February 24, 2025 • 50 mins
Ed Gein's life is a disturbing exploration of trauma, isolation, and the dark legacy of mental illness manifesting in heinous crimes. By dissecting his journey, we reflect on the societal implications and responsibilities surrounding such tragedies.
• Ed Gein’s childhood marked by dysfunction and neglect
• Augustine Gein’s toxic influence on Ed's psyche
• The impact of familial violence and isolation
• First confirmed murder of Mary Hogan
• Arrest after the murder of Bernice Worden
• Ed's gruesome artifacts discovered in his home
• Trial outcomes and psychiatric evaluation
• Cultural impact and ethical implications of glorifying criminals
• Importance of remembering the victims and their stories
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 2 (00:38):
Nothing creeps me out more than kind of like the
story of the person that we'recovering today.
He's the first serial killer,supposedly I don't think he is,
he's only got two confirmed thatwe know that had a fan club
established.
He was admired by other serialkillers.
In fact John Wayne Gacy didpaintings of him.
So today we will be talkingabout the life and crimes of Ed
(01:05):
Gein.
So I am Richard.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
I'm Heather.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
And we are Deviant Criminology.
So Ed Gein has kind of left alasting impact on American
culture and true crime history.
So he's kind of the groundworkfor so many things that now we
consider like the nightmaresthat we had as children and
middle-aged and a lot of thiskind of goes back to his
(01:29):
upbringing and then theglorification that would come
afterwards in media.
So I guess, to start it off, edGein was born on August 27th
1906, only 73 years before I was, only 73 years before I was.
So in La Crosse, wisconsin, hischildhood was marked by
(01:52):
dysfunction.
His father was George Gain, whowas a severe alcoholic who would
often be absent and when he waspresent was kind of abusive.
So imagine Ed kind of growingup in a family where dad's just
stumbling home drunk every night, walking up the stairs of the
house, being physically andverbally abusive to his mother
(02:14):
and him and his brother On that.
His mother was Augusta.
She was a fanatically religiouswoman who dominated the
household.
So it's very interesting tohave this alcoholic father
dynamic.
But yet the mother was verydominating in the situation.
So that may show some of therelationship aspects that would
(02:37):
come back later to influenceEd's life and then finally Ed's
life.
And then, finally, there wasHenry Gane, who was five years
older than Ed.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
So the family moved to an isolated 195-acre farm
near Plainfield Wisconsin in1915.
It's kind of funny becausethere's La Crosse Wisconsin and
Plainfield Wisconsin and there'salso a La Crosse Indiana and a
Plainfield Indiana, both ofwhich I have family that live in
.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
I did not know.
There was a La Crosse Indiana.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
There is.
It's in northern Indiana.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
There's like a lack of names for cities in Indiana.
We are not very creative withour names.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
No.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
It's like the Irish nicknames and the Italian
nicknames.
Yes, like Greenfield.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Greenland, whiteland, indiana just really went for
the lights right there on thatone.
Ed's upbringing wascharacterized by extreme
isolation, rarely leaving thefarm except for school, verbal
and physical abuse from bothparents and bullying at school
due to his physical features andshyness, his childhood was
marked by a dysfunctional familyenvironment and his mother's
extreme religious beliefs, whichsignificantly shaped his
(03:55):
development and we'll see as wego on.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
like his mom, her devout religion, almost
borderline into misogyny againstwomen and a hatred of other
women, and Ed also was not.
It's kind of portrayed himalways as kind of like this
bumbling idiot and kind of notvery bright.
But he actually was intelligent, Like he excelled in reading,
(04:18):
probably not as good at mathfrom what I've seen, but very
good at reading, writing.
He enjoyed those aspects ofeducation.
So it's not like he was justsome idiot which kind of you see
this physical example of himand this view of him, but that's
not who he was.
So a little bit about thecommunity itself.
(04:40):
So in 1920,.
So a little bit about thecommunity itself.
So in 1920, the populationnumbered somewhere around 1,550
residents in Plainfield.
These numbers are a little offbecause the statistics that we'd
normally use from like censusand stuff aren't really accurate
.
For this time period PlainfieldTownship contributed another
750 residents and then othersurrounding townships added as
(05:04):
many as 1,500 more.
So the general population ofwhat would have been seen as
Plainfield in the 1920s wasroughly around 3,400 men, women
and children.
A very small rural part ofWisconsin which I think kind of
plays a part in the developmentof this story as it moves
forward.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
Because he's so isolated and he's basically only
exposed to those weird familyelements that he's dealing with.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
That and there's also this thing with like once the
stories of what he becomesbreaks later on, a lot of local
newspapers and stuff don'treally cover the story because
there's this not wanting to makea bad example or shine a bad
light on kind of ruralcommunities.
So a lot of the local papersbriefly covered it but didn't
(05:52):
get into any details or cover itfor an extended period of time.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
So, as you said, plainfield was a small rural
town and the area wascharacterized by farm fields,
wetlands and woodlands.
The Lincoln Highway passedthrough Plainfield, bringing
increased traffic and visitors.
By 1922, the Lincoln Highwaywas partially paved through
Plainfield.
The community had a smallpolice force of fewer than five
(06:17):
men.
Local businesses includedgrocery stores, restaurants and
garages.
The town had a generally sedateatmosphere before major events.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
And as this is coming in, yeah, it's a very small
rural town, it's building up alittle bit and most of
everything's locally owned, Likenot now where there's like
these chain stores and stuff.
All of these are locally ownedbusinesses and everybody kind of
knows each other and Ed'sfamily was a farming family as
well, so these weren't outcastpeople.
You know that we'll get intolike the, the, the gain families
(06:53):
known.
Well, the economy of the areafirst was kind of, like I said,
more farming and that played asignificant part of the local
economy.
So, like farmers, like Ed's dadwould have kind of almost been
at an elevated status over justthe like the local business
owners and stuff, because thefarming is what was bringing
money into the area and with thepresence of those grocery
(07:15):
stores, restaurants and garagesit did bring in a little bit
more diverse population ofbusiness owners and try to grow
the economy.
But even into his older yearsit was primarily this farming
community.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
So his mom, augusta she was a devout Lutheran and
had profound impacts on hisupbringing.
She was very religious andextremely controlling, and
extremely controlling, preachedabout the innate immorality of
the world, especially women assinful and seductive, believed
(07:51):
all women were naturallypromiscuous and instruments of
the devil, read the Bible versesdaily focusing on death, murder
and divine retribution, andinstilled in Ed that sex was
evil.
The family, of course we saidearlier, had moved to that
155-acre farm in Plainfield,wisconsin.
So he was isolated.
(08:11):
Augusta, his mom, tookadvantage of that isolation to
turn away outsiders and Edrarely left the farm except for
attending schools.
Augusta punished Ed whenever hetried to make friends At school
.
He was shy and struggled to fitin with other children.
He had a lazy eye and a lesionon his tongue that affected
speech.
(08:32):
The classmates often shunnedhim and despite social
difficulties he did fairly wellacademically, especially in
reading.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
And I think there's like so much to unpack there
with kind of that upbringing.
Like we don't really talk abouthis father and really the most
we know is he wasn't very fondof his father.
Um, the father again was anabusive alcoholic that kind of
would come home late and thingslike that, and kind of didn't
want to be near the house, uh,which kind of makes sense when
we kind of see how augusta is.
(08:59):
But this is one thing that wesee is this controlling mother
you know, that's somethingthat's been reported by other
sadistic murderers um, is thisover controlling, overbearing
mother that kind of instilledthis, not only that women are
evil, but you're not good enough, no woman's ever going to be
good enough for you and no womancan love you um, like I can.
And.
But it also makes you wonderabout her history and dynamic,
(09:23):
which of, of course, we don'treally know anything about.
But what type of family did shegrow up in?
What was you know?
If she's dealing with abusefrom her husband and putting up
with it, even though she's thiscontrolling like, why?
Like she's a very fascinatingcharacter that obviously it's
way too late now to be able tolearn more about.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
And with that dynamic you always wonder was she so
controlling because his dad wasdrunk and maybe absent, not
showing up?
Or was that drunk, absent andnot showing up because she was
so controlling?
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Yeah, which came first, the psycho mother or the
drunk father?
Yes, there's so much to kind ofagain, as we've talked about
with other cases, that those twothings of each side, like Ed ed
, when you look at his life,like there's so much abuse and
trauma that happens, but thatdoesn't excuse the other side of
him of what we'll see.
He becomes um, and there verymuch is, or lack of a better
(10:17):
term and a literary referencelike a jekyll and hyde to him
and he idolized his mother, eventhough she had that extreme
religious controlling attitude,to the point where he became
obsessed with her.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
Augusta fostered a deep disdain for women in both
Ed and Henry.
His brother, george, who wasEd's father, was an alcoholic
and physically abusive, andAugusta resented her husband and
developed a hatred for men ingeneral.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
So at this point she hates everybody and I think we
see again that this will come upin what ed does in the future.
Um, this hatred towards men,because I think there's ed loves
her but I don't think she everreciprocates it in the way he
needs to develop that attachment.
He develops an unhealthyattachment, like Bowlby would
(11:05):
say, like those stages ofdevelopment.
He didn't hit those and wasstunted One the trauma of his
father, who's obviously notgoing to attach to him and he's
not going to have anyrelationship to, and then this
mother who's almost telling youhow horrible you are, but that's
the only person that's givingyou any type of attention and
negative attention is betterthan anything and she almost
becomes an idolized figure inhis life.
(11:26):
That she's right.
Women are superior.
Well, my mom is not always like.
It's just almost that dualcontrast that's being presented
to him that creates this twistedview on society and life.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
And it's an interesting dichotomy where she
says that women are evil andseductive but men are weak.
When she says weak, like whatexactly does she mean by weak as
far as can't resist women?
Like what exactly is that?
Speaker 2 (11:52):
which it also goes back to what was dad doing when
he was out, not coming aroundlike right?
There's so much stuff that Ithink from like anybody that
studies criminal psychology Iwould love to know more about
the parents in that dynamic.
But again, it's so long ago and, as we'll see, moving forward
kind of after this case andalmost till his death, there's
(12:16):
not a lot written about it, likeit's almost kind of like swept
under the rug.
He kind of gets a resurgenceafter his death.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
So, at age 12, augusta, which is his mom,
caught Ed masturbating andgrabbed his genitals, causing
him the curse of man.
Ed dropped out of school at 14,after completing the eighth
grade, which, as you mentioned,some people thought of him as
being uneducated or slow, andI'm thinking maybe with him
dropping out of school at thatpoint and having the speech
(12:43):
problems that he had might havecontributed and and lazy eye
might have contributed to thatperception.
He developed an increasinglyintense attachment to his mother
and he believed that men wereweak and possibly wanted to be a
woman like his mother sothere's reports again.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
I always go back to like, when people are telling
you stories, after somebodycomes out and stuff comes out,
it's harder to say if it's factor fiction.
Like, is the story true andyou're just now telling it
because people are listening orare people listening?
So now you're telling a story,but there are stories that ed um
, in a bar, uh, that hefrequented quite often, had
(13:25):
talked about learning that therewas a surgery that could change
a man to a woman and there wasa conversation about that's not
even possible.
And Ed was like, well, yeah, itis, and you know, it's very
interesting to me because I'vethought about that.
So there is talk that he had inhis later life, had
conversations about, basically,gender identity, sex change,
(13:48):
basically, like I'm trying tothink of a better word, um,
which I think can directly goback to a point, to this thing
that he's been taught that youknow, men are evil and his
mother was didn't like men andhe wanting to be a woman, maybe
to be more accepted by hismother.
But also this very specificincidence at 12 years old, when
his mother catches himsupposedly masturbating and
threatens to cut off hisgenitals, saying you know, this
(14:10):
is the curse of all men.
It's reminiscent, of course.
I mean art usually reflectsyour life.
Sometimes of in red dragonthere's the scene that's
verbally heard of, uh, thegrandmother catching the boys
Like he'd wet himself, I think,and she grabs and threatens to
cut it off, and that kind ofgoes back to that gender.
(14:32):
That now you're seeing your ownbody is disgusting and that can
really, especially at thisyoung age.
Again, we talked about thosestages of development.
Now you're already seeingyourself as disgusting and your
own thoughts and naturalambitions as harmful and
disgusting.
So masturbation now becomes adirty sin that you're creating
(14:53):
instead of something that may bemore natural.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
But at the same time she hated women and thought they
were evil and seductive.
So to some extent it almostwouldn't make sense for him to
want to be a woman either,because that's also evil and the
sexuality that goes with thatis evil.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
But mom's a woman.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
And she has the last wish Moms are always right.
You know that right.
Yes, Moms are always right.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
I don't know If I had a Ouija board I would ask my
mother.
So one thing that's veryinteresting is his mental health
history.
So Gaines' mental healthhistory issues were evident from
a very early age, exhibitedsigns of gender confusion and
unhealthly sexual developmentwhich I think you know what the
stories can directly relate backto his mother's not only talk,
(15:38):
but I mean telling you that yourown genitals are disgusting and
men are disgusting.
I think probably doesn't helpthat he would later be diagnosed
with schizophrenia and then healso kind of displayed
particular beliefs andimmaturity towards sexuality.
So stunted sexual growth.
Again, you know, if you believein stage theory, development
(16:01):
really brought on by Bowlbyabout attachment and life course
development, that makes sense,all these things that he's
experiencing.
So the first person to die washis father, george, in 1940.
Then his brother, henry, diedsuspiciously in 1944 during a
(16:22):
brush fire and then finally hismother, augusta, died in 1945.
And this is kind of a tippingpoint for Ed.
The one thing that'sinteresting about this is Henry
and Ed were kind of known peoplein the community.
Ed and Henry would do like oddjobs for people, help people out
, and they were pretty liked.
So then comes this mysteriousdeath of henry in 1944.
(16:46):
So the incident occurred duringa fire near the family farms in
plainfield, wisconsin.
So, according to reports, edand henry were working to clear
some vegetation by setting fireto the farm area and this took a
tragic turn.
And this is a common, commonthing, like you see it in, like
even Indiana, where, like,they'll burn old territories
(17:07):
because supposedly the ash andstuff will help replenish the
soil.
But the official cause ofHenry's death was ruled as
asphyxia due to smoke inhalation.
However, the circumstancessurrounding his death have
raised suspicion about Ed'spotential involvement.
So one, there were someinjuries to Henry's body that
didn't match up with just anasphyxiation or any cardiac.
(17:30):
There were actual injuries.
But second, when Henry wentmissing during the fire, ed had
reported the disappearance tothe police.
But yet when they came backwith a search party, ed was
immediately able to take them toHenry's body.
So he's disappeared, but yet oh, he's exactly right here.
Upon examination of the bodyagain, suspicious bruising was
(17:51):
discovered on his head.
This physical evidence,combined with Ed's uncanny
ability to locate the body, hasled to some questions about was
Ed possibly involved?
And one thing that may havebrought that up is Henry was
kind of antagonistic towardstheir mother and defensive of Ed
.
So, henry, very much was kindof the protector of Ed against
(18:13):
his mother's abuse and you weresaying as well that.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
That when it came to that disagreement that Henry was
critical of their mother and Eddid not appreciate that.
And about this disagreementthat Henry was critical of their
mother and Ed did notappreciate that.
And about this time Henry wasalso getting ready to move out
and move in with a divorcedmother of two, so his departure
might have also had an impact onhis death.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
And I mean that's interesting because it may have
had feeling almost like he wasgoing to be abandoned.
You know dad's left, you knowgone natural circumstances again
.
But I think what's interestingto remind our listeners is that
they are 38 and 43 at this age,prospectively still living at
home.
You know, ed still has thisunhealthy attachment with his
mother who obviously, whenyou're hearing that henry's
(19:04):
having to defend them from theabuse that's coming from his
mother even in his late 30s,that this is unhealthy.
But the loss of henry removedthat potential buffer that was
there between ed and his mother.
So for another year ed has isstuck with his abusive mother
and develops even, uh, a deeper,unhealthy obsession with her.
(19:28):
So, uh, the following year ofhenry's death likely intensified
ed's dependence on his motherbecause now he no longer had
kind of his only friend really,uh, setting the stage for his
extreme reactions once her, uh,his mother passes and he's all
alone.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
Which, once she passes, he has that very
unhealthy attachment thatmanifests in.
You know he was veryobsessively devoted to her.
After her death he startssealing off her room and other
parts of the house, and thecrimes that he commits
ultimately seem to have beendriven by that relationship with
(20:06):
his mother Right so afterAugusta's death, um Ed has her
buried in a local cemetery.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
but this kind of he's alone and it kind of starts
this vicious cycle where he kindof he starts visiting her grave
a lot.
So as he's visiting her gravehe's driven by this intense
loneliness and he starts thisweird practice of digging up
graves.
Uh, so it basically becomes agrave robber, specifically
(20:35):
taking human remains.
In a particularly gruesome act,gane exhumed his own mother's
body from her grave.
Then he proceeded to remove herhead, which he twisted off with
his bare hands.
Gane then took the severed headhome and it's reported that he
tried to shrink it.
He'd read some books about headshrinking and the thought he
(20:59):
could redo it.
This act kind of marked thebeginning of his grave robbing
spree, during which he wouldmake numerous nocturnal visits
to local cemeteries over thenext few years where he exhumed
multiple bodies, primarilytargeting middle aged women.
Remain reminded him, um, of hismother.
So, and this is just startingto really like this is taking a
(21:23):
hard turn, like this goes fromobsession to obsession and it
continues to devolve.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
Somewhere I read it was like 40 nocturnal visits to,
so it wasn't just like he wenta couple times, he went often.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Yeah, this is like.
The timeframes are between 1947and 1952.
And again, he primarilytargeted middle-aged women who
had either recently died or,being a small town that he knew,
had died, exhuming the bodiesand he took home different
pieces of the body.
To become more macabre, hestarted making creations with
(22:01):
the human remains.
So Gane created a number ofdisturbing items from human skin
, including lampshades and chairseats made from human skin.
He would make bowls from humanskulls.
He had face masks and then wenton to describe design, probably
(22:24):
one of the most disturbingthings, but also something that
would become iconicized in film.
Later, ed Gein created a woman'ssuit, and it was one of the
most disturbing aspects of hiscollection of human skin items,
and here are kind of some of thedetails.
So Gein's goal was to create asuit made from human skin that
he could wear to become hismother and literally crawl into
(22:47):
her skin.
The suit was made from piecesof skin taken from female
corpses that Gein had exhumedfrom local graveyards.
Made from pieces of skin takenfrom female corpses that Gane
had exhumed from localgraveyards.
This included, like a vest withbreasts attached and leggings
made from human leg skin.
Gane would wear this suit alongwith masks made from female
(23:08):
faces and go out on his propertyand dance in the moonlight.
If any of this kind of starts tosound familiar, it is very much
the scene in Silence of theLambs, made popular by the
Goodbye Horses song or, ifyou're Clerks 2, with Jane
Silentbottom.
So when police searched Gaines'house later, they found the
partially completed skin suit,along with other clothing items
(23:29):
that he had made from humanremains.
The suit was part of Gaines'larger obsession with the female
body and his desire totransform himself into a woman.
While gruesome, the woman'ssuit was never actually
completed.
It remained a work progresswhen police arrested him and
this really goes back to thatgender dysmorphia and, I think,
mother's abuse.
(23:50):
And I want to say I think thatmother's abuse and I want to say
I think that that key moment ofhim being caught and her really
degrading him had to havesomething to do with that.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
I mean it had to have some type of an impact.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
I don't again like we'll get to like what his
outcome is or anything, but Idon't know how you would use
that as a mitigating factor in atrial if you're a defense
attorney, like, yeah, you'vedone these things, but look at
this childhood and the abuse,like the true psychological harm
that was done.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
And that might be why he ended up where he was
instead of getting the deathpenalty.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
Yeah.
So this disturbing creationhighlighted the depth of Gaines'
psychological issues and anunhealthy attachment to his
deceased mother.
The concept again of wearing askin suit is seen in the
fictional character of BuffaloBill in Silence of the Lambs,
which, god bless my loving wife.
A couple years ago for mybirthday she got me a death's
(24:50):
head, skull moth, like it'sframed and everything.
And again, it's not that I havethis like oh, buffalo bill and
Ed Gain are great.
It's that I've kind ofdedicated my life to fighting
against people like this andstudying them and helping
educate people about how to umspot, identify and protect
themselves against them and it'skind of a neat reminder of me.
Plus it's like one of myfavorites like Will.
(25:11):
It's kind of a neat reminder ofme.
Plus it's like one of myfavorites Like Will Graham,
who's one of the profilers andthat was kind of my inspiration
to get into criminal justice.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
So, even though all these grave robberies are
happening at this point, hehasn't actually killed anybody.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
Yet.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
Yet that's going to change, unfortunately for Mary
Hogan.
So Mary Hogan, a woman who wasin her 50s, was a tavern owner
and she was shot and taken toEd's farm.
Some of the key details withthis crime again, she was the
tavern owner in Pine Grove,wisconsin, which was near
(25:49):
Plainfield, wisconsin, and Edwas known to frequent her
establishment regularly.
On December 8th of 1954, atthat tavern, which was about six
miles away from his farm, heused a .22 caliber gun to her
forehead to execute her andafterwards, when she disappeared
(26:12):
from the tavern, the only thingthat was left behind was her
blood and the empty bull and theempty bullet shell casing.
The police immediatelysuspected foul play, but they
could never solve the case.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
they didn't have enough evidence, but ed had
taken her body back to his farmthat's one of those like start
into madness but sounds kind ofa little premeditated because he
brought the gun but then it's.
And one thing that I think is Idon't know because I couldn't
(26:47):
find anywhere, I've seen somethat said he didn't drive and
people like would give him ridesand then others that's.
So again we don't have therecords and I don't know if,
like, he just took the gun outof a truck, if it was there, or
if he brought it specifically tokill her.
Like, was this premeditated ora crime of opportunity?
Because going forward, hissecond murder seems more like a
(27:10):
crime of opportunity than itdoes a crime of premeditation.
His second murder seems morelike a crime of opportunity than
it does a crime ofpremeditation.
But later Gaines would confessto killing Hogan when questioned
about his second murder.
So during the search of Gaines'property, authorities found
Hogan's face among the gruesomecollection of human remains that
we had talked about.
Nat's search came off the backof his second murder.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
Which was Bernice Worden, and that was in 1957.
She had been a hardware storeowner who was shot and
decapitated.
The murder of Bernice Worden byEd Gein was a shocking crime
and it ultimately led to thediscovery of all of Ed's
(27:53):
horrific activities at his house.
Again, we said that she was the58-year-old hardware store
owner in Plainfield, wisconsin,and on November 16, 1957, she
was shot again with the .22caliber rifle and her son,
deputy Sheriff Frank Worden,found the store empty, with
(28:14):
bloodstains on the floor, butthere was a sales slip for
antifreeze.
That was the last receipt thathad been written from Worden
that morning.
Ed was supposed to be in thestore the previous evening and
was going to come back to pickup that antifreeze.
And since he was the last oneto have seen her, he was the
(28:35):
prime suspect evening and wasgoing to come back to pick up
that antifreeze.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
And since he was the last one to have seen her.
He was the prime suspect, soGane was arrested at a
Plainfield grocery store.
That evening.
When police took Gane back tothe farm and searched it is when
they made the gruesomediscovery and I've seen some
pictures of this of like he hadhuman flesh, part of the skin,
so stuff like this was likehanging from the rafters and the
(28:59):
barn and being he was trying tostrip her like a deer, Like you
(29:22):
know.
Pardon the graphicness, but itreally displays the depravity he
had and kind of his ability toeasily separate.
This wasn't a stranger to him.
This was somebody he knew.
Both of these were people heknew.
He'd had dinner before one ofthe murders.
He'd actually had dinner withlike one of the families of one
of his victims.
Like small town.
He was targeting people he knew.
(29:43):
He was taking the body parts ofpeople he knew, including his
own mother, Like.
There's obviously a lot ofpsychological issues going on
here.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
And one of the things that we talked about before we
started recording was hisnickname being the butcher of
Plainfield.
Do you want to speak on whetheryou think that that's an
accurate description and why?
Why not?
Speaker 2 (30:04):
So I to me.
I think again you're giving amoniker that raises him to a
level of something that he's not.
He's just a murderer.
He killed two people.
There's rumors that he killedmore.
The problem I have with that ishe didn't leave that town and
there's no other murders thatare reported in that time.
So to try and glorify him aslike a serial killer he's not
(30:25):
trying to glorify him as someingenious, like criminal mind.
He's not.
He's just obviously a verypsychologically disturbed
individual that targeted womenand had a lot of his own sexual
dysmorphia issues going on.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
Which to me the nickname kind of fits because of
the way they found Warden andher body, because it would have
been a similar thing to what abutcher by profession would have
done with cows and deer butcherby profession, would have done
with cows and deer.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
I can concede if you put it in that fact.
But I think just where I wascoming from was more of just
kind of like the glorificationof like oh he's this mass
murdering, like killed a lot ofwomen, like noah's too, but you
put in the concept of how thebody was hanging.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
Absolutely I could see it that way that was how I
conceptualized it when I heardthat nickname.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Two different minds looking at it from two different
perspectives.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
So again inside of his house they found all kinds
of horrific objects made fromall of those different body
parts you know masks, skullsused as bedposts and kitchen
utensils, lampshades made withfaces, chairs that were
upholstered with human skin.
And so at that point he'sobviously immediately arrested,
(31:40):
and that's in that 1957timeframe, and he is arraigned
on one count of first degreemurder on November 21st 1957.
Murder on November 21st 1957.
And that was for the secondmurder, the one Bernice Worden's
murder, and he's found unfit tostand trial and he is sent to
(32:07):
Central State Hospital.
Exactly what happens when he'sat Central State Hospital I'm
not 100% sure on, but becausehe's unfit to stand trial.
That's kind of the end of thelegal proceedings at that point.
But they pick back up in 1968.
So we're approximately 11 yearslater, fast forward into the
future, and at that pointsomebody says he is mentally fit
(32:29):
to stand trial.
So the defense attorney waiveshis right to a jury trial, which
is something that you can do.
We all know there's jury trialsand you have a right to a jury
trial jury of your peers but youcan waive that right.
And if you waive that right,then the judge becomes the trier
of fact and decides whetheryou're guilty or not guilty.
And in this case the defenseattorney waived that right and
(32:51):
requested a trial to the courtand I'm guessing part of that
would have been because of thesensational nature of the case.
I also think there wasn'treally a really good defense at
that point in time to say hedidn't do it.
I can't think of anything thatI would be able to present to
try to prove that he didn't doit.
It's not like there wassomebody else living in the
house.
It's not like he could blameHenry or his mom or anybody else
(33:14):
, like he was pretty much stuckwith that guilty point.
And one of the things with thetrial to the court sometimes you
don't have to get into as muchdetail and then it gives you
more leeway to basically beg forforgiveness or leniency from
the court and the judge and notdraw it out and not have all of
(33:35):
those proceedings so that youcan focus more on the
psychological aspect, notwhether he's guilty or not
guilty, because you know he'sgoing to be found guilty, but
focus more on the look at allthese things this person has
gone through, look what led themup to this point and at the
conclusion of that trial.
That again began November 7th of1968, it lasted about a week
(33:56):
and he was found guilty.
But then they went through thesecond phase of the trial where
they were asking psychologistsand psychiatrists to testify
whether he knew right from wrongat that point when the murder
actually happened, whether itwas intentional or accidental.
Murder actually happened,whether it was intentional or
accidental, and he said that hewasn't really sure, saying he
(34:17):
didn't really remember what hadhappened that morning.
But he didn't aim the rifle,which I don't know how you can
say I didn't aim it at her andat the same time say I don't
remember what happened.
But that's you know.
That's where you're at.
So the second part of the trialbegan on November 14th and in
that second part they weredealing with whether or not he
(34:37):
was sane and the defense wasarguing that he was not guilty
by reason of insanity and at theend of the day the judge agrees
that he was not guilty byreason of insanity.
That doesn't mean you're notguilty and you get to leave the
courthouse.
That means that you weren'tmentally able to form the mental
intent that was required at thetime to commit the crime.
But you did the acts.
(34:59):
So because of that he went backto the mental institution.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
And I've seen and read many cases where people
have tried to use insanity, Likeoh, I was enraged or I didn't
know where I was, and usuallyyou look at everything's normal
and then the crime happens.
I don't think there's any wayyou're gonna look at ed mean's
life and be like, yeah, he's acompletely normal guy until the
murders, like there wasobviously a lot going on with
(35:24):
this individual, when you'remaking human lamps and digging
up your own mother and rippingher head off with your bare hand
and potentially killing yourown brother.
So and that's I mean really.
I mean, if you go with this,potentially he committed three
murders but you have two that Idon't even know.
If you'd say that, that's theother thing.
I don't see any sexualness innature as much as it was he was
(35:46):
trying to get skin.
I never saw anything about himtrying to sexually assault or
any proof of sexual assault,more of like cutting it up to
use it as a deer.
You would not as a human being.
Speaker 3 (35:59):
One of the things I read said that he denied ever
doing anything like that becausehe said that they smelled bad
or something along those lines.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
And in that I mean again with the abuse he took
from his mother.
I mean he may have seen hisgenitals as vile and never, ever
touched himself again out offear, like I don't know.
I mean I don't want to get thatmuch down the road of kind of
like perverse, twisted uh nessof his mind when it comes to his
own sexuality.
But there obviously was the oneto remove or hide his own
(36:28):
genitals, um, either through thecreating of the woman's suit or
the talk about the sex changeoperations that were being done
over in Europe.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
So, yeah, he definitely did not have a
healthy relationship with hissexuality at that point in time.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
No, and I think that goes back to that.
I have no sympathy for the manthat murdered these people.
I have a lot of sympathy forthe child that was abused and
came up to become that monster.
Speaker 3 (36:56):
And it also makes me wonder what might've happened to
prevent that eventuality.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
If he could have been saved, which you know.
Again, that's something wenever know, like nature versus
nurture and what.
What were the breaking factorsand at what point was he beyond
being helped?
Speaker 2 (37:16):
Yeah, it's, it's very .
Or what if his you know, hehadn't killed his brother and
his brother was there to takecare of him?
And his mom dies a year laterand he's got his brother, what
healthy life could he have had?
I mean, I hate doing that inthe what ifs, but I guess when
you're talking from aninvestigative standpoint, when
you're talking from aninvestigative standpoint, that's
what we're supposed to be doing.
You know what if somebody hadintervened at that point or
(37:36):
provided those services?
Speaker 3 (37:39):
And probably also from the social worker
standpoint, to know when we needto intervene and what services
we need to try to provide.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
Absolutely, and why it's important to do outreach
even now in those more ruralareas, because they lack the
resources.
The government doesn't have theresources in those areas to
provide those services, but thecommunity knows who needs help.
There's just not the resourcesto help push people out there
and there's not the nonprofitsor the religious organizations
that are funded well enough tobe able to check on everybody.
So this is kind of a glowingexample of what if there had
(38:14):
been people in the school thatwere looking for those signs, if
the community knew that Ed'sfather has, you know, substance
use disorders with alcohol, andthe children may have not been
in a safe environment.
Again, a lot of what ifs.
But that's the point is okay,what can we take and learn from
this so we can try and makesomething better?
(38:34):
And we kind of see that alittle bit in his incarceration.
So Gaines spent the rest of hislife in psychiatric institutions
but he's considered a modelpatient when he gets to the
Mendetta Mental HealthInstitution.
So he's described as blissful,he's calm, he's cooperative by
staff.
They were actually veryfriendly with him, like a lot of
(38:55):
reports to staff, like theywould celebrate his birthday.
They would make sure he got fedLike he never had any negative
interactions with other patientsand he never required
tranquilizers either.
He just he got along well withother people, which kind of
shows when potentially again, Idon't know.
(39:16):
I mean, it'd be great to get tothose records but when he had
people that were showing himcompassion and caring, like he
became a different person, likehe was able to adjust, but
people were treating him like hedeserved to be treated like a
human being and I really believein my heart and hope that that
was because there werepsychologists and social workers
(39:38):
and nursing staff that weretreating him as a human being,
not as a monster.
Speaker 3 (39:42):
And maybe just not being isolated, because it
seemed like he was a handyman intown and even though he wasn't
popular and didn't have a lot offriends, at least on some level
he could be normal in thoseinteractions because he was
being a handyman and babysittingand things like that, where if
you were the creep of town,nobody would be letting you near
their house and their kids yeah, that's kind of the thing
that's interesting about him wasthat he was like he babysat
(40:06):
people's kids.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
People said he was amazing with their children.
He was never harmful, he wasn'tlike creepy.
People liked him but he neverfelt accepted and I think that
went back to his mother and thenwhen she died he became very
recluse.
But, like I said, even thenight of the um bernice's murder
he'd had dinner with somepeople before that even happened
and they said there was nosigns of any maladaptive.
(40:30):
He wasn't vulgar, he was veryfriendly.
Like every once in a while hemight say something kind of off
color, but it was neverintentional.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
So um, or maybe just being in the house was bad
because you talked about how hesectioned off house like parts
of the house to preserve it andto preserve where his mother was
in his mother's room.
Maybe if he had gotten out ofthat house and out of that
environment and had that mentalseparation between his mother
and himself, maybe that wouldhave been helpful.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
And then there's also that he was diagnosed with
schizophrenia, right, I don'tknow what that looks like, but
it's always because we've becomeso indoctrinated through
television and representationsof him in media, like when we go
to like Norman Bates, which nowwe're just moving on to the
impacts of he had on culture,which some are good and some are
(41:16):
bad, but like what we're in thethe Bates Motel movie, I'm not
even sure I know what the hellthat psycho thank you, god
psycho um, he's constantlyfighting with his mother but you
know, like the not well-hitsecret is that his mother's dead
and it's the voices in his headand it's kind of.
It's kind of these voices in hishead and it's that
schizophrenic part of him.
So we don't know what he washearing, the problems that he
(41:40):
was having from that.
Don't know if schizophrenia wasthe right diagnosis because if
he didn't have any problemsbeforehand, but then he may.
You know, there's so manythings we don't know because,
again, records weren't goodthere and the family was
isolated.
But he really did kind of havethis um, massive impact on
culture.
Um, again, like I said, therewere serial killers that have
(42:00):
kind of looked to him.
He was the influence forsilence of the lambs, psycho,
texas chainsaw massacre,multiple uh books, movies, songs
.
Um, there's a song that I wasjust listening to before we
started this kind of just amyself in this mind frame by
amigo the was just listening tobefore we started this kind of
just a.
Put myself in this mind frameby amigo the devil called the
recluse is kind of coming fromthe view of ed gein and the way
he looked at women.
(42:21):
So, but there's also ed geinfan clubs and there's also
places that kind of have risenhim up and I think that you can
look at what somebody did from acriminal justice standpoint and
see them as a case study.
But I think it becomes verytwisted when we start kind of
(42:41):
glorifying them and turning theminto these dark heroes.
Speaker 3 (42:46):
And I think you see that a lot with the whole murder
memorabilia type aspect ofthings, and at one point in time
his house was actually going tobe auctioned off and there was
a fire which ended up destroyingthe house and they had had a
fire to dispose of things thatwas about 75 feet away.
(43:09):
But the investigation said thatthe fire did not spread from
that bonfire location to thehouse that that house was
suspected to have been, you know, uh, burned down because of
arson.
But the fire chief at the timewas the son of bernice warden.
(43:30):
So it's kind of interestingthat it burned down and he's the
fire chief and his mom diedthere and right before it gets
auctioned off it burns down um,in other words, my folk hitters
a fucking tragedy.
Yeah, I'm kind of glad it didyeah one, and otherwise they
would have who knows what theywould have turned it into.
Speaker 2 (43:52):
As far as you know, a spectacle worst attraction,
things like that you mean like25 ghost hunting shows going
there swearing that they saworbs that were just dust flying
around, trying to glorify agained keene's atrocities, not
bernice warden and mary hoganwho were the victims.
Like, if you want to start afan club, start a bernice warden
or a mary hogan to rememberthem, not the person that took
(44:15):
their lives.
But that's again just me.
Speaker 3 (44:17):
So some type of memorial for them.
Yeah, yes, um.
And along with that same thing,his car was sold for the
equivalent of what would havebeen eight thousand dollars in
2023, and it was sold to acarnival sideshow operator, who
then turned around and chargedpeople 25 cents a piece to come
see the car.
Speaker 2 (44:37):
So I, I crash will point uh, the true crime, like
the, the crime, mobilia, murder,belia, stuff.
But at the same time, like I'vegone to museums of death and
stuff to kind of see some of thestuff, because at the same time
there is a fascination with,like I mean, it's not owning
(44:58):
something that person had, butlike here are the writings of
these people, or here are thethings that give us insight into
their brain, like oh, here's anenvelope with their name on it.
That's just trash, dude.
Like I don't care whose it is,that's just trash.
But their writings and whatthey were, thinking that that's
something I guess has historicalvalue, that probably does need
to be in a museum.
But his car I'm going to chargeyou 25 cents really.
Speaker 3 (45:18):
And I think there's also a difference between a
museum where you're trying tolook at relevant evidence and
facts and information and again,like you were saying, trying to
figure something out so maybewe can make this not happen
again, versus just like a ooh,look where I'm at.
I took a picture where thisspecific thing happened.
Speaker 2 (45:36):
Yeah, I think the museum kind of stops being like
like looking into history whenit's got the Ed Gein, welcome to
the Museum of Death.
Then you're kind of exploitingit Exactly.
But there's a thin.
I think again, as we've said,about some other crimes we've
seen, especially in 1930s bankrobbers and stuff like you know,
people got to do what they gotto do to make some money and no,
(45:56):
they're not physically harminganybody, but they're just
finding a way to make a coupleof dollars off what somebody is
going to do anyway.
So I want to knock it.
If you're a murder, be a person.
Or you've got museums like that, like hey, you do you, you do
you, but as long as you're notharming anybody.
Just remember that the familiesof the people these people
murdered aren't getting a dimefrom that.
(46:17):
So it's not helping them in anyway and you're not really
honoring the memory of victimsor just glorifying the people
that took their lives.
Speaker 3 (46:26):
And with this case you mentioned Mary, mary Hogan
he never actually stood trial orpled guilty or anything for
that.
So at the point where he wasincarcerated and put into the
insane asylum, they said it'snot worth the investment of
money and resources, even thoughhe had admitted that he killed
(46:46):
her.
He never admitted to hisbrother you know, killing his
brother but he did admit tokilling Mary but they never
prosecuted it or had that listedas something.
That was something he got heldaccountable for.
Speaker 2 (47:00):
And you've kind of talked about that before, kind
of like the waste of funds, likeyou've already got them
incarcerated.
If there were to come a daythat he might've gotten out,
then maybe he would have triedagain like to go for those
charges, but he's not goinganywhere.
Speaker 3 (47:15):
I think sometimes it's cathartic, though for the
victims especially if he said hedid it and he confessed and he
admitted to it to just have thatmoment in court where they
would be allowed to say this iswhat I lost, and to be heard by
the judge in the court and saywhatever they wanted to say in
front of the defendant court andsay whatever they wanted to say
(47:35):
in front of the defendant.
Speaker 2 (47:37):
My question on that, though, is and to a prosecutor
like is it really worth, whenyou know that probably what
you're going to get is notguilty by reason of insanity?
Speaker 3 (47:42):
Again, I think it would be up to the victim, Like
to me.
It wouldn't increase any valuefor me personally, but at the
same time if I had a victim whofelt strongly like I really
wanted this opportunity to speakto the judge, I think at that
point it'd be nice.
Even again, like maybe youcould have it as a separate part
of the sentencing hearing, youknow, as some type of
aggravating factor where thatvictim gets to address the court
(48:04):
.
But if that's what they want, Ifeel like they should have that
.
Speaker 2 (48:09):
Yeah, no, I definitely agree with that.
Like you want to again, again,honor the victims, not the
murderer.
So I think, in the end, edgaines disturbing life and
crimes continue to fascinate us.
I mean, we're doing somethingabout this now, um, and there's
dozens of podcasts and moviesand everything else, um, and it
horrifies people decades afterhis death and it does leave an
(48:33):
indelible mark kind of on thecrime genre and the true crime
genre and pop culture.
But, like with everything else,I think in the end, what we
really need to take away is thenames of the victim, not glorify
the killer.
Yes, he had a lot of problems.
We need to analyze that, buthis face doesn't be on a shirt
(48:55):
those victims.
I want to thank you all so muchfor listening to our little
podcast.
This is created with love andpassion for criminal justice and
true crime.
So if you're enjoying thepodcast, please follow us, like
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(49:15):
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(49:36):
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(50:02):
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Speaker 1 (50:08):
So again, thank you for taking the time to listen
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©.
Transcript Emily Beynon.
Nothing creeps me out more than kind of like the
story of the person that we'recovering today.
He's the first serial killer,supposedly I don't think he is,
he's only got two confirmed thatwe know that had a fan club
established.
He was admired by other serialkillers.
In fact John Wayne Gacy didpaintings of him.
So today we will be talkingabout the life and crimes of Ed
(01:05):
Gein.
So I am Richard.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
I'm Heather.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
And we are Deviant Criminology.
So Ed Gein has kind of left alasting impact on American
culture and true crime history.
So he's kind of the groundworkfor so many things that now we
consider like the nightmaresthat we had as children and
middle-aged and a lot of thiskind of goes back to his
(01:29):
upbringing and then theglorification that would come
afterwards in media.
So I guess, to start it off, edGein was born on August 27th
1906, only 73 years before I was, only 73 years before I was.
So in La Crosse, wisconsin, hischildhood was marked by
(01:52):
dysfunction.
His father was George Gain, whowas a severe alcoholic who would
often be absent and when he waspresent was kind of abusive.
So imagine Ed kind of growingup in a family where dad's just
stumbling home drunk every night, walking up the stairs of the
house, being physically andverbally abusive to his mother
(02:14):
and him and his brother On that.
His mother was Augusta.
She was a fanatically religiouswoman who dominated the
household.
So it's very interesting tohave this alcoholic father
dynamic.
But yet the mother was verydominating in the situation.
So that may show some of therelationship aspects that would
(02:37):
come back later to influenceEd's life and then finally Ed's
life.
And then, finally, there wasHenry Gane, who was five years
older than Ed.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
So the family moved to an isolated 195-acre farm
near Plainfield Wisconsin in1915.
It's kind of funny becausethere's La Crosse Wisconsin and
Plainfield Wisconsin and there'salso a La Crosse Indiana and a
Plainfield Indiana, both ofwhich I have family that live in
.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
I did not know.
There was a La Crosse Indiana.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
There is.
It's in northern Indiana.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
There's like a lack of names for cities in Indiana.
We are not very creative withour names.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
No.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
It's like the Irish nicknames and the Italian
nicknames.
Yes, like Greenfield.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Greenland, whiteland, indiana just really went for
the lights right there on thatone.
Ed's upbringing wascharacterized by extreme
isolation, rarely leaving thefarm except for school, verbal
and physical abuse from bothparents and bullying at school
due to his physical features andshyness, his childhood was
marked by a dysfunctional familyenvironment and his mother's
extreme religious beliefs, whichsignificantly shaped his
(03:55):
development and we'll see as wego on.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
like his mom, her devout religion, almost
borderline into misogyny againstwomen and a hatred of other
women, and Ed also was not.
It's kind of portrayed himalways as kind of like this
bumbling idiot and kind of notvery bright.
But he actually was intelligent, Like he excelled in reading,
(04:18):
probably not as good at mathfrom what I've seen, but very
good at reading, writing.
He enjoyed those aspects ofeducation.
So it's not like he was justsome idiot which kind of you see
this physical example of himand this view of him, but that's
not who he was.
So a little bit about thecommunity itself.
(04:40):
So in 1920,.
So a little bit about thecommunity itself.
So in 1920, the populationnumbered somewhere around 1,550
residents in Plainfield.
These numbers are a little offbecause the statistics that we'd
normally use from like censusand stuff aren't really accurate
.
For this time period PlainfieldTownship contributed another
750 residents and then othersurrounding townships added as
(05:04):
many as 1,500 more.
So the general population ofwhat would have been seen as
Plainfield in the 1920s wasroughly around 3,400 men, women
and children.
A very small rural part ofWisconsin which I think kind of
plays a part in the developmentof this story as it moves
forward.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
Because he's so isolated and he's basically only
exposed to those weird familyelements that he's dealing with.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
That and there's also this thing with like once the
stories of what he becomesbreaks later on, a lot of local
newspapers and stuff don'treally cover the story because
there's this not wanting to makea bad example or shine a bad
light on kind of ruralcommunities.
So a lot of the local papersbriefly covered it but didn't
(05:52):
get into any details or cover itfor an extended period of time.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
So, as you said, plainfield was a small rural
town and the area wascharacterized by farm fields,
wetlands and woodlands.
The Lincoln Highway passedthrough Plainfield, bringing
increased traffic and visitors.
By 1922, the Lincoln Highwaywas partially paved through
Plainfield.
The community had a smallpolice force of fewer than five
(06:17):
men.
Local businesses includedgrocery stores, restaurants and
garages.
The town had a generally sedateatmosphere before major events.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
And as this is coming in, yeah, it's a very small
rural town, it's building up alittle bit and most of
everything's locally owned, Likenot now where there's like
these chain stores and stuff.
All of these are locally ownedbusinesses and everybody kind of
knows each other and Ed'sfamily was a farming family as
well, so these weren't outcastpeople.
You know that we'll get intolike the, the, the gain families
(06:53):
known.
Well, the economy of the areafirst was kind of, like I said,
more farming and that played asignificant part of the local
economy.
So, like farmers, like Ed's dadwould have kind of almost been
at an elevated status over justthe like the local business
owners and stuff, because thefarming is what was bringing
money into the area and with thepresence of those grocery
(07:15):
stores, restaurants and garagesit did bring in a little bit
more diverse population ofbusiness owners and try to grow
the economy.
But even into his older yearsit was primarily this farming
community.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
So his mom, augusta she was a devout Lutheran and
had profound impacts on hisupbringing.
She was very religious andextremely controlling, and
extremely controlling, preachedabout the innate immorality of
the world, especially women assinful and seductive, believed
(07:51):
all women were naturallypromiscuous and instruments of
the devil, read the Bible versesdaily focusing on death, murder
and divine retribution, andinstilled in Ed that sex was
evil.
The family, of course we saidearlier, had moved to that
155-acre farm in Plainfield,wisconsin.
So he was isolated.
(08:11):
Augusta, his mom, tookadvantage of that isolation to
turn away outsiders and Edrarely left the farm except for
attending schools.
Augusta punished Ed whenever hetried to make friends At school
.
He was shy and struggled to fitin with other children.
He had a lazy eye and a lesionon his tongue that affected
speech.
(08:32):
The classmates often shunnedhim and despite social
difficulties he did fairly wellacademically, especially in
reading.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
And I think there's like so much to unpack there
with kind of that upbringing.
Like we don't really talk abouthis father and really the most
we know is he wasn't very fondof his father.
Um, the father again was anabusive alcoholic that kind of
would come home late and thingslike that, and kind of didn't
want to be near the house, uh,which kind of makes sense when
we kind of see how augusta is.
(08:59):
But this is one thing that wesee is this controlling mother
you know, that's somethingthat's been reported by other
sadistic murderers um, is thisover controlling, overbearing
mother that kind of instilledthis, not only that women are
evil, but you're not good enough, no woman's ever going to be
good enough for you and no womancan love you um, like I can.
And.
But it also makes you wonderabout her history and dynamic,
(09:23):
which of, of course, we don'treally know anything about.
But what type of family did shegrow up in?
What was you know?
If she's dealing with abusefrom her husband and putting up
with it, even though she's thiscontrolling like, why?
Like she's a very fascinatingcharacter that obviously it's
way too late now to be able tolearn more about.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
And with that dynamic you always wonder was she so
controlling because his dad wasdrunk and maybe absent, not
showing up?
Or was that drunk, absent andnot showing up because she was
so controlling?
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Yeah, which came first, the psycho mother or the
drunk father?
Yes, there's so much to kind ofagain, as we've talked about
with other cases, that those twothings of each side, like Ed ed
, when you look at his life,like there's so much abuse and
trauma that happens, but thatdoesn't excuse the other side of
him of what we'll see.
He becomes um, and there verymuch is, or lack of a better
(10:17):
term and a literary referencelike a jekyll and hyde to him
and he idolized his mother, eventhough she had that extreme
religious controlling attitude,to the point where he became
obsessed with her.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
Augusta fostered a deep disdain for women in both
Ed and Henry.
His brother, george, who wasEd's father, was an alcoholic
and physically abusive, andAugusta resented her husband and
developed a hatred for men ingeneral.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
So at this point she hates everybody and I think we
see again that this will come upin what ed does in the future.
Um, this hatred towards men,because I think there's ed loves
her but I don't think she everreciprocates it in the way he
needs to develop that attachment.
He develops an unhealthyattachment, like Bowlby would
(11:05):
say, like those stages ofdevelopment.
He didn't hit those and wasstunted One the trauma of his
father, who's obviously notgoing to attach to him and he's
not going to have anyrelationship to, and then this
mother who's almost telling youhow horrible you are, but that's
the only person that's givingyou any type of attention and
negative attention is betterthan anything and she almost
becomes an idolized figure inhis life.
(11:26):
That she's right.
Women are superior.
Well, my mom is not always like.
It's just almost that dualcontrast that's being presented
to him that creates this twistedview on society and life.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
And it's an interesting dichotomy where she
says that women are evil andseductive but men are weak.
When she says weak, like whatexactly does she mean by weak as
far as can't resist women?
Like what exactly is that?
Speaker 2 (11:52):
which it also goes back to what was dad doing when
he was out, not coming aroundlike right?
There's so much stuff that Ithink from like anybody that
studies criminal psychology Iwould love to know more about
the parents in that dynamic.
But again, it's so long ago and, as we'll see, moving forward
kind of after this case andalmost till his death, there's
(12:16):
not a lot written about it, likeit's almost kind of like swept
under the rug.
He kind of gets a resurgenceafter his death.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
So, at age 12, augusta, which is his mom,
caught Ed masturbating andgrabbed his genitals, causing
him the curse of man.
Ed dropped out of school at 14,after completing the eighth
grade, which, as you mentioned,some people thought of him as
being uneducated or slow, andI'm thinking maybe with him
dropping out of school at thatpoint and having the speech
(12:43):
problems that he had might havecontributed and and lazy eye
might have contributed to thatperception.
He developed an increasinglyintense attachment to his mother
and he believed that men wereweak and possibly wanted to be a
woman like his mother sothere's reports again.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
I always go back to like, when people are telling
you stories, after somebodycomes out and stuff comes out,
it's harder to say if it's factor fiction.
Like, is the story true andyou're just now telling it
because people are listening orare people listening?
So now you're telling a story,but there are stories that ed um
, in a bar, uh, that hefrequented quite often, had
(13:25):
talked about learning that therewas a surgery that could change
a man to a woman and there wasa conversation about that's not
even possible.
And Ed was like, well, yeah, itis, and you know, it's very
interesting to me because I'vethought about that.
So there is talk that he had inhis later life, had
conversations about, basically,gender identity, sex change,
(13:48):
basically, like I'm trying tothink of a better word, um,
which I think can directly goback to a point, to this thing
that he's been taught that youknow, men are evil and his
mother was didn't like men andhe wanting to be a woman, maybe
to be more accepted by hismother.
But also this very specificincidence at 12 years old, when
his mother catches himsupposedly masturbating and
threatens to cut off hisgenitals, saying you know, this
(14:10):
is the curse of all men.
It's reminiscent, of course.
I mean art usually reflectsyour life.
Sometimes of in red dragonthere's the scene that's
verbally heard of, uh, thegrandmother catching the boys
Like he'd wet himself, I think,and she grabs and threatens to
cut it off, and that kind ofgoes back to that gender.
(14:32):
That now you're seeing your ownbody is disgusting and that can
really, especially at thisyoung age.
Again, we talked about thosestages of development.
Now you're already seeingyourself as disgusting and your
own thoughts and naturalambitions as harmful and
disgusting.
So masturbation now becomes adirty sin that you're creating
(14:53):
instead of something that may bemore natural.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
But at the same time she hated women and thought they
were evil and seductive.
So to some extent it almostwouldn't make sense for him to
want to be a woman either,because that's also evil and the
sexuality that goes with thatis evil.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
But mom's a woman.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
And she has the last wish Moms are always right.
You know that right.
Yes, Moms are always right.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
I don't know If I had a Ouija board I would ask my
mother.
So one thing that's veryinteresting is his mental health
history.
So Gaines' mental healthhistory issues were evident from
a very early age, exhibitedsigns of gender confusion and
unhealthly sexual developmentwhich I think you know what the
stories can directly relate backto his mother's not only talk,
(15:38):
but I mean telling you that yourown genitals are disgusting and
men are disgusting.
I think probably doesn't helpthat he would later be diagnosed
with schizophrenia and then healso kind of displayed
particular beliefs andimmaturity towards sexuality.
So stunted sexual growth.
Again, you know, if you believein stage theory, development
(16:01):
really brought on by Bowlbyabout attachment and life course
development, that makes sense,all these things that he's
experiencing.
So the first person to die washis father, george, in 1940.
Then his brother, henry, diedsuspiciously in 1944 during a
(16:22):
brush fire and then finally hismother, augusta, died in 1945.
And this is kind of a tippingpoint for Ed.
The one thing that'sinteresting about this is Henry
and Ed were kind of known peoplein the community.
Ed and Henry would do like oddjobs for people, help people out
, and they were pretty liked.
So then comes this mysteriousdeath of henry in 1944.
(16:46):
So the incident occurred duringa fire near the family farms in
plainfield, wisconsin.
So, according to reports, edand henry were working to clear
some vegetation by setting fireto the farm area and this took a
tragic turn.
And this is a common, commonthing, like you see it in, like
even Indiana, where, like,they'll burn old territories
(17:07):
because supposedly the ash andstuff will help replenish the
soil.
But the official cause ofHenry's death was ruled as
asphyxia due to smoke inhalation.
However, the circumstancessurrounding his death have
raised suspicion about Ed'spotential involvement.
So one, there were someinjuries to Henry's body that
didn't match up with just anasphyxiation or any cardiac.
(17:30):
There were actual injuries.
But second, when Henry wentmissing during the fire, ed had
reported the disappearance tothe police.
But yet when they came backwith a search party, ed was
immediately able to take them toHenry's body.
So he's disappeared, but yet oh, he's exactly right here.
Upon examination of the bodyagain, suspicious bruising was
(17:51):
discovered on his head.
This physical evidence,combined with Ed's uncanny
ability to locate the body, hasled to some questions about was
Ed possibly involved?
And one thing that may havebrought that up is Henry was
kind of antagonistic towardstheir mother and defensive of Ed
.
So, henry, very much was kindof the protector of Ed against
(18:13):
his mother's abuse and you weresaying as well that.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
That when it came to that disagreement that Henry was
critical of their mother and Eddid not appreciate that.
And about this disagreementthat Henry was critical of their
mother and Ed did notappreciate that.
And about this time Henry wasalso getting ready to move out
and move in with a divorcedmother of two, so his departure
might have also had an impact onhis death.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
And I mean that's interesting because it may have
had feeling almost like he wasgoing to be abandoned.
You know dad's left, you knowgone natural circumstances again
.
But I think what's interestingto remind our listeners is that
they are 38 and 43 at this age,prospectively still living at
home.
You know, ed still has thisunhealthy attachment with his
mother who obviously, whenyou're hearing that henry's
(19:04):
having to defend them from theabuse that's coming from his
mother even in his late 30s,that this is unhealthy.
But the loss of henry removedthat potential buffer that was
there between ed and his mother.
So for another year ed has isstuck with his abusive mother
and develops even, uh, a deeper,unhealthy obsession with her.
(19:28):
So, uh, the following year ofhenry's death likely intensified
ed's dependence on his motherbecause now he no longer had
kind of his only friend really,uh, setting the stage for his
extreme reactions once her, uh,his mother passes and he's all
alone.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
Which, once she passes, he has that very
unhealthy attachment thatmanifests in.
You know he was veryobsessively devoted to her.
After her death he startssealing off her room and other
parts of the house, and thecrimes that he commits
ultimately seem to have beendriven by that relationship with
(20:06):
his mother Right so afterAugusta's death, um Ed has her
buried in a local cemetery.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
but this kind of he's alone and it kind of starts
this vicious cycle where he kindof he starts visiting her grave
a lot.
So as he's visiting her gravehe's driven by this intense
loneliness and he starts thisweird practice of digging up
graves.
Uh, so it basically becomes agrave robber, specifically
(20:35):
taking human remains.
In a particularly gruesome act,gane exhumed his own mother's
body from her grave.
Then he proceeded to remove herhead, which he twisted off with
his bare hands.
Gane then took the severed headhome and it's reported that he
tried to shrink it.
He'd read some books about headshrinking and the thought he
(20:59):
could redo it.
This act kind of marked thebeginning of his grave robbing
spree, during which he wouldmake numerous nocturnal visits
to local cemeteries over thenext few years where he exhumed
multiple bodies, primarilytargeting middle aged women.
Remain reminded him, um, of hismother.
So, and this is just startingto really like this is taking a
(21:23):
hard turn, like this goes fromobsession to obsession and it
continues to devolve.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
Somewhere I read it was like 40 nocturnal visits to,
so it wasn't just like he wenta couple times, he went often.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Yeah, this is like.
The timeframes are between 1947and 1952.
And again, he primarilytargeted middle-aged women who
had either recently died or,being a small town that he knew,
had died, exhuming the bodiesand he took home different
pieces of the body.
To become more macabre, hestarted making creations with
(22:01):
the human remains.
So Gane created a number ofdisturbing items from human skin
, including lampshades and chairseats made from human skin.
He would make bowls from humanskulls.
He had face masks and then wenton to describe design, probably
(22:24):
one of the most disturbingthings, but also something that
would become iconicized in film.
Later, ed Gein created a woman'ssuit, and it was one of the
most disturbing aspects of hiscollection of human skin items,
and here are kind of some of thedetails.
So Gein's goal was to create asuit made from human skin that
he could wear to become hismother and literally crawl into
(22:47):
her skin.
The suit was made from piecesof skin taken from female
corpses that Gein had exhumedfrom local graveyards.
Made from pieces of skin takenfrom female corpses that Gane
had exhumed from localgraveyards.
This included, like a vest withbreasts attached and leggings
made from human leg skin.
Gane would wear this suit alongwith masks made from female
(23:08):
faces and go out on his propertyand dance in the moonlight.
If any of this kind of starts tosound familiar, it is very much
the scene in Silence of theLambs, made popular by the
Goodbye Horses song or, ifyou're Clerks 2, with Jane
Silentbottom.
So when police searched Gaines'house later, they found the
partially completed skin suit,along with other clothing items
(23:29):
that he had made from humanremains.
The suit was part of Gaines'larger obsession with the female
body and his desire totransform himself into a woman.
While gruesome, the woman'ssuit was never actually
completed.
It remained a work progresswhen police arrested him and
this really goes back to thatgender dysmorphia and, I think,
mother's abuse.
(23:50):
And I want to say I think thatmother's abuse and I want to say
I think that that key moment ofhim being caught and her really
degrading him had to havesomething to do with that.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
I mean it had to have some type of an impact.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
I don't again like we'll get to like what his
outcome is or anything, but Idon't know how you would use
that as a mitigating factor in atrial if you're a defense
attorney, like, yeah, you'vedone these things, but look at
this childhood and the abuse,like the true psychological harm
that was done.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
And that might be why he ended up where he was
instead of getting the deathpenalty.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
Yeah.
So this disturbing creationhighlighted the depth of Gaines'
psychological issues and anunhealthy attachment to his
deceased mother.
The concept again of wearing askin suit is seen in the
fictional character of BuffaloBill in Silence of the Lambs,
which, god bless my loving wife.
A couple years ago for mybirthday she got me a death's
(24:50):
head, skull moth, like it'sframed and everything.
And again, it's not that I havethis like oh, buffalo bill and
Ed Gain are great.
It's that I've kind ofdedicated my life to fighting
against people like this andstudying them and helping
educate people about how to umspot, identify and protect
themselves against them and it'skind of a neat reminder of me.
Plus it's like one of myfavorites like Will.
(25:11):
It's kind of a neat reminder ofme.
Plus it's like one of myfavorites Like Will Graham,
who's one of the profilers andthat was kind of my inspiration
to get into criminal justice.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
So, even though all these grave robberies are
happening at this point, hehasn't actually killed anybody.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
Yet.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
Yet that's going to change, unfortunately for Mary
Hogan.
So Mary Hogan, a woman who wasin her 50s, was a tavern owner
and she was shot and taken toEd's farm.
Some of the key details withthis crime again, she was the
tavern owner in Pine Grove,wisconsin, which was near
(25:49):
Plainfield, wisconsin, and Edwas known to frequent her
establishment regularly.
On December 8th of 1954, atthat tavern, which was about six
miles away from his farm, heused a .22 caliber gun to her
forehead to execute her andafterwards, when she disappeared
(26:12):
from the tavern, the only thingthat was left behind was her
blood and the empty bull and theempty bullet shell casing.
The police immediatelysuspected foul play, but they
could never solve the case.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
they didn't have enough evidence, but ed had
taken her body back to his farmthat's one of those like start
into madness but sounds kind ofa little premeditated because he
brought the gun but then it's.
And one thing that I think is Idon't know because I couldn't
(26:47):
find anywhere, I've seen somethat said he didn't drive and
people like would give him ridesand then others that's.
So again we don't have therecords and I don't know if,
like, he just took the gun outof a truck, if it was there, or
if he brought it specifically tokill her.
Like, was this premeditated ora crime of opportunity?
Because going forward, hissecond murder seems more like a
(27:10):
crime of opportunity than itdoes a crime of premeditation.
His second murder seems morelike a crime of opportunity than
it does a crime ofpremeditation.
But later Gaines would confessto killing Hogan when questioned
about his second murder.
So during the search of Gaines'property, authorities found
Hogan's face among the gruesomecollection of human remains that
we had talked about.
Nat's search came off the backof his second murder.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
Which was Bernice Worden, and that was in 1957.
She had been a hardware storeowner who was shot and
decapitated.
The murder of Bernice Worden byEd Gein was a shocking crime
and it ultimately led to thediscovery of all of Ed's
(27:53):
horrific activities at his house.
Again, we said that she was the58-year-old hardware store
owner in Plainfield, wisconsin,and on November 16, 1957, she
was shot again with the .22caliber rifle and her son,
deputy Sheriff Frank Worden,found the store empty, with
(28:14):
bloodstains on the floor, butthere was a sales slip for
antifreeze.
That was the last receipt thathad been written from Worden
that morning.
Ed was supposed to be in thestore the previous evening and
was going to come back to pickup that antifreeze.
And since he was the last oneto have seen her, he was the
(28:35):
prime suspect evening and wasgoing to come back to pick up
that antifreeze.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
And since he was the last one to have seen her.
He was the prime suspect, soGane was arrested at a
Plainfield grocery store.
That evening.
When police took Gane back tothe farm and searched it is when
they made the gruesomediscovery and I've seen some
pictures of this of like he hadhuman flesh, part of the skin,
so stuff like this was likehanging from the rafters and the
(28:59):
barn and being he was trying tostrip her like a deer, Like you
(29:22):
know.
Pardon the graphicness, but itreally displays the depravity he
had and kind of his ability toeasily separate.
This wasn't a stranger to him.
This was somebody he knew.
Both of these were people heknew.
He'd had dinner before one ofthe murders.
He'd actually had dinner withlike one of the families of one
of his victims.
Like small town.
He was targeting people he knew.
(29:43):
He was taking the body parts ofpeople he knew, including his
own mother, Like.
There's obviously a lot ofpsychological issues going on
here.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
And one of the things that we talked about before we
started recording was hisnickname being the butcher of
Plainfield.
Do you want to speak on whetheryou think that that's an
accurate description and why?
Why not?
Speaker 2 (30:04):
So I to me.
I think again you're giving amoniker that raises him to a
level of something that he's not.
He's just a murderer.
He killed two people.
There's rumors that he killedmore.
The problem I have with that ishe didn't leave that town and
there's no other murders thatare reported in that time.
So to try and glorify him aslike a serial killer he's not
(30:25):
trying to glorify him as someingenious, like criminal mind.
He's not.
He's just obviously a verypsychologically disturbed
individual that targeted womenand had a lot of his own sexual
dysmorphia issues going on.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
Which to me the nickname kind of fits because of
the way they found Warden andher body, because it would have
been a similar thing to what abutcher by profession would have
done with cows and deer butcherby profession, would have done
with cows and deer.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
I can concede if you put it in that fact.
But I think just where I wascoming from was more of just
kind of like the glorificationof like oh he's this mass
murdering, like killed a lot ofwomen, like noah's too, but you
put in the concept of how thebody was hanging.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
Absolutely I could see it that way that was how I
conceptualized it when I heardthat nickname.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Two different minds looking at it from two different
perspectives.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
So again inside of his house they found all kinds
of horrific objects made fromall of those different body
parts you know masks, skullsused as bedposts and kitchen
utensils, lampshades made withfaces, chairs that were
upholstered with human skin.
And so at that point he'sobviously immediately arrested,
(31:40):
and that's in that 1957timeframe, and he is arraigned
on one count of first degreemurder on November 21st 1957.
Murder on November 21st 1957.
And that was for the secondmurder, the one Bernice Worden's
murder, and he's found unfit tostand trial and he is sent to
(32:07):
Central State Hospital.
Exactly what happens when he'sat Central State Hospital I'm
not 100% sure on, but becausehe's unfit to stand trial.
That's kind of the end of thelegal proceedings at that point.
But they pick back up in 1968.
So we're approximately 11 yearslater, fast forward into the
future, and at that pointsomebody says he is mentally fit
(32:29):
to stand trial.
So the defense attorney waiveshis right to a jury trial, which
is something that you can do.
We all know there's jury trialsand you have a right to a jury
trial jury of your peers but youcan waive that right.
And if you waive that right,then the judge becomes the trier
of fact and decides whetheryou're guilty or not guilty.
And in this case the defenseattorney waived that right and
(32:51):
requested a trial to the courtand I'm guessing part of that
would have been because of thesensational nature of the case.
I also think there wasn'treally a really good defense at
that point in time to say hedidn't do it.
I can't think of anything thatI would be able to present to
try to prove that he didn't doit.
It's not like there wassomebody else living in the
house.
It's not like he could blameHenry or his mom or anybody else
(33:14):
, like he was pretty much stuckwith that guilty point.
And one of the things with thetrial to the court sometimes you
don't have to get into as muchdetail and then it gives you
more leeway to basically beg forforgiveness or leniency from
the court and the judge and notdraw it out and not have all of
(33:35):
those proceedings so that youcan focus more on the
psychological aspect, notwhether he's guilty or not
guilty, because you know he'sgoing to be found guilty, but
focus more on the look at allthese things this person has
gone through, look what led themup to this point and at the
conclusion of that trial.
That again began November 7th of1968, it lasted about a week
(33:56):
and he was found guilty.
But then they went through thesecond phase of the trial where
they were asking psychologistsand psychiatrists to testify
whether he knew right from wrongat that point when the murder
actually happened, whether itwas intentional or accidental.
Murder actually happened,whether it was intentional or
accidental, and he said that hewasn't really sure, saying he
(34:17):
didn't really remember what hadhappened that morning.
But he didn't aim the rifle,which I don't know how you can
say I didn't aim it at her andat the same time say I don't
remember what happened.
But that's you know.
That's where you're at.
So the second part of the trialbegan on November 14th and in
that second part they weredealing with whether or not he
(34:37):
was sane and the defense wasarguing that he was not guilty
by reason of insanity and at theend of the day the judge agrees
that he was not guilty byreason of insanity.
That doesn't mean you're notguilty and you get to leave the
courthouse.
That means that you weren'tmentally able to form the mental
intent that was required at thetime to commit the crime.
But you did the acts.
(34:59):
So because of that he went backto the mental institution.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
And I've seen and read many cases where people
have tried to use insanity, Likeoh, I was enraged or I didn't
know where I was, and usuallyyou look at everything's normal
and then the crime happens.
I don't think there's any wayyou're gonna look at ed mean's
life and be like, yeah, he's acompletely normal guy until the
murders, like there wasobviously a lot going on with
(35:24):
this individual, when you'remaking human lamps and digging
up your own mother and rippingher head off with your bare hand
and potentially killing yourown brother.
So and that's I mean really.
I mean, if you go with this,potentially he committed three
murders but you have two that Idon't even know.
If you'd say that, that's theother thing.
I don't see any sexualness innature as much as it was he was
(35:46):
trying to get skin.
I never saw anything about himtrying to sexually assault or
any proof of sexual assault,more of like cutting it up to
use it as a deer.
You would not as a human being.
Speaker 3 (35:59):
One of the things I read said that he denied ever
doing anything like that becausehe said that they smelled bad
or something along those lines.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
And in that I mean again with the abuse he took
from his mother.
I mean he may have seen hisgenitals as vile and never, ever
touched himself again out offear, like I don't know.
I mean I don't want to get thatmuch down the road of kind of
like perverse, twisted uh nessof his mind when it comes to his
own sexuality.
But there obviously was the oneto remove or hide his own
(36:28):
genitals, um, either through thecreating of the woman's suit or
the talk about the sex changeoperations that were being done
over in Europe.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
So, yeah, he definitely did not have a
healthy relationship with hissexuality at that point in time.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
No, and I think that goes back to that.
I have no sympathy for the manthat murdered these people.
I have a lot of sympathy forthe child that was abused and
came up to become that monster.
Speaker 3 (36:56):
And it also makes me wonder what might've happened to
prevent that eventuality.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
If he could have been saved, which you know.
Again, that's something wenever know, like nature versus
nurture and what.
What were the breaking factorsand at what point was he beyond
being helped?
Speaker 2 (37:16):
Yeah, it's, it's very .
Or what if his you know, hehadn't killed his brother and
his brother was there to takecare of him?
And his mom dies a year laterand he's got his brother, what
healthy life could he have had?
I mean, I hate doing that inthe what ifs, but I guess when
you're talking from aninvestigative standpoint, when
you're talking from aninvestigative standpoint, that's
what we're supposed to be doing.
You know what if somebody hadintervened at that point or
(37:36):
provided those services?
Speaker 3 (37:39):
And probably also from the social worker
standpoint, to know when we needto intervene and what services
we need to try to provide.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
Absolutely, and why it's important to do outreach
even now in those more ruralareas, because they lack the
resources.
The government doesn't have theresources in those areas to
provide those services, but thecommunity knows who needs help.
There's just not the resourcesto help push people out there
and there's not the nonprofitsor the religious organizations
that are funded well enough tobe able to check on everybody.
So this is kind of a glowingexample of what if there had
(38:14):
been people in the school thatwere looking for those signs, if
the community knew that Ed'sfather has, you know, substance
use disorders with alcohol, andthe children may have not been
in a safe environment.
Again, a lot of what ifs.
But that's the point is okay,what can we take and learn from
this so we can try and makesomething better?
(38:34):
And we kind of see that alittle bit in his incarceration.
So Gaines spent the rest of hislife in psychiatric institutions
but he's considered a modelpatient when he gets to the
Mendetta Mental HealthInstitution.
So he's described as blissful,he's calm, he's cooperative by
staff.
They were actually veryfriendly with him, like a lot of
(38:55):
reports to staff, like theywould celebrate his birthday.
They would make sure he got fedLike he never had any negative
interactions with other patientsand he never required
tranquilizers either.
He just he got along well withother people, which kind of
shows when potentially again, Idon't know.
(39:16):
I mean, it'd be great to get tothose records but when he had
people that were showing himcompassion and caring, like he
became a different person, likehe was able to adjust, but
people were treating him like hedeserved to be treated like a
human being and I really believein my heart and hope that that
was because there werepsychologists and social workers
(39:38):
and nursing staff that weretreating him as a human being,
not as a monster.
Speaker 3 (39:42):
And maybe just not being isolated, because it
seemed like he was a handyman intown and even though he wasn't
popular and didn't have a lot offriends, at least on some level
he could be normal in thoseinteractions because he was
being a handyman and babysittingand things like that, where if
you were the creep of town,nobody would be letting you near
their house and their kids yeah, that's kind of the thing
that's interesting about him wasthat he was like he babysat
(40:06):
people's kids.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
People said he was amazing with their children.
He was never harmful, he wasn'tlike creepy.
People liked him but he neverfelt accepted and I think that
went back to his mother and thenwhen she died he became very
recluse.
But, like I said, even thenight of the um bernice's murder
he'd had dinner with somepeople before that even happened
and they said there was nosigns of any maladaptive.
(40:30):
He wasn't vulgar, he was veryfriendly.
Like every once in a while hemight say something kind of off
color, but it was neverintentional.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
So um, or maybe just being in the house was bad
because you talked about how hesectioned off house like parts
of the house to preserve it andto preserve where his mother was
in his mother's room.
Maybe if he had gotten out ofthat house and out of that
environment and had that mentalseparation between his mother
and himself, maybe that wouldhave been helpful.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
And then there's also that he was diagnosed with
schizophrenia, right, I don'tknow what that looks like, but
it's always because we've becomeso indoctrinated through
television and representationsof him in media, like when we go
to like Norman Bates, which nowwe're just moving on to the
impacts of he had on culture,which some are good and some are
(41:16):
bad, but like what we're in thethe Bates Motel movie, I'm not
even sure I know what the hellthat psycho thank you, god
psycho um, he's constantlyfighting with his mother but you
know, like the not well-hitsecret is that his mother's dead
and it's the voices in his headand it's kind of.
It's kind of these voices in hishead and it's that
schizophrenic part of him.
So we don't know what he washearing, the problems that he
(41:40):
was having from that.
Don't know if schizophrenia wasthe right diagnosis because if
he didn't have any problemsbeforehand, but then he may.
You know, there's so manythings we don't know because,
again, records weren't goodthere and the family was
isolated.
But he really did kind of havethis um, massive impact on
culture.
Um, again, like I said, therewere serial killers that have
(42:00):
kind of looked to him.
He was the influence forsilence of the lambs, psycho,
texas chainsaw massacre,multiple uh books, movies, songs
.
Um, there's a song that I wasjust listening to before we
started this kind of just amyself in this mind frame by
amigo the was just listening tobefore we started this kind of
just a.
Put myself in this mind frameby amigo the devil called the
recluse is kind of coming fromthe view of ed gein and the way
he looked at women.
(42:21):
So, but there's also ed geinfan clubs and there's also
places that kind of have risenhim up and I think that you can
look at what somebody did from acriminal justice standpoint and
see them as a case study.
But I think it becomes verytwisted when we start kind of
(42:41):
glorifying them and turning theminto these dark heroes.
Speaker 3 (42:46):
And I think you see that a lot with the whole murder
memorabilia type aspect ofthings, and at one point in time
his house was actually going tobe auctioned off and there was
a fire which ended up destroyingthe house and they had had a
fire to dispose of things thatwas about 75 feet away.
(43:09):
But the investigation said thatthe fire did not spread from
that bonfire location to thehouse that that house was
suspected to have been, you know, uh, burned down because of
arson.
But the fire chief at the timewas the son of bernice warden.
(43:30):
So it's kind of interestingthat it burned down and he's the
fire chief and his mom diedthere and right before it gets
auctioned off it burns down um,in other words, my folk hitters
a fucking tragedy.
Yeah, I'm kind of glad it didyeah one, and otherwise they
would have who knows what theywould have turned it into.
Speaker 2 (43:52):
As far as you know, a spectacle worst attraction,
things like that you mean like25 ghost hunting shows going
there swearing that they saworbs that were just dust flying
around, trying to glorify agained keene's atrocities, not
bernice warden and mary hoganwho were the victims.
Like, if you want to start afan club, start a bernice warden
or a mary hogan to rememberthem, not the person that took
(44:15):
their lives.
But that's again just me.
Speaker 3 (44:17):
So some type of memorial for them.
Yeah, yes, um.
And along with that same thing,his car was sold for the
equivalent of what would havebeen eight thousand dollars in
2023, and it was sold to acarnival sideshow operator, who
then turned around and chargedpeople 25 cents a piece to come
see the car.
Speaker 2 (44:37):
So I, I crash will point uh, the true crime, like
the, the crime, mobilia, murder,belia, stuff.
But at the same time, like I'vegone to museums of death and
stuff to kind of see some of thestuff, because at the same time
there is a fascination with,like I mean, it's not owning
(44:58):
something that person had, butlike here are the writings of
these people, or here are thethings that give us insight into
their brain, like oh, here's anenvelope with their name on it.
That's just trash, dude.
Like I don't care whose it is,that's just trash.
But their writings and whatthey were, thinking that that's
something I guess has historicalvalue, that probably does need
to be in a museum.
But his car I'm going to chargeyou 25 cents really.
Speaker 3 (45:18):
And I think there's also a difference between a
museum where you're trying tolook at relevant evidence and
facts and information and again,like you were saying, trying to
figure something out so maybewe can make this not happen
again, versus just like a ooh,look where I'm at.
I took a picture where thisspecific thing happened.
Speaker 2 (45:36):
Yeah, I think the museum kind of stops being like
like looking into history whenit's got the Ed Gein, welcome to
the Museum of Death.
Then you're kind of exploitingit Exactly.
But there's a thin.
I think again, as we've said,about some other crimes we've
seen, especially in 1930s bankrobbers and stuff like you know,
people got to do what they gotto do to make some money and no,
(45:56):
they're not physically harminganybody, but they're just
finding a way to make a coupleof dollars off what somebody is
going to do anyway.
So I want to knock it.
If you're a murder, be a person.
Or you've got museums like that, like hey, you do you, you do
you, but as long as you're notharming anybody.
Just remember that the familiesof the people these people
murdered aren't getting a dimefrom that.
(46:17):
So it's not helping them in anyway and you're not really
honoring the memory of victimsor just glorifying the people
that took their lives.
Speaker 3 (46:26):
And with this case you mentioned Mary, mary Hogan
he never actually stood trial orpled guilty or anything for
that.
So at the point where he wasincarcerated and put into the
insane asylum, they said it'snot worth the investment of
money and resources, even thoughhe had admitted that he killed
(46:46):
her.
He never admitted to hisbrother you know, killing his
brother but he did admit tokilling Mary but they never
prosecuted it or had that listedas something.
That was something he got heldaccountable for.
Speaker 2 (47:00):
And you've kind of talked about that before, kind
of like the waste of funds, likeyou've already got them
incarcerated.
If there were to come a daythat he might've gotten out,
then maybe he would have triedagain like to go for those
charges, but he's not goinganywhere.
Speaker 3 (47:15):
I think sometimes it's cathartic, though for the
victims especially if he said hedid it and he confessed and he
admitted to it to just have thatmoment in court where they
would be allowed to say this iswhat I lost, and to be heard by
the judge in the court and saywhatever they wanted to say in
front of the defendant court andsay whatever they wanted to say
(47:35):
in front of the defendant.
Speaker 2 (47:37):
My question on that, though, is and to a prosecutor
like is it really worth, whenyou know that probably what
you're going to get is notguilty by reason of insanity?
Speaker 3 (47:42):
Again, I think it would be up to the victim, Like
to me.
It wouldn't increase any valuefor me personally, but at the
same time if I had a victim whofelt strongly like I really
wanted this opportunity to speakto the judge, I think at that
point it'd be nice.
Even again, like maybe youcould have it as a separate part
of the sentencing hearing, youknow, as some type of
aggravating factor where thatvictim gets to address the court
(48:04):
.
But if that's what they want, Ifeel like they should have that
.
Speaker 2 (48:09):
Yeah, no, I definitely agree with that.
Like you want to again, again,honor the victims, not the
murderer.
So I think, in the end, edgaines disturbing life and
crimes continue to fascinate us.
I mean, we're doing somethingabout this now, um, and there's
dozens of podcasts and moviesand everything else, um, and it
horrifies people decades afterhis death and it does leave an
(48:33):
indelible mark kind of on thecrime genre and the true crime
genre and pop culture.
But, like with everything else,I think in the end, what we
really need to take away is thenames of the victim, not glorify
the killer.
Yes, he had a lot of problems.
We need to analyze that, buthis face doesn't be on a shirt
(48:55):
those victims.
I want to thank you all so muchfor listening to our little
podcast.
This is created with love andpassion for criminal justice and
true crime.
So if you're enjoying thepodcast, please follow us, like
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subscribe to our podcast podcastand download episodes.
(49:15):
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I don't care if you even screamat strangers on the streets to
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(49:36):
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(50:02):
we hope to develop a communitythat will grow with us.
Speaker 1 (50:08):
So again, thank you for taking the time to listen
and have a good week.
©.
Transcript Emily Beynon.
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