powerless to change his situation, george mostly slunk into the background nursing his bottle of whiskey, and when he did get involved with the boys, it was usually in anger and he would furiously slap ed's head, sometimes hitting him, until the boy's ears rang, which is And these beatings only reinforced Ed's fear of adoration of his mother, because she was the one who claimed to love and protect him from a sinful world, whereas his father met his tears with violence.
So we're getting.
A very unhealthy attachment to the umbilical cord is growing stronger between Eddie and mommy.
And though she was also verbally abusive to the boys, believing them to become eventual failures just like their father was in her eyes.
But by the time Ed was a toddler and Henry a young boy.
Augusta had effectively constructed an emotional fortress around her family.
She's been basically a cult leader.
And she would even forbade the children from having any friends over or just friends in general.
These kids were extremely secluded.
And she just poured her energy into running the household and lecturing her sons on morality.
And in public, Augusta was outwardly respectable, a hardworking store owner and farm wife.
And neighbors in La Crosse might have found her rigid and holier than thou, but nothing about the Gein's early years drew serious outside concern.
Remember, everybody just kind of kept to themselves and were like, oof.
That's their problem.
You know, she's a bit crazy, but you know, she's hardworking and everything.
So nobody really like turned their heads.
Behind closed doors.
However, Augusta's fanaticism and George's failure created a very toxic home environment.
And when the stresses of city life and George's drinking grew too much, Augusta sought a drastic change.
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Let's get back to it.
So it was around 1915.
She relocated the family to a farm on the outskirts of the tiny town of Plainfield, and she deliberately chose this 155 acre farm for its seclusion, far from any immorality of larger towns.
So by removing her family to an isolated patch of rural land, Augusta believed she could shield her sons from the corrupt influences once and for all.
And indeed the Gein farm would become a world unto itself, with Augusta, its unquestioned cult ruler, at the head.
And George was too beaten down and often just too drunk to protest the move.
Plus, he didn't make any money, like Augusta just had all the power in this relationship.
Thus, as the Gein family headed into Ed's childhood years, Augusta's grip was ironclad and the stage was set for a very peculiar upbringing.
So Edward, or Ed Gein, spent his earliest years under the absolute authority of his mother, as we know.
And the Plainfield farmhouse was old and modest, but Augustus saw it as a sanctuary from the modern world, since
And for Ed, it became a lonely kingdom of fields and dense silence.
And he was rarely allowed to leave the property except for school.
And inside the home, Augusta's presence loomed as large as ever.
And every day, Ed heard the same fiery sermons from his mother.
The wickedness of the world, the evils of lust, the certainty of God's wrath.
And she punctuated her lectures by quoting scripture on murder, death, and divine retribution.
You know, just classic nighttime bed stories, but ironically foreshadowing the darkness that would later unfold.
Because ed's impressionable mind absorbed it all and he grew up literally idolizing augusta, because to him she was practically infallible, his guiding light in a world full of temptations.
But But Augusta's love was harsh and conditional, you know, as a mother's love is.
And she enforced discipline with a heavy hand.
And in one especially traumatizing incident, young Ed was caught by his mother doing something a boy does when they hit puberty, if you know what I mean in the bathtub.
And Augusta flew into a rage.
And she grabbed him by his you know what and called them the curse of man, scolding him that that act was a filthy abomination.
And Ed was mortified and learned to associate any normal urge with intense guilt and fear of his mother's wrath.
Again, just very healthy practices going on here.
And by that, I mean extremely toxic.
So the boy's childhood was marked by social isolation and strange influences.
And as a child at around the age of seven, Ed reportedly witnessed his parents slaughter a hog in the farm's shed.
And disturbingly, Ed later recounted that watching this violent butchery excited him so much that he experienced an involuntary release.
If you know what I mean, which is just not cool to think about, but it happened.
And this shocking reaction suggests that even at a young age, Ed's psyche was mixing violence and arousal in a very abnormal way.
And whether Augusta ever learned of this incident is unknown, but it shows the seeds of Ed's pathology were quietly taking root in childhood.
And despite his bizarre home life, Ed outwardly appeared as a shy, awkward boy.
Not a little boy who... really liked watching animals die a little too much.
And as if the kid didn't have it hard enough growing up, a congenital growth on his eyelid gave him a bit of a lazy eye, and a lesion on his tongue caused him to speak with a slight lisp.
And in 1915 Ed began attending the local one-room Roche A Cree grade school, which had just 12 students total.
And this tiny schoolhouse was essentially his only window to the outside world.
And Ed did fairly well in class.
In fact, he was described as a voracious reader, but socially he was a misfit.
And his classmates would find him odd because he would sometimes laugh to himself out loud, just kind of out of the blue, as if hearing an inside joke that no one else understood, which I mean, who doesn't do that?
You know, I do that sometimes.
And this was likely a just a coping mechanism, but it earned him some ridicule.
And other children would mock him for his weird, giggling and effeminate mannerisms, which only isolated him further.
And being ostracized hurt Ed deeply.
But at home, he got zero sympathy, as we know, you know, mommy doesn't give a shit.
So if Ed ever came home crying because the kids at school bullied him, Augusta and George responded with scorn or even violence.
So this kid could not catch a break.
I have sympathy for little Ed.
And Augusta would chastise Ed for wanting friends among sinners, and George would be violent as he usually was.
And, as a result, Ed had no friends and Ed learned to swallow his hurt and withdraw further into himself.
And his only close companion was his older brother, Henry, who was five years his senior.
But even that bond was complicated because Henry sometimes acted as another authority figure.
Because as you can imagine, Henry's going through all the same stuff and usually...
Kids project what is projected onto them.
So his only outlet to let out any anger is on Ed.
So Ed's just getting it from every side.
So lacking any normal social outlets, Ed immersed himself into books and his own imagination.
And he particularly loved adventure stories and eventually pulp magazines, which were cheap fiction magazines printed on wood pulp paper.
And he would happily spend time with books over interacting with others.
And even in these early years, Augusta's grip on Ed's mind was so tight that he barely dared to think for himself, because he was conditioned to believe that the outside world was evil and only his mother was good.
And Ed later said he never once dated or had any interest in girls growing up because Augusta had effectively made the idea of romance or any sort of sexuality as terrifying and repulsive to him.
And instead Ed focused on being the dutiful son, helping with farm chores and trying, often futilely, to earn a kind word from his mother.
And Ed's formal education ended almost as soon as it began, because after completing the eighth grade, Ed would drop out of school.
And this was not uncommon for 1920s farm country boys, because many boys left school to work on the farm full time or because their family saw no need for higher education.
And in Ed's case, he had only ever attended a tiny rural school and high school was likely out of the reach logistically.
So by his mid-teens, Ed was essentially confined to the family farm 24-7, with only occasional trips into Plainfield for supplies.
So he continued to read nonstop on his own, maintaining a decent literacy, but any chance at normal social development was complete.
So Ed was truly just devoted to his mommy to an excessive degree, even for that era.
And sometime in their early lives, Augusta made her sons swear an oath to remain virgins until death.
That's a big ask, mom.
What do you, okay, that's a lot.
And she warned Henry and Ed that any intercourse was a ticket to eternal damnation and losing their chastity would make them no better than their despised father in her eyes.
Why does she get a pass?
Incredibly, both boys, likely under coercion by their formidable mother, pledged to obey.
And Ed took this vow very, very seriously, further contributing to how he never pursued any romantic relationship in his life.
And such was Augusta's power over her son's psyche.
So by the end of Ed's school years, the family dynamics had settled into a grim routine.
Augusta's word was truly law.
Henry and Ed labored on the farm under her direction, and George spent most of the time, drunk and bitter, on the sidelines.
So Ed's worldview, having had almost no healthy outside input, was essentially an extension of Augusta's.
He did not think for himself and he genuinely believed that she taught him that outside their farm lay a world full of sin, that all women, aside from Augusta, of course, were degraded creatures, and that he must remain pure and obedient at all costs.
Yet behind Ed's compliance, dark urges and confusion were bubbling, because he was a teenager experiencing natural curiosities, but every impulse was met with shame and repression.
So this inner turmoil went unnoticed and unaddressed.
And to the townsfolk of Plainfield, Ed was mostly invisible during these years.
No one could have imagined that this boy, so seemingly timid and insignificant, would later unleash horrors that defied imagination.
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So as Ed Gein grew into his late teens and 20s, the 1920s and 1930s, his world remained in the cramped confines of the family farm and the grip of his mother, of course.
And its father, George Gein, deteriorated significantly during this period because years of alcohol caught up to him.
So he became weak and frequently ill and unable to contribute much to the farm.
And by the late 1930s, George was essentially a helpless invalid, entirely dependent on the family members whom he had alienated with his drinking and abuse.
And Augusta and the boys feared and despised George, considering him a living embodiment of failure.
And he spent his days mostly in a stupor, offering occasional slurred complaints, but little else.
And in April of 1940 George Gein finally died officially of heart failure, likely made worse by his alcoholism, at the age of 66.
And Augusta, ever unforgiving, reportedly remarked that her husband's death was a result of his own weakness and that he was now reaping divine punishment.
I'm sure they had just a wonderful marriage together.
Guy was probably just hoping for death.
Not that he was a good guy.
He was also evil, but you know, just a whole shit situation.
And naturally, Augusta expressed zero grief during this time because now with George gone, the Gein household consisted of just Augusta and her two adult sons.
Henry, now nearing 40 years old, and Ed, who was in his mid 30s.
And the dynamic began to shift in subtle ways.
And the brothers, particularly Henry, assumed the responsibilities of keeping the farm and finances afloat.
So both men would take on odd jobs around Plainfield to supplement their meager farm income.
And they did handyman work for neighbors, repairing roofs, doing carpentry, manual labor.
And Ed in particular found his own niche, which was babysitting children.
I don't know about that.
But Ed would relate easier to children than to adults.
And perhaps because his own emotional development was stunted and he felt less judged by kids.
And neighbors considered Ed and Henry trustworthy and honest workers.
And out in the community, the Gein brothers gave little cause for any sort of alarm.
They were dependable if you needed help, and Ed's quiet demeanor led many to view him as harmless.
He was just the shy bachelor who could fix your fence or watch your children, known to be polite and somewhat childlike himself.
Behind closed doors however, significant tensions were brewing between the Gein brothers and their formidable family.
Because Henry had never been as wholly under Augusta's spell as Ed was.
And as he entered middle age, Henry began to challenge Augusta's authority in ways Ed would never dare.
And Henry started dating a local woman, a divorced single mother of two, and expressed plans of moving in with her.
I'm scared. because this was an open act of defiance against Augusta's wishes.
She would have seen a divorced woman as a living sin, as if she didn't already see women in general as just deplorable creatures.
And what's more is Henry had the audacity to criticize Augusta in front of Ed.
And he told Ed that their mother was overbearing and that Ed's attachment to her was unhealthy.
Henry's just saying what we're all thinking, isn't he?
These comments shocked and hurt Ed deeply.
And he reacted as if Henry was uttering blasphemy.
Because to Ed, as we know, Augusta could do no wrong.
And hearing his brother speak ill of their sainted mother was nearly unthinkable.
So the relationship between the brothers started to fray, and Henry's independent streak just started to grow, while Ed remained ever the dutiful son.
And by the early 1940s Henry's private attitude toward his mother was reportedly one of growing resentment.
And he saw Augusta as a toxic influence and he worried aloud about what would become of Ed when something would happen to their mother.
And Henry allegedly confided to friends that he was concerned for Ed's mental state, given how obsessed Ed was with Augusta.
And this concern turned out to be a tragic foresight, because on May 16th 1944, a mysterious incident occurred that would later raise many eyebrows, because the brothers would be burning brush on their property, a routine task of clearing marsh vegetation.
But the fire would blaze out of control and drew the attention of the Plainfield Volunteer Fire Department.
And after firefighters doused the flames, Henry was nowhere to be found.
And Ed claimed that he had lost sight of Henry in the confusion.
And a search party went out that night and found Henry's dead body lying face down.
And Henry was 43 years old at the time.
And at first glance it appeared he might've succumbed to heart failure while fighting the fire, as there was no significant burns on his body.
And the local coroner listed asphyxiation from smoke as the cause of death and authorities accepted it as just a tragic death.
However, some details didn't add up because, according to one biographer, Henry's corpse had bruises on the head that suggested he may have been struck.
No autopsy was performed and, given Ed's reputation as a simple, good natured soul, police didn't investigate further.
And it wasn't until years later, after Ed's crimes came to light, that people looked back and wondered did Ed Gein kill his own brother?
Was this mysterious fire the cover for a revenge born out of Ed's devotion to Augusta and fury at Henry's descent?
And one criminologist later called it the Cain and Abel aspect of the case.
Gotta go back to the Old Testament to read that one, folks.
But for those of you who don't know, it implied that Ed removed Henry to have their mother all to himself.
And while we'll never know for sure, the circumstances remain suspicious to say the least.
At the very least, Henry's death conveniently silenced the only person who openly challenged Augusta's dominance.
So with Henry now gone, Ed Gein was now alone with Augusta.
And he was in his late 30s, yet in many ways still a child under his mother's thumb.
And the traumatic events of 1944 only intensified Ed's dependence.
And shortly after Henry's death, Augusta suffered a paralyzing stroke.
And the domineering matriarch was suddenly left very weak and partially incapacitated.
And Ed responded with unwavering dedication.
And he waited on his ailing mother hand and foot.
And all the resentment he might have harbored over her harsh treatment was buried under an almost pathetic devotion.
And he rarely left her side.
And to the outside eyes he appeared to be the ideal, dutiful son, sacrificing his own life to care for his invalid mother.
And for a brief period, it seemed Augusta appreciated Ed's loyalty.
But Augusta was not one to soften easily, as we know.
And an incident late in 1945 illustrated that her fiery judgment remained intact.
And Ed recounted that he had driven Augusta, still frail from her stroke, to visit a neighbor, a man named Smith, to buy some straw.
And while they were there, Smith brutally beat a dog to death in front of Augusta and Ed.
So Augusta witnessed this horrifying act, but what upset her far more was something else.
And that was a woman came out of Smith's house during the commotion.
And Augusta realized this woman was Smith's girlfriend.
So they were living together unmarried.
And this meant this was Smith's harlot as Augusta would spit out.
And she was livid not about the horrific animal cruelty but about the immorality of an unwed woman being present in a man's home.
And she had a second stroke soon afterwards.
So her health went into rapid decline after that, as if her body could no longer sustain the fury and righteousness burning inside her.
And on December 29th, 1945, Augusto Wilhelmine Gein died at the age of 67.
And for Ed, the lost was cataclysmic.
He was absolutely devastated.
And in the words of biographer Harold Shetker, Ed had quote lost his only friend and one true love.
And he was absolutely alone in the world, unquote.
And this dramatic phrasing isn't an exaggeration, as we know, because Augusta had indeed been everything to Ed.
She was his mother, his mentor, his commander, and the object of his twisted adoration.
And Ed's entire universe revolves around pleasing her.
And now suddenly she was gone.
And in a very real sense.
The now almost 40 year old Ed was now an orphan because he was severely stunted emotionally.
And worse, an orphan who had never been allowed a life outside of his mother's shadow.
So the aftermath of Augusta's death would mark the end of Ed's remaining tether to normalcy.
Because he had no siblings left, no friends, no spouse or lover, no father and no mother.
He had nothing.
And the last human being he truly loved, in his own warped way, was buried in Plainfield Cemetery, leaving Ed Gein utterly alone on that isolated farm.
And this moment at the end of 1945 was the turning point.
And the descent into utter madness was about to begin.
All the evil seeds that had been planted in Ed's psyche over decades the repression, the violent fantasies, the unhealthy obsession with his mother now had free reign to grow in horrific ways.
So after Augusta Gein's death, Ed Gein's life slipped into eerie solitude and derangement.
And he remained on the family's 155-acre Plainfield farm, but it was now a tomb of memories rather than any sort of home.
And, in an act of preservation, Ed boarded up every area of the farmhouse that his mother had used, including the entire upstairs, the parlor and the living rooms, sealing them off like a really weird shrine.
And he left these rooms completely untouched, frozen in time with her furnishings gathering dust.
And they stayed spotlessly preserved behind those closed doors, while the rest of the house just fell into squalor.
And Ed himself moved into a small bedroom adjacent to the kitchen and basically lived in chaos amidst filth and junk, never cleaning or caring for the house beyond his mother's sacred spaces.
And to support himself, Ed did occasional odd jobs just as before.
Beginning in 1951, he even received a small government farm subsidy as part of a soil conservation program, and that money helped him get by without having to farm much.
But he continued working as a handyman for neighbors and on road crews when needed.
And he also sold an 80-acre parcel of land that Henry had owned somewhere between 1946 and 1956.
So outwardly, Ed's routine might have seemed somewhat normal for a reclusive bachelor, but internally something had broken.
And with no Augusta to supervise or restrain him, Ed's mind wandered down dark and unthinkable paths.
And this is when he became an avid consumer of pulp magazines and cheap adventure books, even more so than he was as a teen.
And it wasn't the same content, because this wasn't the innocent kind, because Ed primarily fixated on stories that fed his gruesome curiosities.
And he particularly loved tales of cannibalism, headhunters, and the German bad guy atrocities.
I don't know if I can say that word without YouTube getting freaked out, but you know who I'm talking about, okay?
And one of his known interest was the case of Ilse Koch, the wife of a German bad guy concentration camp commandment who was infamously accused of making lampshades from prisoners' tattooed skin.
This is so scary and nasty.
And Ed read every detail of such accounts with fascination.
And it's haunting to note that some of Koch's alleged practices using human skin for household items mirror what Ed himself would do later.
And he also poured over anatomy texts.
And at some point in the late 1940s, Ed Gein crossed a boundary that few could even fathom and he would begin robbing graves.
So as Ed's grotesque activities escalated, so did the evident pathology behind them.
And Gein later revealed an astonishing motive to investigators.
He was literally trying to create a quote woman suit unquote from human skin so that he could become his mother to literally crawl into her skin unquote.
It's as chilling as it sounds, because Ed missed Augusta so terribly and was so psychologically warped that he believed he could bring some aspect of her by wearing the remains of women who reminded him of her.
Just the ultimate messed up final boss mommy's boy.
It was like a perverse form of idol worship and identity theft combined.
So he would stitch together skin from female corpses that were already deceased because he was grave robbing.
He did not kill these people.
Yet, but he would stitch them together to fashion a copy of a female body, including a vest like torso or a corset of skin from shoulders to waist and leggings made of human leg skin and masks peeled from their faces.
And when he donned these horrific costumes in the privacy of his home, Ed could pretend Augusta was still with him.
My skin is, I want to crawl inside myself right now.
It's horrific to think about.
And this behavior goes beyond any ordinary mental illness.
It was uniquely deranged.
And during this descent, Ed also kept trophies and tokens.
And many of these gruesome items would later be found in Ed's home, shocking the entire world.
But in the late 1940s and early 1950s no one knew.
This lonely old gean place was essentially a twisted morgue.
And there were a few red flags noticed by locals, but they were either dismissed or seen as eccentricities, I guess.
One 16-year-old kid who knew Ed, which was the son of one of the family friends, recalled that Ed showed him some shrunken heads he kept at the farm, claiming they were war relics sent by a cousin who served in the Pacific.
But in reality they were the peeled faces of women Ed had exhumed, carefully treated to look like macabre collections.
Oh my God.
And when this eventually came to light, the entire community realized that Ed had been parading his grisly souvenirs in plain sight, but no one had believed it was anything real.
Of course,
You don't assume your next door neighbor is digging up five year dead Susie and sewing her into a fucking lampshade.
So by the early 1950s, it seems, Ed's morbid obsessions were no longer satisfied by stolen corpses alone.
And perhaps the bodies from graves, decayed and lifeless, were not enough to fulfill his ultimate fantasy.
And he started craving fresher corpses, one that he didn't have to dig up.
So Ed Gein was on the path to murder.
All while outwardly he still appeared as that quiet, somewhat weird handyman living on the old Gein farm.
So Ed Gein is officially recognized as the killer of two women.
And those are the crimes that finally exposed his full monstrosity.
So Mary Hogan was a divorcee in her early 50s who ran a tavern in a nearby community in Bancroft, just a few miles from Plainfield.
And curiously, Mary bore a physical resemblance to Augusta that drew Ed's attention.
And on a cold winter afternoon of December 8th, 1954, Mary Hogan vanished from her tavern.
And details of her disappearance are scarce.
And it was as if Mary had been there one minute and just gone the next.
But in reality, Ed Gein had shot Mary Hogan inside her own tavern.
And with uncanny strength or sheer determination, he hauled her corpse onto a sled and dragged her body back to his farm.
And back at the farm.
This is where he would die, disassemble mary and hide her different parts.
And when ed's crimes were finally uncovered in 1957, authorities found mary hogan's face made into a mask of sorts that was just stashed away in a paper bag inside of ed gein's home, as well as her skull in a box in gene's house as well, And Ed eventually admitted to killing Mary Hogan, though he later said he couldn't recall the details of the murder itself.
So it's possible that in Ed's fractured mind he went into an almost disassociative state during the act of murder, much as he described being in a daze during grave robbing.
But whatever the case, Mary Hogan's demise was Ed's alleged first step from secret grave robber to active killer.
If he didn't kill his brother, which I wouldn't put it past him.
Yet at the time, no one connected the mild-mannered Ed Gein to the tavern lady's disappearance.
And Mary Hogan became a cold case and Ed continued about his business for a few more years.
And then there was Mrs. Bernice Worden. who was 58 and was the owner of Warden's Hardware Store.
And it was the main hardware store in Plainfield.
And she was a familiar figure in the community.
And on the opening day of deer hunting season, November 16th 1957, Plainfield was quiet as many men were in the woods hunting.
And Bernice opened her shop as usual that morning.
And at around 930 AM a witness saw the store's pickup truck driving away from the rear of the building but thought little of it at the time.
And the hardware store then remained utterly empty the whole day.
And it wasn't until 5 pm that Bernice's son, Deputy Frank Warden, checked on the store and he found a disturbing scene inside.
The cash register was open and bloodstains splattered the floor, and Bernice was nowhere to be found.
And Frank immediately suspected foul play and, as a lawman, he started piecing clues together on the spot.
And he recalled that the previous evening Ed had been in the store and said he'd be back the next morning to buy antifreeze.
And sure enough, the last sales receipt written by Bernice that day was for a gallon of antifreeze.
Timestamped the morning of her disappearance.
Ed wasn't the smartest fella, as we're seeing.
So Ed, the quiet handyman who occasionally came by, was suddenly the prime and only suspect in bernice warden's apparent abduction.
And that evening officers from washara county sheriff's department went out to look for ed and bernice and they ultimately found ed and arrested him, and some accounts mentioned at a west plainfield grocery store and others mentioned he was found at a neighbor's place, but we don't know for sure and then police would proceed to the gene property, uncertain of what they would find.
And it was dark as the officers cautiously entered Ed's yard and outbuildings and Deputy Sheriff Sclee and others had to light their way to cut through the gloom.
And what they discovered would forever scar them.
Because in the shed, they caught a ghastly sight.
And it would be the body of Bernice Warden.
And at the point that they found her, her head had been removed and she was hanging upside down from a wooden crossbar, at her ankles, essentially hung like a slaughtered deer, and her body would also be dressed out like a game animal.
But bernice's cause of death would be a shot with a 22 caliber rifle.
So, trembling but determined, the police pressed on into ed gein's house of horrors and inside that filthy, evil farmhouse revealed a scene beyond any nightmare.
And the search team found evidence of human remains literally everywhere.
It was a chamber of grotesqueries, a hellish workshop littered with the fruits of Ed's macabre hobby.
And among the stomach churning discoveries documented by crime lab technicians were human bones, countless whole bones and fragments strewn about skulls.
Some were affixed to Ed's bedposts like bizarre ornaments, and others had their tops cut off and were being used as soup bowls.
And there were a a crazy amount of items in the home just made of human skin, including waist baskets, chair seats, clothing and masks, and organs and other body parts, including noses, were found in paper bags.
Lips and other body parts had been fashioned into other things you'd use in your house, like a pull for a window shade.
And they would find Bernice's head inside the home, inside of a burlap sack.
And her heart would be found in a plastic bag right next to the stove.
And it's often said Ed was intending to cook or eat it, though Ed denied cannibalism, even though he was extremely fascinated with cannibalism, as we know.
But the list is quite literally endless.
And if this?
This video is probably already on the hit list for YouTube, but I just you have to look at it yourself.
I cannot say these things on the Internet, because the sheer volume of human material in that house was staggering and photos were taken of everything as evidence.
And then the remains were decently disposed of, according to officials, meaning they were eventually given proper burials or incinerated to put those poor, unfortunate souls to rest.
So in custody, Ed Gein proved to be compliant and even a helpful prisoner.
And once the shock of his capture subsided, Gein confessed in detail to how he had been obtaining most of those body parts.
And he calmly explained his grave robbing exploits to investigators as if discussing just a normal hobby.
And, according to Gein, between 1947 and 1952 he made around 40 nocturnal visits to local cemeteries in Plainfield and nearby towns.
And he preferred times when there was a recent burial of women in middle age.
And those were the obituaries he watched for.
And Ed stated that on many of those trips, he was in a hazy trance-like state.
And in about 30 of those instances, he would wake up from this daze while standing in the cemetery and then head home empty-handed, leaving the graves in proper condition.
However, in those times he didn't, Wake up!
He did carry out the act of digging up a coffin, opening it, and stealing the remains.
And he was selective, often taking only certain parts that he needed.
Usually he only took the head and some other parts of the body.
Time Magazine summarized from his confession.
Only once an entire female corpse.
And Gein's recollections were so specific that he was able to point authorities to the exact graves he had violated.
And, in total, Gein confessed to raiding nine graves and using the parts from those graves, dead corpses.
Given the degraded conditions of some remains, it's possible he disturbed even more graves than he recalled, but nine were confirmed to investigators' satisfaction.
And Ed's grave-ropping methodology revealed just how calculated yet deranged his actions were, because he often struck shortly after the funeral, when the grave had not yet been finished and Plainsfield's sandy soil made digging a lot easier.
And Ed had the cover of night and the isolation of the cemetery to hide his crimes.
And as for motive, Gein told police exactly what we've covered.
He was in a daze longing for his mother and felt compelled to go to the graveyard and dig.
And he admitted that after his mother's death he began fashioning his woman suit to try to become her and have her close to him again.
Just saying it like it's just no big deal.
Like it's a... casual Tuesday activity everyone does.
And in a way, these grave thefts were Ed's twisted form of grief therapy, but obviously inexcusable.
But in his mind, he was using the dead to fill the void Augusta left.
And in the end, law enforcement concluded that Ed's capacity for violence was likely focused specifically on women who resembled his mother and were of his peculiar interest.
And psychiatrists later concurred that Gein's pathology was not that of a typical serial killer driven to kill indiscriminately.
Rather, he had a very specific and bizarre drive stemming from his mother, fixation.
So, while Gein is often called a serial killer in pop culture, Technically his confirmed murders stopped at two, which is Mary Hogan and Bernice Warden.
And the rest of his victims were already deceased, stolen from graves, not killed by his own hand.
Although...
I'm still convinced he killed his brother, so I would make him a serial killer.
But we don't know that for sure.
So that's allegedly.
But families had to grapple with this devastating knowledge that their loved one's body had been mutilated by Gein after burial.
I can't even imagine just knowing that a family member has been stolen and then crafted into a household at home.
It's just so, it's like, it's just a long time ago, but my God, it is horrific to think about.
It was just a final insult that horrified the community.
And throughout all these revelations, Ed Gein sat in custody with a sort of mild detachment.
And those who interacted with him were struck by how calm he remained even as he described the monstrous acts that he committed.
And when asked why he hadn't engaged in any sort of romantic acts with the bodies, Gein gave a straightforward answer.
And he said, they smelled too bad.
It was just as if he truly lacked any conventional understanding of morality or the enormity of his crimes.
He was more concerned with practical matters like odor.
And in Ed's distorted mind, wearing a human skin suit and eating from skull bones were part of his private, totally normal world.
And he showed almost no comprehension of why others were so appalled.
And with Ed Gein's confession and the evidence from his farm, the case was largely solved.
And what remained was to see how the justice system would handle someone who had committed deeds.
So, beyond the pale,
And the legal proceedings would determine whether Ed Gein was sane and accountable for his actions and what to do with the butcher of Plainfield now that he was off the streets.
So when Sheriff Artsklee and other officers entered the Gein farm that night, they stumbled into one of the most horrific crime scenes in American history, as we know.
And these were seasoned small town cops and volunteer deputies.
But nothing could have prepared them for what they found in that dark farmhouse, particularly the discovery of Bernice Warden's deceased body.
So, with heavy hearts and just growing dread, the team moved through the cluttered house and systemically uncovered Ed's ghastly collection.
So news of the house of horrors spread rapidly and the investigation expanded with assistance from state agents and crime lab personnel.
And every item in Gein's house was photographed and cataloged as evidence, and forensic pathologists and investigators worked to identify the origin of several of the body parts.
And they matched some to known graveyard vacancies and others to Mary Hogan and Bernice Worden, as we know.
But it was a massive undertaking that turned the Gein farm into a forensic excavation site.
And household tools were gathered and tested.
And over the following days, as Ed's confessions came in, local authorities had to quietly exhume several graves to verify Ed's claims.
And they did this under the radar to avoid a media circus at the cemeteries.
And the results corroborated Ed's stories.
And during those initial interrogations, Ed proved unusually forthcoming, as we know, perhaps feeling relieved that his secret life was finally out in the open.
And he spoke freely with investigators about the details of what he had done.
However, Sheriff Art Sclee, the man who led the investigation, famously lost his temper at one point.
Because, faced with this mild-mannered ghoul calmly describing his monstrous acts, Sclee snapped and he reportedly slammed Ed's head into a brick wall during questioning, out of rage and revulsion.
I kind of get it.
Is it right?
No.
But also...
He killed people, you know?
And this assault resulted in Gein's early statements being ruled inadmissible in court because they were deemed coerced.
And it also weighed heavily on Scully's psyche.
And the sheriff was deeply traumatized by what he had seen in that farmhouse.
Of course I can't even.
You're just a small town cop and you just come across this, this like the pit of hell, basically.
I don't know.
It's just...
It's all really messed up.
And people who knew him said he was never the same after encountering the Gein case.
And tragically, Sclee died of a heart attack in 1968 at the age of 43, just before Ed Gein's trial.
So I can only imagine that stress was a factor in that.
Meanwhile, as evidence was being collected, the case against Ed Gein for the murder of Bernice Warden and the murder of Mary Hogan, which he had confessed to, was solidifying.
And the gruesome physical evidence from his property was overwhelming.
And of course, Ed's own admissions filled in the narrative of both murders.
Investigators also interrogated Gein about various unsolved cases of missing persons in Wisconsin, fearing that perhaps his bloodlust extended beyond Hogan and Worden.
And they specifically asked about two cases.
Georgia Weckler, an eight-year-old girl who vanished in 1947, and Evelyn Hartley, a 14-year-old babysitter, who was abducted in 1953.
Because both cases had grabbed headlines and remained mysteries.
And Gein was cooperative during questioning and even took two lie detector tests regarding these disappearances.
And he denied any sort of involvement in those or any other murders beyond Hogan and Warden.
And the polygraph results seemed to back him up.
And investigators found zero physical evidence linking Gein to those particular crimes.
Which I mean it makes sense that he's not connected to those, because he was clearly targeting women that reminded him of his mother and every person that he desecrated.
There was evidence in the house.
So I believe without a shadow of a doubt that he did not have anything to do with those murders.
Personally,
It doesn't make sense with his MO.
And obviously that's what authorities thought as well.
And the town of Plainfield was left in a state of shock, fear, and dark fascination.
Neighbors realized with horror that the friendly man who had babysat their children and allegedly brought them home venison, meat, Ed claimed was from deer, though it was later suspected some of that venison might not have been deer at all, which is strange. terrifying, and disgusting, had been living amongst human organs and just flesh.
And many longtime residents refused to speak of all the events at all, as if trying to push the nightmare out of memory.
And the notoriety of Ed Gein made Plainfield the reluctant focus of national attention.
And the local hardware store, the site of Warden's murder, suddenly became a true crime landmark, a sign of advertising.
An antifreeze sale was ironically sitting out front when curious tourists started coming by.
Just a stark reminder of the innocuous errand that lured bernice warden to her death, which is just so sad and sick.
I mean like these are people, these are people And they were just violated horribly.
So, like I understand, obviously I have a true crime channel, but just to be like excited about I don't know it, just it creeps me out.
I don't I don't understand that.
I never get used to telling these cases at all, especially these kinds of cases, my lord.
So as authorities processed the gene's crime scene, journalists were banging on the door for any lurid detail they could publish, and on december 2nd 1957, life magazine ran a spread titled house of horror stuns the nation, complete with photographs of gene's creepy farmhouse and descriptions of the ghastly evidence.
And Americans from coast to coast read about the mild-mannered farmer who had turned his home into a human slaughterhouse and scavenged graveyards under the moonlight.
The name Ed Gein became synonymous with a new level of depravity.
And what made it all the more chilling was that Ed was not a gangland criminal or an urban maniac.
He was a seemingly ordinary small town neighbor.
And the story just tapped into a primal fear that unimaginable evil could be lurking in the most mundane places.
And the aftermath in Plainfield was chaotic.
And so many people came to town that the authorities worried someone might torch Gein's house or steal evidence.
In Gein's property.
The house and 195 acres of land was eventually boarded up and set to be auctioned the next spring.
And there were even rumors that some entrepreneur might buy the house and turn it into a museum or a tourist attraction.
And this idea appalled the townspeople rightfully so.
In March of 1958, just days before the auction, Gein's house mysteriously burned to the ground in an overnight fire.
And the fire marshal suspected arson, noting that a rubbish fire had been started near the home by a cleanup crew and that the flames somehow reached the house, but nothing was proven.
And I genuinely think that's for the best, to be honest.
And many locals quietly felt a sense of relief seeing the House of Horrors reduced to ashes, including its said Plainfield fire chief, who happened to be Bernice Warden's son, potentially insinuating that not everything was done to stop the fire.
And when Ed Gein, sitting in jail, was informed that his house had burned down, he only shrugged and said just as well.
And one artifact from Ed's life that did survive was his infamous Ford sedan, and the same car he had used to haul bodies, both corpses from graves and the bodies of his murder victims.
And, in a bizarre ending, the car was sold at a public auction for 760 to a carnival sideshow operator named Bunny Gibbons.
And Benny then charged curiosity seekers 25 cents admission to see the car at fairs.
So literally, people lined up to pay a quarter to appear through the windows of the old Ford imagining what horrors its trunk had carried.
What the shit?
But this grim exhibit just underscores how Ed Gein's case immediately embedded itself in pop culture and the public imagination.
And from an investigative standpoint the Gein case was unique in that the crime scene was the evidence, because practically every horrific item in Ed's house was a piece of evidence of some crime, either murder, grave theft or body mutilation.
And the forensic work involved identifying the remains and linking them to known cases.
And, all told, the remains of 11 women were accounted for and the two Gein admitted to killing and pieces from nine exhumed bodies.
And forensic pathologists also had determined the cause of death for the two victims.
Bernice Warden's forensic analysis confirmed she died of a gunshot wound to the head, and Mary Hogan's remains were less complete.
But there was no evidence that Gein had tortured these women at all.
And their deaths were quick with a bullet for each.
Unlike many serial killers, Ed did not seem to derive any sort of pleasure from killing itself.
Rather, it was what he did with the bodies after death that fulfilled his warped desires.
In fact, later psychiatric evaluations noted that Ed's goal wasn't to cause suffering, but to obtain bodies to satisfy his obsession.
And this is a key distinction in understanding Gein's psychology.
Moreover, one doctor's report mentioned that Ed felt a sense of comfort being in the presence of these gruesome trophies, as if they were tangible reminders of his dear mother.
And the evidence also confirmed Ed's methodical approach to his grisly craft.
And the existence of so many body parts turned into household items was shocking to say the least.
But those rooms that were Augusta's remained pristine under a thick layer of dust, which corroborated Ed's statement that he left those areas untouched after her death.
And one of the final steps in the investigation was determining if Ed Gein was fit to stand trial.
The sheer bizarreness of the crimes immediately raised questions about his mental state.
Was this a sane man who had simply hidden his evil well, or a just, very disturbed individual who was lost in his delusion?
And the evidence, especially the woman's suit, hinted strongly at profound mental illness or psychosis.
So part of the evidence collection extended beyond physical artifacts into psychological evaluation.
And then, the weeks following his arrest, Ed was examined by doctors to assess his competency and sanity, which would be crucial in the legal proceedings.
And the diligent work of the police in preserving evidence and Ed's own unhesitant confessions left little doubt about the extent of his deeds.
And by early 1958 the focus was shifting from what Ed Gein had done now horrifically clear to why he had done it and how the justice system should deal with someone who had effectively become a living legend of madness.
So within days after his arrest and many confessions, he was formally charged with one count of first-degree murder for Bernice Worden's death.
And the murder of Mary Hogan, while acknowledged, was put aside initially, as the Worden case alone was enough to proceed.
So on November 21st, 1957, Ed Gein appeared in Washara County Court for his arraignment.
And Gein stood before the judge and his attorney entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity.
And this plea was not surprising.
Because, given the nature of his crimes, the defense's strategy was clearly going to be that Ed was insane and not criminally responsible.
And in support of this, doctors had already begun evaluating Ed.
And he would undergo a psychiatric assessment soon after arrest.
And the initial diagnosis was that Ed Gein was, in fact, mentally ill.
Which, yeah.
Yeah, dude.
I feel like he needs to go into a... he needs to go see doctors.
And he was actually preliminarily diagnosed with schizophrenia.
In late 1957, Gein was declared mentally incompetent and thus unfit for trial.
And as a result, the judge ordered him committed to a state facility for the criminally insane.
Specifically, Ed Gein was sent to Central State Hospital for the Criminally Insane in Waupun Wisconsin, which was a secure psychiatric institution housed in what is now the Dodge Correctional Institution.
Sorry if I pronounced anything wrong.
And this period from 1957 to 1968 essentially put any criminal trial on hold.
And Ed Gein lived in a mental hospital where doctors observed him, treated him and gradually evaluated whether he could regain competence.
And the public, however, was clamoring for answers and justice, which is completely understandable.
And many people in Plainfield would have loved to see Ed Gein tried and even executed for what he did.
But American law has protections for the mentally ill and clearly Ed's grasp on reality was in question.
And the judge's decision to institutionalize him rather than proceed immediately with the trial indicated that professionals truly believed Ed Gein might not understand the charges or be able to assist in his own defense at the time.
Essentially, Ed was placed in limbo.
Not a free man by any means, but not yet convicted of murder either.
So for about 10 years after his arrest, Ed Gein remained in state custody at mental hospitals, during which time he underwent treatment and periodic evaluations.
And by the late 1960s doctors concluded that Ed's condition had stabilized to the point where he could participate in legal proceedings.
In other words, he was deemed mentally competent to stand trial now.
So the wheels of justice turned again and a trial date was set.
So the Gein trial began on November 7th, 1968, a full 11 years after his crimes were uncovered.
And to avoid the circus of jury trial and due to the challenges of finding an impartial jury given Gein's infamy, the defense requested, and the court agreed, that the trial be conducted without a jury.
And this meant Judge Robert H Gallmar would hear the case and render the verdict himself, acting as fact finder.
And the trial was a relatively quick affair, lasting just one week, which is crazy.
And during this trial, the prosecution focused solely on the murder of Bernice Worden.
And the judge and state officials had decided that the trying ed for Mary Hogan's murder or any other crimes, like the grave desecrations, was unnecessary and potentially prohibitively expensive, given the outcome would likely be the same.
As Judge Gallmore later wrote, due to cost consideration, Gein was tried for only one murder, that of Mrs Worden, even though he had in essence confessed to Hogan's killing as well.
The evidence presented was overwhelming and uncontested by the defense in terms of fact.
And Gein's own statements and the forensic evidence all made it absolutely clear that Ed had killed Bernice Worden.
And one psychiatrist testified about an interview with Gein in which Ed described the shooting.
And Ed claimed he hadn't planned to kill Bernice and that he couldn't remember if it was intentional or not.
And he said he was examining a rifle on the wall in her store.
It had a bullet in it and the gun went off, shooting Bernice before he realized what he was doing.
And he then said he couldn't remember anything else that morning.
And the story was possibly an attempt by Ed to rationalize his actions, but it didn't change the end result.
And he clearly did go on to butcher the body, which is not something one does in a daze, if they're sane.
But such details were more relevant to the insanity determination than the guilt determination.
And on November 14th 1968 Judge Golmore delivered his verdict and he found Ed Gein guilty of first degree murder in the death of Bernice Worden.
However, the trial was split into two parts, one for guilt and one for sanity.
Having found him guilty of the act, the court then had to decide whether Ed was legally sane or insane at the time of the crime.
And in a second proceeding focused on mental health, doctors for both the state and defense testified to Ed's mental condition.
And after hearing the psychiatric opinions, Judge Golmar ruled that Ed Gein was not guilty by reason of insanity.
So in practical terms, this meant Ed would not go to prison, but would instead be committed to a secure mental hospital, like he was in for the past 11 years already, essentially for life, given the severity of his crimes and the unlikelihood of any cure.
So Ed Gein was ordered to be returned to Central State Hospital for the criminally insane, where he would remain indefinitely.
And Judge Goldmar's conclusion was that Gein was insane and could not be held fully responsible for his actions.
And Dr Edward Kelher, head of Chicago's Municipal Court Psychiatric Institute, labeled Gein as schizophrenic of an unusual sort.
And he claimed his case was unparalleled in modern history.
But regardless of specific diagnosis, all experts agreed Ed was profoundly mentally ill.
And the legal standard for insanity in Wisconsin at the time, asked whether the defendant lacked substantial capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct or conform his conduct to the law.
And in Gein's case the consensus was that he met the standard and he was unable to fully comprehend or control his bizarre compulsions.
And because Ed Gein was only tried for Bernice Worden's murder.
That is the only murder conviction on his record.
Technically,
And Mary Hogan's murder was acknowledged, but never adjudicated, unfortunately.
However, in the public mind and historical record, Ed Gein is unrecognizable, unequivocally considered responsible for Hogan's death as well.
And Ed did admit it on multiple occasions as mentioned.
And so with the bang of the gavel, the criminal proceedings against Ed Gein concluded.
And there was no dramatic jury sentencing or a death penalty, just a quiet end.
And Ed was just to vanish into the halls of a mental institution to live out his days under psychiatric care.
And the people of Plainfield likely felt a mixture of relief and frustration.
Relief that Gein would never roam free again and frustration that the trial was so short and that he wasn't punished in a more retributive way.
Yet practically, Ed Gein's fate was sealed.
He would spend the rest of his life confined and the small farming community he terrorized could begin the slow process of healing and trying to forget the name Ed Gein.
Though the wider world would not let that memory fade.
So, after being declared unfit for trial in 1957, Ed Gein was committed to Central State Hospital for the Criminally Insane in Waupun, Wisconsin.
Sorry if I said that wrong.
And he arrived there as one of the most notorious patients in the country.
But behind the walls of the institution, Ed quickly faded into anonymity in a sense.
And astonishingly, staff and doctors found Ed Gein to be a model patient during his years at Central State.
And the man who had once upholstered chairs with human skin now spent his days in a structured psychiatric environment and apparently adapted with ease.
And according to Harold Shechker, author of Deviant, Gein was blissful and calm in the hospital.
And he never needed tranquilizers or special restraints to keep him in line.
And in group therapy and daily routines, Ed was cooperative and polite.
And he even got along well with other patients, causing no disruptions.
And this compliant behavior earned him a reputation among the staff as a practically amiable inmate.
And it seems that, in a twisted way, Ed actually felt at home in this institution, which makes sense with the way he grew up.
And a forensic psychiatrist later theorized why saying Gein had grown up under a domineering, authoritarian mother Augusta, So living in a strict, regimented hospital with clear rules and authority, figures may have felt comfortingly familiar to him, which just makes total sense to me.
Essentially the loss of freedom and choice might have been a relief to Ed.
And he was back in an environment where he was told what to do at all times, echoing his childhood.
And Dr Gail Saltz, a psychiatrist who reviewed Gein's case, pointed out that someone like Ed, raised in an oppressive home, might actually thrive under similar conditions as an adult, because it's what he's used to.
And that appears to have been the case.
And nurses and aides noted that the only thing unsettling about Ed's presence was his habit of staring silently at female staff with a blank, intense gaze.
No thanks!
And he would watch the nurses in a way that made them very uncomfortable, perhaps an echo of his old obsessions.
And doctors couldn't be sure if his stare indicated uh romantic thoughts, violent urges or just a disassociative state of daydreaming.
And we all know what he does when he daydreams.
And some observed it as a nobody's home look.
Possibly suggesting Ed would sometimes detach from reality a phenomenon consistent with certain mental illnesses or trauma responses.
And despite these eerie, staring episodes, he remained nonviolent and passive in the hospital setting.
And during his time in central state, it's likely Gein was periodically reevaluated to see if his mental state had improved.
And by the mid 1960s doctors found him stable enough that he could potentially participate in legal proceedings.
And this led to 1968 competency ruling and trial we already covered.
And notably, even after being found not guilty by reason of insanity in 1968, Ed was not released.
And he was simply sent back to the institutional care, as the verdict stipulates, an indefinite commitment rather than freedom.
So in 1978, Ed Gein was moved to the Mendota Mental Health Institute in Madison, Wisconsin.
And at Mendota, Ed spent the last several years of his life.
And he was about 72 when he transferred there, an elderly man by any standard.
And reports from Mendota indicated Ed's quiet life continued much as before.
And he was a low maintenance patient who caused no trouble at all with the staff.
And the truth is, Ed Gein in his 70s seemed more like a benign grandfatherly figure than the ghoulish grave robber of his youth.
However, not everyone forgot his true identity and some staff members who had seen the case file or remembered the news had understandable wariness around him.
Annette's doctor noted that while he was socially appropriate most of the time, he had essentially no insight into the severity of his own crimes.
And Ed could discuss what he'd done in a flat factual way but never truly grasped the moral enormity.
So Ed Gein lived out 27 years in captivity after his arrest.
And as he entered his late seventies, his health declined severely.
And on July 26th 1984, Ed Gein died at the age of 77 due to respiratory failure complicated by lung cancer.
And he took his last breath in the Mendota Mental Health Institute, ending the life of one of America's most notorious criminals.
And in death, as in life, Ed remained a figure of fascination and revulsion.
And though by then the world had moved on to other horrors and other stories, the question arose what to do with Ed Gein's body.
And in a final poetic turn, Ed Gein was buried back in Plainfield in the same cemetery where he had stolen so many bodies years before.
Specifically, Ed was interred in the Gein family plot beside his mother Augusta and his brother Henry and his father George.
And it's weird thought that Ed's remains now lie in the hollowed ground he once desecrated.
To me, at least.
And at his burial there was no publicized funeral and he was just quietly laid to rest, likely to avoid any sort of spectacle.
And Ed's grave itself became a target of vandalism over the years, as tourists and treasure hunters chipped off pieces of his tombstone for souvenirs.
And it got so bad that in 2000, Ed Gein's headstone was stolen completely from Plainfield Cemetery.
And the missing tombstone was later recovered by police near Seattle in 2001, which is kinda crazy.
And after that, the gravestone was placed in storage to prevent any further incident.
And today Ed Gein's grave is unmarked, a patch of earth next to his mother's marker.
But locals know the spot.
And occasionally curious visitors still find their way to the Gein family plot, though the cemetery doesn't advertise it, obviously.
And in death, perhaps the spirits of those who wronged found some peace, knowing that Ed Gein could never harm another soul.
In Plainfield, the little town that endured the unimaginable likely, breathed a sigh of relief that the butcher of Plainfield was finally gone for good.
Yet even as Ed Gein was lowered into the ground, his story was already taking on a life of its own in American lore and pop culture, ensuring that his name would never be forgotten, for better or for worse.
And the gruesome tale of Ed Gein horrified 1950s America, but it also captivated the imagination of writers and filmmakers, as we know.
And Gein's crimes directly inspired some of the most iconic characters in horror fiction.
In mere years after Gein's 1957 arrest, writer Robert Block was living just 35 miles away from Plainfield and followed the local news reports.
And in 1959, he published a novel called Psycho, featuring a disturbed murderer named Norman Bates.
And Bates, a mild-mannered guy with a dead mother complex and a penchant for dressing in her clothes, was heavily inspired by Gein.
And Block took creative liberties.
His character was younger and more explicitly schizophrenic.
But the core idea of this mother-obsessed killer living in a rural isolation came straight from the Gein case.
And Alfred Hitchcock famously adapted Psycho into a classic 1960 film of the same.
And on screen, Norman Bates, played by Anthony Perkins, became a chilling embodiment of Ed Gein archetype, an outwardly shy and polite, but harboring deadly secrets in the fruit cellar, including the preserved corpse of his own mother.
And while Psycho toned down the gore, no skin suits in that story.
The psychological profile was pure Gein and the cultural impact was huge.
And Psycho shocked audiences and essentially gave birth to a modern slasher genre, cementing Norman Bates and, by extension, Ed Gein into pop culture.
And a little over a decade later, another horror classic drew from Gein's grisly repertoire.
And that was Leatherface in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre in 1974.
It's basically Ed Gein turned up to a Leavitt, because in the film a family of backwoods killers in rural Texas as trespassers.
And the hulking, mute leather face character wears a mask made of human skin and decorates his home with furniture made from bones and body parts, all straight from the catalog of Gein's real crimes.
And the movie's director, Toby Hooper, cited Gein as an influence, and audiences immediately recognized the parallels.
Leatherface's grisly crafts and cannibalistic household.
Take Ed's morbid DIY tendencies to a fictional extreme.
And the Texas Chainsaw Massacre became a cult hit and made the idea of a house filled with human remains a staple horror scenario and a direct legacy of Gein's own house of horrors.
And perhaps the most widely known Gein-inspired character is Buffalo Bill in Thomas Harris's novel The Silence of the Lambs.
One of my favorites, to be honest, which came out in 1988.
And in 1991, it had a film adaptation.
And Buffalo Bill is a serial killer who murders women.
It's just a giant fictionalized retelling of Ed Gein's post-mortem activities.
And Harris, a meticulous researcher of real crime cases, amalgamated several murderers to create Buffalo Bill.
But Ed Gein's influence is unmistakable.
And Buffalo Bill's twisted goal of transforming himself into a woman by wearing his victim's skin is lifted directly from Gein's known goal of becoming his mother.
And this film would go on to win Academy Awards and introduced millions to a character whose DNA can be traced back to Plainfield's ghoul.
And many other horror movie villains and stories have echoes of Ed Gein.
But beyond inspiring fictional characters, Ed Gein's story has been retold directly in various forms of media.
And true crime books were among the first before any sort of movies.
And he's had countless biographical movies as well.
And even in more recent years.
On Netflix he's mentioned multiple times in one of the greatest shows ever that I'm so upset got canceled Line Hunter.
And Gein's case is often used in forensic psychology discussions about the development of serial killers.
And even though Gein technically isn't a serial killer by body count, because he murdered two people only allegedly
His psychology and methods are so extreme that he's grouped within the popular imagination.
And Ed Gein is also the focus of the upcoming season of Netflix's monster show, releasing October 3rd.
And the series has been a hit in past, featuring notable monsters like Jeffrey Dahmer which, if you watch my Dahmer video, we know how I feel about that.
So with this show coming up, I think the day this video comes out, or very close to it, I'm nervous to watch it because I don't like.
The romanticizing of serial killers.
I think I'll watch it, but I'm, you know, with a grain of salt.
Because Hollywood just loves to make everything look ten times more dramatic.
Although this is quite a dramatic case.
Or they make the audience feel sympathy for a literal monster.
But in this case specifically, and I feel like it is the only case I can think of...
With his childhood and everything, this is a case of almost pure nurture.
I think there is some nature in there, but his mother made him into a monster.
That's what the show is called.
And I have empathy for child Ed Gein, but as an adult, I mean, I don't know.
He also got diagnosed with schizophrenia, which is, in fact, nature.
I'm scared to watch the show because they usually butcher it.
But now you have all the facts.
So if you do watch the show, you can be as critical as you want to be, because now you're an Ed Gein expert.
But if you guys really want me to watch the show and you want some sort of deep dive on the show and whether it's good or bad or what it is accurate in or not accurate in, I can totally do that.
Maybe that could be interesting actually.
So let me know down in the comments.
Type Ed Gein show review.
And then I'll know.
And then I'll know.
But that is the case of Ed Gein.
That is the deep dive.
It was a long one.
You know, again, heart always goes out to the victims and their families.
Absolutely horrific, horrific way to have your life ended and even afterlife, to be treated like just today's piece of shit, basically.
But if you have any other cases you want me to deep dive into, let me know down below.
I always read the comments.
And until then, I will see you next time, okay?
Stay safe.
Thank you.
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