October 8, 2025 • 29 mins
Episode two details Ed Gein's murders and the shocking discoveries at his farmhouse. On November 16, 1957, Ed shot hardware store owner Bernice Worden, his second victim after tavern keeper Mary Hogan in 1954. When deputies entered Ed's farmhouse that night, they found Bernice's gutted body hanging in the summer kitchen. Further search revealed a horrific inventory: skulls fashioned into bowls, lampshades made from human skin, furniture upholstered with human tissue, masks from preserved faces, and Ed's "woman suit." Ed confessed calmly to two murders and robbing approximately forty graves. The discoveries shocked Plainfield and the nation, transforming the quiet handyman into America's most disturbing criminal case.
Click here to browse handpicked Amazon finds inspired by this podcast series!
https://amzn.to/42YoQGI
This content was created in partnership and with the help of Artificial Intelligence AI
Click here to browse handpicked Amazon finds inspired by this podcast series!
https://amzn.to/42YoQGI
This content was created in partnership and with the help of Artificial Intelligence AI
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The deputy's flashlight swept through the darkened farmhouse, revealing piles
of debris and filth. Then Captain Schopforster stopped his beam
fixed on something in the summer kitchen. A human skull
sat on a shelf, carefully cleaned and polished, repurposed as
a bowl. Beside it, a lamp shade glowed with an
(00:22):
organic translucency. As they looked closer, the terrible truth emerged.
This wasn't fabric. This was human skin, stretched and treated,
fashioned into a functional household object. And there were more,
so many more. Welcome back to Edgeen, I'm Raven Fawn.
(00:46):
In our first episode, we traced Edgene's transformation from a dominated,
abused child into a man capable of unthinkable acts. We
left Ed in that moment before discovery, still hidden in
his decaying firehouse, not knowing that within hours everything would change.
Now we need to confront what the deputies found that
(01:06):
November night, the full scope of Ed's crimes, and the
confessions that would shock a nation. The morning of November sixteenth,
nineteen fifty seven, began ordinarily enough. In Plainfield, Wisconsin, Bernie's
Worden opened her hardware store at eight o'clock, just as
she did every Saturday. Fifty eight years old, Bernice was
(01:27):
a fixture in the community, a widow who would successfully
run Worden's Hardware since her husband's death. She was known
as capable, no nonsense, friendly, but not overly familiar. Her son, Frank,
a deputy sheriff, often helped her with the store when
his duties allowed. That Saturday morning, Frank was participating in
(01:48):
the opening day of deer hunting season, a major event
in rural Wisconsin. Before he left, he stopped by the
store to check on his mother. Everything seemed normal. Benice
told him she expected only light business since most of
the town would be a hunting Frank left around eight thirty,
heading into the woods with his rifle and high spirits.
(02:09):
What Frank didn't know was that ed Gean had been
thinking about his mother for days, planning, waiting for the
right moment. D had been a regular customer at the
hardware store, stopping infrequently to purchase small items, often engaging
Bernice in conversation that sometimes lasted longer than seemed necessary
for someone buying a handful of nails or a length
(02:31):
of rope. Ed's interest in Bernice wasn't romantic in any
conventional sense at fifty eight, substantial in build, authoritative in manner,
Bernice's word, and resemble the Gusta gene in certain key ways.
She fit adds psychological template, the pattern that had governed
(02:51):
his grave robberies and would now govern his selection of
living victims. On Friday, November fifteenth, Ed had come into
the store and purchased a twenty two caliber rifle and ammunition.
He told Benice he needed it for hunting, which was
plausible enough with the a season opening. Benice had written
up the sale, noting Ed's name in her records, as
(03:13):
she did for all firearm purchasers. Ed had left with
the rifle, and Benice thought nothing more of it. She
had no reason to fear the odd, little handyman who'd
been coming to her store for years. Saturday morning, Ed
arrived at Werden's Hardware shortly after it opened. He was
the first customer of the day, possibly the only customer,
(03:35):
given that most of Plainfield's population was out hunting. The
store was empty except for Bernice. Ed approached the counter
with his peculiar shuffling gait. Happen next can only be
reconstructed from physical evidence and Ed's later confession, but the
sequence was brutally simple. Ed pulled out the rifle he'd
purchased a day before. Bernice likely had only a moment
(03:58):
to register what was happening before Ed fired. The twenty
two caliber bullet struck her in the head, killing her
almost instantly. The small caliber round didn't produce the massive
trauma of a larger weapon, but it was effective enough.
Bernice collapsed behind the counter, blood palling on the wooden floor.
Ed moved with surprising efficiency for someone who had just
(04:19):
committed murder. He locked the front door of the store
and turned the sign to closed. He found a tarp
or large piece of canvas in the store's infantry and
used it to wrap Bernice's body. Then, exhibiting strength that
belied his slight frame, he dragged her body through the
store to the back door, where he had parked his truck.
He loaded Bernice's body into the truck, bed, covered it,
(04:41):
and then returned to the store. The blood trail from
behind the counter to the back door was obvious, but
Ed made no attempt to clean it. He grabbed the
sales receipt book and tore out the page documenting his
rifle purchase the previous day, pocketing it. Then he locked
the back door and left through the front, locking it
behind him. The entire murder and body removal had taken
(05:05):
perhaps fifteen minutes. Ed drove back to his farmhouse with
Bernice's body, arriving home around nine thirty or ten in
the morning. What Ed did next revealed either cunning or
instinct for self preservation. He didn't immediately begin processing Bernice's body. Instead,
he got cleaned up, changed his clothes, and drove to
(05:26):
his cousin's house in the neighboring town. He arrived around
noon and stayed for several hours, eating dinner with the family,
chatting casually, establishing what he likely hoped would be an alibi.
He acted mormally enough that no one suspected anything amiss.
He was just odd Ed visiting relatives, being sociable in
(05:46):
his awkward way. But back in Plainfield, Frank Worden had
returned from hunting around five thirty in the afternoon. He
was surprised to find his mother's store closed and locked.
Benise never closed early, especially not without telling him. Frank
had a key. When he entered the store, he immediately
(06:09):
noticed the blood. The trail led from behind the counter
to the back door, dark and congealed on the wooden floor.
His mother was nowhere to be found. Frank's law enforcement
training took over. He didn't touch anything more than necessary.
He immediately called Sheriff Archlee. When Slee arrived and surveyed
the scene, the blood trail, the missing store owner, he
(06:32):
knew they were dealing with something serious. They began looking
for clues. The cash register was opened, but money remained inside,
ruling out robbery. Then Frank noticed a sales receipt book.
He flipped through recent entries and found the last receipt
written in his mother's handwriting. It was for a gallon
of antifreeze, written out for ed Geen ed Gen. The
(06:55):
name meant something to everyone in Plainfield. He was the
odd little man who lived alone on his mother's farm,
the handyman who did odd jobs, harmless but strange. Frank
remembered that ed had been making more frequent visits to
the store lately, that he'd seemed particularly interested in his mother.
Lingering to chat longer than necessary, Sheriff Schlay made the
(07:19):
decision quickly. They needed to talk to ed Gen Schlay
and Captain Lloyd Schoberhurst drove to the Green farm as
darkness fell. When they arrived, Ed's truck wasn't there. They
questioned neighbors and learned Ed had gone to visit relatives.
The deputies made the decision to enter the farmhouse. They
(07:40):
had probable cause, a missing woman, evidence of violence, a
clear connection to this location. The front door was unlocked.
They entered cautiously, flashlights cutting through the darkness. The smell
hit them first, organic rot and copper, and something else,
(08:00):
something wrong. The main house was a disaster of accumulated debris,
magazines and newspapers stacked floor to ceiling, empty cans everywhere,
filth covering every surface. They moved through, carefully, checking rooms,
looking for bernice or any sign of what had happened.
(08:21):
Then they moved to the summer kitchen. Captain Shopefoster pushed
open the door and his flashlight caught something hanging from
the ceiling rafters in the harsh shadows. It looked like
a deer carcass at first. As they moved closer, as
their lights illuminated more details, the reality became horrifyingly clear.
(08:42):
This was a human body suspended by ropes around the ankles,
inverted headless. The body had been split open from the
base of the neck down through the sternum to the pelvis.
The rib cage spread wide, the internal organs removed. The
body cavity was empty. The corpse had been gutted and
(09:02):
dressed like game, butchered with practiced efficiency. The skin was
pale and waxy in the flashlight beam. This was beneath wordin.
For several seconds, the deputies stood frozen, their minds struggling
to process what they were seeing. Sheriff Slee would later
report feeling like he stepped into a nightmare that reality
(09:24):
itself seemed to have fractured. This was plain filled Wisconsin,
where the most serious crimes were drunk driving or petty theft,
but here was evidence of something far darker than they'd
imagined possible. They backed out, carefully, preserving the scene, and
radioed for back up. As more officers arrived with better
lighting equipment. As they began to document what they were finding,
(09:48):
the full scope of the horror became apparent. The farmhouse
wasn't just a crime scene. There was a workshop of
the dead, filled with items fashioned from human remains in
ways that DeFi comprehension. As investigators spread through the house
with flashlights and later with portable generators and flood lamps,
they began cataloging findings that would haunt them for the
(10:10):
rest of their lives. In Ed's living area, on a
shelf near where he cooked his meals, they found four
human skulls that had been carefully cleaned, the tops soared
off transformed into balls. These weren't decorative items. They showed
signs of actual use, stains suggesting Ed had eaten from them.
(10:32):
On several lamps throughout the living space, investigators found lump
shades that initially appeared to be some kind of unusual fabric.
Closer examination revealed these were made from human skin carefully
treated and stretched over the wire frames. When the lamps
were illuminated, the skin glowed with an organic translucency that
(10:52):
was deeply disturbing. An old chair near Ed's sleeping area
was upholstered, not with leather or fabric, but with human skin,
complete with nipples still visible on the preserved tissue. The
chair showed where patterns indicating d had sat in it regularly,
using furniture made from human remains as casually as anyone
else might use ordinary furniture. Investigators found a waste basket
(11:16):
made from human skin, the tissue carefully shaped and treated
to create a functional container. There were boxes and containers
decorated with preserved skin. On a shelf. They discovered a
shoe box containing female genitalia that had been preserved stored
like collectibles. There was a string with human lips threaded
(11:37):
on it like grotesque beads. The discoveries became more disturbing
as the search continued. They found masks made from human faces,
the facial skin carefully removed and preserved, complete with hair
still attached. These weren't crude or roughly made. They showed
attention to detail effort to preserve features, evidence that Ed
(12:00):
had worked carefully to maintain the humanity of the faces
even as he transformed them into masks he could wear.
They found what appeared to be a vest or sleeveless
garment made from a female torso carefully skinned and preserved,
complete with breasts. This was part of Ed's woman suit,
the costume he had described in his grave robbing activities.
(12:23):
There were leggings made from human leg skin, treated and
preserved to be wearable. In the kitchen area, they found
Bernice Worden's heart in a saucepan on the stove. A
bag they discovered a head that was later identified as
belonging to Mary Hogan, a tavern keeper who had disappeared
three years earlier. The head had been preserved, the skin
(12:45):
treated to prevent decomposition. They found human skulls mounted on
Ed's bedposts, decorative elements that Ed saw every night before sleeping.
There were various bones fashioned into handles and inclements. They
were organs preserved in jars like biological specimens. The inventory
went on and on, each finding more grotesque than the last.
(13:07):
Investigators worked through the night, carefully documenting, photographing, cataloging. They
found nine human faces that had been skinned from skulls
and preserved. They found an entire human skin that appeared
to have been removed in one piece, likely part of
Ed's suit. The total count of human remains would ultimately
(13:28):
suggest at least fifteen different bodies, far more than the
two murders Ed would admit to. But perhaps most disturbing
was the contrast between this Charnel house and the sealed rooms.
When investigators opened the doors that Ed had kept locked
since Augusta's death. They found spaces frozen in time, perfectly preserved,
(13:48):
obsessively maintained, even as the rest of the house decayed.
Augusta's bedroom was exactly as she'd left it, the bad
neatly made religious icons on the walls, her clothes still
hanging in the closet. Parlor where she conducted her Bible
readings was similarly preserved, furniture in place, her Bible on
the side table. This contrast revealed the full depth of
(14:11):
as fractured psyche. The sealed rooms represented his desperate attempt
to keep Augusta alive through preservation and denial. The Charnel
house represented his dark work, his attempts to resurrect her,
to become her, to resolve his psychological damage through increasingly
extreme means. The division between shrine and workshop, between preservation
(14:33):
and transformation, between mother worship and mother becoming was the
physical manifestation of Ed's madness. As dawn broke on November seventeenth,
investigators had completed their initial survey of the farmhouse. The
discoveries were so extensive, so disturbing, that they had trouble
believing their own documentation. Some officers became physically ill during
(14:56):
the search. Others would later report nightmares that persisted for years,
but the evidence was undeniable. Ed Deen had been living
surrounded by the dead, wearing their skin, eating from their skulls,
sleeping beneath blankets stitched from human tissue while investigators processed
the farmhouse. Other officers had located Ed at his cousin's house.
(15:19):
When they arrived to arrest him, d seemed unsurprised, almost relieved.
His demeanor was calm, passive, cooperative. He didn't resist arrest.
He didn't ask what this was about. He simply came
along quietly, as if he'd been expecting this moment, as
if some part of him wanted to finally unburden himself
(15:42):
of the secrets he'd been carrying. During the drive back
to Plainfield, Ed was quiet, but not unresponsive when officers
told him they'd found Bernice Werden's body. Ed nodded. When
they mentioned finding other remains in his house. Ed didn't
seem surprised or stressed. It was as if they were
discussing something mundane, ordinary, not the contents of a house
(16:06):
of horrors. At the Wartimer County Jail, Ed was placed
in a cell. Over the following days, investigators interviewed him extensively,
but the merged from these interviews was perhaps as disturbing
as the physical evidence. Ed confessed calmly, matter of factly,
describing his crimes with the detached tone of someone discussing
(16:29):
a hobby or craft. Project Ed admitted to murdering two women.
The first was Mary Hogan, a fifty one year old
tavern keeper who had disappeared from her establishment on December eighth,
nineteen fifty four. It described going to Hogan's tavern that evening,
when he knew Mary would be alone. He had shot
(16:50):
her with his rifle, then loaded her body into his
truck and transported her back to his farmhouse. He had
decapitated her, processed her body, preserved ruve parts of her.
When investigators had investigated Mary's disappearance three years earlier, they'd
found blood and a spent cartridge of the tavern, but
no body and no clear suspect. The case had gone cold.
(17:14):
Ed described making a comment months after Mary's disappearance when
someone mentioned her being missing. Ed had said, she isn't missing.
She's at the farm right now. People had thought he
was making a tasteless joke. They'd laughed uncomfortably and changed
the subject. No one had taken in seriously. No one
(17:34):
had imagined that odd ed Deen was speaking literal truth,
that Mary Hogan's remains were indeed at his farm, transformed
into items in his grotesque collection. Ed's confession to Benice
Worden's murder matched what investigators had reconstructed from physical evidence.
They described shooting her in the hardware store, loading her
bobby into his truck. Returning to the farm, he described
(17:58):
gutting and decapitated her, hanging her body in the summer kitchen.
He described his trip to his cousin's house, the attempt
to establish an alibi. He described all of this in
a flat, emotionless tone that suggested complete disconnection from the
reality of what he'd done. But when investigators pressed him
about the other human remains found in his house, Ed's
(18:21):
story became more complex. He admitted to grave robbing, describing
nocturnal expeditions to local cemeteries over a period of approximately
ten years. He estimated he'd robbed around forty graves, though
he couldn't remember exact numbers. He described reading obituaries, selecting
women who resembled his mother, waiting for burials to conclude,
(18:44):
then exhuming bodies on the cover of darkness. Ed described
the dissociative states he claimed to experience during these episodes,
the feeling of watching himself from outside his body, of
finding himself in cemeteries without fully remembering deciding to go there.
Whether this was accurate description of genuine associative disorder or
convenient fiction remained debated, but Ed maintained this characterization of
(19:08):
his grave robberies as somehow outside his conscious control. Then
Ed revealed the purpose behind his collection. He described creating
a woman's suit from preserved human skin, a costume he
could wear to physically transform himself into female form. He
described this colmely, matter of factly, as if it were
the most natural thing in the world. He explained that
(19:31):
he wanted to become a woman, to become his mother,
that wearing the skin of dead women allowed him to
experience this transformation. Ed described his nighttime rituals putting on
the skin suit and dancing through the sealed rooms of
his farmhouse by lamplight. He described feeling that he was
becoming Augusta, that the boundary between himself and his mother
(19:53):
dissolved when he wore the suit. He described this as
a kind of ecstasy, a relief from the unbearable sight
ecological pressure of her absence. Psychiatrists who later evaluated Ed
would characterize this behavior as representing severe psychotic breaks, a
complete fracturing of identity boundaries, a merger between self and
(20:14):
mother that when far beyond normal grief or even pathological attachment.
Ed wasn't simply wearing a costume. He was attempting literal transfernation,
trying to resurrect Augusta through his own body, to become
her so completely that the distinction between them would disappear.
Ed insisted he had only killed two people, Mary Hogan
(20:37):
and Benice Werben. When asked about the other remains in
his house, he maintained they all came from graves. Investigators
were skeptical. The number of remains suggested at least fifteen
different bodies, far more than two murders plus remembered grave
robberies would account for. Were missing persons in the area
during the period of Ed's activities, women who had never
(20:59):
been found, disappearances that took on new significance in light
of Ed's crimes, but without bodies. Without concrete evidence linking
Ed to these other disappearances, investigators couldn't prove additional murders.
Ed maintained his claim of only two killings with surprising consistency.
Whether he was telling the truth, whether there were other
(21:21):
victims you'd forgotten or repressed, or whether he was protecting
himself from additional murder chargers by insisting on grave robbery
for most of his collection remained uncertain. As word of
Ed's arrest and the discoveries at his farmhouse spread through Plainfield,
the community reacted with shock and horror. People who had
known Ed his entire life, who had hired him for
(21:43):
odd jobs, who had trusted in to babysit their children,
struggled to reconcile the harmless odd man they thought they
knew that the monster investigators were describing. Parents who had
allowed Ed to babysit were horrified imagining their children in
the House of Horrors, sitting on furniture made from human skin,
being watched by a man who wore dead women's faces.
(22:05):
Neighbors who had lived half a mile from the Green
farm for decades were disturbed to realize such darkness had
existed so close to them for so long without anyone
noticing or intervening. The national media descended on Plainfield within days.
Reporters from major newspapers and magazines, photographers, radio broadcasters all
(22:26):
converged on this small Wisconsin town of six hundred people.
The story was too sensational to ignore. Headlines screamed about
the butcher of Plainfield, a mad ghaul, the Wisconsin Horror.
Details of the discoveries, often exaggerated or distorted, spread across
the country. The Green Farmhouse became a macab tourist attraction.
(22:51):
Despite law enforcement efforts to secure the scene, people from
surrounding areas drove out to see the house where such
horrors had occurred. They'd park on the road, walk up
to the property, peer in windows, take photographs. Some tried
to take souvenirs, pieces of wood, or other items from
the property. The curiosity was ghoulish but powerful, drawing hundreds
(23:16):
of people who wanted to see for themselves the location
of such transgressive evil. Local authorities struggled to maintain order
and dignity in the face of this media circus. They
were a small town department unprepared for this level of attention.
The investigation itself was challenging enough without the added pressure
of national scrutiny. Evidence had to be carefully preserved, documented,
(23:41):
prepared for eventual trial. Bodies of Bonice Werden and Mary
Hoban had to be returned to their families for proper burial.
The human remains from Ed's collection had to be identified
where possible and handled with appropriate respect. In March of
nineteen fifty eight, approximately four months after Ed's arrest, the
Green Farmhouse burned to the ground. The fire was reported
(24:04):
as arson, though no one was ever charged or identified.
Speculations suggested that someone from the community, unable to bear
the continued existence of the House of Horrors, had decided
to destroy it. The farmhouse had become a symbol of evil,
a tourist attraction that brought shame to Plainfield. Its destruction
was seen by many as necessary cleansing, raising the physical
(24:27):
structure where such darkness had flourished. But destroying the farm
house couldn't erase what could happened there or answer the
questions Ed's crimes raised. As Ed sat in jail awaiting trial,
as psychiatrists began their evaluations, as investigators continued piecing together
the full scope of his activities, certain questions dominated public discussion.
(24:50):
Was ed Geen insane or evil? Were his crimes the
product of mental illness beyond his control? Or were they
deliberate choices made by someone who knew right from wrong
but simply didn't care, could understanding the abuse, and could
understanding the abuse in isolation that shaped Ed's psychology, excuse
or mitigate his crimes or too. Discoveries in the Green
(25:13):
Farmhouse forced confrontation with uncomfortable truths about human nature, about
how completely a mind could fracture, about the capacity for
horror that could hide behind an ordinary facade. In a
small American town, ed Dean had been living among the
community for decades, interacting with people daily, all while building
(25:34):
his collection of the dead, wearing his skin suit at
night planning his murders. The disconnect between his public persona
and his private reality was profound and disturbing for the
families of Mary Hogan and Bernie's Worden. The revelations brought closure,
but also new trauma. They finally knew what had happened
(25:55):
to their loved ones, For the details were so grotesque
that this knowledge brought little peace. They had to live
with the understanding of how their mothers had died, what
had been done to their bodies, the degradation and violation
that continued even after death. For the families of those
whose graves Ad had robbed, the violation was different, but
no less traumatic. Their loved ones, buried with the expectation
(26:19):
that death would finally grant them peace and dignity, had
been exhumed, desecrated, transformed into objects in Ed's collection. Some
families chose to have their relatives remains exhumed and reburied
in secret locations to prevent further disturbance. The trust that
burial grounds would be respected had been shattered as investigators
(26:40):
concluded their work, As evidence was cataloged and preserved, as
Ed underwent psychiatric evaluation to determine his competence to stand trial,
the case of Ed Geene stood as a watershed moment
in American criminal history. The details were so extreme, so transgressive,
that they seemed to exceed the categories available for understanding them.
(27:03):
Ed wasn't simply a murderer or a grave robber or
a necrophiliac, though he was all of these things. He
was something that defied easy classification, A product of specific
psychological damage that had produced specific horrors. A question of
what to do with ed Gen, how to judge him,
how to understand him, would occupy courts and psychiatrists for years.
(27:26):
But the damage had been done. Two women were dead,
dozens of graves had been violated, a community sense of
safety had been shattered, and ed Gan's name had entered
the cultural consciousness as a symbol of a particular kind
of American horror, the monster next door, the darkness hiding
behind the ordinary facade. In our next episode, we'll explore
(27:48):
Ed's trial and the psychiatric evaluations that would determine his fate.
We'll examine his decades in psychiatric institutions, his eventual death,
and the cultural legacy of his crimes. Will trace how
ed Geen became the template for American horror fiction and film,
inspiring Psycho, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Silence of the Lambs,
(28:09):
and countless other works. We'll explore why his story resonates
so powerfully in American culture and what his crimes reveal
about the intersection of abuse, isolation, mental illness, and violence.
But for now, we leave ed Gean in his jail
cell calm and cooperative, finally unburdened of his secrets, while
(28:31):
Plainfield struggles to comprehend what had been hiding in plain
sight for so long. The House of Horrors has been discovered,
the inventory cataloged, the confessions recorded. The next phase of
the Edgeen story, the trial and its aftermath awaits. Thank
you for listening. Please subscribe for the next episode. This
(28:51):
podcast was brought to you by Quiet Please Podcast Networks.
For more content like this, please go to Quiet Please
dot ai Quiet, Please dot a, I hear what matters
The deputy's flashlight swept through the darkened farmhouse, revealing piles
of debris and filth. Then Captain Schopforster stopped his beam
fixed on something in the summer kitchen. A human skull
sat on a shelf, carefully cleaned and polished, repurposed as
a bowl. Beside it, a lamp shade glowed with an
(00:22):
organic translucency. As they looked closer, the terrible truth emerged.
This wasn't fabric. This was human skin, stretched and treated,
fashioned into a functional household object. And there were more,
so many more. Welcome back to Edgeen, I'm Raven Fawn.
(00:46):
In our first episode, we traced Edgene's transformation from a dominated,
abused child into a man capable of unthinkable acts. We
left Ed in that moment before discovery, still hidden in
his decaying firehouse, not knowing that within hours everything would change.
Now we need to confront what the deputies found that
(01:06):
November night, the full scope of Ed's crimes, and the
confessions that would shock a nation. The morning of November sixteenth,
nineteen fifty seven, began ordinarily enough. In Plainfield, Wisconsin, Bernie's
Worden opened her hardware store at eight o'clock, just as
she did every Saturday. Fifty eight years old, Bernice was
(01:27):
a fixture in the community, a widow who would successfully
run Worden's Hardware since her husband's death. She was known
as capable, no nonsense, friendly, but not overly familiar. Her son, Frank,
a deputy sheriff, often helped her with the store when
his duties allowed. That Saturday morning, Frank was participating in
(01:48):
the opening day of deer hunting season, a major event
in rural Wisconsin. Before he left, he stopped by the
store to check on his mother. Everything seemed normal. Benice
told him she expected only light business since most of
the town would be a hunting Frank left around eight thirty,
heading into the woods with his rifle and high spirits.
(02:09):
What Frank didn't know was that ed Gean had been
thinking about his mother for days, planning, waiting for the
right moment. D had been a regular customer at the
hardware store, stopping infrequently to purchase small items, often engaging
Bernice in conversation that sometimes lasted longer than seemed necessary
for someone buying a handful of nails or a length
(02:31):
of rope. Ed's interest in Bernice wasn't romantic in any
conventional sense at fifty eight, substantial in build, authoritative in manner,
Bernice's word, and resemble the Gusta gene in certain key ways.
She fit adds psychological template, the pattern that had governed
(02:51):
his grave robberies and would now govern his selection of
living victims. On Friday, November fifteenth, Ed had come into
the store and purchased a twenty two caliber rifle and ammunition.
He told Benice he needed it for hunting, which was
plausible enough with the a season opening. Benice had written
up the sale, noting Ed's name in her records, as
(03:13):
she did for all firearm purchasers. Ed had left with
the rifle, and Benice thought nothing more of it. She
had no reason to fear the odd, little handyman who'd
been coming to her store for years. Saturday morning, Ed
arrived at Werden's Hardware shortly after it opened. He was
the first customer of the day, possibly the only customer,
(03:35):
given that most of Plainfield's population was out hunting. The
store was empty except for Bernice. Ed approached the counter
with his peculiar shuffling gait. Happen next can only be
reconstructed from physical evidence and Ed's later confession, but the
sequence was brutally simple. Ed pulled out the rifle he'd
purchased a day before. Bernice likely had only a moment
(03:58):
to register what was happening before Ed fired. The twenty
two caliber bullet struck her in the head, killing her
almost instantly. The small caliber round didn't produce the massive
trauma of a larger weapon, but it was effective enough.
Bernice collapsed behind the counter, blood palling on the wooden floor.
Ed moved with surprising efficiency for someone who had just
(04:19):
committed murder. He locked the front door of the store
and turned the sign to closed. He found a tarp
or large piece of canvas in the store's infantry and
used it to wrap Bernice's body. Then, exhibiting strength that
belied his slight frame, he dragged her body through the
store to the back door, where he had parked his truck.
He loaded Bernice's body into the truck, bed, covered it,
(04:41):
and then returned to the store. The blood trail from
behind the counter to the back door was obvious, but
Ed made no attempt to clean it. He grabbed the
sales receipt book and tore out the page documenting his
rifle purchase the previous day, pocketing it. Then he locked
the back door and left through the front, locking it
behind him. The entire murder and body removal had taken
(05:05):
perhaps fifteen minutes. Ed drove back to his farmhouse with
Bernice's body, arriving home around nine thirty or ten in
the morning. What Ed did next revealed either cunning or
instinct for self preservation. He didn't immediately begin processing Bernice's body. Instead,
he got cleaned up, changed his clothes, and drove to
(05:26):
his cousin's house in the neighboring town. He arrived around
noon and stayed for several hours, eating dinner with the family,
chatting casually, establishing what he likely hoped would be an alibi.
He acted mormally enough that no one suspected anything amiss.
He was just odd Ed visiting relatives, being sociable in
(05:46):
his awkward way. But back in Plainfield, Frank Worden had
returned from hunting around five thirty in the afternoon. He
was surprised to find his mother's store closed and locked.
Benise never closed early, especially not without telling him. Frank
had a key. When he entered the store, he immediately
(06:09):
noticed the blood. The trail led from behind the counter
to the back door, dark and congealed on the wooden floor.
His mother was nowhere to be found. Frank's law enforcement
training took over. He didn't touch anything more than necessary.
He immediately called Sheriff Archlee. When Slee arrived and surveyed
the scene, the blood trail, the missing store owner, he
(06:32):
knew they were dealing with something serious. They began looking
for clues. The cash register was opened, but money remained inside,
ruling out robbery. Then Frank noticed a sales receipt book.
He flipped through recent entries and found the last receipt
written in his mother's handwriting. It was for a gallon
of antifreeze, written out for ed Geen ed Gen. The
(06:55):
name meant something to everyone in Plainfield. He was the
odd little man who lived alone on his mother's farm,
the handyman who did odd jobs, harmless but strange. Frank
remembered that ed had been making more frequent visits to
the store lately, that he'd seemed particularly interested in his mother.
Lingering to chat longer than necessary, Sheriff Schlay made the
(07:19):
decision quickly. They needed to talk to ed Gen Schlay
and Captain Lloyd Schoberhurst drove to the Green farm as
darkness fell. When they arrived, Ed's truck wasn't there. They
questioned neighbors and learned Ed had gone to visit relatives.
The deputies made the decision to enter the farmhouse. They
(07:40):
had probable cause, a missing woman, evidence of violence, a
clear connection to this location. The front door was unlocked.
They entered cautiously, flashlights cutting through the darkness. The smell
hit them first, organic rot and copper, and something else,
(08:00):
something wrong. The main house was a disaster of accumulated debris,
magazines and newspapers stacked floor to ceiling, empty cans everywhere,
filth covering every surface. They moved through, carefully, checking rooms,
looking for bernice or any sign of what had happened.
(08:21):
Then they moved to the summer kitchen. Captain Shopefoster pushed
open the door and his flashlight caught something hanging from
the ceiling rafters in the harsh shadows. It looked like
a deer carcass at first. As they moved closer, as
their lights illuminated more details, the reality became horrifyingly clear.
(08:42):
This was a human body suspended by ropes around the ankles,
inverted headless. The body had been split open from the
base of the neck down through the sternum to the pelvis.
The rib cage spread wide, the internal organs removed. The
body cavity was empty. The corpse had been gutted and
(09:02):
dressed like game, butchered with practiced efficiency. The skin was
pale and waxy in the flashlight beam. This was beneath wordin.
For several seconds, the deputies stood frozen, their minds struggling
to process what they were seeing. Sheriff Slee would later
report feeling like he stepped into a nightmare that reality
(09:24):
itself seemed to have fractured. This was plain filled Wisconsin,
where the most serious crimes were drunk driving or petty theft,
but here was evidence of something far darker than they'd
imagined possible. They backed out, carefully, preserving the scene, and
radioed for back up. As more officers arrived with better
lighting equipment. As they began to document what they were finding,
(09:48):
the full scope of the horror became apparent. The farmhouse
wasn't just a crime scene. There was a workshop of
the dead, filled with items fashioned from human remains in
ways that DeFi comprehension. As investigators spread through the house
with flashlights and later with portable generators and flood lamps,
they began cataloging findings that would haunt them for the
(10:10):
rest of their lives. In Ed's living area, on a
shelf near where he cooked his meals, they found four
human skulls that had been carefully cleaned, the tops soared
off transformed into balls. These weren't decorative items. They showed
signs of actual use, stains suggesting Ed had eaten from them.
(10:32):
On several lamps throughout the living space, investigators found lump
shades that initially appeared to be some kind of unusual fabric.
Closer examination revealed these were made from human skin carefully
treated and stretched over the wire frames. When the lamps
were illuminated, the skin glowed with an organic translucency that
(10:52):
was deeply disturbing. An old chair near Ed's sleeping area
was upholstered, not with leather or fabric, but with human skin,
complete with nipples still visible on the preserved tissue. The
chair showed where patterns indicating d had sat in it regularly,
using furniture made from human remains as casually as anyone
else might use ordinary furniture. Investigators found a waste basket
(11:16):
made from human skin, the tissue carefully shaped and treated
to create a functional container. There were boxes and containers
decorated with preserved skin. On a shelf. They discovered a
shoe box containing female genitalia that had been preserved stored
like collectibles. There was a string with human lips threaded
(11:37):
on it like grotesque beads. The discoveries became more disturbing
as the search continued. They found masks made from human faces,
the facial skin carefully removed and preserved, complete with hair
still attached. These weren't crude or roughly made. They showed
attention to detail effort to preserve features, evidence that Ed
(12:00):
had worked carefully to maintain the humanity of the faces
even as he transformed them into masks he could wear.
They found what appeared to be a vest or sleeveless
garment made from a female torso carefully skinned and preserved,
complete with breasts. This was part of Ed's woman suit,
the costume he had described in his grave robbing activities.
(12:23):
There were leggings made from human leg skin, treated and
preserved to be wearable. In the kitchen area, they found
Bernice Worden's heart in a saucepan on the stove. A
bag they discovered a head that was later identified as
belonging to Mary Hogan, a tavern keeper who had disappeared
three years earlier. The head had been preserved, the skin
(12:45):
treated to prevent decomposition. They found human skulls mounted on
Ed's bedposts, decorative elements that Ed saw every night before sleeping.
There were various bones fashioned into handles and inclements. They
were organs preserved in jars like biological specimens. The inventory
went on and on, each finding more grotesque than the last.
(13:07):
Investigators worked through the night, carefully documenting, photographing, cataloging. They
found nine human faces that had been skinned from skulls
and preserved. They found an entire human skin that appeared
to have been removed in one piece, likely part of
Ed's suit. The total count of human remains would ultimately
(13:28):
suggest at least fifteen different bodies, far more than the
two murders Ed would admit to. But perhaps most disturbing
was the contrast between this Charnel house and the sealed rooms.
When investigators opened the doors that Ed had kept locked
since Augusta's death. They found spaces frozen in time, perfectly preserved,
(13:48):
obsessively maintained, even as the rest of the house decayed.
Augusta's bedroom was exactly as she'd left it, the bad
neatly made religious icons on the walls, her clothes still
hanging in the closet. Parlor where she conducted her Bible
readings was similarly preserved, furniture in place, her Bible on
the side table. This contrast revealed the full depth of
(14:11):
as fractured psyche. The sealed rooms represented his desperate attempt
to keep Augusta alive through preservation and denial. The Charnel
house represented his dark work, his attempts to resurrect her,
to become her, to resolve his psychological damage through increasingly
extreme means. The division between shrine and workshop, between preservation
(14:33):
and transformation, between mother worship and mother becoming was the
physical manifestation of Ed's madness. As dawn broke on November seventeenth,
investigators had completed their initial survey of the farmhouse. The
discoveries were so extensive, so disturbing, that they had trouble
believing their own documentation. Some officers became physically ill during
(14:56):
the search. Others would later report nightmares that persisted for years,
but the evidence was undeniable. Ed Deen had been living
surrounded by the dead, wearing their skin, eating from their skulls,
sleeping beneath blankets stitched from human tissue while investigators processed
the farmhouse. Other officers had located Ed at his cousin's house.
(15:19):
When they arrived to arrest him, d seemed unsurprised, almost relieved.
His demeanor was calm, passive, cooperative. He didn't resist arrest.
He didn't ask what this was about. He simply came
along quietly, as if he'd been expecting this moment, as
if some part of him wanted to finally unburden himself
(15:42):
of the secrets he'd been carrying. During the drive back
to Plainfield, Ed was quiet, but not unresponsive when officers
told him they'd found Bernice Werden's body. Ed nodded. When
they mentioned finding other remains in his house. Ed didn't
seem surprised or stressed. It was as if they were
discussing something mundane, ordinary, not the contents of a house
(16:06):
of horrors. At the Wartimer County Jail, Ed was placed
in a cell. Over the following days, investigators interviewed him extensively,
but the merged from these interviews was perhaps as disturbing
as the physical evidence. Ed confessed calmly, matter of factly,
describing his crimes with the detached tone of someone discussing
(16:29):
a hobby or craft. Project Ed admitted to murdering two women.
The first was Mary Hogan, a fifty one year old
tavern keeper who had disappeared from her establishment on December eighth,
nineteen fifty four. It described going to Hogan's tavern that evening,
when he knew Mary would be alone. He had shot
(16:50):
her with his rifle, then loaded her body into his
truck and transported her back to his farmhouse. He had
decapitated her, processed her body, preserved ruve parts of her.
When investigators had investigated Mary's disappearance three years earlier, they'd
found blood and a spent cartridge of the tavern, but
no body and no clear suspect. The case had gone cold.
(17:14):
Ed described making a comment months after Mary's disappearance when
someone mentioned her being missing. Ed had said, she isn't missing.
She's at the farm right now. People had thought he
was making a tasteless joke. They'd laughed uncomfortably and changed
the subject. No one had taken in seriously. No one
(17:34):
had imagined that odd ed Deen was speaking literal truth,
that Mary Hogan's remains were indeed at his farm, transformed
into items in his grotesque collection. Ed's confession to Benice
Worden's murder matched what investigators had reconstructed from physical evidence.
They described shooting her in the hardware store, loading her
bobby into his truck. Returning to the farm, he described
(17:58):
gutting and decapitated her, hanging her body in the summer kitchen.
He described his trip to his cousin's house, the attempt
to establish an alibi. He described all of this in
a flat, emotionless tone that suggested complete disconnection from the
reality of what he'd done. But when investigators pressed him
about the other human remains found in his house, Ed's
(18:21):
story became more complex. He admitted to grave robbing, describing
nocturnal expeditions to local cemeteries over a period of approximately
ten years. He estimated he'd robbed around forty graves, though
he couldn't remember exact numbers. He described reading obituaries, selecting
women who resembled his mother, waiting for burials to conclude,
(18:44):
then exhuming bodies on the cover of darkness. Ed described
the dissociative states he claimed to experience during these episodes,
the feeling of watching himself from outside his body, of
finding himself in cemeteries without fully remembering deciding to go there.
Whether this was accurate description of genuine associative disorder or
convenient fiction remained debated, but Ed maintained this characterization of
(19:08):
his grave robberies as somehow outside his conscious control. Then
Ed revealed the purpose behind his collection. He described creating
a woman's suit from preserved human skin, a costume he
could wear to physically transform himself into female form. He
described this colmely, matter of factly, as if it were
the most natural thing in the world. He explained that
(19:31):
he wanted to become a woman, to become his mother,
that wearing the skin of dead women allowed him to
experience this transformation. Ed described his nighttime rituals putting on
the skin suit and dancing through the sealed rooms of
his farmhouse by lamplight. He described feeling that he was
becoming Augusta, that the boundary between himself and his mother
(19:53):
dissolved when he wore the suit. He described this as
a kind of ecstasy, a relief from the unbearable sight
ecological pressure of her absence. Psychiatrists who later evaluated Ed
would characterize this behavior as representing severe psychotic breaks, a
complete fracturing of identity boundaries, a merger between self and
(20:14):
mother that when far beyond normal grief or even pathological attachment.
Ed wasn't simply wearing a costume. He was attempting literal transfernation,
trying to resurrect Augusta through his own body, to become
her so completely that the distinction between them would disappear.
Ed insisted he had only killed two people, Mary Hogan
(20:37):
and Benice Werben. When asked about the other remains in
his house, he maintained they all came from graves. Investigators
were skeptical. The number of remains suggested at least fifteen
different bodies, far more than two murders plus remembered grave
robberies would account for. Were missing persons in the area
during the period of Ed's activities, women who had never
(20:59):
been found, disappearances that took on new significance in light
of Ed's crimes, but without bodies. Without concrete evidence linking
Ed to these other disappearances, investigators couldn't prove additional murders.
Ed maintained his claim of only two killings with surprising consistency.
Whether he was telling the truth, whether there were other
(21:21):
victims you'd forgotten or repressed, or whether he was protecting
himself from additional murder chargers by insisting on grave robbery
for most of his collection remained uncertain. As word of
Ed's arrest and the discoveries at his farmhouse spread through Plainfield,
the community reacted with shock and horror. People who had
known Ed his entire life, who had hired him for
(21:43):
odd jobs, who had trusted in to babysit their children,
struggled to reconcile the harmless odd man they thought they
knew that the monster investigators were describing. Parents who had
allowed Ed to babysit were horrified imagining their children in
the House of Horrors, sitting on furniture made from human skin,
being watched by a man who wore dead women's faces.
(22:05):
Neighbors who had lived half a mile from the Green
farm for decades were disturbed to realize such darkness had
existed so close to them for so long without anyone
noticing or intervening. The national media descended on Plainfield within days.
Reporters from major newspapers and magazines, photographers, radio broadcasters all
(22:26):
converged on this small Wisconsin town of six hundred people.
The story was too sensational to ignore. Headlines screamed about
the butcher of Plainfield, a mad ghaul, the Wisconsin Horror.
Details of the discoveries, often exaggerated or distorted, spread across
the country. The Green Farmhouse became a macab tourist attraction.
(22:51):
Despite law enforcement efforts to secure the scene, people from
surrounding areas drove out to see the house where such
horrors had occurred. They'd park on the road, walk up
to the property, peer in windows, take photographs. Some tried
to take souvenirs, pieces of wood, or other items from
the property. The curiosity was ghoulish but powerful, drawing hundreds
(23:16):
of people who wanted to see for themselves the location
of such transgressive evil. Local authorities struggled to maintain order
and dignity in the face of this media circus. They
were a small town department unprepared for this level of attention.
The investigation itself was challenging enough without the added pressure
of national scrutiny. Evidence had to be carefully preserved, documented,
(23:41):
prepared for eventual trial. Bodies of Bonice Werden and Mary
Hoban had to be returned to their families for proper burial.
The human remains from Ed's collection had to be identified
where possible and handled with appropriate respect. In March of
nineteen fifty eight, approximately four months after Ed's arrest, the
Green Farmhouse burned to the ground. The fire was reported
(24:04):
as arson, though no one was ever charged or identified.
Speculations suggested that someone from the community, unable to bear
the continued existence of the House of Horrors, had decided
to destroy it. The farmhouse had become a symbol of evil,
a tourist attraction that brought shame to Plainfield. Its destruction
was seen by many as necessary cleansing, raising the physical
(24:27):
structure where such darkness had flourished. But destroying the farm
house couldn't erase what could happened there or answer the
questions Ed's crimes raised. As Ed sat in jail awaiting trial,
as psychiatrists began their evaluations, as investigators continued piecing together
the full scope of his activities, certain questions dominated public discussion.
(24:50):
Was ed Geen insane or evil? Were his crimes the
product of mental illness beyond his control? Or were they
deliberate choices made by someone who knew right from wrong
but simply didn't care, could understanding the abuse, and could
understanding the abuse in isolation that shaped Ed's psychology, excuse
or mitigate his crimes or too. Discoveries in the Green
(25:13):
Farmhouse forced confrontation with uncomfortable truths about human nature, about
how completely a mind could fracture, about the capacity for
horror that could hide behind an ordinary facade. In a
small American town, ed Dean had been living among the
community for decades, interacting with people daily, all while building
(25:34):
his collection of the dead, wearing his skin suit at
night planning his murders. The disconnect between his public persona
and his private reality was profound and disturbing for the
families of Mary Hogan and Bernie's Worden. The revelations brought closure,
but also new trauma. They finally knew what had happened
(25:55):
to their loved ones, For the details were so grotesque
that this knowledge brought little peace. They had to live
with the understanding of how their mothers had died, what
had been done to their bodies, the degradation and violation
that continued even after death. For the families of those
whose graves Ad had robbed, the violation was different, but
no less traumatic. Their loved ones, buried with the expectation
(26:19):
that death would finally grant them peace and dignity, had
been exhumed, desecrated, transformed into objects in Ed's collection. Some
families chose to have their relatives remains exhumed and reburied
in secret locations to prevent further disturbance. The trust that
burial grounds would be respected had been shattered as investigators
(26:40):
concluded their work, As evidence was cataloged and preserved, as
Ed underwent psychiatric evaluation to determine his competence to stand trial,
the case of Ed Geene stood as a watershed moment
in American criminal history. The details were so extreme, so transgressive,
that they seemed to exceed the categories available for understanding them.
(27:03):
Ed wasn't simply a murderer or a grave robber or
a necrophiliac, though he was all of these things. He
was something that defied easy classification, A product of specific
psychological damage that had produced specific horrors. A question of
what to do with ed Gen, how to judge him,
how to understand him, would occupy courts and psychiatrists for years.
(27:26):
But the damage had been done. Two women were dead,
dozens of graves had been violated, a community sense of
safety had been shattered, and ed Gan's name had entered
the cultural consciousness as a symbol of a particular kind
of American horror, the monster next door, the darkness hiding
behind the ordinary facade. In our next episode, we'll explore
(27:48):
Ed's trial and the psychiatric evaluations that would determine his fate.
We'll examine his decades in psychiatric institutions, his eventual death,
and the cultural legacy of his crimes. Will trace how
ed Geen became the template for American horror fiction and film,
inspiring Psycho, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Silence of the Lambs,
(28:09):
and countless other works. We'll explore why his story resonates
so powerfully in American culture and what his crimes reveal
about the intersection of abuse, isolation, mental illness, and violence.
But for now, we leave ed Gean in his jail
cell calm and cooperative, finally unburdened of his secrets, while
(28:31):
Plainfield struggles to comprehend what had been hiding in plain
sight for so long. The House of Horrors has been discovered,
the inventory cataloged, the confessions recorded. The next phase of
the Edgeen story, the trial and its aftermath awaits. Thank
you for listening. Please subscribe for the next episode. This
(28:51):
podcast was brought to you by Quiet Please Podcast Networks.
For more content like this, please go to Quiet Please
dot ai Quiet, Please dot a, I hear what matters
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
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
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.