Morbid - Episode 553: Ed Gein: The Butcher of Plainfield (Part 1)

Starting point is 00:00:00 Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Morbid early and ad free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. You're listening to a Morbid Network podcast. A bloodbath tonight in the rural town of Chinook. Everyone here is hiding a secret. Four Morbiddoms found scattered. Some worse than others. I came as fast as I could.

Starting point is 00:00:23 I'm deputy Ruth Vogel. And soon, my quiet life will never be the same. You can listen to Shinoke exclusively on Wondery+. Join Wondery+, in the Wondery app, Apple podcasts, or Spotify podcasts. Hey, weirdos, I'm Elena. I'm Ash, and This is morbid today. Yeah. We're hitting a biggie today. Whoa.

Starting point is 00:00:47 We're hitting a biggie and it's going to be real morbid. And it's going to be real morbid for about three episodes. Fantastic. Well, we're doing Ed Gein. Yeah, we're doing Ed Gein, guys. As you know, Ed Gein is a very good actor. He's a very good actor. He's a very good actor.

Starting point is 00:00:59 He's a very good actor. He's a very good actor. He's a very good actor. He's a very good actor. He's a very good actor. He's a very good actor. He's a very good actor. He's a very good actor. He's gonna be real morbid for about three episodes. Fantastic. Well, we're doing Ed Gein. Yeah, we're doing Ed Gein, guys. As you know from clicking on this episode, I've only ever really heard this covered probably on like, maybe like two other shows.

Starting point is 00:01:16 Really? Yeah. Because it's covered on every podcast. Well, I don't listen to like a lot of True Crime just because we do it a lot. Yeah. Because I don't, you know. Appreciate it. Yeah, exactly.

Starting point is 00:01:24 Appreciate. But, exactly. Appreciate. But yeah, I'm hesitantly excited to hear your coverage. Yeah. I mean, this is definitely one of those that, like I said, has been covered everywhere. Like that's, I think that's why we just like waited a little while. And also because it's like a... It's gnarly.

Starting point is 00:01:40 It's a heavy story. It's a sad story. It's an awful story. It's a gruesome story. It's all heavy story. It's a sad story. It's an awful story. It's a gruesome story. It's all those things. And I knew it was going to be a multi-parter. So you got to like, you know, you got to place those in the right spots. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:01:53 But you know what? The time has come and you guys have asked for this episode for a long time. So it's time to cover the man who, you know, is the inspiration behind some of the most iconic horror characters. Multiple? There is. Psycho is based after him. Oh. Norman Bates.

Starting point is 00:02:13 That's Ed Gein. Shit, I forgot that also. Confession. I still haven't seen it. We got to make you watch Psycho. Oh no, I want to actually. Yeah, we're going to have, we're going to do that on screen. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:02:23 We'll do it. You know, Silence of the Lambs, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, all of those things were at least in part inspired a little bit by this case. Okay. I forgot that Silence of the Lambs was. At least little bits and pieces are taken, you know, for characters or for the stories for sure. And I mean, I see why it's a very strange and unsettling case. Like this guy isn't prolific when it comes to murdering people and prolific by standards of like how many people he murdered. But he's prolific in many other ways. Any other not good ways.

Starting point is 00:02:59 Depraved ways. Yeah. And he also is a murderer. He committed horrible murders. Maybe of his own family. Who knows? Shoot. And we also is a murderer. He committed horrible murders, maybe of his own family. Who knows? Shoot. And we will get into it. But yeah. So let's start off with just talking about who Ed Gein is. Okay, dude. Let's go right into his pretty horrific childhood. Oh, good. Love that. So Edward Theodore Gein was born August 27th, 1906 in La Crosse, Wisconsin. 1906.

Starting point is 00:03:27 Also, I hate that I like both of those names, Edward and Theodore. Yeah, I mean, they're great names. That's the thing. Like they're very, these are just like names that are so palatable. They are. You know, it's okay. Not anymore. It's okay if you like them.

Starting point is 00:03:42 But he was the second of two boys born to George and the pretty infamous Augusta Gein. That name also pops off. Augusta Gein. Augusta Gein. I would not fuck with her. Mostly because I know a lot about her at this point. Like just like the little tidbits. Because I've just been like leaking out this stuff every now and then.

Starting point is 00:04:01 I need to say something. Let me tell you about Augusta. But Augusta Gein. Well, you know, I say she's infamous only because she seems to have definitely played a role in twisting Ed Gein's mind into something that was kind of beyond repair. Yeah, for sure. It's sad. It's really sad. Like it's, it's horrific how she treated her children. I feel like this is very much a nurture versus nature. Yeah. I mean, he flipped a bit.

Starting point is 00:04:32 Who's to say, you know, like, cause I, it's so hard to like, That's a hard debate. I feel like you can never pinpoint for sure, but we always say, and like, it's pretty clear in studies and such that like nurture has plays a role. It just plays a role. Like it's not always the that's that's the cause. And nature is not always that's the cause. It's the combo of both I feel like is always the one that's the the ticking time bomb. Yeah, I feel like in every case, it's probably like some combo of both. And it's just a matter of how much of each.

Starting point is 00:05:06 Which one is way more than the other one. You're right, exactly. And here, I would say nurture was definitely the higher one on the scale. Yeah, always. Because we have to remember, like kids' minds are so easily molded because they are just open to whatever. And like their caregivers are the ones that are going to be the ones that have the most influence over what they think, what they believe, how they feel about themselves, how

Starting point is 00:05:30 they feel about the world around them. It is very easy to turn a kid into just whatever kind of robotic, scary human you want to turn them into. If you really go for it. And it sounds like Augusta really went for it. She had an agenda here. And obviously something's wrong. Something's wrong with that. Something's big wrong. Something's wrong with that gene on a cellular level there because the things he did are just far beyond the scope of

Starting point is 00:05:57 any imagination. And like we say, a lot of people have shitty childhoods. Well, a lot of people have shitty parents and a lot of people have caregivers that put. What? A lot of people have shitty parents. And a lot of people have caregivers that put shit into their mind and somehow they are able to break out of it someday. That's true. Or at least be able to manage enough to not murder people and, you know, decorate their house with remains. If you can manage not to do that, I would say that's best.

Starting point is 00:06:22 I would say you're really, you're doing well. You're doing what you can. Because also that's not fucking easy. So for real, good job. Good job. If you're like, cause if you, you know, like trauma is trauma. Especially childhood trauma.

Starting point is 00:06:38 Like I can't imagine like the, you know, there's certain levels, but it's like at the high level of childhood trauma, I can't imagine like the, you know, there's certain levels, but it's like at the high level of childhood trauma. I can't imagine having to come out of that and become a functioning adult. Girl, I'm 27 and I'm still working on it. So you know, well done if you're working through it right now. Well done if you have plans to work through it and well done if you have worked through it.

Starting point is 00:07:00 Good job on all those spreads. Go everyone. Good job guys. But George and Augusta had wed in December 1899. And according to crime writer, Harold Schrecker, Schrechter, excuse me. That's hard to say. That is hard to say. It's Schrechter.

Starting point is 00:07:15 Schrechter. There it is. Kind of fun to say. Harold Schrechter. He said, quote, their marriage had the quality of a particularly lacerating nightmare. That's a writer though. That sentence is metal as fuck, but the reality is sad and horrible. A lacerating nightmare.

Starting point is 00:07:35 Yep. That'd be a really good band name. Had the quality of a particularly lacerating nightmare. What a description. You gave me everything I needed. It's so elegant. It is, and it gave me everything I needed. It's so elegant. It is, and it gave me everything I needed to know about that marriage. I know, like a particularly lacerating nightmare.

Starting point is 00:07:51 Got it, got it. That's not a marriage I'd like to be a part of. No, definitely not. So it's sad. Already you're like, oh, fuck. So even by early 20th century standards for marriage, which was definitely not like, let's get married because we love each other,ance, romance, romance. It was really like, you gotta be

Starting point is 00:08:09 practical with your marriage. Basically, it's like for the best of the family kind of thing. George and Augusta's marriage made little sense even by those standards. Like to those around them, people were like, you sure? You really want to do this? George had suffered a lifetime of hardship. And as a result, he had no faith in religion, no faith in God. He was not into that. He had developed cripplingly low self-esteem. He had a tendency to judge himself so harshly. Like everything was his fault, he believed.

Starting point is 00:08:43 He would put everything on himself. And I think he had also been kind of taught that. I think he had also grown up in a place where he was the scapegoat. That's sad. Augusta, on the other hand, was, I'll give it to her. She was a hard worker. Like if she... Augusta is a hard worker.

Starting point is 00:09:00 She's just, she's gonna be a hard worker. She was industrious and she was also, she had a strong work ethic, very rigid sense of morality. And that came from her being a deeply religious woman. She was also a stern disciplinarian. She was self-righteous, domineering and inflexible. Oh, fun. Great qualities in a human. And she is also someone who quote, never doubted for a moment the absolute correctness of her beliefs or her right to impose them by whatever means on the other people around her.

Starting point is 00:09:34 By whatever means. That's the part that really got me. She sounds like a fucking nightmare, to be honest. Like if you're like you believe what you believe, if you think you have a right to impose those beliefs by whatever means necessary on people who don't want that, that's fucked up. Also, what does that mean by whatever means necessary? Isn't it very ominous? It's got a very ominous tone to it.

Starting point is 00:09:57 It truly does. And again, she was... I'll give it to her. She was a hard worker and she probably could have thrived as a business owner if she had just become a business owner and not decided to delve into the realm of being a mother. She doesn't sound very motherly. Yeah, there's not a lot of nurturing happening here by conventional standards. Again, open a business, she would have killed it.

Starting point is 00:10:23 But she did not. There wasn't really a honeymoon phase for the Geans, I don't think. No, I didn't really see that coming down the pike for them. It's not like, oh, the honeymoon phase is over and now she shows who she is. No, like it's, you know, again, a marriage of practicality and I don't even really know how practical it was.

Starting point is 00:10:44 Nobody's really sure why this happened, to be quite honest. That's sad. That's really sad because I feel like we say this so much, but you think about like walking down the aisle, taking vows, the whole nine and just for what? For a lacerating nightmare? That sucks. Yeah, for a particularly lacerating nightmare. Yeah. So, I mean, she had already kind of shown George who she was, that she was very religious, very strict, very all this, but her true personality really revealed itself

Starting point is 00:11:12 pretty quickly after they got married. She was like, well, here it goes. That's so rough that like it was already pretty rough before they got married. And then he's like all in and it's like, but wait, there's more. And George, like I said, he had crippling low self-esteem. He had zero self-worth.

Starting point is 00:11:29 I mean, he was already kind of a shadow of a guy at that point. And he became even more of a shadow. Yeah. Like this is not going to help. Yeah. He just withdrew into himself. Unfortunately, he began drinking very heavily. Alcoholism shortly followed. Things got so bad at one point because it was a constant house of, like, according to all the sources we could find, that it was a constant house of the two of, even before

Starting point is 00:11:55 kids, them just being miserable with each other. And like, George just kind of retreating into himself drinking and kind of isolating and him berating, and her berating him. So it was just that kind of awful environment of just neither one of them are doing well with each other. And not something you would ever want to bring kids into. But back then, obviously I know it was like not as easy to not have kids. Of course, but if you could have a perfect world here, If you could choose, like just black and white, probably don't.

Starting point is 00:12:28 But at one point, George snapped and hit Augusta. Oh, that's not the answer, bud. That's not the answer. And Schechter wrote that afterwards, quote, she would draw herself to her knees and pray fervently for her husband's death. What? Like outwardly. I don't think God is like down with that. Like I don't think God is down with you hitting people either.

Starting point is 00:12:50 No. I think this is none of this is really- This is awful. Yeah. It's not great. So not surprisingly, I would say, Augusta's views on sex as a whole were extreme. Even for those among us who consider themselves the most pious, I would say that her views are a little scary.

Starting point is 00:13:12 Sex before marriage was just out of the fucking question. I mean, unquestionably a sin you will die for and burn in the pits of hell. Do not pass go, do not collect $500. Like you, death. Bye. Wow. But even within marriage, sex between husband and wife and only husband and wife. Of course, always. Was unpleasant and just a responsibility necessary to procreate. Like something, fuck, we just have to do it. And it's only to have kids. That's it. It reminds me in Gilmore Girls of Lane Kim and her mom, Mrs. Kim, when Lane's getting married and she's trying to like explain to Lane, you know, the wedding

Starting point is 00:13:58 night and Lane's like, no, no, no, I got it. And she's like, no, let me explain it to you. And she says, if you're lucky, you only have to do it once like me. And Blaine's just like, ah, if you're lucky, that's so sad. If you're lucky, you only have to do it once. Oh my God. And I was like, oh my, that's stuck with me. Which I go, Ms. Kim, oh. But like just one time and then never again. Fuck that. Sorry. And that was Augusta's view on it. Just like when I- You do it to have kids, that's it. And out of religious obligation, have kids.

Starting point is 00:14:33 Wow. So this is all like not great. This is wild. This is so dark. Yeah. You ain't seen nothing yet. I'm like, this is so dark and then I just sit my poppy. Yeah, and I'm just like, oof.

Starting point is 00:14:44 Just wait until part two. Oh, goody. But, you know, Augusta seems like she's a little intolerant of anything and is certainly anything less than perfection. She also kept an immaculate home. Really? Which like good for her. Good for you keeping an immaculate home, I suppose.

Starting point is 00:15:02 It's hard. That's tough to do, especially, you know, when you're living in 1906 without a Swiffer. Without a Swiffer. I feel like it's really dusty in 1906. Yeah, it's really dusty, but she kept it, but that was part of her like obsession with perfection too. It wasn't like she just liked her home clean. It was like, all is lost. Well, and there's that whole phrase, I'm sure she lived by cleanliness is next to godliness. I think you had it right. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:15:26 I think we said the same thing. I think you said next to godliness, which I think is right. I think it's next to. I said like down the block or something from it. It's in a nearby county to godliness, I think. But given that, given her obsession with perfection, her intolerance for essentially anything, her attitudes towards sex, it's pretty unclear besides religious obligation why she would have thought children was her path in life, I think.

Starting point is 00:15:57 Just because you're supposed to. Quote unquote. And I think it was like social expectation. It was also 1906. Not a lot of ways to prevent that from happening, I suppose, except that they were having sex only to have kids. So that was the agenda here. So I think it was a religious and social obligation for sure.

Starting point is 00:16:17 But it certainly wasn't out of love for the need to nurture another living thing. Doesn't sound like it. But whatever the case, Henry Gein was born in January 1902. This is Ed's older brother. And was followed four years later by Ed. Now in the early years of Ed and Henry's lives, George struggled to keep the family afloat. He was working, you know, just whatever jobs he could find to provide, even the most essential of needs.

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Starting point is 00:20:04 at checkout. That's 20% off of your first order when you shop better hydration today using promo code morbid at liquidiv.com. After a few years, he went into business for himself and he opened a small meat and grocery shop in 1909, which is like, okay, George. But George had no business sense, no experience whatsoever. Definitely not experience owning a business of that kind or any kind of that. So the store just started falling downhill, went into financial problems. And Augusta's solution to this issue was just push her husband aside and take over the operation of the store.

Starting point is 00:20:46 Okay. She put him in the position of a clerk. She said, you're nice to people. She said demoted. And then while this, you know, this didn't do anything to improve their domestic relationship, I imagine. If you already hate each other, working together is not the answer. Probably not great.

Starting point is 00:21:06 And especially her demoting him and just taking it over. But one thing about Augusta. She's going to get it done. She's going to get work done. She's going to do it. Her work ethic and determination were exactly what was needed for this store. And she did turn things around in a very short period of time. And she ended up managing them into a place where they were financially sustainable.

Starting point is 00:21:27 Nice. All right. Okay, Augusta. Again, it feels like this is where Augusta would have thrived. She didn't enjoy domestic life. I think out of, again, social and religious obligation, she felt like that was her duty and that is what she was supposed to do. But I think if she could have opened her mind a little bit, she would have been a great

Starting point is 00:21:45 business woman. And then just demote him to go take care of the kid. Exactly. Like hopefully he's got his drinking under wraps. Yeah. Because again, she, that's the other thing. It's like, we also have George falling into the shadows here and you know, his alcoholism is kind of taking things over and ends up fucking with his health later.

Starting point is 00:22:03 Yeah, I'm sure. Like, you know, it's, and obviously, you know, he did hit her. So it's like, this is just not a great situation for anybody. It's just like, damn. Man, oh man. It's all bad. It's all bad. It's all bad. And again, just become a business owner and then the world would have been one less Ed Gein. That's always something to strive for.

Starting point is 00:22:24 But although things in the business were doing well, finally, at home, things were definitely not great. Following Henry's birth, Augusta struggled to bond with him when he was little and seemed almost resentful of his presence. And I wondered quickly, I was like, could this be undiagnosed postpartum? And I do wonder if that played a role in here, but when you read a little more into it, it doesn't feel like it has the hallmarks

Starting point is 00:22:53 of that kind of situation. It feels like, again, this wasn't the path she was planning to take, like out of a want to take it. It was more out of a expectation. Yeah. And then it's also, I think what happened, I think if she had had, she really wanted a girl. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:23:12 And I'll explain why in a second, but I think if she had had a girl, she would have been a little more bonded. Okay. Or what she saw as bonded in her own head. You know what I mean? Like not a conventional bond, I don't think. Her very fair. I just don't know if she mean? Like not a conventional bond, I don't think. I just don't know if she was capable of that kind of thing,

Starting point is 00:23:28 to be honest. But because it was a boy, she really wasn't happy. She had always maintained a, I mean, bottom of the barrel opinion of men. Like they're all bad, they're all horrible. And again, she wanted a girl. So she was very disappointed when she had a boy. I'm wondering about like what her upbringing was like.

Starting point is 00:23:50 Yeah, she was raised in Germany. Oh wow. So there's not a lot known about her upbringing, but who knows? But she saw, so when she got pregnant for a second time, she saw that as an opportunity to get what she wanted. And then she got another boy. Yeah time, she saw that as an opportunity to get what she wanted. And then she got another boy. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:24:07 So she was equally disappointed. But Schechter writes, quote, Augusta was not the kind to give into despair. And she took the swaddled newborn in her arms and made a sacred vow. This one would not grow up to be like the rest of them. This one she promised would be different. Okay. Which sounds like that could have the whisper of a promise, you know? Like pretty all right. Like it's a little okay. Like you're just like,

Starting point is 00:24:33 oh, okay. Are you like love him into being a good man? You know? Like is that that? No. Nicole Soule And also like him and his brother are not that far apart. So why can't they both be good ones? I don't understand. Because Henry was like neglected and abandoned by her, like, him and his brother are not that far apart, so why can't they both be good ones? Exactly. I don't understand. Because Henry was, like, neglected and abandoned by her. Like, just totally, I don't want anything to do with you. And then I think, so I think she looked at Henry as like, that's the mistake. I didn't want that.

Starting point is 00:24:59 Then she has another child. She's like, well, that's also a mistake. But she's like, I guess I should try to fix this one. Like make it what I want. Both girl. And Ed became something like a pet to Augusta. And again, this is not to say that she treated him with kindness and compassion and love and nurturing.

Starting point is 00:25:18 Because unfortunately, some people don't do that to their pets. No, she just focused a lot of time on him, mostly bad attention. And the way that she saw it was if I can't have a girl, I can't have the, or even the child I want in any way, because she just did not see these children as the ones she wanted. She figured, you know what, at least Ed, I can shape him into being at least something resembling what I want. If not physically, at least in character.

Starting point is 00:25:43 Oh no. So for years, Augusta would berate Ed at every opportunity. And because her main plan here, and this is what makes me think this is more just like Augusta is an asshole. Yeah. Because it's like she had a plan here and her plan was to break Ed completely so that he would literally just worship her and she could control his every thought. Yeah, that's so fucked up. And that's fucked up, like that's not. Just to think that way is so maniacal.

Starting point is 00:26:12 Your own kid. Yeah. And she would tell him that he was stupid, tell him you pointed out every mistake he made, would humiliate him, any slip up he made was a big deal and she would just make him feel the lowest of the low. And would always remind him, only a mother could love you.

Starting point is 00:26:31 So she literally told him, no one will ever love you, only your mother could love you. And it's like, and it's literally like, you are such a fucking waste that only I could love you. So like, don't even bother. I can't imagine treating number one anybody this way, but I can't imagine treating a child this way. A child and your child.

Starting point is 00:26:51 Yeah. Only a mother can love you. Can you imagine like hearing your mom say those words? Like that's really fucked up. That's so fucked up. And that's as we know, gonna do some damage. That is very traumatizing. And again, her whole idea was to make him fear her, respect her, and worship her.

Starting point is 00:27:09 Yeah, big time. And that is so diabolical. It is. That's exactly it. It's so fucked up. So while she would never be capable of recognizing it, her very abrasive personality and, I mean, self-righteousness had left her feeling isolated from everyone around her. Like she wasn't going to admit that, but she was, she was isolated.

Starting point is 00:27:30 I mean, who would want to hang out with a woman like that? She sucked to be around. And George loathed being around her and did everything he could to stay away from her or just avoid catching her ire, like any of her attention. This is so sad. And again, in Ed, she saw an opportunity not to build a lasting relationship through trust and love and nurturing and compassion, but to manipulate and twist him into someone who would love her un fucking conditionally with no matter what and would desperately seek her approval and praise.

Starting point is 00:28:03 That was the other part of the equation was she needed him to desperately need her approval and praise. That was the other part of the equation was she needed him to desperately need her praise and approval. Cause nobody else really did it sounds like. And in all of that together would mean he would never leave her. And that was her whole idea is you will never leave me. And that's not why you have children. No.

Starting point is 00:28:20 You want to send them off into the world. Yeah, you want to hope that they come back out of their own volition to be with you. Right. So this is unhealthy. And with few other influences to contradict any of this abuse, it didn't take long for Ed to become totally reliant on her for all social, emotional, any of his needs.

Starting point is 00:28:39 He relied on her for everything, every move he made. And years later, whenever anyone would ask about his mother, he would literally become tearfully sentimental and would say, she was like nobody else in the world. Wow. Like he was, when she died even, he was like, she was everything. Because she had just-

Starting point is 00:28:59 Engrained that, she'd beaten it into him. It's literally like, it's wild. Also, what a way to word that. Yeah. Cause I think she might've not been like anyone else in the world. She was unique. When Ed was seven years old,

Starting point is 00:29:14 Augusta decided the family could make more money farming than they would operating the store. So she sold off the business and relocated the family to a small farm outside Camp Douglas, which is about 40 minutes outside La Crosse. And, you know, while it was true that she did believe there was going to be a good future in farming, it was like, you know, it was that time. It felt like it was a good move. She did have another motive for this. It was to get her family, particularly

Starting point is 00:29:38 her youngest, her young and impressionable and baby Ed, away from the urban and what she believed to be evil landscape of La Crosse. But for unknown reasons, the farm outside Camp Douglas didn't work out and then less than a year later, they moved again. So in 1914, they ended up settling on a 195 acre farm. Bitch, I wish. And it was in Plainfield. God.

Starting point is 00:30:03 Which is a pretty small, really rural community on the other side of the state. And to be honest, their farmstead, when compared to everyone else's, was very sprawling. It was a two story. Huge estate. Huge. And like there was a two story home.

Starting point is 00:30:17 There was like a bunch of outbuildings, a large barn. There was like all kinds of stuff. And the property was actually purchased and owned by Augusta. Interesting. And back then that's like virtually unheard of. Exactly. Unheard of. Real estate and business, anything would doubt like this is why it was strictly in the domain

Starting point is 00:30:39 of men at that time. And again, Augusta really had the chops to be a thriving businesswoman if she had just changed her fucking tune. But if fleeing urban moral decay truly was her intention, she couldn't have picked a more appropriate location to be honest, like it was the right move. Their nearest neighbors were like a quarter mile away. And the house was surrounded on all sides by metal land, trees, fields. It was total isolation and Augusta liked it. That's a lot to bring a child, like kids into though.

Starting point is 00:31:13 Kids don't need to be isolated. Isolation is tough. That is a tough thing. And she was isolating because she said the religious and moral standards of Plainfield were scandalously low, she had determined right after getting there. Well, according to Augusta, I'm sure they were probably like some of the most religious people ever.

Starting point is 00:31:29 And she's like, not enough. Literally in reality, Plainfield, the people there were as hardworking and God-fearing as most of the other rural Midwestern communities. So there you go. I had a feeling. But looking down on them allowed Augusta to feel morally superior, which is what she lived for. In fact, she not only deemed the town to be of low moral character, but also concluded that the churches, there were a lot in Plainfield, were insufficient to provide moral and religious

Starting point is 00:31:54 guidance for Ed in particular. And she said, nope, I'm going to take the responsibility on of providing religious instruction to him. Oh, goody. on of providing religious instruction to him. Oh goody. Yeah. Now in their new home, she continued to dominate Ed's life. I mean, occupying every moment of his time, nitpicking at everything he did. In fact, the only time Ed had any break was the hours that he was at school. But there he kind of faced a different set of problems. So he was living in constant stress and abuse and manipulation, all kinds of things, obviously at home. So nobody can really tell what kind of student he would have been if he wasn't going through all that.

Starting point is 00:32:35 He did, like, I guess, so, I mean, things were what they were. So he did struggle in the classroom, but he was an avid reader. And he was a very good reader. Living an isolated life on the farm, like you were pointing at, and being completely cut off from peers and potential friends by his mother,

Starting point is 00:32:53 Ed was incredibly lonely and like socially inept. You feel weird being like, that's so sad that Ed Gein was lonely. But it's like we always say, the kid. Feel bad for the kid, not the adult. Really fucked. Yeah, and on adult. Because that's really fucked. Yeah. And on the off chance that he did make any kind of like fleeting connection with someone from school, just like a friend,

Starting point is 00:33:12 the relationship was immediately cut off because when Augusta found out about it, she would be like, they're from an awful family. No way. Like you are not to speak to them. They're evil. She would literally cast them out as evil. Like they're a demon in a child's body. You are not to talk to them. What the fuck? So terrify that kid to be like, oh fuck, like I can't tell where these demons are in kid bodies.

Starting point is 00:33:35 Oh my God. Yeah. To go that far. I can't imagine not wanting my child to make friends. To have any friends. Like what? Yeah. And the isolation and loneliness made him seem odd to other kids at school, obviously.

Starting point is 00:33:47 And even when he tried to like imitate their normal social behaviors, he would come off as like really robotic. Oh, that's really sad. And like sometimes inappropriate. Like he just didn't know how to do it. And he had a congenital lazy eye. Oh no. And he also had a growth on his tongue that impeded his speech sometimes.

Starting point is 00:34:03 Oh no. So he would often get picked on. Yeah, of course. Decades later, when he underwent a series of psychological testing for his crimes, his IQ was determined to be very average. Wow. So he was not like below, he was not high above, he was just average. So he was struggling strictly from a social standpoint.

Starting point is 00:34:21 Yeah, from social and just, yeah. And like an emotional kind of situation. But he only made it as far as eighth grade and he graduated eighth grade at 16 and then he stopped school. Oh wow. To work on the farm. 16 eighth grade? Yeah. Exactly.

Starting point is 00:34:36 That's rough. So things at school might have been bad for Ed, but they were definitely no better at home at this point. While the idea of owning a farm made sense to Augusta at the time, she and her husband had no farming experience. I was wondering. Yeah. And they didn't have the money to hire someone who did or pay for the machinery that would make the work less arduous and terrible. So instead they just worked all day just to produce enough food to feed themselves and nothing more to really show for their work.

Starting point is 00:35:06 Awesome. And things only got worse by the time Ed and Henry reached their teenage years, because now they were spending the majority of their time working on the farm, but their father's heavy drinking had finally caught up to him. And in addition to being, you know, to him having significantly decreased productivity because of this, he was getting sicker. He started exhibiting signs of psychological decline as well. Oh, wow.

Starting point is 00:35:30 With no additional money to hire help, there was really nothing they could do except take all of George's slack on the three of them. So Augusta, Henry and Ed are just working to the bone. Now not in school and completely cut off from the outside world at this point, Ed was isolated on the farm with only his brother and his mother. And his brother is like kind of ambivalent to him right now. Like they're like, they're fine. Like they're not mean to each other. They're not. But like, I think Henry was struggling in his own way. I'm sure. And Henry had a much different view of Augusta than Ed had. And we find out later

Starting point is 00:36:08 that Ed had no idea. Ed did not know how Henry felt about Augusta. He thought that this just, we all love mom. We all worship mom. See, and that leads you to believe too, because I know we were having like the nature versus nurture discussion that like something in that nature is off. Because for Henry to see that like this is, and also having like the nature versus nurture discussion that like something in that nature is off. Yeah. Because for Henry to see that like this is and also having like the exact same experience as I'd like mostly, I know she kind of like picked on Edmore. Well, I think that's that's where the thing bends a little. That's the fork in the road. She kind of just abandoned Henry, right? Like she didn't want anything to do with him. But he saw her for what she was. But he so he saw that and he was angry because he was being treated as nothing and probably

Starting point is 00:36:49 berated and abused and whatever. But Ed was the, he certainly got abused, he certainly got berated, but it was an obsessive kind of like, I'm molding him to be what I want him to be, but Henry was just isolated completely from her. And so I think the way that he saw it was like, like, I hate her. I don't like her. I obey her because I'm scared of her. And he will eventually tell Ed this and we'll see where that leads. But even I feel like that's still such a nature thing. Like in like that small capacity, because with him, like Henry undergoing all those same circumstances like that we were just saying, like you could see him turning out.

Starting point is 00:37:29 Yeah. F**ked up too. Absolutely. The fact that he was abandoned and she treated him so s**tty. Exactly. So there's something off. So interesting. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:37:37 There's something off in both ways for sure. Yeah. But yeah, he just, we'll find out when he, but in this, in these moments, Ed was thinking that Henry is in the same boat. Right, like where he's not seeing, he's not understanding that like this is a different scenario. Right. So it's interesting what happens when he finds that out. Oh, good.

Starting point is 00:37:55 Now, and also his parents are just completely unstable in every way imaginable. So he doesn't have a lot to go to. So to cope, he would retreat into books and fantasy. And as he grew older, those fantasies increasingly included included women. He was being told constantly that women are evil. Women are morally bankrupt. Women are disgusting. Women will ruin you. Awesome.

Starting point is 00:38:26 Like he was literally like, it was hammered into his head, but he's a human. Like he's a young boy at this point. Well, that's just natural. Like it's just natural. And given her feelings about sex in general and the wickedness and immorality of the locals, Augusta swiftly and strongly addressed

Starting point is 00:38:44 her son's growing interest in women. He was like, oh, this is not going to work. So she focused nearly all of her ire on the corrupting influence of modern women. She just started hammering this shit in. That was like the main thing of all her religious teachings to him now. Because she saw that he started just like liking girls. Yeah, like having a crush or something. Or just being like, wow, she's pretty.

Starting point is 00:39:08 Right. Like, and she was like, nope, can't have that. I'm the only woman for you. It's like, oh, wow. Okay. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. I feel like around this time of year, like when, you know, winter kind of turns into spring, I feel a little like depleted and like my social battery just gets drained faster. Because you know, winter, you're kind of like in the house all day, not going out that much, you're less social. And then springtime, you're starting to see more people. So you're like, oh, oh this is a lot and that can be like a little

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Starting point is 00:41:05 so good. It's been so twisty and turny. And if you're listening, Crystal is my girl. She is my favorite character. I'm honestly going to be so sad when I'm finished listening to this that I'm going to keep it and listen to it again, because as an Audible member, you can choose one title a month to keep from the entire catalog, including the latest bestsellers and new releases. New members can try Audible free for 30 days. Visit audible.com slash morbid or text morbid to 500 500. That's audible.com slash morbid or text morbid to 500 500 to try Audible free for 30 days. Audible.com slash morbid. Now, despite having literally no experience with, basically no experience with modern

Starting point is 00:41:53 women, whatever she believed modern women to be, Augusta had seen enough in the newspapers and magazines to know that they were morally bankrupt and no son of hers was ever going to sink as low as to associate with women. Not going to associate. Whenever the subject came up, mostly because she would bring it up because she was obsessed about it, she would immediately reach for her Bible and begin quoting scripture. And according to Schechter, she would take both of her boys by the hand and make them swear to her that they would keep themselves uncontaminated by women. If their lusts became too pressing to resist, she would say even the sin of Onan, Onan,

Starting point is 00:42:33 I think, was preferable to the vileness of fornication. Dave looked it up and it's a passage from Genesis where it basically says that Onan, or Onan, I don't know, he pissed off God because he, quote, spilled his seed on the ground instead of into his wife. No, I'm leaving. So masturbation we're talking about, she's saying they're both sins, fornication and masturbation are both sins. But she's saying masturbation is preferable.

Starting point is 00:42:58 But she's saying, I'd rather you whack it than touch disgusting women. And she told Ed in order to show he loved her, he had to stay a virgin or he didn't love his mother. Oh, that is on so many levels. Fizzity, fizzity, fuck. And this is like a 17, 18 year old boy. Oh God. That she's sitting there saying you have to stay a virgin or you do not love me.

Starting point is 00:43:25 That is putrid. That's rancid. That is rancid. Oh my God. Yeah. So not great. And it should go without saying that, you know, given the dire circumstances on the farm, the just unending isolation and the overwhelmingly negative and twisted influence

Starting point is 00:43:41 of his mother, the Guillen family stood no chance of getting any better at this point. Like, does it sound like it? Not great. So by the late 1930s, and this is just like depressing. It's like after a lifetime of misery, abuse, heavy alcoholism, and just seeing a shadow of yourself, George Gein's health had declined to the point where he was barely able to get out of bed and he could not leave the house. Wow.

Starting point is 00:44:08 So finally, on April 1st, 1940, George Gein died from heart failure at age 66. Much to the relief of his wife and children who were sick of picking up, you know, the slack of the farm while also taking care of him. Oh, yeah. Okay. I hope his next life was better. I hope something like, damn, that's rough. Because it sounds like he had a rough life leading up to like childhood and everything.

Starting point is 00:44:35 It just never got better. So for the last several years of his life, George's family had basically viewed him as a burden at that point, which I know it's all depressing. But now that they were free of that burden, all it kind of did was free them up to work more. And at the same time, the American military entered World War II the following year and still eligible for the draft. Ed was called to nearby Milwaukee for the exams that would see if he was eligible for military service. Had he been deemed eligible and sent to Europe, the Gein farm and Augusta's life probably

Starting point is 00:45:10 would have crumbled into ruins, to be honest. But fortunately for her, the army rejected Ed because of a growth on his left eyelid, which caused the lid to droop and slightly impaired his vision a little bit. His mother was very relieved, so he was not eligible for military service. Without their father to care for, Ed and Henry began taking odd jobs around Plainfield in order to help support their mother and keep the farm running. Although he had only gone to school until eighth grade and had struggled, Ed Gein was very adept at like manual labor. Because obviously he had done a ton at the farm.

Starting point is 00:45:47 Like his whole life. He had learned a lot, yeah. So he had no trouble finding work around town, like installing windows, you know, fixing roofs, like doing these little odd jobs, like other small tasks. A handyman kind of stuff. He was known as like a local handyman.

Starting point is 00:46:02 You could call Ed and he'll fix that shit. Wow. And he's good at it. What a thought. And surprisingly, oh, there's another thought here. So surprisingly, he also had no trouble finding work as a babysitter. What a fucking thought. Yep. Many of the families in and around Plainfield hired him as a babysitter. Can you imagine growing up as a child that Ed Gein babysat.

Starting point is 00:46:25 You said that man babysat my ass. Babysat my ass. What? And I mean, that sounds ghoulish. Mortifying. That sounds ghoulish. That is a baller two truths and a lie though. You win.

Starting point is 00:46:40 You fucking win that game. You better use that. Don't lose that. Don't. Maybe do lose that the whole time. Honestly, you don't want to think about that. But honestly, thinking about like the awful, hideous, rancid acts he is going to commit later in his life, that is rightfully shocking to think of him

Starting point is 00:47:00 as a babysitter. Oh yeah. But when you really think about this, it makes a little bit of sense because... Perqual? Ed Gein is stunted. I don't know where he's stunted, but he's stunted. Of course. That boy has no social skills to even consider.

Starting point is 00:47:21 He feels very weird around his peers. He doesn't know how to act. He feels judged. He's terrified. He's always feeling the eyes of everybody else on him. But with kids, he feels like, I can just hang with them. Like he's literally, I think these, and these kids, all they care about is that you're being nice.

Starting point is 00:47:42 And you're playing with them. Well, and it was probably a way for him to like have fun because he never had fun in his childhood. Yeah, I think these kids probably helped him have fun. And it's like, all these kids care about is that you're nice and you're playing with me. They don't care that you're weird. And he was nice to them? And he was nice. And he played with them. From everything I could find, nobody had problems with their kids with him when he was like of that age.

Starting point is 00:48:03 Right. That's fucking crazy. Like a teenager kind of thing. Like there was no reports of anything weird happening, no reports of him like hurting a child or not being anything, but a very decent babysitter that people kept hiring over and over again. That's so interesting. And I think it's partially because like he probably related better. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:48:23 They had the social skills that he had, which is none to see. That's really sad. Like you don't need to act a certain way around kids. They just care that you're funny and you hang out. Right. You know? So when you think of it that way, you're like, okay,

Starting point is 00:48:37 like maybe I can see. Cause it was shocking to me that like people kept hiring him. I was like, is everyone all right in Plainfield? But I get it. I mean, he seems by all right in Plainfield? But I get it. I mean, he seems by all reports that, and how would they ever fucking know? Well, that's the thing, how are you supposed to know? And at this point, it doesn't seem like he's showing

Starting point is 00:48:52 any quote unquote signs of what he's going to become. It seems like at this point, he's a weird kid. He's just a weird, odd, shy, like painfully shy kid. Yeah, which is probably endearing to people that he was shy. Like he wasn't like the scary kid. Yeah. Which is probably endearing to people that he was shy. Like he wasn't like the scary thing. Right. So it's like, again, if he's being good with the kids,

Starting point is 00:49:10 how would these people have any other idea that he could become this monster? Right. But, whoo. Now the time working outside of the home and away from Augusta, proved to be positive for Ed and Henry. But it was Henry who like really benefited

Starting point is 00:49:28 from the whole thing. Ed had always been a little defiant when it came to his mother's strict rules. Cause again, different situation between the two of them. And he always had a very tumultuous relationship with her. So Ed kind of reluctantly left his mother's side to go do these jobs. Like he was not happy to be away from her.

Starting point is 00:49:46 Interesting. Yeah, but Henry thrived when he was away from the farm. Oh, I'm sure he was probably like, Thrived. Let's live baby. Yeah, like he was like, see you later. He was like, YOLO, see ya. And again, this distance and finally breaking away

Starting point is 00:50:00 from what I can only imagine is a completely stifling and suffocating environment on that farm. I'm sure it was awful. This gave Henry a little more perspective on Ed's relationship with Augusta. Even more so, he was able to see something's wrong here. He had always found it a little more than strange, their relationship, but I think he really was like, wait a second.

Starting point is 00:50:23 And the brothers really, it was the only thing they never saw at Aion. They were always pretty decent with each other. Wow. Because again, while Ed held their mother in the highest esteem, it came as a shock to him when he learned that Henry fucking loathed her and obeyed her out of pure fear. Wow.

Starting point is 00:50:43 He was shocked and he was angry. He was like, what do you mean you don't love her? Like, what do you mean you loathe her? What are you talking about? And he was like, fuck her. Like, are you kidding me? Have you looked at our life, sir? What?

Starting point is 00:50:56 So they disagreed vehemently on their opinions about their mother. And this was the first time they'd ever like come to this at one point. But Ed loved his brother very deeply, according to him. And after the passing of their father, he was kind of the only other person that Ed had in his life. And he was the only one in his life who didn't dominate and consume him.

Starting point is 00:51:17 So it's like, this is a very different relationship. But I almost think that he didn't even know how to handle that kind of relationship. Yeah. I mean, that makes sense that he wouldn't know. If had, Henry was Ed's last connection that even somewhat approximated some kind of love and support or anything like that. Which it sounds like he might've been. That connection came to an end on May 16th, 1944. A fire broke out on the Gein farm. According

Starting point is 00:51:44 to Ed, he and Henry had been burning some grass and vegetation near the marshland on the property when the fire escaped control. And they needed to call for volunteer firefighters to help put out the fire. Now, despite Ed's explanation, there's always been a little confusion about how this fire started, whether it was intentional or not and how it got so far out of control. But whatever the cause, when the firefighters got there pretty quickly and were able to get the fire extinguished, but when the smoke cleared, Henry was nowhere. Nicole Soule What?

Starting point is 00:52:17 Nicole Soule And so they gathered a search party to look for Henry. And Ed seemed to lead the search. He first told them, I don't know where Henry is. Like I have no idea. Then he led the search team directly to Henry. Okay. Who was found laying face down dead from what later was going to be determined to be a heart attack.

Starting point is 00:52:39 A heart attack? There's also reports that it's asphyxiation that he died of. Okay. But I've saw more heart attack's asphyxiation that he died of. But I've saw more heart attack than asphyxiation. What members of the search team and volunteer firefighters couldn't understand was how Henry had seemed to have died as a result of the fire. Yet neither his body nor his clothes showed any signs of smoke or fire damage. Also there were bruises on his head that could not be

Starting point is 00:53:06 explained. What? And when the fire investigators mentioned all this to Ed, Ed's reply was, and I quote, funny how that works. What? Funny how what works? It doesn't work, actually. I think, Ed, I think Henry is Ed's first murder. You think so? What? Funny how what works? It doesn't work, actually. I think Henry is Ed's first murder. You think so?

Starting point is 00:53:28 And I think he killed him because he could not handle what he had found out about his mother. Wow. Or I think that Augusta said something that led, that Ed's twisted mind took as kill him. What the fuck? And I think it's kill him, be alone with mom. Oh, I really hate that a lot. I think it's a little mixture of all of those things. And how do you think he did it? That he ended up with bruises and a heart attack? I think he probably beat him over the head with something and they just in the head with something

Starting point is 00:54:01 didn't do like a typical autopsy. They didn't do any autopsy. Oh, there was no autopsy. So they said, this looks weird. Let's not do anything about it. They were like, yeah, weird. Cool, cool, cool, cool. Yep. So I think that his brother Henry is his first. Yeah, that's strange. And just the response of like funny how that works.

Starting point is 00:54:19 Funny how that works and led them right to him. Yeah. Like too weird. So what the fuck? And he was far away from to him. Yeah. Like too weird. So what the fuck? Right. And he was far away from the fire? Yeah. What?

Starting point is 00:54:29 Exactly. It doesn't make sense. No one wanted to investigate this? No. Hello? No. Do you think they were scared of this family? I don't even think so.

Starting point is 00:54:39 I think they were just, it's the forties. They were just like, eh, whatever. They put on their, they put on their fedora and walked away. Oh no, not the fedora. So I think when Henry, after Henry died, Ed's last tie to reality was severed, essentially. And he was now left alone on the farm with Augusta. With big mama.

Starting point is 00:54:57 Which to be honest is probably likely how she would have preferred it all along. So she was probably fine with that. Unfortunately, it wasn't long before Ed's life was upended again, because just a few months later, his mother, who he had always saw as indestructible, began complaining that she was feeling sick and faint. He rushed her to the nearest hospital

Starting point is 00:55:19 and they learned Augusta had suffered a stroke and she would need to be on bed rest for the foreseeable future. He was at the hospital and home on the farm just doting on her wherever she was, refused to leave her bedside, spend his days waiting on her and his evenings reading to her from the Bible like he was forever watch next to her. That's sad. It is sad.

Starting point is 00:55:44 By the fall of 1945, she appeared to be making some pretty significant improvements actually, and had even begun to walk around a little bit. That's good. With Ed's help. And so it seemed to boost his spirits. He thought she was gonna, you know, she was making a comeback.

Starting point is 00:55:59 But unfortunately those spirits were crushed in late December when Augusta had a second stroke. And this time it was much more severe. So Ed got his mother rushed to the hospital, but it was too late. Augusta Gein died December 29th, 1945 at the age of 67 years old. Wow, young. I know. A life full of hatred will do that to you. That'll do it. And Ed boarded up Augusta's bedroom and kept it as a museum and shrine to her. Gotta do what you gotta do. A la Norman Bates. Now in the span of five years, Ed had lost the three people who were his entire world.

Starting point is 00:56:38 His entire world. Yeah. That's it. That's the farthest reach he had. But when his mom died, it unmoored him. In a real way. That's a different kind of solitude. That's a different kind.

Starting point is 00:56:51 Like he's been alone his whole life in my opinion. For sure he has. But this is... I cannot, like... Psychologically, none of us can understand what was happening here. Because the damage that had already been done to that psyche there. Like there's a vacancy within that psyche.

Starting point is 00:57:10 Exactly. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. And again, like no matter what happened, for as long as he knew, Augusta was the driving force in his life. Like what do you do? Like you relied on, she made sure you relied on her for every fucking part of your being. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:57:31 And when she's gone, and that's the thing she did. I'm like, did you think of that Augusta? That when you're gone, what the fuck is he going to do? Well, no, I think it was a very self-serving. It is. That's the thing. It was a very short-sighted way of doing things. It's like, cause when you're gone, man, I know he's,

Starting point is 00:57:45 and I think that's it. She's like, now my problem when I'm gone. So like, that's whatever. And it's like, that's so fucked up. Like, cause what the fuck did you leave the world here? Like, I can tell you, you left Ed fucking Gein. That's what you left. Like Jesus.

Starting point is 00:57:59 But now without her there on the farm, he was complete. Like you said, a totally different kind of alone, and he had none of the skills necessary to deal with the grief. Because you need to, like, children need to be taught how to process emotions properly, because they don't fucking know how. You need to hold their hand through it so they can understand how to do it themselves. And he was never taught that. Neither was Henry. Neither one of them were taught that. So now he's dealing with this like overwhelming grief and has no skills whatsoever to deal with it.

Starting point is 00:58:43 In May of 1980 near Anaheim, California, Dorothy Jane Scott noticed her friend had an inflamed red wound on his arm and seemed unwell. She insisted on driving him to the local hospital to get treatment. While he waited for his prescription, Dorothy went to grab her car to pick him up at the exit but would never be seen alive again, leaving us to wonder, decades later, what really happened to Dorothy Jane Scott? From Wandery, Generation Y is a podcast that covers notable true crime cases like this one and many more. Every week, hosts Erin and Justin sit down to discuss a new case, covering every angle in theory, walking through the forensic evidence and interviewing those close to the case to try to discover what happened. And with over 450 episodes, there's a case for every true crime listener.

Starting point is 00:59:30 Follow the Generation Y podcast on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Generation Y ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus. This is, this was such a recipe. Yeah, it's all bad. It really was the whole thing. It's all bad. But in the years before Henry and Augusta's deaths, the Gein farm had been, it had become unsightly and kind of in need of some repairs. Like you know, it was weather beaten, like it's just regular wear and tear, but it was

Starting point is 01:00:04 kind of becoming like a little, little over the top. I mean, that's a huge farm to maintain on your own. Yeah, like some of the windows needed to be replaced, like roofs needed patching, like that kind of shit. But he was good at that shit. He was good at that shit, but they all required money to do that.

Starting point is 01:00:20 And the Gains didn't really have any. So they did the best they could while all of them were together. But after Henry and Augusta died, Ed simply let it just fall to ruin. Like he was also in grief. The lawn had become overgrown with weeds. The pastures were you couldn't even tell they were pastures anymore. And he sold off all the animals. And the hulking farm equipment was just left to rust in the yard. It's like you should have sold that too, bro.

Starting point is 01:00:46 Yeah. So it's no longer an operating working farm. And so Ed had to look somewhere else to make money. So we worked briefly for the town clearing brush from the roadside. But eventually fall, you know, he kind of fell into a routine of like odd jobs and then continued the babysitting. And this is him in like his early 40s. Which I was shocked by that.

Starting point is 01:01:08 Like I could understand the younger Ed, like, you know, the teenager just like babysitting your kids, whatever, especially in the 40s. It's like, sure, watch my kids. Whatever teenagers available, they're just like, sure. But like, what's going on here? I don't know. I can't say that I'll necessarily make that choice in my life. You won't have any baby sitting. Just like a 40

Starting point is 01:01:32 year old man babysitting your children. This was a strange one for me, but apparently by all accounts, nothing came out of those situations. So so uncomfy. But again, this is from the 40s, so who knows? So his experience on the farm in the past meant that he had at least enough experience that when harvest time came, he was able to find work on other farms too. So he was able to do that. The rest of the time he was like the handyman doing all that stuff. But other than that, he could just be found sitting at home among piles and piles of trash and dusty old antique objects and debris that just cluttered every livable space.

Starting point is 01:02:17 You look at pictures of that place. It's so sad. It's horrifying. It's like hoarding. Straight up hoarding. Such a psychological illness. Yeah. And while she, like I said, while Augusta was alive, she kept it meticulous. It was very clean. Obviously he's going through something with the fact that like he wasn't able to keep it up. Like you would think that she ingrained that so much in him that he would want

Starting point is 01:02:40 to do it for her. Yeah. But I think he just... He couldn't, it sounds like. And without the tether to her, his real illnesses and his real like sick mind just broke loose. Very much so. Like the term unmoored is really perfect for what he was at this point. It's sad too, because this could have been like such a beautiful home. Oh yeah. Like we'll get pictures of it. have been like such a beautiful home. Oh yeah.

Starting point is 01:03:05 Like we'll get pictures of it. I'm like, wow, it's gorgeous. Now I'm going to give a quick trigger warning for what I'm going to talk about next, because I am going to talk about like, because he got into Nazi stuff. So I just want to give that quick little trigger warning that it's going to be brief. I'm not going to go into anything graphic or anything like that, but just the mere mention. I just want you to know that it's, I'm going to be brief. I'm not going to go into anything graphic or anything like that, but just the mere mention, I just want you to know that it's, I'm going to be talking about it for a minute. Now he's alone in the house, you know, and I want you to pay, this is the forties. He's got no money. He's just, this place is just lit by a lantern.

Starting point is 01:03:37 Oh my God. You know, like just, he's sitting there alone. I'm just looking at pictures of the inside of this while you're talking. He entertained himself with crime and pulp magazines that had literally looking at a photo where there is a detective magazine laying on top a pile of garbage. And the thing is like these, we've talked about these before in some of the cases where like the perpetrators became obsessed with these kinds of magazines. So I think when your mind is already in a bad place, these are not the greatest places

Starting point is 01:04:09 to go. No. But since the war, these pulp and crime magazines had become preoccupied with horror stories about the real life horrors perpetrated by the Nazis during the war. And among the stories that fascinated him most were those about Ilsa Koch, the so-called bitch of Buchenwald. The wife of Nazi commander, Karl Otto Koch, who was in charge of the concentration camps at Buchenwald. He held no official position within the third or she held no official position within the third Reich. But she was known

Starting point is 01:04:45 because remember she was called the bitch of Buchenwald. She was known for her enthusiasm for cruelty and terror. And it honestly made her one of the most notorious figures in the Nazi party. That's how bad she was. She was known to have collected the bones and skin of those killed during the Holocaust. And she would later have them made into ornaments, decorations, lampshades, among other things. That is beyond thought. As one of the most monstrous figures to emerge during what is already a fucking dark period.

Starting point is 01:05:17 Coke's actions were literally the stuff of nightmares. It sounds like that. Like literally the stuff, like you can't conjure the kind of cruelty and terror that she inflicted, but that made her real life exploits perfect fodder for the pulp and horror magazines of the day. Oh, wow. So he's, he's just taking this in.

Starting point is 01:05:37 This is his, this is his only touchstone to reality is just taking all this in all the time. You wish that he had just read like better home and gardens. Just like get on a handyman trip, you know? Like on your own property, like get to learn how to have an herb garden. DIY. Yeah, just like that would have been so nice. Different DIYs. Different DIYs.

Starting point is 01:06:02 Why is exactly. It's like just, you know, just, I never, I'm like- Just anything else. Yeah, I think it's just like when you think about it, you're like, how does your mind, and I guess you have to be like broken in so many ways, and that's why none of us can understand it. Yeah. It's like, why do you want to go that route?

Starting point is 01:06:20 You know, like why, that can't make you feel good, but I guess it does make some people like twisted people think they're feeling good, you know? The human mind is so scary. Instead of doing something productive or that makes you feel like you're doing something or creating something of use. But again, just broken in so many ways. It's the only way to say it. And again, to Ed, whose grasp on reality

Starting point is 01:06:46 had always been somewhat tenuous, the stories about Coke and the other evil figures from the SS were fascinating, particularly those that sexualize figures like Coke, because that was a thing. What? And Irma Grease, who was another female figure in the Nazi party.

Starting point is 01:07:03 Oh yeah, They were like, their horrible behaviors would become like fetishized and like sexualized. Oh, that's heinous. To him, they were interesting because to him, they seemed fictitious. They didn't seem like real people. Kind of like his like pirate stories that he would read. Cause remember he was very much into fantasy. And his favorites that he liked to read about in fantasy, like fiction, was those involving fictional headhunting tribes and other brutal cultures that were again fictitious that would keep trophies

Starting point is 01:07:35 from their victims like shrunken heads or drums made with human skin and bones. So these are like fantasy stories that- But they're fucked up. Someone who is like of, you know, like functioning mind and body can read and say, wow, what a tale. Right. Like that's crazy.

Starting point is 01:07:53 He's reading it and being like, this is real. And this is what needs to happen in my life. So this guy who's like sitting here and he's just consuming things about Nazism and like the fetishizing of these horrible women in the Nazi party. And then he's also reading these detective magazines. So it's like, he's getting a one-handed these awful stories about these fucking monstrous women that are being sexualized for doing monstrous deeds. And then on the other hand, he's reading these detective magazines where women are usually like the like sex, you know. Like femme fatale.

Starting point is 01:08:30 Not even that, like they're usually just like the sex object that's like the bad guys tied up the sex object and like, you know, I mean you get the pictures of, yeah. Oh, I didn't even know that's what you were talking about. Those are the kind of things. So you're getting two very conflicting, very extreme, very horrifying portrayals of women. Right.

Starting point is 01:08:52 And you're getting like, I don't know what, I couldn't imagine what is happening in this, what a storm of awful happening in this farmhouse. Like I can't even, and then he's sitting there like trying to reconcile all the shit that has been twisted up inside of him since he was born. It goes without saying that the profoundly rigid and very archaic worldview that Augusta Gein put inside of her son, the ugliest of which was reserved for women and sexuality, really hammered those two things in, had a very deep twisted influence on Ed. And in the absence of literally any other meaningful social connections or even casually

Starting point is 01:09:30 contradicting opinions to hers, he only heard her opinion and view on everything. That was it. Her views became his views. Even if he mostly kept them to himself, those were what he knew. That's all he knew. So sitting there alone in this dark, empty, like completely cluttered and dirty farmhouse with only gruesome stories and his even more gruesome imagination to keep him company, that shit started to warp big time, big time. And you add in like the grief and confusion and anger.

Starting point is 01:10:07 This is just a recipe for disaster. And so it was blending Augusta's hateful rhetoric with violent, often like really fucked up sexual fantasies born out of that pulp fiction that he was consuming. And it was only a matter of time before he was gonna snap and he was gonna bring these fantasies into his reality. It's hard to pinpoint exactly where the lines between reality and delusions started to blur with Ed because it was all kind of fucked up.

Starting point is 01:10:34 But by most accounts, that triggering event was the death of his mother in 1945. That's where a lot of people point to. Not long after she was buried, in fact, Ed began to feel as though he were living in a complete haze. And sometimes he would move around just thinking he saw her, thinking he heard her. He would smell things that he suspected weren't there, like he was losing it. Losing a grip on reality. Because again, he's so fucking isolated.

Starting point is 01:10:59 So isolated. And sometimes he would just have these like feelings. He said that people were watching him. And other times he said he could hear his mother's voice or you catch her scent in the house. Oh my. But there were other voices he said too. He could hear other voices and he said these voices were laughing at him and mocking him. Oh, that's really sad. And so he said he learned to cope with this by laying still and picturing his mother's face. That was the only way he knew how to cope. But after a while, even that wasn't enough to control his urges.

Starting point is 01:11:35 Ed had been religiously visiting his mother's grave, obviously, like daily. And a little more than a year after Augusta's death, he began toying with the idea of having her back. I forgot about this part of the story. So he dug her up one night. He took her head off and he kept it. And he was intending to quote unquote shrink it like he had read about in those fiction stories.

Starting point is 01:11:58 He ended up using a book he had to preserve it somehow. Interesting. So that's happening, which we're going to get a little more into his grave robbing adventures, don't worry. But first, let's talk about the disappearance of Mary Hogan. Nicole Soule-Pierre-Roux Okay. Nicole Soule-Pierre-Roux So following Augusta's death, Ed probably would have liked to have just shut himself in the darkness of the farmhouse, pretending his mother was still alive and

Starting point is 01:12:21 just reading his horrible stuff he was reading. But he needed income. So he had to go into town to work a little and buy supplies, essentially. And you know, babysit. And he was weird. He had strange habits. He had like peculiar ways, but a lot of the residents of Plainfield were like, we just felt bad for him. Yeah. Like he wasn't mean. He wasn't like a dick. He wasn't bothering people.

Starting point is 01:12:43 He wasn't bothering people. We just felt bad. So if they had the time, they would kind of indulge him as he talked about like that shit he was reading in like crime magazines and stuff. They just like, yeah, totally. Wow. And it never really occurred to anyone that Ed seemed to have an inordinate fascination with stories about lust killings and other violent crime. Only later they were like, that was

Starting point is 01:13:05 a little weird. That's interesting to me that like he was just like shooting the shit with people talking about this and nobody in the moment was like, it's a little concerning that that man lives all alone and talks about nothing except for lust killing. That's strange. A little weird. Yeah. They kind of viewed his fascination with this stuff as they viewed his awkwardness with women. You know, he was odd.

Starting point is 01:13:29 He was probably emotionally stunted. He had progressed really emotionally, not much beyond adolescence, thanks to his domineering mother. They all knew Augusta. So they were like, you know, he's just weirdo. And it's not his fault. So you know, people just tolerated Ed and were nice to him. Like everybody was nice to him.

Starting point is 01:13:47 Nobody was a dick. But no one really went out of their way to check in with him on the farm after his mother's death. Like they would check in with him when he was out and about. They'd be like, how you doing? Right. What's going on? Like how's the farm?

Starting point is 01:14:01 But nobody was going out of their way to visit him at home. And since no one paid him a lot of attention when he was around or they just didn't care, really few, if any people noticed when Ed stopped coming into town very often, he stopped those. He retreated very deeply, even more deeply into that farmhouse, isolating, increasingly indulging that dark imagination he had.

Starting point is 01:14:23 And again, the one place he would only go was like what ended up being Mary's Tavern. It was in town. When he would go into town, he would just stop at this place. It was really the only place he would go. Outside of like, you know, a little store to buy supplies. Yeah, yeah.

Starting point is 01:14:39 This was kind of a seedy bar located in Pine Grove. And given his father's alcoholism, he wasn't a drinker. Okay. And, but his interest in the bar wasn't really that it was really who was serving the stuff at the bar. He first noticed the proprietor of Mary's Tavern, Mary Hogan, when she opened the bar in 1949 and he was fascinated by her immediately. Which is sad because you wonder if it's like, did he know what to do with that? Yeah. Or did he accept it?

Starting point is 01:15:11 Or was he, how was he fascinated by her? Like, like, did he think she was pretty? Did he want to strike up a conversation? Like if he had known how would he have wanted to strike up a conversation? But then what he does, you end up being like, well, fuck, you're a monster. That's the thing. Like these different like mo again, like he didn't have a chance, but he's a fucking monster. Of course.

Starting point is 01:15:34 Like, of course. I don't know why I said it like that. I'm just really shook right now. I'd say as you should be. But yeah, he was fascinated with Mary Hogan throughout his early life. He had, you know, he had expressed, like I said, at least a passing attraction to women in the general sense. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:15:52 Until his mom was like, you should die for that. But Mary Hogan was the first woman that Ed seemed to be very taken with. Born in 1901 in Duesenberg, Germany, Mary came to Germany like his mother. Yeah, just like mama. 1901 in Duesenberg, Germany, Mary came to Plainfield's area from Chicago in 1949, where she had at least one husband and a very murky past. A few facts are really known about her life. And there are plenty of wild, unsavory rumors floating around Plainfield, including speculation that she had mob ties.

Starting point is 01:16:24 It was just like the rumor mill with her. But to Ed, she was an amazing figure that reminded him in many ways of his mother. Awesome. Physically and in her commanding presence. He's looking to replace his mom. Very much so. But if Augusta Gein was a paragon of all things good and right in the world, according to Ed, Mary Hogan was the exact opposite. According to Harold Schechter, quote, Hogan was a foul-mouthed

Starting point is 01:16:49 tavern keeper with a shady, even sinister past. Mary sounds hilarious. She kind of does. Now on the afternoon of December 8th, 1954, Plainfield resident Seymour Lester headed down to Mary's tavern to get some ice cream for his daughter. He came upon a terrible scene. He entered the Tavern and he quote, found the Tavern empty and blood stains leading from the bar room through the door to a spot where a car or truck had been parked. Not knowing what happened, only that there was clearly violence, he reported the discovery and the man who came was Vilas Waterman. He took his time getting to the scene and then took even longer reporting the disappearance to the sheriff. So nobody was moving. Fantastic.

Starting point is 01:17:31 Moven and grooven here. That's always what we're looking for. Yeah, it's really great. Now, during their search of the bar in the living quarters out back, sheriff's deputies confirmed that Mary Hogan was definitely nowhere to be found. And it looked like someone had been shot inside the bar. Wow. There was a large amount of blood on the floor and they discovered a 32 caliber cartridge was definitely nowhere to be found. And it looked like someone had been shot inside the bar. Oh, wow. There was a large amount of blood on the floor and they discovered a 32 caliber cartridge on the ground. Oof.

Starting point is 01:17:51 The area behind the bar had been rifled through, like the cash box where the neighbors believe she kept all the money was like pulled out. And they believe she kept large amounts of cash there. But the only money they found was some crumpled up one dollar bills and a roll of nickels. According to those who knew her, Mary was very fearful of strangers and kept the door locked during the day.

Starting point is 01:18:12 She would only open that door to people she knew, which meant her attacker was likely someone she knew. Aside from the large amount of blood and really small amount of evidence, there was really nothing else to show what happened to her. And during their canvas of the houses around the tavern, deputies learned that the neighbors had seen quote, a dark green 1950 or 51 Dodge pickup truck with wooden racks parked outside the tavern on several occasions in the weeks leading up to her disappearance. In fact, one neighbor claimed to have seen that truck driving nearby that same evening that she went missing.

Starting point is 01:18:46 In quote, there was something covered with a tarp in the rear. Oh, but they were unable to get a look at what it was. According to neighbors, the truck was memorable because it was missing a license plate. Now based on the evidence collected at the scene, Sheriff Harold Thompson put out an alert for the truck and notified surrounding counties that Mary Hogan was nowhere to be found. But they weren't really hopeful that she was going to be found alive at this point because according to crime scene technicians who had processed the scene, quote, the amount of blood loss by the shooting victim assumed to be Miss Hogan precludes

Starting point is 01:19:17 the possibility of her being alive. Wow. Now investigators theorized Hogan had been at the bar drinking a cup of coffee when the intruder arrived and based on the state of the register and cash box, they figured it was likely the motive was robbery. At the time, her disappearance was just one of many mysteries that was baffling local and regional investigators. In 1947, eight-year-old Georgia Weckler disappeared after a neighbor gave her a ride home from school and dropped her about a half mile from her house before driving away. Oh, man.

Starting point is 01:19:48 Hundreds of locals aided in the search for Georgia and there was a big reward offered for information leading to her return. But other than a few reports of like a black sedan near her house at one point, they never found her. Wow. She just disappeared. Oh, that's awful. And then that happened again. A few years later in October 1953, a 15-year-old Evelyn Hartley disappeared while babysitting

Starting point is 01:20:11 for a family friend in La Crosse. So the father of Evelyn was unable to reach her by phone, so he went to the house where she was babysitting and he knocked on the door, but no one answered. Oh, wow. So he spotted Evelyn's glasses and one shoe on the floor through the living room window. And so he made his way inside through an open basement window and he found his daughter's belongings, but she was nowhere to be found. Outside, he found footsteps and a trail of blood leading away from the house.

Starting point is 01:20:40 And later during their investigation of the scene, investigators found additional blood trails and evidence that Evelyn had been forced into a car nearby the house. Oh, God. They never found her. What? Yeah. And there were others. There were men, women, children, all who disappeared under mysterious like abductions.

Starting point is 01:20:58 But they were never followed up. Like there was no ransom, no attempt to contact the families. Their bodies were never found, just disappeared. And this wasn't Ed? And this wasn't Ed. Not that they could prove. And in the months and years that followed Mary's disappearance, it seemed that it was

Starting point is 01:21:16 just another one in line of those disappearances. Oh, get the fuck out of there. And a year later on the anniversary of her disappearance, one local paper published a follow-up article saying, quote, authorities investigated all possible leads, but nothing more appears known today than when the situation was first discovered on December 8th, 1954. Unlike the others, though, investigators would eventually learn what happened to Mary Hogan. And it was going to be a lot worse than any of them could have ever imagined. And I'm going to leave you there. I had a feeling that's a lot to process for everyone involved.

Starting point is 01:21:56 There's a lot coming in part two. That's really sad that she was just operating a tavern, like doing her best. Yeah, she's just doing, she's running a business, keeping everyone happy. And this man's comes along. And this man becomes fixated on her because he's a creep. Oh, wow. All right. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:22:16 Well, we're going to go do something that's good for our brains after this. Yeah. And with that being said, we hope you keep listening. And we hope you keep it weird. But not as weird as Augusta, because she kept it the weirdest up until Ed. And not as weird as Ed. Never as weird as Ed.

Starting point is 01:22:33 I was gonna give you that warning next time, or maybe never, because I feel like you don't even need to know that. You should definitely know that. Yeah. Wow. Pfft. Follow Morbid on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to episodes early and ad free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app

Starting point is 01:23:11 or on Apple podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey. Did you kill Marlene Johnson? I think you're one of the first people to have actually asked. From WBUR and ZSP Media, this is Beyond All Repair, a new podcast about an unsolved murder that will leave you questioning everything. Somebody should be in jail for murdering my sister. A woman who's never been believed.

Starting point is 01:23:40 As long as they think I have done this, then they're not looking for who actually did this. And that's what makes it a cold case. No, it's a botched case. And a search for the truth, once and for all. Wow, it just gets more interesting. Beyond all repair. Listen and follow wherever you get your podcasts. Be careful. You're digging in a place that's been very peaceful for a while.

Starting point is 01:24:06 Do it anyway. Dig.

Morbid - Episode 553: Ed Gein: The Butcher of Plainfield (Part 1)

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