October 12, 2025 • 47 mins
Reid Carter concludes the Ed Gheen special with the psychology behind the Butcher of Plainfield. Augusta Gein raised Ed in fanatical religious isolation, teaching him women were sinful and disgusting. After her death in 1945, Ed tried to resurrect her through grave robbing, murder, and wearing a "woman suit" made from real skin. Found incompetent in 1957, eventually ruled not guilty by insanity in 1968, Ed became a model patient and died peacefully in 1984. His crimes inspired Psycho, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Silence of the Lambs. Reid examines how we turned Ed Gheen into entertainment and forgot his victims in the process.
Join our new FB groups page here. Take the poll!
Join the Celebrity Trials community on social media! We're building a passionate group of true crime enthusiasts who love diving deep into the most shocking cases in America.
Follow us on Facebook and Instagram by searching "Celebrity Trials Podcast" on either platform.
You'll get exclusive behind-the-scenes content, breaking news updates on cases we're covering, and early alerts when new episodes drop. Our social media is where Reid Carter's hottest takes live, including reactions that don't make it into the show.
But more importantly, it's where YOU come in. Share your theories, debate the verdicts, and connect with fellow listeners who are just as obsessed with justice as you are. Did the jury get it right? What questions do you still have? Your comments and insights often shape future episodes.
We cover the trials that matter, but our community makes the conversation unforgettable. Come for Reid's signature cynical commentary, stay for the incredible discussions with thousands of true crime fans who get it.
Join our new FB groups page here. Take the poll!
Join the Celebrity Trials community on social media! We're building a passionate group of true crime enthusiasts who love diving deep into the most shocking cases in America.
Follow us on Facebook and Instagram by searching "Celebrity Trials Podcast" on either platform.
You'll get exclusive behind-the-scenes content, breaking news updates on cases we're covering, and early alerts when new episodes drop. Our social media is where Reid Carter's hottest takes live, including reactions that don't make it into the show.
But more importantly, it's where YOU come in. Share your theories, debate the verdicts, and connect with fellow listeners who are just as obsessed with justice as you are. Did the jury get it right? What questions do you still have? Your comments and insights often shape future episodes.
We cover the trials that matter, but our community makes the conversation unforgettable. Come for Reid's signature cynical commentary, stay for the incredible discussions with thousands of true crime fans who get it.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Caalarogus Shark Media. Good morning, I'm Reed Carter, Sunday, October twelfth,
twenty twenty five. Yesterday we showed you what ed Geen did.
The murders, the grave, robbing, the house full of human
remains fashioned into furniture, two women dead, forty graves violated,
(00:26):
fifteen different bodies turned into household items. Today we tell
you about Augusta Gean, Ed's mother, The woman who raised
him in isolation on a Wisconsin farm. The woman who
taught him that all women except her were sinful, disgusting
vessels of satan. The woman who forbade him from having friends, relationships,
or any life outside her control. The woman who died
(00:48):
in nineteen forty five and left Ed so broken that
he spent the next twelve years trying to bring her
back by robbing graves of women who looked like her,
by murdering women who reminded him of her, by wearing
a suit made from women's skin so he could become her.
Today we also tell you how ed Geen became entertainment.
(01:09):
How his crimes inspired Norman Bates keeping his mother's corpse
in Psycho, How he inspired leatherface wearing human skin masks
in Texas Chainsaw Massacre. How he inspired Buffalo Bill making
a woman's suit in Silence of the Lambs. How the
quiet farmer from Plainfield, Wisconsin became the template for every
skin wearing, mother obsessed serial killer in American cinema. And
(01:33):
today we ask the uncomfortable question, what does it mean
that we turned ed Gean into entertainment, that we built
horror franchises on his crimes? That Netflix just released a
series dramatizing the man who murdered Bernice Warden and Mary
Hogan and turned them into furniture. I'm read Carter, this
is part two of Celebrity Trials, Mother's Boy, the psychology,
(01:57):
the trial, the legacy, and why ed Gean should be fascinating.
But he is. And that's the problem. To understand ed Geen,
you have to understand Augusta Geen. And to understand Augusta
you have to understand that she was one of the
most controlling, fanatically religious, psychologically abusive mothers in American criminal history.
(02:23):
Augusta Villelmina Leerka was born in eighteen seventy eight in
Wisconsin to German immigrant parents. She was raised in a
strict Lutheran household, where women were subservient, children were obedient,
and God's judgment hung over every action. She absorbed these
lessons completely, then she weaponized them. In nineteen hundred, Augusta
married George Geen. She was twenty two. George was a tanner,
(02:47):
then later a carpenter. By all accounts, George was weak, passive,
an alcoholic. Augusta despised him, called him worthless, told her
sons their father was a failure and a sinner. Made
it clear that George's only purpose was providing money, and
that otherwise he was beneath contempt. Augusta had two sons,
Henry born in nineteen oh one, Edward born in nineteen
(03:11):
oh six. From the moment they were born, Augusta controlled
every aspect of their lives, not with love, with religion,
with fear, with the absolute certainty that she alone knew
God's will and everyone else was damned. Augusta believed that
the world outside her farm was evil. Cities were cesspools
of sin. Other people were corrupt women. All women except
(03:34):
her were prostitutes and temptresses sent by Satan to lure
good men into damnation. The only safe place was the
green farm. The only righteous person was Augusta. Everyone else
was going to hell. She made sure Ed understood this
from childhood. Other children were sinful. Playing with them would
corrupt him. School was necessary for education, but dangerous for socialization.
(04:00):
To go to school, learn his lessons, and come home immediately,
no friends, no talking to other children, no participation in
anything social. Other families might have gone to church for community,
Augusta went to church to judge. She attended a small
Lutheran church in Plainfield, where she sat in the front
row and glared at other parishioners, whom she considered insufficiently pious.
(04:22):
She read from the Bible every day at home, focusing
particularly on the Old Testament passages about death, murder, divine retribution,
and female sin. Augusta was obsessed with female sexuality as sin.
She read ed passages from the Bible about Harlot's and
Jezebel and women leading men astray. She told him that
(04:44):
women's bodies were disgusting, that sex was a sin unless
it was for procreation within marriage, that any woman who
enjoyed sex, or dressed immodestly or laughed too loudly was
a whore destined for hell all women except Augusta. She
was different. She was pure, she was righteous. She was
the only woman in the world who wasn't corrupted by sin.
(05:06):
Ed absorbed all of this. He had no choice. Augusta
controlled what he read, what he heard, who he talked to,
where he went, what he thought. From ages five to forty,
Ed Geen lived under total psychological domination by his mother.
The Green Farm was one hundred sixty acres outside Plainfield, isolated,
(05:30):
no close neighbors, the perfect place for Augusta to create
her closed world. She ran the farm with Germanic efficiency,
made the boy's work constantly physical. Labor was godly, Idleness
was sin ed and Henry did farm work from dawn
to dusk, then came inside for Bible reading and more
lectures about sin and salvation. George Geen was barely present.
(05:54):
He drank, he disappeared for days. He had no authority
in his own home. Augusta made all decisions, controlled all money,
ran everything. George was just an occasional figure stumbling drunk
through the background of Ed's childhood. Henry, the older brother,
started questioning Augusta as he got older, started pushing back,
(06:17):
started suggesting that maybe their mother was wrong about some things.
Maybe other people weren't all evil, Maybe the world outside
the farm wasn't hell on earth. Augusta punished Henry for
this insolence, berated him, called him sinful, told him he
was becoming like his worthless father. The conflict between Henry
(06:37):
and Augusta grew more intense as Henry entered his twenties
and thirties. He wanted to escape, wanted a life outside
the farm, but Augusta wouldn't allow it. Ed, meanwhile, never questioned. Augusta,
never pushed back, never developed the psychological independence that Henry showed.
Ed believed everything Augusta said. Believed women were sinful, believed
(07:01):
the outside world was evil. Believed his mother was the
only pure person on earth. Believed his purpose was serving her.
When other boys in school talked about girls, Ed was horrified.
When other teenagers started dating. Ed stayed home. When other
young men got married and started families, Ed remained at
(07:22):
the farm with his mother. He didn't go to dances,
didn't have girlfriends, didn't have any relationship with any woman
except Augusta. People in Plainfield noticed Ed was odd, socially awkward,
would laugh at inappropriate times. Seemed nervous around women, but
he was harmless. Helped with farm work, did odd jobs,
(07:42):
babysat children and was good at it. Gentle and patient. Strange, yes,
dangerous no. April first, nineteen forty George gen dies heart failure,
likely alcohol related. He's sixty six years old. Augusta shows
no grief. George was a sinner and a failure. His
death changes nothing for her except removing an annoyance. She
(08:06):
still has her sons, She still has her farm. She
still has complete control. May sixteenth, nineteen forty four, Henry
and Ed are fighting a brush fire on the farm.
The fire gets out of control. Henry disappears in the smoke.
Ed runs to get help, returns with fire fighters. They
find Henry's body lying in an area of the farm
(08:28):
that the fire hadn't reached. He's dead. The official cause
of death is listed as asphyxiation from smoke, but Henry
has bruises on his head. The fire didn't reach where
his body was found. Ed reported Henry missing, then led
searchers directly to the body, even though visibility was poor.
The circumstances are suspicious. Some investigators suspect Ed killed Henry
(08:51):
that the brothers fought, that Henry said something about Augusta
that Ed couldn't tolerate, that Ed struck Henry and left
him to die. There's no evidence, no witnesses, no proof,
but the suspicion lingers did Ed kill his brother to
protect his mother's honor. Will never know for certain. What
we do know is that after Henry's death, it was
(09:14):
just Ed and Augusta. Ed was thirty eight years old,
never had a job off the farm, never had a girlfriend,
never had any life separate from his mother. He was
perfectly content with that arrangement. Augusta was his entire world.
December twenty ninth, nineteen forty five. Augusta suffers a stroke.
(09:38):
She's paralyzed on her left side. Ed cares for her,
devotedly feeds her, bathes her, dresses her, talks to her constantly,
even though she can barely respond. He's terrified of losing her.
She's the only person who matters, the only person who
ever mattered. Augusta recovers somewhat. She's weaker, but she's still Augusta,
(10:00):
still dominating, still controlling, still the center of Ed's universe.
December twenty ninth, nineteen forty five, exactly one year after
her first stroke, Augusta has a second stroke. This one
is fatal. She dies at home with Ed beside her.
She's sixty seven years old. Ed is thirty nine, and
(10:21):
for the first time in his life, he's alone, completely,
utterly alone. The woman who controlled every moment of his
existence is gone. The woman he believed was the only
pure person on earth is dead. The woman who gave
his life structure and meaning and purpose no longer exists.
Ed's response is psychological collapse. He boards up Augusta's bedroom,
(10:45):
boards up the parlor where she spent time, boards up
the upstairs, seals off entire sections of the house so
they remain exactly as Augusta left them, creates a shrine
to his dead mother in the rooms where she lived.
The rest of the house deteriorates into squalor, trash, piling
up newspapers, accumulating clutter and filth everywhere. Ed lives in
(11:09):
one small room and the kitchen lets. Everything else decay
except Augusta's rooms. Those stay pristine, untouched, waiting for her
to return. But Augusta doesn't return, and Ed can't accept
that she's gone. Forever. So two years after her death,
around nineteen forty seven, Ed starts reading obituaries, looking for
(11:32):
middle aged women, women who resemble Augusta, women who might
in some way bring her back. That's when the grave
robbing begins. Ed is trying to resurrect his mother, trying
to surround himself with women who look like her, trying
to study female anatomy so he can understand the woman
who controlled his entire life, trying to become her by
(11:54):
wearing skin fashioned from women who reminded him of her.
The psychiatric experts who later evaluate Ed call this a
mother fixation and gender confusion and necrophilic tendencies, clinical terms
for what happened when Augusta Gean spent forty years psychologically
destroying her son and then died, leaving him broken in
(12:17):
ways that expressed themselves through grave robbing and murder. Did
Augusta Gean create Ed Geen the killer? Yes and no.
Plenty of people have controlling, religious, psychologically abusive mothers and
don't become serial killers. Plenty of people have isolated childhoods
and don't rob graves. Plenty of people lose their mothers
(12:38):
and grieve normally instead. Of making furniture from corpses. But
Augusta created the specific conditions that, combined with whatever was
already wrong with Ed, psychologically produced the Butcher of Plainfield.
She isolated him from normal social development. She taught him
that women were disgusting and sinful. She made herself the
only acceptable female in his universe. Then she died and
(13:02):
left him with no ability to process loss, no social skills,
no relationships, and no identity separate from being her son.
Ed tried to fill that void with corpses, with grave robbing,
with murder, with a woman suit that let him become Augusta.
None of it worked, none of it brought her back.
(13:23):
But Ed kept trying for twelve years until Sheriff Art
Schley opened the door to his farmhouse and found Bernice
Warden hanging from the ceiling back with more in a moment.
(13:44):
After ed Geene's arrest, psychiatrists spend months evaluating him, trying
to understand what combination of factors created the Butcher of Plainfield,
trying to determine if he's competent to stand trial, trying
to answer whether he understood right from wrong when he
killed Bernice Worden and Mary Hogan. The psychiatric reports paint
a picture of profound psychological dysfunction. Ed has what they
(14:08):
call a mother fixation. His entire psychological development was arrested
by Augusta's dominance. He never developed a separate identity, never individuated,
never became a complete person independent of his mother. Ed
also shows evidence of gender confusion, not transgender identity in
the modern understanding, but a deep conflict about his own
(14:30):
masculinity and a desire to literally become female. The woman's
suit wasn't just a costume. It was Ed's attempt to
physically transform into a woman, specifically into his mother. When
psychiatrists ask ed why he robbed graves and murdered women,
he struggles to articulate it. Says he wanted to study
female anatomy, Says he wanted to understand women. Says he
(14:54):
wanted to have women around. Says his mother told him
women were disgusting, but he needed to see for himself.
He doesn't express remorse, not because he's without conscience, but
because he genuinely doesn't seem to understand why what he
did was wrong. In Ed's mind, the women he robbed
from graves were already dead. They weren't using their bodies anymore.
(15:15):
Why shouldn't he use them? Why shouldn't he study them?
Why shouldn't he fashion them into useful items. The murders
are harder for Ed to explain. He claims not to
fully remember killing Mary Hogan or Bernice Warden, says he
was in a daze. Says it felt like watching someone
else do it, says the memories are fragmentary and dream like.
(15:36):
Psychiatrists debate whether this dissociation is real or convenient. Some
think Ed genuinely entered a dissociative state during the murders,
that the act of killing triggered such psychological conflict that
his mind protected him by creating distance from the memory.
Others think Ed remembers perfectly well, but claims amnesia because
(15:58):
it's easier than confronting what he did did. What's clear
is that Ed doesn't have psychopathy in the classic sense.
He's not charming or manipulative. He doesn't enjoy causing suffering.
He doesn't torture victims or prolong their deaths. His murders
are quick, single gunshots, efficient mechanical. The violence comes after
(16:19):
death during the butchering process, and even that is methodical
rather than frenzied. Ed isn't killing for pleasure. He's killing
to obtain bodies, fresh bodies that he can work with, preserve,
fashion into his creations. The women themselves are secondary to
what they provide. They're raw materials, components tools for Ed's
(16:40):
project of resurrecting or becoming his mother. That psychological disconnect
treating human beings as raw materials is what makes Ed
so disturbing. He's not sadistic. He's practical, the same way
a carpenter selects goodwood for a project Ed selected women
who fit his criteria, the same way a craftsman works
(17:00):
carefully with his materials. Ed carefully butchered and preserved his victims.
There's also the necrophilia. Ed admits to having sexual contact
with some of the bodies from graves, not all of them,
some were too decomposed, but the fresher ones. Yes. He
doesn't volunteer this information, has to be asked directly, then
confirms it without shame or embarrassment. Psychiatrists note that Ed
(17:24):
shows no understanding of social norms around death, bodies or
human dignity. He was raised in complete isolation, with only
Augusta's bizarre worldview as reference. He has no framework for
understanding why robbing graves is wrong or why making lampshades
from human skin is horrifying. To Ed, these are just
things he did. Projects he worked on solutions to his loneliness.
(17:48):
The question for the legal system becomes is Ed insane?
Does he meet the legal definition of not knowing right
from wrong? He clearly knows society disapproves. He hid his activities,
lied when people asked about his nighttime trips, kept the
house locked, and discouraged visitors. He understood that other people
(18:09):
would object to what he was doing. But did he
understand that it was morally wrong or did he just
understand that it was socially unacceptable. There's a difference. Lots
of people do things they know others disapprove of without
believing those things are actually wrong. Ed seems to fall
into that category. He knew people would be upset if
they found out about his grave robbing and his human
(18:30):
skin furniture, but he didn't believe what he was doing
was actually wrong. The women were dead, He wasn't hurting
anyone who was alive. Why should anyone care? This is
the psychological impact of Augusta's isolation. Ed never developed normal
moral reasoning because he never had normal social experiences to
build that reasoning on. His only moral framework was Augusta's framework.
(18:56):
Everything is sin except what Augusta permits, and Gusta was gone,
so Ed created his own permissions. The psychiatric evaluation concludes
that ed Gen suffers from schizophrenia, not the type with
dramatic hallucinations and delusions, but a subtle form characterized by
emotional flatness, social withdrawal, bizarre thinking, and inability to distinguish
(19:20):
reality from his internal fantasy world. In Ed's mind, his
mother is still alive in some form. The women he
robs and kills aren't really gone, they're transformed. The distinction
between living and dead is blurred. Is this legal insanity?
The courts will spend years trying to answer that question.
(19:44):
November nineteen fifty seven, ed Geen is arrested, confesses to
two murders and forty grave robberies. The case seems straightforward.
Put him on trial, convict him, execute him, or imprison
him for life. Just this is served, Except it's not
straightforward because ed Geen might be legally insane, and if
(20:05):
he's insane, he can't stand trial. And if he can't
stand trial, he can't be convicted. And if he can't
be convicted, what happens to him? January nineteen fifty eight,
Judge Herbert Bundy orders ed to undergo psychiatric evaluation to
determine if he's competent to stand trial. Competency is different
from insanity. Competency means does the defendant understand the charges
(20:29):
against him? Can he assist in his own defense? Can
he participate meaningfully in legal proceedings. Ed is evaluated by
psychiatrists at Central State Hospital in Walpin, Wisconsin. They spend
months observing him, testing him, interviewing him, trying to determine
if he's capable of standing trial. The psychiatrists conclude, No,
(20:50):
ed Green is not competent. He suffers from chronic schizophrenia.
He cannot understand the nature and consequences of the proceedings
against him. He cannot assist his attorney in preparing a
de He's mentally ill to the point where a trial
would be meaningless. Judge Bundy accepts this finding. January sixth,
nineteen fifty eight. Ed Geen is committed to Central State
(21:12):
Hospital indefinitely. Not as punishment as treatment, with the possibility
that he might eventually become competent and face trial. This
outcome horrifies Bernice Worden's family, horrifies Mary Hogan's family, horrifies
the people of Plainfield, who wanted to see Ed stand
trial and be punished for his crimes. Instead, he's in
(21:35):
a mental hospital, receiving treatment, protected from trial because he's
too mentally ill to understand it. But this is the law.
You can't try someone who doesn't understand what's happening. It
violates due process, even if everyone knows Ed is guilty,
even if he confessed, even if the evidence is overwhelming.
The sixth Amendment guarantees the right to a fair trial,
(21:58):
and you can't have a fair trial with a defendant
who doesn't comprehend the proceedings. So Ed sits in Central
State Hospital for years, receiving antipsychotic medication, attending therapy sessions,
participating in hospital activities, being evaluated periodically to see if
his competency has been restored. March nineteen sixty eight, ten
(22:22):
years after being committed, Ed is evaluated again. The psychiatrists
determine that his condition has improved. He's no longer actively psychotic,
he understands the charges against him, he can assist in
his defense. He's competent to stand trial. November nineteen sixty eight,
ed Gean finally faces trial, eleven years after Bernice Warden's murder.
(22:45):
He's sixty two years old. The trial is for Bernice's
murder only. Prosecutors decide to try the clearest case rather
than introducing the complications of Mary Hogan's older murder. The
trial lasts one week. The evidence is overwhelming. Edie confession,
the receipt with his name, Bernice's body found in his house.
Ed's lawyers don't contest the facts. Their defense is insanity.
(23:10):
Ed was legally insane at the time of the murder,
unable to understand that killing Bernice Warden was wrong. The
jury hears from psychiatric experts. Here's Ed's confession. Here's about
the grave robbing and the human skin furniture and the
woman suit. Here's about Augusta Geen and the isolated childhood
and the mother fixation. November fourteenth, nineteen sixty eight, after
(23:34):
one day of deliberation, the jury returns its verdict not
guilty by reason of insanity. Ed Geen is not convicted
of murder. He's found legally insane at the time of
the crime, which means he's not criminally responsible, which means
no punishment, no prison sentence, no execution, just continued commitment
(23:56):
to a mental hospital. Judge Robert Golmar accepts the verdict
and orders Ed committed to Central State Hospital for the
rest of his life, this time not for treatment to
restore competency, but as punishment and protection for society. Ed
will never be released. We'll spend the rest of his
life in psychiatric custody. The families of Bernice Warden and
Mary Hogan get no satisfaction from this verdict. No conviction,
(24:21):
no punishment, just a determination that Ed was too crazy
to be held responsible for butchering their loved ones and
turning them into furniture. But this is the insanity defense
working as designed. If someone genuinely cannot understand right from
wrong due to mental illness, punishing them is meaningless. They're
not deterred, they can't learn from punishment. They need treatment
(24:43):
and permanent confinement, not vengeance. The question is whether Ed
truly couldn't understand that murder was wrong, or whether he
just had such bizarre psychology that he didn't care. The
jury decided the former ed was insane, genuinely legally insane,
to disconnected from reality to be held criminally responsible. So
(25:03):
ed Geen never serves a day in prison, never receives
punishment for his crimes, spends the rest of his life
in a mental hospital, where he becomes, by all accounts,
a model patient. He's cooperative, helpful, polite to staff, participates
in therapy, takes his medication without complaint, follows all rules,
(25:23):
causes no problems. He's so well behaved that he's given
increased privileges access to books, magazines, television. He's allowed to
work in the hospital kitchen, becomes friends with some staff members.
The horrifying truth is that ed Geen, the butcher of Plainfield,
who murdered women and robbed graves and made furniture from
(25:45):
human skin, is apparently a pretty decent guy. Once he's
medicated and supervised. He's not violent, not aggressive, not dangerous
to other patients or staff, just a quiet, odd older
man living out his days in institutional care. In nineteen
seventy four, ed Is transferred to Mendota Mental Health Institute
(26:06):
in Madison, Wisconsin. It's a less restrictive facility than Central State,
more freedoms, better conditions. Ed continues being a model patient,
continues cooperating with treatment, continues living peacefully in psychiatric custody.
July twenty sixth, nineteen eighty four, ed Gen dies cancer,
(26:29):
specifically respiratory failure secondary to lung cancer. He's seventy seven
years old. He's been in psychiatric custody for twenty six years.
Never faced execution, never served a prison sentence, just lived
quietly in mental hospitals until cancer killed him. He's buried
in Plainfield Cemetery, Plainfield, the town where he committed his crimes,
(26:52):
where Bernice Worden lived and died, where Mary Hogan disappeared.
His grave is unmarked at first, but someone eventually places
a small stone with just his name and dates. Grave
robbers repeatedly steal Ed's headstone, not because they're fans, but
because it's worth money. Collectors want pieces of ed Gean's
grave marker. The macabre fascination that will define his legacy
(27:16):
is already beginning. In two thousand, Ed's headstone is stolen
again and never recovered. His grave remains unmarked, now just
a spot in Plainfield Cemetery, where the Butcher of Plainfield
rests among the people whose graves he once robbed. Bernice
Warden is buried in Plainfield Cemetery too, about two hundred
feet from ed Geen, the woman he murdered, and the
(27:38):
man who murdered her resting in the same cemetery. That's
how small Plainfield is, That's how intertwined these stories remain.
Ed Geen died in nineteen eighty four, but culturally he
never died. He became immortal, not as ed Geen, but
(27:59):
as every skin wearing, mother obsessed serial killer who came after.
Let's start with the first and most famous, Norman Bates.
Writer Robert Bloch is living in Wisconsin, about thirty five
miles from Plainfield. The ed Gen story is still fresh.
It's only been two years since the murders. Block is
a horror writer, and the ed Geen case fascinates him,
(28:22):
not the grave robbing or the furniture. The mother fixation,
the idea of a man so dominated by his mother
that even after her death, he can't escape her control.
Block writes a novel called Psycho. It's about Norman Bates,
a man who runs a motel with his mother, except
his mother is dead. Norman killed her years ago, then
couldn't accept her death, so he preserved her corpse and
(28:44):
keeps it in the house. He talks to her, argues
with her. When the mother personality takes control, Norman dresses
in her clothes and commits murders, then forgets about them.
Sound familiar dead mother, preserved corpse, son who can't let
go Oh, psychological split causing murders. The son doesn't remember.
That's ed Geen. Not literally block change details, but the
(29:09):
core psychology is ed the mother fixation, the inability to
accept her death, the crimes committed while mentally dissociated. Alfred
Hitchcock makes Psycho into a movie. Anthony Perkins plays Norman Bates.
The movie is shocking for its time, the shower scene,
the twist ending revealing Norman's mother has been dead all along,
(29:31):
the portrait of a seemingly normal man who's actually profoundly disturbed.
Psycho becomes one of the most influential horror films ever made,
creates the template for the American serial killer movie, and
at its core is ed Geen's relationship with his mother,
Ed's inability to escape her control. Even after death. Ed's
psychological fracture that made him capable of murder while believing
(29:55):
himself innocent. Norman Bates is ed Geen sanitized, made cinematic,
given a different story but the same psychology, and millions
of people watch Psycho without knowing they're watching a dramatization
of the Butcher of Plainfield. Tobe Hooper makes the Texas
Chainsaw Massacre. It's loosely inspired by true events. The opening
(30:18):
text claims those true events are ed Geen's crimes. Leatherface,
the killer wears masks made from human skin, lives in
an isolated farmhouse full of bones and body parts used
as furniture, kills with brutal efficiency. His family uses human
remains to decorate their home. Lampshades, chairs, walls covered in
(30:40):
bones and skin. That's ed Geen's house. That's what police
found when they searched Ed's farmhouse. The skin, masks, the bones,
the furniture made from human remains, leather faces ed green,
with the grave robbing removed and the violence amplified for
horror purposes. The Texas Chainsaw mass becomes a horror classic,
(31:01):
spawns sequels, becomes a franchise, and Most people who watch
it don't know they're looking at a recreation of ed
Gen's farmhouse. Don't know that the horrifying decorations in Leatherface's
house were real items found in Ed's home. Thomas Harris
publishes the Silence of the Lambs. It's about FBI trainee
Clarice Starling hunting a serial killer called Buffalo Bill who's
(31:24):
kidnapping women and skinning them. Why is he skinning them?
Because Buffalo Bill wants to become a woman. He's making
a woman's suit from real women's skin. He's planning to
wear it to transform himself, to literally become female by
wearing skin taken from female victims. That's ed Geen. That's
the woman's suit police found in Ed's house. That's Ed's
(31:47):
stated motivation. He wanted to become a woman, specifically, wanted
to become his mother, so he made a suit from
the skins of women who resembled her. The Silence of
the Lambs becomes a movie. Buffalo Bill, played by Ted Levine,
dances in his basement wearing his woman suit. Would you
fuck me? I'd fuck me, he says into the camera,
(32:11):
admiring himself wearing someone Else's skin. The movie wins five
Academy Awards, including Best Picture. It's acclaimed as a masterpiece
of psychological horror, and at its core is ed Gean's
woman suit, Ed's desire to transform into a woman. Ed's
crimes made cinematic and given to a fictional killer. Three
landmark horror films, Three iconic villains Norman Bates, Leatherface, Buffalo Bill,
(32:38):
all derived from ed Geen, all taking pieces of his
crimes in psychology and making them into entertainment. And it
doesn't stop there. Ed Gean influences countless other films, books,
TV shows. Anytime you see a serial killer with a
mother fixation, that's Ed. Anytime you see someone wearing human skin,
(32:59):
that's ED. Anytime you see furniture made from human remains,
that's Ed. He becomes the template, the archetype, the original
that everyone copies and reinterprets and builds on. The Butcher
of Plainfield becomes Hollywood's favorite serial killer, inspiring literally dozens
of fictional characters. Which brings us to twenty twenty five
(33:20):
and Netflix's Monster, the ed Geen Story. This is the
latest in the Monster anthology series that previously covered Jeffrey
Dahmer and the Menendez brothers, Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan producing,
Charlie Hunham playing ed Geen. A prestige series with major
stars and big budget recreating Ed's crimes for streaming audiences.
The show is getting attention, getting reviews, getting viewers. People
(33:44):
are watching ed Geen murder Bernice Werden and Mary Hogan,
watching him rob graves, watching him make furniture from human skin,
all dramatized, all given cinematic treatment, all turned into entertainment.
And I have complicated feelings about this. On one hand,
telling Edgen's story has value. Understanding how a person becomes
(34:07):
capable of these crimes matters. Examining the psychology of killers
can help prevent future killings. True crime has educational value
when done responsibly. On the other hand, ed Geen murdered
two women and violated forty graves. Bernice Warden and Mary
Hogan are real people who died horribly. Their families are
(34:30):
real people who suffered. Turning that into entertainment feels exploitative,
feels like profiting from their tragedy feels like we've forgotten
they were real victims, not characters in a horror story.
The problem with ed Gen's cultural legacy is that the
more famous he becomes, the more forgotten his victims become.
Everyone knows ed Geen. Everyone knows about the skin masks
(34:53):
and the woman's suit and the furniture made from human remains.
But how many people know Bernice Warden's name? How many
people know Mary Hogan ran a tavern? How many people
remember they were real women, with real lives who died
because ed Geen decided they fit his criteria. The cultural
fascination with ed Geen has turned him into a character,
(35:16):
a monster, a horror movie villain, and in the process
we've dehumanized him, which paradoxically makes us forget that his
crimes were real, that his victims were real, that this
isn't fiction. Norman Bates is fiction, leather Faces fiction, Buffalo
Bill is fiction. But ed Geen was real. And because
we've turned him into the inspiration for fictional killers, we
(35:39):
start thinking of him as fictional too, as a character,
as entertainment. That's the dark side of ed Gain's legacy.
We took real horror, two women murdered, forty graves, robbed,
a house full of human remains, and we made it
into movies and TV shows and books. We made it consumable,
made it safe, made it something you can watch with
(36:00):
popcorn on a Friday night. And in doing that, we've
forgotten that Bernice Warden's son found his mother's headless body,
that Mary Hogan's family waited three years to learn she
was dead, That dozens of families discovered their loved one's
graves had been robbed and their remains turned into furniture.
So yes, watch Monster the ed Geen Story on Netflix.
(36:22):
Watch Charlie Hunham play ed. Watch the recreation of the farmhouse,
and the crimes and the psychology. But remember, while you're watching,
this isn't just a horror story. This happened. These were
real people, real crimes, real victims who deserved better than
being forgotten in our fascination with the monster who killed them.
(36:42):
Back with more in a moment. Ed Geen spent twenty
six years in psychiatric custody from nineteen fifty eight to
nineteen eighty four, from age fifty two to age seventy seven,
in a quarter century in mental hospitals, and by all accounts,
(37:03):
he was a model patient. He took his medication without complaint,
attended therapy sessions, followed all rules, never caused problems, never
showed violence toward other patients or staff. The same man
who murdered two women and robbed forty graves became in
psychiatric custody, harmless, cooperative, almost pleasant. Staff members who worked
(37:27):
with Ed over the years report that he was polite, helpful,
would assist with tasks around the ward, would help other patients,
would engage in conversations about normal topics, weather, sports, current events.
He seemed like a harmless, older man with an unfortunate past.
Ed was allowed certain privileges. He could read books and magazines,
(37:49):
watch television, work in the hospital kitchen, which he enjoyed
because it reminded him of farm work. He was good
at following routines, good at repetitive tasks, good at keeping busy.
He rarely talked about his crimes. When he did, it
was matter of fact, no emotion, no remorse that staff
could detect, just acknowledgment that, yes, he'd done those things,
(38:12):
the way someone might acknowledge they'd once worked as a
carpenter or lived in a different town. Events that happened
but didn't seem to affect him emotionally. Some psychiatric staff
believed Ed's medication controlled his symptoms, that without antipsychotics, he
might decompensate back into the psychological state that enabled his crimes.
Others thought Ed was only dangerous in the specific circumstances
(38:36):
that existed before his arrest. Living alone, isolated without supervision
or social contact, in a structured environment with support, he
was fine either way. Ed lived out his years peacefully,
no incidents, no relapses, no signs of the man who'd
committed such horrifying crimes, just an aging psychiatric patient who
(38:57):
followed rules and caused no trouble. In nineteen seventy four,
when he was transferred to Mendoda Mental Health Institute, a
reporter asked ed if he had any regrets. Ed thought
about it, then said he regretted that his house had
been so messy when police arrived. Said his mother would
have been ashamed of how disorganized he'd let things get.
(39:19):
That's ed Gean, still thinking about his mother, still worried
about her disapproval. Not regretting the murders or the grave robbing,
or the furniture made from human skin, regretting that his
house wasn't tidy enough. July nineteen eighty four, Ed is
diagnosed with lung cancer. By this point, he's seventy seven
(39:40):
years old, spent most of his adult life in psychiatric custody.
The cancer is advanced inoperable. He has months to live
at most. July twenty sixth, nineteen eighty four, Ed dies
respiratory failure caused by the cancer. He dies peacefully in
the hospital with medical staff present. No suffering, no drama,
just an old old man dying of cancer after living
(40:01):
longer than either of his victims. He's buried in Plainfield Cemetery.
His grave is initially marked with a simple stone, just
his name and dates, no epitaph, no explanation, just Edward
Theodore gen August twenty seventh, nineteen o six July twenty sixth,
nineteen eighty four. The headstone is stolen repeatedly collectors want
(40:26):
pieces of ed Geen memorabilia. His grave marker becomes a souvenir. Eventually,
after the headstone is stolen for the last time in
two thousand and never recovered, the grave is left unmarked today.
If you visit Plainfield Cemetery you can find where ed
is buried if you know where to look, but there's
no marker, just a spot of ground. The Butcher of
(40:48):
Plainfield rests in an unmarked grave in the town where
he committed his crimes. Bernice Warden is in the same cemetery,
about two hundred feet away. She has a proper headstone.
Mary Hogan is buried in a different cemetery, but also
has a marked grave. The victims are memorialized properly. The
killer is unmarked. Maybe that's appropriate. Ed Gean got enough
(41:11):
attention in life, got famous, got turned into movies and
books and TV shows. His victims deserve the memorials. He
deserves to be forgotten. But he won't be forgotten because
every time someone watches Psycho or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
or The Silence of the Lambs, they're watching ed Gean's legacy.
Every time someone watches Monster the ed Geen Story on Netflix,
(41:33):
they're engaging with his crimes. Ed Geen will be remembered
forever for the worst possible reasons, for the most horrifying crimes.
And that's his legacy, not the quiet old man who
died peacefully in a hospital bed, the Monster, the Butcher
of Plainfield, the man who murdered women and robbed graves,
and made furniture from human skin. That's how history remembers
(41:54):
ed Geen. That's how it should remember him. The ed
Geen Story two parts, two days, The crimes and the psychology,
the murders and the mother, the horror, and the legacy.
Ed Geen murdered Bernice Warden and Mary Hogan, robbed at
(42:14):
least forty graves, turned human remains into furniture, made a
woman suit from real women's skin so he could become
his mother. Was found not guilty by reason of insanity,
spent twenty six years as a model patient in psychiatric hospitals.
Died peacefully of cancer in nineteen eighty four. And somewhere
along the way, ed Geen became entertainment. Became the inspiration
(42:38):
for Norman Bates and Leatherface and Buffalo Bill, became the
template for every skin wearing, mother obsessed serial killer in
American horror. Became famous not for what he did to
his victims, but for the creative ways he violated their bodies.
That's the uncomfortable truth about ed Gan's cultural legacy. We
turned real horror into entertainment, turned real victims into plot devices,
(43:03):
turned real crimes into horror movies and TV shows and
books that we consume for fun. Monster The ed Geen
Story is streaming on Netflix now. It's well made, well acted,
thoughtfully produced, and it's built on the murders of Bernice
Worden and Mary Hogan, built on the violation of forty graves,
built on crimes that devastated families and traumatized a community.
(43:26):
Should we watch it? Should we consume entertainment based on
real murders? I don't have a simple answer. True crime
serves a purpose education, understanding, prevention, But there's a line
between education and exploitation, between understanding and glorification, between remembering
victims and celebrating killers. I think the line is this,
(43:50):
when we tell these stories, we have to remember the victims,
have to say their names, have to honor their lives,
have to treat them as real people who mattered, not
as props. In the Killer's story, Bernice Warden was fifty
eight years old hardware store owner Frank Warden's mother, respected
member of Plainfield community. She opened her store on the
(44:12):
morning of November sixteenth, nineteen fifty seven, and ed Geen
shot her with a point three to two caliber rifle.
She should have lived another twenty years, had grandchildren, enjoyed retirement,
died peacefully of old age. Instead, she's remembered as ed
Geen's victim, as the body hanging in his summer kitchen,
(44:33):
as the murder that finally got ed caught. That's not
fair to Bernice. She was more than how she died.
Mary Hogan was fifty one years old, tavern owner, divorced,
worked hard running her business alone. She disappeared December eighth,
nineteen fifty four, and wasn't found for three years. Her
(44:54):
family spent three years wondering where she was, hoping she
was alive, then learn she'd been murdered, dismembered, and turned
into a mask. Mary deserves better than being a footnote
in ed Geen's story. She deserves to be remembered as
a person, as someone who lived and worked and mattered
to her family and community. That's what we owe victims
(45:15):
when we tell these stories. Remember them as people say
their names, Honor their lives. Don't let them be forgotten
in our fascination with the monsters who killed them. Ed
Geen was a monster, but he was also a human being,
created by specific circumstances, an abusive mother, severe mental illness,
(45:36):
complete isolation, and a psychological break after Augusta's death. Understanding
how he happened matters not to excuse him, not to sympathize,
but to understand so we can recognize warning signs, so
we can prevent future ed Geenes. But understanding ed Geen
shouldn't mean forgetting Bernice Worden and Mary Hogan shouldn't mean
(45:57):
turning their deaths into entertainment. Wouldn't mean profiting from their
tragedy without honoring their memory. So watch Monster, the ed
Green Story. If you want, watch Psycho, Watch Texas Chainsaw Massacre,
Watch Silence of the Lambs, consume the cultural legacy of
the Butcher of Plainfield. But while you're watching, remember this
(46:18):
wasn't fiction. This happened in Plainfield, Wisconsin in nineteen fifty seven.
Two women were murdered, forty graves were robbed, a house
full of human remains was discovered, families were devastated, a
community was traumatized, and Hollywood turned it into entertainment. I'm reed.
(46:38):
Carter ed Geen died in nineteen eighty four, but his
legacy lives forever, not because of what he did to
his victims, because we won't stop making movies about him.
Remember Bernice Worden, Remember Mary Hogan. Remember the dozens of
women whose graves were robbed and whose remains were violated.
There the real story there, Who deserved justice? There? Who
(46:59):
we should remember? This has been celebrity Trials, the ed
Geen Story, two parts, covering the crimes, the psychology, the trial,
and the legacy of the Butcher of Plainfield. Tomorrow we're
back to regular programming, whatever fresh horrors America produces, whatever
celebrities do stupid things, whatever trials grip the nation. But
(47:21):
for this weekend, we remembered ed Geen, not because he's fascinating,
but because Bernice Worden and Mary Hogan deserve to have
their stories told completely, deserve to be remembered as more
than ed Geen's victims. See you Monday,
Caalarogus Shark Media. Good morning, I'm Reed Carter, Sunday, October twelfth,
twenty twenty five. Yesterday we showed you what ed Geen did.
The murders, the grave, robbing, the house full of human
remains fashioned into furniture, two women dead, forty graves violated,
(00:26):
fifteen different bodies turned into household items. Today we tell
you about Augusta Gean, Ed's mother, The woman who raised
him in isolation on a Wisconsin farm. The woman who
taught him that all women except her were sinful, disgusting
vessels of satan. The woman who forbade him from having friends, relationships,
or any life outside her control. The woman who died
(00:48):
in nineteen forty five and left Ed so broken that
he spent the next twelve years trying to bring her
back by robbing graves of women who looked like her,
by murdering women who reminded him of her, by wearing
a suit made from women's skin so he could become her.
Today we also tell you how ed Geen became entertainment.
(01:09):
How his crimes inspired Norman Bates keeping his mother's corpse
in Psycho, How he inspired leatherface wearing human skin masks
in Texas Chainsaw Massacre. How he inspired Buffalo Bill making
a woman's suit in Silence of the Lambs. How the
quiet farmer from Plainfield, Wisconsin became the template for every
skin wearing, mother obsessed serial killer in American cinema. And
(01:33):
today we ask the uncomfortable question, what does it mean
that we turned ed Gean into entertainment, that we built
horror franchises on his crimes? That Netflix just released a
series dramatizing the man who murdered Bernice Warden and Mary
Hogan and turned them into furniture. I'm read Carter, this
is part two of Celebrity Trials, Mother's Boy, the psychology,
(01:57):
the trial, the legacy, and why ed Gean should be fascinating.
But he is. And that's the problem. To understand ed Geen,
you have to understand Augusta Geen. And to understand Augusta
you have to understand that she was one of the
most controlling, fanatically religious, psychologically abusive mothers in American criminal history.
(02:23):
Augusta Villelmina Leerka was born in eighteen seventy eight in
Wisconsin to German immigrant parents. She was raised in a
strict Lutheran household, where women were subservient, children were obedient,
and God's judgment hung over every action. She absorbed these
lessons completely, then she weaponized them. In nineteen hundred, Augusta
married George Geen. She was twenty two. George was a tanner,
(02:47):
then later a carpenter. By all accounts, George was weak, passive,
an alcoholic. Augusta despised him, called him worthless, told her
sons their father was a failure and a sinner. Made
it clear that George's only purpose was providing money, and
that otherwise he was beneath contempt. Augusta had two sons,
Henry born in nineteen oh one, Edward born in nineteen
(03:11):
oh six. From the moment they were born, Augusta controlled
every aspect of their lives, not with love, with religion,
with fear, with the absolute certainty that she alone knew
God's will and everyone else was damned. Augusta believed that
the world outside her farm was evil. Cities were cesspools
of sin. Other people were corrupt women. All women except
(03:34):
her were prostitutes and temptresses sent by Satan to lure
good men into damnation. The only safe place was the
green farm. The only righteous person was Augusta. Everyone else
was going to hell. She made sure Ed understood this
from childhood. Other children were sinful. Playing with them would
corrupt him. School was necessary for education, but dangerous for socialization.
(04:00):
To go to school, learn his lessons, and come home immediately,
no friends, no talking to other children, no participation in
anything social. Other families might have gone to church for community,
Augusta went to church to judge. She attended a small
Lutheran church in Plainfield, where she sat in the front
row and glared at other parishioners, whom she considered insufficiently pious.
(04:22):
She read from the Bible every day at home, focusing
particularly on the Old Testament passages about death, murder, divine retribution,
and female sin. Augusta was obsessed with female sexuality as sin.
She read ed passages from the Bible about Harlot's and
Jezebel and women leading men astray. She told him that
(04:44):
women's bodies were disgusting, that sex was a sin unless
it was for procreation within marriage, that any woman who
enjoyed sex, or dressed immodestly or laughed too loudly was
a whore destined for hell all women except Augusta. She
was different. She was pure, she was righteous. She was
the only woman in the world who wasn't corrupted by sin.
(05:06):
Ed absorbed all of this. He had no choice. Augusta
controlled what he read, what he heard, who he talked to,
where he went, what he thought. From ages five to forty,
Ed Geen lived under total psychological domination by his mother.
The Green Farm was one hundred sixty acres outside Plainfield, isolated,
(05:30):
no close neighbors, the perfect place for Augusta to create
her closed world. She ran the farm with Germanic efficiency,
made the boy's work constantly physical. Labor was godly, Idleness
was sin ed and Henry did farm work from dawn
to dusk, then came inside for Bible reading and more
lectures about sin and salvation. George Geen was barely present.
(05:54):
He drank, he disappeared for days. He had no authority
in his own home. Augusta made all decisions, controlled all money,
ran everything. George was just an occasional figure stumbling drunk
through the background of Ed's childhood. Henry, the older brother,
started questioning Augusta as he got older, started pushing back,
(06:17):
started suggesting that maybe their mother was wrong about some things.
Maybe other people weren't all evil, Maybe the world outside
the farm wasn't hell on earth. Augusta punished Henry for
this insolence, berated him, called him sinful, told him he
was becoming like his worthless father. The conflict between Henry
(06:37):
and Augusta grew more intense as Henry entered his twenties
and thirties. He wanted to escape, wanted a life outside
the farm, but Augusta wouldn't allow it. Ed, meanwhile, never questioned. Augusta,
never pushed back, never developed the psychological independence that Henry showed.
Ed believed everything Augusta said. Believed women were sinful, believed
(07:01):
the outside world was evil. Believed his mother was the
only pure person on earth. Believed his purpose was serving her.
When other boys in school talked about girls, Ed was horrified.
When other teenagers started dating. Ed stayed home. When other
young men got married and started families, Ed remained at
(07:22):
the farm with his mother. He didn't go to dances,
didn't have girlfriends, didn't have any relationship with any woman
except Augusta. People in Plainfield noticed Ed was odd, socially awkward,
would laugh at inappropriate times. Seemed nervous around women, but
he was harmless. Helped with farm work, did odd jobs,
(07:42):
babysat children and was good at it. Gentle and patient. Strange, yes,
dangerous no. April first, nineteen forty George gen dies heart failure,
likely alcohol related. He's sixty six years old. Augusta shows
no grief. George was a sinner and a failure. His
death changes nothing for her except removing an annoyance. She
(08:06):
still has her sons, She still has her farm. She
still has complete control. May sixteenth, nineteen forty four, Henry
and Ed are fighting a brush fire on the farm.
The fire gets out of control. Henry disappears in the smoke.
Ed runs to get help, returns with fire fighters. They
find Henry's body lying in an area of the farm
(08:28):
that the fire hadn't reached. He's dead. The official cause
of death is listed as asphyxiation from smoke, but Henry
has bruises on his head. The fire didn't reach where
his body was found. Ed reported Henry missing, then led
searchers directly to the body, even though visibility was poor.
The circumstances are suspicious. Some investigators suspect Ed killed Henry
(08:51):
that the brothers fought, that Henry said something about Augusta
that Ed couldn't tolerate, that Ed struck Henry and left
him to die. There's no evidence, no witnesses, no proof,
but the suspicion lingers did Ed kill his brother to
protect his mother's honor. Will never know for certain. What
we do know is that after Henry's death, it was
(09:14):
just Ed and Augusta. Ed was thirty eight years old,
never had a job off the farm, never had a girlfriend,
never had any life separate from his mother. He was
perfectly content with that arrangement. Augusta was his entire world.
December twenty ninth, nineteen forty five. Augusta suffers a stroke.
(09:38):
She's paralyzed on her left side. Ed cares for her,
devotedly feeds her, bathes her, dresses her, talks to her constantly,
even though she can barely respond. He's terrified of losing her.
She's the only person who matters, the only person who
ever mattered. Augusta recovers somewhat. She's weaker, but she's still Augusta,
(10:00):
still dominating, still controlling, still the center of Ed's universe.
December twenty ninth, nineteen forty five, exactly one year after
her first stroke, Augusta has a second stroke. This one
is fatal. She dies at home with Ed beside her.
She's sixty seven years old. Ed is thirty nine, and
(10:21):
for the first time in his life, he's alone, completely,
utterly alone. The woman who controlled every moment of his
existence is gone. The woman he believed was the only
pure person on earth is dead. The woman who gave
his life structure and meaning and purpose no longer exists.
Ed's response is psychological collapse. He boards up Augusta's bedroom,
(10:45):
boards up the parlor where she spent time, boards up
the upstairs, seals off entire sections of the house so
they remain exactly as Augusta left them, creates a shrine
to his dead mother in the rooms where she lived.
The rest of the house deteriorates into squalor, trash, piling
up newspapers, accumulating clutter and filth everywhere. Ed lives in
(11:09):
one small room and the kitchen lets. Everything else decay
except Augusta's rooms. Those stay pristine, untouched, waiting for her
to return. But Augusta doesn't return, and Ed can't accept
that she's gone. Forever. So two years after her death,
around nineteen forty seven, Ed starts reading obituaries, looking for
(11:32):
middle aged women, women who resemble Augusta, women who might
in some way bring her back. That's when the grave
robbing begins. Ed is trying to resurrect his mother, trying
to surround himself with women who look like her, trying
to study female anatomy so he can understand the woman
who controlled his entire life, trying to become her by
(11:54):
wearing skin fashioned from women who reminded him of her.
The psychiatric experts who later evaluate Ed call this a
mother fixation and gender confusion and necrophilic tendencies, clinical terms
for what happened when Augusta Gean spent forty years psychologically
destroying her son and then died, leaving him broken in
(12:17):
ways that expressed themselves through grave robbing and murder. Did
Augusta Gean create Ed Geen the killer? Yes and no.
Plenty of people have controlling, religious, psychologically abusive mothers and
don't become serial killers. Plenty of people have isolated childhoods
and don't rob graves. Plenty of people lose their mothers
(12:38):
and grieve normally instead. Of making furniture from corpses. But
Augusta created the specific conditions that, combined with whatever was
already wrong with Ed, psychologically produced the Butcher of Plainfield.
She isolated him from normal social development. She taught him
that women were disgusting and sinful. She made herself the
only acceptable female in his universe. Then she died and
(13:02):
left him with no ability to process loss, no social skills,
no relationships, and no identity separate from being her son.
Ed tried to fill that void with corpses, with grave robbing,
with murder, with a woman suit that let him become Augusta.
None of it worked, none of it brought her back.
(13:23):
But Ed kept trying for twelve years until Sheriff Art
Schley opened the door to his farmhouse and found Bernice
Warden hanging from the ceiling back with more in a moment.
(13:44):
After ed Geene's arrest, psychiatrists spend months evaluating him, trying
to understand what combination of factors created the Butcher of Plainfield,
trying to determine if he's competent to stand trial, trying
to answer whether he understood right from wrong when he
killed Bernice Worden and Mary Hogan. The psychiatric reports paint
a picture of profound psychological dysfunction. Ed has what they
(14:08):
call a mother fixation. His entire psychological development was arrested
by Augusta's dominance. He never developed a separate identity, never individuated,
never became a complete person independent of his mother. Ed
also shows evidence of gender confusion, not transgender identity in
the modern understanding, but a deep conflict about his own
(14:30):
masculinity and a desire to literally become female. The woman's
suit wasn't just a costume. It was Ed's attempt to
physically transform into a woman, specifically into his mother. When
psychiatrists ask ed why he robbed graves and murdered women,
he struggles to articulate it. Says he wanted to study
female anatomy, Says he wanted to understand women. Says he
(14:54):
wanted to have women around. Says his mother told him
women were disgusting, but he needed to see for himself.
He doesn't express remorse, not because he's without conscience, but
because he genuinely doesn't seem to understand why what he
did was wrong. In Ed's mind, the women he robbed
from graves were already dead. They weren't using their bodies anymore.
(15:15):
Why shouldn't he use them? Why shouldn't he study them?
Why shouldn't he fashion them into useful items. The murders
are harder for Ed to explain. He claims not to
fully remember killing Mary Hogan or Bernice Warden, says he
was in a daze. Says it felt like watching someone
else do it, says the memories are fragmentary and dream like.
(15:36):
Psychiatrists debate whether this dissociation is real or convenient. Some
think Ed genuinely entered a dissociative state during the murders,
that the act of killing triggered such psychological conflict that
his mind protected him by creating distance from the memory.
Others think Ed remembers perfectly well, but claims amnesia because
(15:58):
it's easier than confronting what he did did. What's clear
is that Ed doesn't have psychopathy in the classic sense.
He's not charming or manipulative. He doesn't enjoy causing suffering.
He doesn't torture victims or prolong their deaths. His murders
are quick, single gunshots, efficient mechanical. The violence comes after
(16:19):
death during the butchering process, and even that is methodical
rather than frenzied. Ed isn't killing for pleasure. He's killing
to obtain bodies, fresh bodies that he can work with, preserve,
fashion into his creations. The women themselves are secondary to
what they provide. They're raw materials, components tools for Ed's
(16:40):
project of resurrecting or becoming his mother. That psychological disconnect
treating human beings as raw materials is what makes Ed
so disturbing. He's not sadistic. He's practical, the same way
a carpenter selects goodwood for a project Ed selected women
who fit his criteria, the same way a craftsman works
(17:00):
carefully with his materials. Ed carefully butchered and preserved his victims.
There's also the necrophilia. Ed admits to having sexual contact
with some of the bodies from graves, not all of them,
some were too decomposed, but the fresher ones. Yes. He
doesn't volunteer this information, has to be asked directly, then
confirms it without shame or embarrassment. Psychiatrists note that Ed
(17:24):
shows no understanding of social norms around death, bodies or
human dignity. He was raised in complete isolation, with only
Augusta's bizarre worldview as reference. He has no framework for
understanding why robbing graves is wrong or why making lampshades
from human skin is horrifying. To Ed, these are just
things he did. Projects he worked on solutions to his loneliness.
(17:48):
The question for the legal system becomes is Ed insane?
Does he meet the legal definition of not knowing right
from wrong? He clearly knows society disapproves. He hid his activities,
lied when people asked about his nighttime trips, kept the
house locked, and discouraged visitors. He understood that other people
(18:09):
would object to what he was doing. But did he
understand that it was morally wrong or did he just
understand that it was socially unacceptable. There's a difference. Lots
of people do things they know others disapprove of without
believing those things are actually wrong. Ed seems to fall
into that category. He knew people would be upset if
they found out about his grave robbing and his human
(18:30):
skin furniture, but he didn't believe what he was doing
was actually wrong. The women were dead, He wasn't hurting
anyone who was alive. Why should anyone care? This is
the psychological impact of Augusta's isolation. Ed never developed normal
moral reasoning because he never had normal social experiences to
build that reasoning on. His only moral framework was Augusta's framework.
(18:56):
Everything is sin except what Augusta permits, and Gusta was gone,
so Ed created his own permissions. The psychiatric evaluation concludes
that ed Gen suffers from schizophrenia, not the type with
dramatic hallucinations and delusions, but a subtle form characterized by
emotional flatness, social withdrawal, bizarre thinking, and inability to distinguish
(19:20):
reality from his internal fantasy world. In Ed's mind, his
mother is still alive in some form. The women he
robs and kills aren't really gone, they're transformed. The distinction
between living and dead is blurred. Is this legal insanity?
The courts will spend years trying to answer that question.
(19:44):
November nineteen fifty seven, ed Geen is arrested, confesses to
two murders and forty grave robberies. The case seems straightforward.
Put him on trial, convict him, execute him, or imprison
him for life. Just this is served, Except it's not
straightforward because ed Geen might be legally insane, and if
(20:05):
he's insane, he can't stand trial. And if he can't
stand trial, he can't be convicted. And if he can't
be convicted, what happens to him? January nineteen fifty eight,
Judge Herbert Bundy orders ed to undergo psychiatric evaluation to
determine if he's competent to stand trial. Competency is different
from insanity. Competency means does the defendant understand the charges
(20:29):
against him? Can he assist in his own defense? Can
he participate meaningfully in legal proceedings. Ed is evaluated by
psychiatrists at Central State Hospital in Walpin, Wisconsin. They spend
months observing him, testing him, interviewing him, trying to determine
if he's capable of standing trial. The psychiatrists conclude, No,
(20:50):
ed Green is not competent. He suffers from chronic schizophrenia.
He cannot understand the nature and consequences of the proceedings
against him. He cannot assist his attorney in preparing a
de He's mentally ill to the point where a trial
would be meaningless. Judge Bundy accepts this finding. January sixth,
nineteen fifty eight. Ed Geen is committed to Central State
(21:12):
Hospital indefinitely. Not as punishment as treatment, with the possibility
that he might eventually become competent and face trial. This
outcome horrifies Bernice Worden's family, horrifies Mary Hogan's family, horrifies
the people of Plainfield, who wanted to see Ed stand
trial and be punished for his crimes. Instead, he's in
(21:35):
a mental hospital, receiving treatment, protected from trial because he's
too mentally ill to understand it. But this is the law.
You can't try someone who doesn't understand what's happening. It
violates due process, even if everyone knows Ed is guilty,
even if he confessed, even if the evidence is overwhelming.
The sixth Amendment guarantees the right to a fair trial,
(21:58):
and you can't have a fair trial with a defendant
who doesn't comprehend the proceedings. So Ed sits in Central
State Hospital for years, receiving antipsychotic medication, attending therapy sessions,
participating in hospital activities, being evaluated periodically to see if
his competency has been restored. March nineteen sixty eight, ten
(22:22):
years after being committed, Ed is evaluated again. The psychiatrists
determine that his condition has improved. He's no longer actively psychotic,
he understands the charges against him, he can assist in
his defense. He's competent to stand trial. November nineteen sixty eight,
ed Gean finally faces trial, eleven years after Bernice Warden's murder.
(22:45):
He's sixty two years old. The trial is for Bernice's
murder only. Prosecutors decide to try the clearest case rather
than introducing the complications of Mary Hogan's older murder. The
trial lasts one week. The evidence is overwhelming. Edie confession,
the receipt with his name, Bernice's body found in his house.
Ed's lawyers don't contest the facts. Their defense is insanity.
(23:10):
Ed was legally insane at the time of the murder,
unable to understand that killing Bernice Warden was wrong. The
jury hears from psychiatric experts. Here's Ed's confession. Here's about
the grave robbing and the human skin furniture and the
woman suit. Here's about Augusta Geen and the isolated childhood
and the mother fixation. November fourteenth, nineteen sixty eight, after
(23:34):
one day of deliberation, the jury returns its verdict not
guilty by reason of insanity. Ed Geen is not convicted
of murder. He's found legally insane at the time of
the crime, which means he's not criminally responsible, which means
no punishment, no prison sentence, no execution, just continued commitment
(23:56):
to a mental hospital. Judge Robert Golmar accepts the verdict
and orders Ed committed to Central State Hospital for the
rest of his life, this time not for treatment to
restore competency, but as punishment and protection for society. Ed
will never be released. We'll spend the rest of his
life in psychiatric custody. The families of Bernice Warden and
Mary Hogan get no satisfaction from this verdict. No conviction,
(24:21):
no punishment, just a determination that Ed was too crazy
to be held responsible for butchering their loved ones and
turning them into furniture. But this is the insanity defense
working as designed. If someone genuinely cannot understand right from
wrong due to mental illness, punishing them is meaningless. They're
not deterred, they can't learn from punishment. They need treatment
(24:43):
and permanent confinement, not vengeance. The question is whether Ed
truly couldn't understand that murder was wrong, or whether he
just had such bizarre psychology that he didn't care. The
jury decided the former ed was insane, genuinely legally insane,
to disconnected from reality to be held criminally responsible. So
(25:03):
ed Geen never serves a day in prison, never receives
punishment for his crimes, spends the rest of his life
in a mental hospital, where he becomes, by all accounts,
a model patient. He's cooperative, helpful, polite to staff, participates
in therapy, takes his medication without complaint, follows all rules,
(25:23):
causes no problems. He's so well behaved that he's given
increased privileges access to books, magazines, television. He's allowed to
work in the hospital kitchen, becomes friends with some staff members.
The horrifying truth is that ed Geen, the butcher of Plainfield,
who murdered women and robbed graves and made furniture from
(25:45):
human skin, is apparently a pretty decent guy. Once he's
medicated and supervised. He's not violent, not aggressive, not dangerous
to other patients or staff, just a quiet, odd older
man living out his days in institutional care. In nineteen
seventy four, ed Is transferred to Mendota Mental Health Institute
(26:06):
in Madison, Wisconsin. It's a less restrictive facility than Central State,
more freedoms, better conditions. Ed continues being a model patient,
continues cooperating with treatment, continues living peacefully in psychiatric custody.
July twenty sixth, nineteen eighty four, ed Gen dies cancer,
(26:29):
specifically respiratory failure secondary to lung cancer. He's seventy seven
years old. He's been in psychiatric custody for twenty six years.
Never faced execution, never served a prison sentence, just lived
quietly in mental hospitals until cancer killed him. He's buried
in Plainfield Cemetery, Plainfield, the town where he committed his crimes,
(26:52):
where Bernice Worden lived and died, where Mary Hogan disappeared.
His grave is unmarked at first, but someone eventually places
a small stone with just his name and dates. Grave
robbers repeatedly steal Ed's headstone, not because they're fans, but
because it's worth money. Collectors want pieces of ed Gean's
grave marker. The macabre fascination that will define his legacy
(27:16):
is already beginning. In two thousand, Ed's headstone is stolen
again and never recovered. His grave remains unmarked, now just
a spot in Plainfield Cemetery, where the Butcher of Plainfield
rests among the people whose graves he once robbed. Bernice
Warden is buried in Plainfield Cemetery too, about two hundred
feet from ed Geen, the woman he murdered, and the
(27:38):
man who murdered her resting in the same cemetery. That's
how small Plainfield is, That's how intertwined these stories remain.
Ed Geen died in nineteen eighty four, but culturally he
never died. He became immortal, not as ed Geen, but
(27:59):
as every skin wearing, mother obsessed serial killer who came after.
Let's start with the first and most famous, Norman Bates.
Writer Robert Bloch is living in Wisconsin, about thirty five
miles from Plainfield. The ed Gen story is still fresh.
It's only been two years since the murders. Block is
a horror writer, and the ed Geen case fascinates him,
(28:22):
not the grave robbing or the furniture. The mother fixation,
the idea of a man so dominated by his mother
that even after her death, he can't escape her control.
Block writes a novel called Psycho. It's about Norman Bates,
a man who runs a motel with his mother, except
his mother is dead. Norman killed her years ago, then
couldn't accept her death, so he preserved her corpse and
(28:44):
keeps it in the house. He talks to her, argues
with her. When the mother personality takes control, Norman dresses
in her clothes and commits murders, then forgets about them.
Sound familiar dead mother, preserved corpse, son who can't let
go Oh, psychological split causing murders. The son doesn't remember.
That's ed Geen. Not literally block change details, but the
(29:09):
core psychology is ed the mother fixation, the inability to
accept her death, the crimes committed while mentally dissociated. Alfred
Hitchcock makes Psycho into a movie. Anthony Perkins plays Norman Bates.
The movie is shocking for its time, the shower scene,
the twist ending revealing Norman's mother has been dead all along,
(29:31):
the portrait of a seemingly normal man who's actually profoundly disturbed.
Psycho becomes one of the most influential horror films ever made,
creates the template for the American serial killer movie, and
at its core is ed Geen's relationship with his mother,
Ed's inability to escape her control. Even after death. Ed's
psychological fracture that made him capable of murder while believing
(29:55):
himself innocent. Norman Bates is ed Geen sanitized, made cinematic,
given a different story but the same psychology, and millions
of people watch Psycho without knowing they're watching a dramatization
of the Butcher of Plainfield. Tobe Hooper makes the Texas
Chainsaw Massacre. It's loosely inspired by true events. The opening
(30:18):
text claims those true events are ed Geen's crimes. Leatherface,
the killer wears masks made from human skin, lives in
an isolated farmhouse full of bones and body parts used
as furniture, kills with brutal efficiency. His family uses human
remains to decorate their home. Lampshades, chairs, walls covered in
(30:40):
bones and skin. That's ed Geen's house. That's what police
found when they searched Ed's farmhouse. The skin, masks, the bones,
the furniture made from human remains, leather faces ed green,
with the grave robbing removed and the violence amplified for
horror purposes. The Texas Chainsaw mass becomes a horror classic,
(31:01):
spawns sequels, becomes a franchise, and Most people who watch
it don't know they're looking at a recreation of ed
Gen's farmhouse. Don't know that the horrifying decorations in Leatherface's
house were real items found in Ed's home. Thomas Harris
publishes the Silence of the Lambs. It's about FBI trainee
Clarice Starling hunting a serial killer called Buffalo Bill who's
(31:24):
kidnapping women and skinning them. Why is he skinning them?
Because Buffalo Bill wants to become a woman. He's making
a woman's suit from real women's skin. He's planning to
wear it to transform himself, to literally become female by
wearing skin taken from female victims. That's ed Geen. That's
the woman's suit police found in Ed's house. That's Ed's
(31:47):
stated motivation. He wanted to become a woman, specifically, wanted
to become his mother, so he made a suit from
the skins of women who resembled her. The Silence of
the Lambs becomes a movie. Buffalo Bill, played by Ted Levine,
dances in his basement wearing his woman suit. Would you
fuck me? I'd fuck me, he says into the camera,
(32:11):
admiring himself wearing someone Else's skin. The movie wins five
Academy Awards, including Best Picture. It's acclaimed as a masterpiece
of psychological horror, and at its core is ed Gean's
woman suit, Ed's desire to transform into a woman. Ed's
crimes made cinematic and given to a fictional killer. Three
landmark horror films, Three iconic villains Norman Bates, Leatherface, Buffalo Bill,
(32:38):
all derived from ed Geen, all taking pieces of his
crimes in psychology and making them into entertainment. And it
doesn't stop there. Ed Gean influences countless other films, books,
TV shows. Anytime you see a serial killer with a
mother fixation, that's Ed. Anytime you see someone wearing human skin,
(32:59):
that's ED. Anytime you see furniture made from human remains,
that's Ed. He becomes the template, the archetype, the original
that everyone copies and reinterprets and builds on. The Butcher
of Plainfield becomes Hollywood's favorite serial killer, inspiring literally dozens
of fictional characters. Which brings us to twenty twenty five
(33:20):
and Netflix's Monster, the ed Geen Story. This is the
latest in the Monster anthology series that previously covered Jeffrey
Dahmer and the Menendez brothers, Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan producing,
Charlie Hunham playing ed Geen. A prestige series with major
stars and big budget recreating Ed's crimes for streaming audiences.
The show is getting attention, getting reviews, getting viewers. People
(33:44):
are watching ed Geen murder Bernice Werden and Mary Hogan,
watching him rob graves, watching him make furniture from human skin,
all dramatized, all given cinematic treatment, all turned into entertainment.
And I have complicated feelings about this. On one hand,
telling Edgen's story has value. Understanding how a person becomes
(34:07):
capable of these crimes matters. Examining the psychology of killers
can help prevent future killings. True crime has educational value
when done responsibly. On the other hand, ed Geen murdered
two women and violated forty graves. Bernice Warden and Mary
Hogan are real people who died horribly. Their families are
(34:30):
real people who suffered. Turning that into entertainment feels exploitative,
feels like profiting from their tragedy feels like we've forgotten
they were real victims, not characters in a horror story.
The problem with ed Gen's cultural legacy is that the
more famous he becomes, the more forgotten his victims become.
Everyone knows ed Geen. Everyone knows about the skin masks
(34:53):
and the woman's suit and the furniture made from human remains.
But how many people know Bernice Warden's name? How many
people know Mary Hogan ran a tavern? How many people
remember they were real women, with real lives who died
because ed Geen decided they fit his criteria. The cultural
fascination with ed Geen has turned him into a character,
(35:16):
a monster, a horror movie villain, and in the process
we've dehumanized him, which paradoxically makes us forget that his
crimes were real, that his victims were real, that this
isn't fiction. Norman Bates is fiction, leather Faces fiction, Buffalo
Bill is fiction. But ed Geen was real. And because
we've turned him into the inspiration for fictional killers, we
(35:39):
start thinking of him as fictional too, as a character,
as entertainment. That's the dark side of ed Gain's legacy.
We took real horror, two women murdered, forty graves, robbed,
a house full of human remains, and we made it
into movies and TV shows and books. We made it consumable,
made it safe, made it something you can watch with
(36:00):
popcorn on a Friday night. And in doing that, we've
forgotten that Bernice Warden's son found his mother's headless body,
that Mary Hogan's family waited three years to learn she
was dead, That dozens of families discovered their loved one's
graves had been robbed and their remains turned into furniture.
So yes, watch Monster the ed Geen Story on Netflix.
(36:22):
Watch Charlie Hunham play ed. Watch the recreation of the farmhouse,
and the crimes and the psychology. But remember, while you're watching,
this isn't just a horror story. This happened. These were
real people, real crimes, real victims who deserved better than
being forgotten in our fascination with the monster who killed them.
(36:42):
Back with more in a moment. Ed Geen spent twenty
six years in psychiatric custody from nineteen fifty eight to
nineteen eighty four, from age fifty two to age seventy seven,
in a quarter century in mental hospitals, and by all accounts,
(37:03):
he was a model patient. He took his medication without complaint,
attended therapy sessions, followed all rules, never caused problems, never
showed violence toward other patients or staff. The same man
who murdered two women and robbed forty graves became in
psychiatric custody, harmless, cooperative, almost pleasant. Staff members who worked
(37:27):
with Ed over the years report that he was polite, helpful,
would assist with tasks around the ward, would help other patients,
would engage in conversations about normal topics, weather, sports, current events.
He seemed like a harmless, older man with an unfortunate past.
Ed was allowed certain privileges. He could read books and magazines,
(37:49):
watch television, work in the hospital kitchen, which he enjoyed
because it reminded him of farm work. He was good
at following routines, good at repetitive tasks, good at keeping busy.
He rarely talked about his crimes. When he did, it
was matter of fact, no emotion, no remorse that staff
could detect, just acknowledgment that, yes, he'd done those things,
(38:12):
the way someone might acknowledge they'd once worked as a
carpenter or lived in a different town. Events that happened
but didn't seem to affect him emotionally. Some psychiatric staff
believed Ed's medication controlled his symptoms, that without antipsychotics, he
might decompensate back into the psychological state that enabled his crimes.
Others thought Ed was only dangerous in the specific circumstances
(38:36):
that existed before his arrest. Living alone, isolated without supervision
or social contact, in a structured environment with support, he
was fine either way. Ed lived out his years peacefully,
no incidents, no relapses, no signs of the man who'd
committed such horrifying crimes, just an aging psychiatric patient who
(38:57):
followed rules and caused no trouble. In nineteen seventy four,
when he was transferred to Mendoda Mental Health Institute, a
reporter asked ed if he had any regrets. Ed thought
about it, then said he regretted that his house had
been so messy when police arrived. Said his mother would
have been ashamed of how disorganized he'd let things get.
(39:19):
That's ed Gean, still thinking about his mother, still worried
about her disapproval. Not regretting the murders or the grave robbing,
or the furniture made from human skin, regretting that his
house wasn't tidy enough. July nineteen eighty four, Ed is
diagnosed with lung cancer. By this point, he's seventy seven
(39:40):
years old, spent most of his adult life in psychiatric custody.
The cancer is advanced inoperable. He has months to live
at most. July twenty sixth, nineteen eighty four, Ed dies
respiratory failure caused by the cancer. He dies peacefully in
the hospital with medical staff present. No suffering, no drama,
just an old old man dying of cancer after living
(40:01):
longer than either of his victims. He's buried in Plainfield Cemetery.
His grave is initially marked with a simple stone, just
his name and dates, no epitaph, no explanation, just Edward
Theodore gen August twenty seventh, nineteen o six July twenty sixth,
nineteen eighty four. The headstone is stolen repeatedly collectors want
(40:26):
pieces of ed Geen memorabilia. His grave marker becomes a souvenir. Eventually,
after the headstone is stolen for the last time in
two thousand and never recovered, the grave is left unmarked today.
If you visit Plainfield Cemetery you can find where ed
is buried if you know where to look, but there's
no marker, just a spot of ground. The Butcher of
(40:48):
Plainfield rests in an unmarked grave in the town where
he committed his crimes. Bernice Warden is in the same cemetery,
about two hundred feet away. She has a proper headstone.
Mary Hogan is buried in a different cemetery, but also
has a marked grave. The victims are memorialized properly. The
killer is unmarked. Maybe that's appropriate. Ed Gean got enough
(41:11):
attention in life, got famous, got turned into movies and
books and TV shows. His victims deserve the memorials. He
deserves to be forgotten. But he won't be forgotten because
every time someone watches Psycho or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
or The Silence of the Lambs, they're watching ed Gean's legacy.
Every time someone watches Monster the ed Geen Story on Netflix,
(41:33):
they're engaging with his crimes. Ed Geen will be remembered
forever for the worst possible reasons, for the most horrifying crimes.
And that's his legacy, not the quiet old man who
died peacefully in a hospital bed, the Monster, the Butcher
of Plainfield, the man who murdered women and robbed graves,
and made furniture from human skin. That's how history remembers
(41:54):
ed Geen. That's how it should remember him. The ed
Geen Story two parts, two days, The crimes and the psychology,
the murders and the mother, the horror, and the legacy.
Ed Geen murdered Bernice Warden and Mary Hogan, robbed at
(42:14):
least forty graves, turned human remains into furniture, made a
woman suit from real women's skin so he could become
his mother. Was found not guilty by reason of insanity,
spent twenty six years as a model patient in psychiatric hospitals.
Died peacefully of cancer in nineteen eighty four. And somewhere
along the way, ed Geen became entertainment. Became the inspiration
(42:38):
for Norman Bates and Leatherface and Buffalo Bill, became the
template for every skin wearing, mother obsessed serial killer in
American horror. Became famous not for what he did to
his victims, but for the creative ways he violated their bodies.
That's the uncomfortable truth about ed Gan's cultural legacy. We
turned real horror into entertainment, turned real victims into plot devices,
(43:03):
turned real crimes into horror movies and TV shows and
books that we consume for fun. Monster The ed Geen
Story is streaming on Netflix now. It's well made, well acted,
thoughtfully produced, and it's built on the murders of Bernice
Worden and Mary Hogan, built on the violation of forty graves,
built on crimes that devastated families and traumatized a community.
(43:26):
Should we watch it? Should we consume entertainment based on
real murders? I don't have a simple answer. True crime
serves a purpose education, understanding, prevention, But there's a line
between education and exploitation, between understanding and glorification, between remembering
victims and celebrating killers. I think the line is this,
(43:50):
when we tell these stories, we have to remember the victims,
have to say their names, have to honor their lives,
have to treat them as real people who mattered, not
as props. In the Killer's story, Bernice Warden was fifty
eight years old hardware store owner Frank Warden's mother, respected
member of Plainfield community. She opened her store on the
(44:12):
morning of November sixteenth, nineteen fifty seven, and ed Geen
shot her with a point three to two caliber rifle.
She should have lived another twenty years, had grandchildren, enjoyed retirement,
died peacefully of old age. Instead, she's remembered as ed
Geen's victim, as the body hanging in his summer kitchen,
(44:33):
as the murder that finally got ed caught. That's not
fair to Bernice. She was more than how she died.
Mary Hogan was fifty one years old, tavern owner, divorced,
worked hard running her business alone. She disappeared December eighth,
nineteen fifty four, and wasn't found for three years. Her
(44:54):
family spent three years wondering where she was, hoping she
was alive, then learn she'd been murdered, dismembered, and turned
into a mask. Mary deserves better than being a footnote
in ed Geen's story. She deserves to be remembered as
a person, as someone who lived and worked and mattered
to her family and community. That's what we owe victims
(45:15):
when we tell these stories. Remember them as people say
their names, Honor their lives. Don't let them be forgotten
in our fascination with the monsters who killed them. Ed
Geen was a monster, but he was also a human being,
created by specific circumstances, an abusive mother, severe mental illness,
(45:36):
complete isolation, and a psychological break after Augusta's death. Understanding
how he happened matters not to excuse him, not to sympathize,
but to understand so we can recognize warning signs, so
we can prevent future ed Geenes. But understanding ed Geen
shouldn't mean forgetting Bernice Worden and Mary Hogan shouldn't mean
(45:57):
turning their deaths into entertainment. Wouldn't mean profiting from their
tragedy without honoring their memory. So watch Monster, the ed
Green Story. If you want, watch Psycho, Watch Texas Chainsaw Massacre,
Watch Silence of the Lambs, consume the cultural legacy of
the Butcher of Plainfield. But while you're watching, remember this
(46:18):
wasn't fiction. This happened in Plainfield, Wisconsin in nineteen fifty seven.
Two women were murdered, forty graves were robbed, a house
full of human remains was discovered, families were devastated, a
community was traumatized, and Hollywood turned it into entertainment. I'm reed.
(46:38):
Carter ed Geen died in nineteen eighty four, but his
legacy lives forever, not because of what he did to
his victims, because we won't stop making movies about him.
Remember Bernice Worden, Remember Mary Hogan. Remember the dozens of
women whose graves were robbed and whose remains were violated.
There the real story there, Who deserved justice? There? Who
(46:59):
we should remember? This has been celebrity Trials, the ed
Geen Story, two parts, covering the crimes, the psychology, the trial,
and the legacy of the Butcher of Plainfield. Tomorrow we're
back to regular programming, whatever fresh horrors America produces, whatever
celebrities do stupid things, whatever trials grip the nation. But
(47:21):
for this weekend, we remembered ed Geen, not because he's fascinating,
but because Bernice Worden and Mary Hogan deserve to have
their stories told completely, deserve to be remembered as more
than ed Geen's victims. See you Monday,
Popular Podcasts
My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com