Morbid - Episode 554: Ed Gein: The Butcher of Plainfield (Part 2)

Episode Date: April 11, 2024

When hardware store owner Bernice Worden disappeared from her store on the morning of November 16, 1957, sheriff’s deputies traced the last sale made that morning to fifty-one-year-old recluse and occasional handyman Ed Gein. During a cursory search of the Gein property, investigators quickly located Worden’s decapitated and mutilated body in a shed on Gein’s property, but that was only one of the many horrors that awaited them on the farmstead. Inside the house, deputies found one of the most shocking and horrifying scenes ever documented in the history of American crime, revealing that the mild-mannered handyman locals had always believed harmless, was in fact a profoundly psychotic killer.Thank you to the magnificent Dave White of Bring Me the Axe Podcast for research!ReferencesAssociated Press. 1968. "Gein prosecution winds up murder testimony." Capital Times, November 9: 9.—. 1968. "Gein ruled fit to stand trial." Green Bay Press-Gazette, January 16: 1.Capital Times. 1958. "Bar Gein house admission fees." Capital Times, March 12: 4.—. 1957. "Claims ten skulls came from graves ." Capital Times, November 18: 1.—. 1958. "Gein insane, psychiatrist tells court." Capital Times, January 6: 3.—. 1957. "Nearly wed gein, woman reveals." Capital Times, November 20: 1.—. 1957. "Plan to open at least two." Capital Times, November 23: 1.—. 1957. "Weeping Gein joins minister in prayer." Capital Times, November 22: 1.—. 1957. "'Won't believe' graves robbed ." Capital Times, November 19: 1.Daily Tribune. 1954. "Believe Bancroft tavernkeeper was slain." Daily Tribune, December 9: 1.—. 1944. "Rites today for the man who died in Roche-a-Cri fire." Daily Tribune, May 19: 1.Engel, Dave. 2005. "Whatever happened to Mary Hogan?" Daily Tribune, December 5: 6.La Crosse Tribune. 1957. "State pushes murder charges against ." La Crosse Tribune, November 22: 1.Portage Daily Register. 1957. "New rifle in shop used in slaying storekeeper." Portage Daily Register, November 19: 1.Schechter, Harold. 1998. Deviant: The Shocking True Story of Ed Gein, the Original Psycho. New York, NY: Gallery Books.Stevens Point Journal. 1958. "Ed Gein's real estate sold for under $4,000." Stevens Point Journal, March 31: 1.—. 1958. "Gein farmhouse leveled by early morning blaze." Stevens Point Journal, March 20: 1.—. 1958. "Open house at Gein farm draws crowds." Stevens Point Journal, March 24: 1.—. 1957. "Results of lie test announced." Stevens Point Journal, November 20: 1.—. 1954. "Woman's disappearance hints slaying at Pine Grove tavern." Stevens Point Journal, December 9: 1.United Press. 1957. "Hospital gets ready for Gein." Capital Times, November 23: 2.United Press International. 1968. "Ed Gein found guilty of 1957 murder in Plainfield." Capital Times, November 14: 2.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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.

I'm deputy Ruth Vogel. And soon, my quiet life will never be the same. Hey weirdos, I'm Ash. And I'm Alaina. And this is Mor morbid. You know what I forgot? What'd you forget? A couple, like, I think it was like last week this happened and I was gonna say, I'm Ash and that's Big Anna over there.

Big Anna! And I never did it. Oh yeah, because I took my kids to see Frozen live. Yeah. And of course, the girls were like, you're going to, because they wanted to dress up, of course. Yeah, duh. And then they were like, well, you're going to dress up, mom, right?

And I was like, I wasn't planning on it, but now that you've mentioned it, sure. And I was like, what should I wear? I have an Anna gown from like, because I was Anna for their birthday party a few years ago. I have an Anna gown. I do have an Anna gown. They wanted me to dress up as Queen Anna a couple years ago, so I did. It's mom shit. This was a few years ago.

So they were like, oh, wear your Anna gown. And I was like, first of all, that's going to be a little tough because it's going to be crazy there. First of all, never. Second of all, don't know if I can fit into that Ana gown still. It's one of those situations where you're like, I don't know, who knows?

Like, that was a few years ago. You're like, that's a gamble that I'm not really in the mood for today. And you know what? Whatever. Like, bodies change. I'm not concerned about it, but I don't want to try to fit into it either.

No, why ruin my day? I was like, you know what? Is there any other? I was like, how about I do my hair like Queen Anna? So I did like the braid. It looked cute. Like the braid or crown thing. And I was like, and I was like,

is there anything else I can do? And so they gave me like the cape, the Queen Anna cape. So like, I was rocking out and we got there. I was rocking out as Queen Anna. She sent me a picture, she's like Sunday mom shit. I'm like eating breakfast at like 12 o'clock at my counter. I was like, what's up? You're like on my way to frozen bitch.

It was great. And we were in the bathroom, which was, I saw a morbid mama in the bathroom. She said, it's our friend from morbid. And I was like, you didn't tell me that. I did. Yeah. I saw one of our listeners.

What? And, but it was so fucking chaotic in there. And I had all three girls because they all decided they had to go to the bathroom at the same time. Girls go to the bathroom in packs. Only one of them had to. Yeah. It's just a girl thing. But they did make me and John get them all through the crowd. And then John was like, Godspeed and just waited outside. And so we go in there, it's just mania. And one of our listeners, hi, if you're listening. Hi. I was just like, hey, what's up? And she got carried away by a crowd. I was like, bye.

Fleeting Anna's in the night. But when we were in there, at one point this little girl looks up and she goes, mama, look, it's big Anna. it's big Anna. I will only refer to you as big Anna from this point forward. And I was like hell yeah because like they have like little Anna in the show and everything so I'm not actual big Anna. She told me this last week and I have been planning this for a long time. I meant to do it last week and say we got big Anna on the mic. We got big on it here So I was like, well, yeah, I am big on it. What's up? What's great? The girls loved it They were like that girl thought you were on and I was like, yeah Yeah, maybe I am maybe I am who knows damn that's hilarious your dad's Norwegian

Perhaps remember when they used to look at you and I don't know they used to look at those little like matching guys It'd be like mama mama and they'd point they'd we had like the frozen matching cards and be like, mama, mama. And we had the frozen matching cards and they'd be like, mama, on Anna all the time. And Dada on the dad? No, it was on, weirdly it was on Hans, which I was like, don't love that for us. John does not have mutton chops, but sure. Be a lot cooler if he did.

Be a lot cooler if he did. Hear that, John? He's like, goodbye. He used to have some pretty sick Not mutton chops, but like he had like the sideburns. Yeah. Like cool sideburns. Cool sideburns, bro.

You know, pronounced. But yeah, so that was fun. And before we get into this, you know, our part two of Ed Gein here, which by the way is gonna be the gross part. Oh goody, we just did some lunch, so that's good. Yeah, it's gonna get, just blanket trigger warning over this entire thing

because I honestly don't know how to insert enough trigger warnings into this thing. I'll just be saying the word trigger warning a hundred times and that'll annoy everybody and me. So I'm just gonna say it right now. This is a rough one. We're gonna talk about mutilation. We're gonna talk about some really horrible trinkets

that he took from actual human bodies. We're gonna be talking about vulvas in a box. So just like know that that's where this is going. Okay. You know that sweatshirt that Corinne has that says, I have a stomach ache, but I'm being really brave right now. That's how I feel. And I actually do have a stomach ache and I am being really brave right now. So wow. Wow. But before I jump into that, why don't I just give you a nice little TikTok recommendation? Oh, I love those. I haven't done one of those in a little while.

Party. I follow this gal. Her name is Becky Ann Gallentine because her handle on Twitter, or Twitter, RIP, TikTok is my bloody Gallentine. Okay. She's fascinating. She collects her and her boyfriend, I believe, they collect haunted objects and they'll do

these live streams where they kind of like, you know, have a camera on the haunted object. They'll go through it. Really interesting shit. They're just like, they have a really interesting collection. She is so smart and so knowledgeable. She goes through a lot of like historical, you know, Victorian death practices. She'll go through like different really fascinating graves around, especially New England, around New England

that like you can find and all the history behind them. She's just really knowledgeable. She's really fun to watch. I think she's great. I think you should follow her. She's very interesting. Let's go. You know, blow it up.

She's- Blow it up, do what you do. She's got a blue check. She's killing it already. But like, you know, like she's great. So just go follow her. really brave. Now when we left you, we were talking about the disappearance of Mary Hogan, the tavern owner who Ed Gein had taken a liking to. Yes. She was gone without a trace as far as they were concerned. We also touched upon the disappearance in October 1953 of 15 yearyear-old Evelyn Hartley. She was the babysitter who disappeared when her father couldn't get a hold of her, found that she wasn't there when he went to the house, found, I think, her glasses and shoes on the ground, a blood trail leading outside.

Looked like she had been loaded into a car and taken away. And everyone was just going missing in this area. Yeah, there was a lot of missing. But And like everyone was just going missing in this area. Yeah, there was a lot of missing. But that one in particular is gonna come back. Okay. At least a little bit. So following Mary Hogan's disappearance, it wasn't lost on many Plainfield locals

that Ed was interested in the missing tavern owner. Like people had seen that. It was pretty obvious. In fact, whenever the subject came up in front of Ed, he would say with a grin, she's at the farm now. I went and got her in my pickup and took her there. I took her home. And anyone look into that?

So he would just, they'd be like, oh, you know, like that Mary Hogan thing is pretty wild, huh? And he'd just be like, oh yeah, she's at the farm now. But he'd be like grinning like, so they thought he was joking. Yeah, we should always look into these things guys. I was just gonna say, and knowing that he'd always been a little odd,

and he kind of said some weird stuff, and everyone kind of thought like he's so shy, nobody knew like, I think a lot of people assumed he was also unintelligent because he was so quiet and a little odd that they didn't think he real, they were like, oh, he's just saying things. Like, you know? You know what they say about assuming. Yeah.

So everyone just kind of brushed off the comments that like crass attempts at humor because they were like, oh, he's not really socially inclined. Well, and also you were saying that the night she went missing, a pickup was spotted in the area. And he's literally saying like, I put her in my pickup and took her home. So like, hello. So that wasn't the only time Ed seems suspicious to others. There was also the time that the teenage son of local store owners, Irene and Lester Hill, told his parents of horrifying things that he had seen at Gein's house.

Bob Hill was probably the closest thing Ed had to a friend. He was much younger than him. And he was one of the very few people who had ever been to the Gein farm ever before or after Augusta's death. So this was like a big deal. And according to Schechter, whose book we have linked in the show notes, it was on one of those visits that Ed showed Bob, quote, a pair of preserved human heads. Now the thing is, Ed claimed these were genuine South Sea shrunken heads sent by a cousin who had fought in the Philippines during the war.

So he's saying like, these are collectors' items kind of thing. Question mark, question mark, question mark. I don't know how to even explain that. Like, he's not saying like, oh, look at these heads that I took off of people. He's like, oh, these are like artifacts kind of thing. And Bob wasn't the only plain-filled child to have seen the heads. And he wasn't the only one to report having seen them in Gein's house. But like Ed's comments about Mary Hogan, few, if any of the residents really thought much

of these reports. As Schechter points out in the book, quote, a set of shrunken heads from the South Pacific was exactly the sort of collectible you'd expect someone like Eddie Gane to own. So this is weird. But when you look at it like that, when they're just kind of like, yeah, he's a weirdo, like I would kind of, you know, people are kind of like, yeah, sure, like he would collect weird artifacts like that. You can see why it might have been written off as him just being a weird guy. Yeah. The only thing that I can say is I really don't understand thinking that it's just a joke

that he's like, Mary Hogan's at my farm. Someone should have called and been like, maybe this is a joke, Ed's a little weird, but like, you guys might want to go check that out. Yeah, that thing not being included, because that's not just a weird guy. Like I'm always going to call someone. I'm always going to ask about that. When someone says like, yeah, I killed that lady. But the quote unquote artifact kind of thing, like you're thinking it's an artifact. I can sort of see why that would be attributed to him just being a little weird and like odd.

And he likes strange things. He's always talking about those weird fiction stuff he reads and non-fiction that's very dark and scary. And if you're at the house, you're probably seeing those kinds of things. You're also seeing the disarray that the house is in. So it just all adds to the... He's just a strange guy and that's a weird thing and I'm just going to move on. But again, the Mary Hogan stuff, we always say, overreact. Check it out.

Just overreact. Call someone. No one's going to get upset if they go out there and they say, you know what, we didn't find anything. Right. All right. Well, at least we checked. You know what?

They probably would have found something. They would have found a lot of things as we'll see. In hindsight, like we just said, the residents of Plainfield probably regret not taking these things seriously. But in 1957, like we're saying it now in 2024, what is it for now? You're like, where am I? But in 1957, very few Americans in the Midwest or really anywhere else, because remember this is the Midwest, very few of them would have believed their neighbors to be capable

of murder at all, much less any of the other crimes that he ended up committing. In fact, the shocking murder, and this will kind of put it into perspective a little more like time wise, this helped me. The shocking murder of the Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas, detailed by Truman Capote's book in cold blood, that was still nearly two years away from happening. Wow. That hadn't even happened yet. And most believed murder to be something confined to,

on it like what they thought was the morally questionable or morally gray cities on either coast. Oh wow. Not in the center of the country. Where it's all farmland. But still, I'm sure a lot of people look back and were like, ee, I wish I'd said something there. Like, you know, I don't know.

Of course. But again, that's probably where their minds were. We're in the mid center of the country where it's supposed to be safe. It's supposed to be quiet. Again, the Incold blood clutter family murders haven't even happened yet, which set off like,

you know, panic everywhere. So you can see why people are just like, that doesn't happen. Like, people are just murder people. What are you talking about? This is a quiet town where nothing ever happens. Yeah, you know? And Keith Morrison is not voicing anything over. He isn't yet. Now, November 16th marked the beginning of deer hunting season in Washara County. And this was a time when nearly every man and boy

ventured out into the woods, hoping to bag the first deer of the season. And with so many people headed out to the woods, Ed figured the town would be virtually empty. So it was the perfect time to put his plan into motion. Oh. After he finished his breakfast around 8 a.m., he loaded a large gas can into his 1947 sedan

and he headed into town, stopped at a gas station to fill the can, and from there he headed over to his destination, which was Warden's Hardware and Implement Store. Now Warden's had been a Plainfield institution since the 1890s. And in 1957, it was owned and operated by 58-year- old Bernice Warden, who was, she was

the daughter of the original owners. She would occasionally be assisted by her son, Frank, because Bernice herself had expanded the business so much. Oh yeah. That she needed help running the place because she was such a badass business lady. Love that. And like, Bernice was a badass all around. She was a business beast.

Like I said, expanded the whole business, needed actually extra help. And she was a loving grandmother. She was known to be and said to be a little sharp-tongued, quote unquote. But I think that's code for people not knowing how to handle an assertive woman who speaks her mind. So they use nasty verbiage to describe her because they can't handle the heat. So like get out of the kitchen. Get out of Bernice's kitchen. She doesn't want you there. She was also an avid fisher woman. Fisher woman. There you go. Fisher person. I was like fisher person.

She loved to fish. She was real good at it. So she's just like a really well-rounded lady. Yeah. People liked her. She was really well respected. She ran a badass business that everybody needed. Now, also a little tidbit about Bernice, in 1956, she was the first woman ever to be presented on the front page of the local paper as the citizen of the week in Plainfield. Wow. That's really cool.

Yeah. Now, like most of the men in the town, Frank had gone hunting that morning, her son. Yeah. Leaving Bernice alone to run the store that morning. Now Bernice probably wasn't surprised to see Ed Gein walk through the door that morning. For the last several weeks, he had been showing up pretty regularly to kind of just like annoy Bernice essentially. And that day, Ed explained he had stopped in to buy some antifreeze.

So Bernice filled up the jug Ed had brought with him before taking his money and she wrote up a handwritten receipt, then stuffed the carbon copy into the register. So that transaction was done. Ed left the store. She was like, cool, that was easy peasy. But then moments later, he returns. And he's no longer carrying a jug of antifreeze. This time, though, he said, you know what?

I'd like to take a look at the new rifles that you have displayed on the wall. And he was like, I was just thinking today. I might want to upgrade. And he was like, can I see this one here? So, Bénice handed him a 22 caliber Marlin rifle. And he was like, I just want to take a look at it. And she was like, for sure. Yeah, go for it. For sure, Eddie. Like, why not? Like, everyone called him Eddie. Oh, really? Yeah. And he, so she walks away and she just walks over to look out the front

store window into the street. So, we're back to him. She's just looking out the window. Oh, man. According to Harold Schechter, Ed had recently come to believe that quote, the 58 year old widow was a wicked creature deserving of divine punishment, the evil antithesis of his own sainted mother. Yes, such a saint Augusta. Of course, Bernice had no way of knowing this. And she didn't know that he was right behind her, fishing in his shirt pocket for the 22 bullets that he had brought in with him to the store. Now that's, this is also like, to be clear, because it's like, he was aware of certain things that he was doing, because later there's a lot of like sanity being called into question. And for sure, this man is sick. Absolutely. Do not believe he is not sick.

But there's, there's something very wrong here. Like there's a, there is some premeditation that's happening. Do I fully believe that he needed to be like put away and, uh, you know, for help in like a hospital later because there was so many layers to his sanity and like, you know, for help in like a hospital later because there was so many layers to his sanity and like, you know, beyond. But these like moments of premeditation are what are very confusing. You know, and what confused a lot of people about him is like, what are you? A monster. Truly. And it's like, how sick are you? How sane are you? Like you really, it's hard to judge. are you? How sane are you? Like you really, it's hard to judge. So like, again, he came back,

asked to see this rifle knowing that he had brought the correct bullets in his pocket for this. So she didn't even notice that he had loaded the bullet into the chamber of the Marlin rifle and he had aimed it at the back of her head. So she didn't even get to turn around before he fired the shot right into the back of her head. She's just. So she didn't even get to turn around before he fired the shot right into the back of her head. She's just looking out the window in her own store. No idea that this, she just thinks it's like odd, odd Eddie. Yeah. And she would have no way of like thinking he brought his own ammunition.

Why would that ever cross her mind? Why would she ever think that? 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 Wondery, 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 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. 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. 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. 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. Do it anyway. Dig. No one heard the sound of the rifle firing inside the store that morning, but across

the street at the Phillips 66 station, Bernard Maczinski, I think it is, did see the warden's truck pull out of the garage. The warden had like a pickup truck for the store. And that was a little before 9 a.m. He said he couldn't see who was in the driver's seat, but he thought it looked like a man and it wasn't Frank Warden. So it seemed a little strange to him that Bernice would have left for the day without

turning all the lights off inside the store. And so Bernard told Frank Warden all of this later, that afternoon when Frank came back from hunting. He was like, I saw some weird stuff. And Frank was very confused. He was like, what do you mean? Like, what are you talking about? No, she wouldn't have left.

Like, and that wasn't me. So as far as he knew, his mother had intended to keep the store open all afternoon and hadn't mentioned any of these plans to go anywhere to him. So he went to grab the keys to the store and then he returned to check on things. As soon as he walked into the hardware store, he knew something was very wrong, obviously.

The store looked as though it had been partially ransacked. The cash register was missing and there was a large trail of blood leading from behind the counter to the back door. He followed the trail to the back door where he discovered that the truck was indeed missing from where it was parked. Very concerned for his mother's safety, Frank called Sheriff Art Schley and reported the scene and he explained everything that he had found inside the store. And so Sheriff Art was still new to the job, so he wasn't really sure what he was going to walk into here. So he called his chief deputy Arnie Fritz and the two men rushed over to Warden's store. Now while he waited for the sheriff to arrive, Frank looked around the store just to see if he could find anything else.

And eventually he saw the receipt that his mother had written after Ed had bought the antifreeze. I wondered if that was going to come back. Yep. It was all the evidence that he needed to say, Ed did this. Something happened. Ed was on. It was a lost receipt. He was like, he's weird. And he's been coming, he had been coming around more frequently.

And kind of like, almost like harassing her in a way. Now once the sheriff and deputy arrived, Frank showed them the blood and explained his theory. Ed Gein had been hanging around the store, kind of bugging his mother for the last few weeks. And just one day earlier, he had actually asked whether they sold antifreeze. While he was there, apparently Ed casually asked, and this was like a day before, Ed had casually asked Frank whether he planned to go hunting the next morning. Oh. Which obviously in hindsight, Frank is like, that's how he was confirming that Bernice was gonna be alone that morning.

Yep, exactly. Although they weren't quite as convinced of Ed's guilt, because remember, Ed's just like the- Weird dude. He's the babysitter of the town. Like everybody's just like, I don't know, he's weird, he's shy, like, I don't think so.

Even when they found all this shit, people were like, what? Like, that guy? Like he just, cause he was so this shit, people were like, what? Like that guy? Like he just, cause he was so quiet and like unassuming. Like he wasn't aggressive. He wasn't like mean. He was just weird. Like just like a weird oddball.

So they were like, I don't know about that, but they trusted Frank and their seat did confirm that Ed had been one of the only other people in the store that morning. So they thought it best to go out to the Gain farm to talk to Ed. Now by that evening, a large crowd had gathered downtown and the deputies had rallied a team of local men to help find Gain. Cause the large crowd like they had heard about the disappearance and you know, this is a small town. So Ed wasn't that hard to locate when officer Dan Chase stopped into Irene Hill store. Irene Hill is the mother of Bob, the kid who saw the shrunken heads. She told them that Ed was at her house getting ready to drive Bob, her son, down to see what

was happening in town. Because apparently Bob was like a teenager. So he was like, oh, there's like some shit going down downtown. Like I want to go see teenager. So he was like, Oh, there's like some shit going down downtown. Like I want to go see it. And he was like, can you drive me? And he was like, sure. Wow. Yeah. Now accompanied by deputy and I think his name is pokey Spies.

I'm pretty sure. Okay. Chase made his way over to the Hills house and found that Ed was just sitting in his car in the Hills driveway, waiting for Bob to come out of the house. So they approached the car and they asked Ed if he could just step out and talk to them for a second. In the Hills driveway, Chase asked Ed to maybe just provide them a quick little blow-by-blow account of his day up to that point. So he explained he'd gone down to Warden's that morning for antifreeze. Then he recounted his movements afterwards, you know, until he arrived at the Hill's house a short time earlier. Seemed like a normal day. When he finished, Chase was like, can you go through that one more time? And that was like a customary thing.

It was to confirm whether you're telling the truth, like tell me that same thing over again. So the second account was a little different. Differed. Yeah. And at least like one or two ways there was some differences. Which is weird. So he said to Ed, now Eddie, you didn't tell the same story come through there that second time. And Ed stared at the two men blankly for a moment and said, somebody frame me.

And Chase was like, framed you for what? Yeah, like we haven't said anything. Yeah. He was like, what are you talking about? And he said, well, Mrs. Warden, she's dead, ain't she? And they were like, what? How do you know that? And he was like, oh, well, I just heard

about the disappearance while I was downtown and I assumed somebody was gonna try to pin it on me because I'm like the town weirdo. And they were like, huh, you wanna come with us real quick? So they took him into custody. Now still hoping to find Bernice Warden alive at this point. Sheriff Schlee and Captain, this is such a hard name to say, Schoeperster, I think it is.

Yes, the captain we'll say. They decided to check the Gein farmstead for any evidence of where Bernice might be. Like most people in Plainfield and beyond, neither of them had ever been to the Gein farm and they were shocked by the state. And this is at night, by the way, they're coming to the Gein farmstead at night. No, not for me. So they try the front door, it's locked. So they start making their way around the side of the house trying to find a door or

window that they could get into. And they make their way to the door in the summer kitchen. And it was hard to see much in the dark. And there was grime on all the windows. So it kept the moonlight out even. That's really heinous. And they had only their flashlights. So they're navigating these piles of trash, just debris that's cluttering the floor.

And they're only using flashlights, like it's pitch black. And they step back to the sheriff step back and like steps back and just sweeps his light across the room just to get a full. Scope. And he bumped into something heavy as he backed up behind him. And so he jumped, he thought it was a person standing behind him. It felt like that. And he shines the light at what's in front of him now that he's turned around and it

fell across the stark white body of a woman hanging upside down from the ceiling. Oh my God. So Schecter wrote, quote, the body was hanging upside down by its feet, its front had been split completely open, so that its trunk was little more than a dark gaping hole. The carcass had been decapitated as though someone had sliced the head off for a trophy, and they had been butchered like Mahefer or a dressed out deer. Oh. So like an animal.

My God. Horrified by the sight of what he knew at this point was the body of Bernice Warden. Oh God. He stumbles out of the house and it's snow is outside and he just drops to his knees and begins vomiting. Oh yeah, I would think so. And this is like, he's like new. Oh, I forgot you had said that.

Oh my God. He is like, he's like new. Oh, I forgot you had said that. Oh, my God. So he's like, great. A moment later, the captain followed, equally horrified, like they were both in there, and he's like seasoned the captain. Yeah. Well, number one, imagine, first of all, you're going into this shag-nasty place

where there is grime covering every single surface and there's trash everywhere. So it already smells like of trash. They're probably already nauseated. And then you see that what like is a human. And there's obviously crime scene photos of this and they are brutal. Some of the most horrible you'll see. I mean, this is what he did to that woman is.

And it's so sad to think that she was just like somebody's grandma. Yeah, she's just somebody's grandma, somebody's mom running a great business in. And that's so sad to think that she was just like somebody's grandma. Yeah. She's just somebody's grandma, somebody's mom running a great business in town. That's so scary. Yeah. And just so like animalistic. Oh, it's such an... He treated her like a deer that he was dressing.

That he had hunted, yeah. Yeah. It's horrifying. So they radioed the station to report what they found and then they had to go back inside to start securing the scene. And how do you secure that scene? How? Now back inside the summer kitchen, it was even worse than they thought. What is a summer kitchen? I think it's like a sun porch. Like something like that, I imagine. Not positive, but it's

a farmhouse. So that's what I see it as. I'm going to Google it. Bernice Warden's headless body was hanging by the ankles from a crudely handmade crossbar secured to the ceiling, strung up as one would butcher an animal. And soon other officers arrived from the police and sheriff's department, as well as state troopers and the men from the county crime lab. And most of the men at the farm that night, like we said, like a lot of them are seasoned law enforcement professionals

and they'd seen some shit at this point, but none of them were ready for what they encountered in this house. How could you ever be ready for that? And what's wild is Bernice Warden's body was only the beginning of it. Yeah. So with only flashlights and kerosene lamps to light their way. Again, remember this is in the middle of the night. Like this is nighttime, barely moonlight coming in. This is the most ghoulish scene I could possibly imagine. And there

was no electricity at that farm? I don't think so. Holy shit, that makes it even fucking scarier. And they just made their way through the door in the summer kitchen and found that the interior of the home was even worse. By the way, a summer kitchen is a small outdoor building that you can use in the warmer weather. Interesting. I'm glad you looked that up. Me too. Because I always pictured it as like a sun porch, but- It's sort of like it's a different building. I think it can be attached to it.

I don't know. It's very confusing. Either way. Well, every inch of the floor seemed to be covered in just debris boxes, empty bottles, old newspapers, magazines, like trash, debris, a moldy magazine, just all kinds of shit. There were also things that were just like, even strange, like everything was just kind of gross, but like things that are like weird too, like there was a coffee can full of wads of chewed gum.

Ew. Like what is the meaning of that? And that's where it kind of comes into the like, are you something? You know, like something's going on mentally. Oh, he's not sane. Like there's no way this man is in his proper mind. Like it's just, and I think he maybe had moments of clarity and he himself kind of says he has moments of clarity.

But he will say he doesn't like, and we'll see eventually that the investigators do believe parts of what he's saying eventually, because they're like, I really do think he blacks out sometimes. Yeah. Because he would say he would like get these urges to go like rob a grave, because we'll get into that, don't worry. But and he get these urges and he said he would try to pray it away. And sometimes it would work.

And then he because remember who he was brought up by. That's what he learned. And so he said, but sometimes it wouldn't work. And I would wake up and I'd be in the middle of digging into a grave. And he said, and that happened a few times and I would just put the stuff back and I'd leave and go home. Wow. And so they were like, I think that he like, which is by no means justification for anything.

But I don't think he's, I don't think he's sane. He's not all there. Some stuff is very wrong here. He's a very sick man. But you don't get to a place like this? No. And have these kind of artifacts being found in your house without something being desperately wrong?

Definitely. There's something wrong? Definitely. So there was like the coffee can of chewed up gum. There was a shelf that just had a bunch of yellowing and cracked dentures all over it. Ew. And then there was a sink full of sand.

That's weird. Yeah. It was like... Did he ever explain any of these things? Not really. Not like those things in particular, but any of like the weird shit that they found? I think he was just like, I just, this is my stuff.

A sink full of sand. Yeah. I wonder if that was like for like preserving. I don't know. Things. But either way, this is, so this was already like, what the fuck is going on? But then they stumbled on the real horrors. Yeah.

So they sweep their lights around the room some more. And one of the officers spotted what appeared to be a very odd shaped soup bowl that was sitting on a table. And when he got closer and looked at it, he said, Oh, that's the sawed off top of a human skull. That's a skull cap that he's using as a bowl. I did not know that. Like eating out of. No. Yep. Oh my God. And as they go through the house, the investigators start making a list of all these horrible fucking ghoulish things that are scattered around his house. And in the kitchen, they found a bunch of other skull caps being used as both as bowls. Wow. Um, they also found several complete skeletons in the house, including two that had been stuck on Ed's bedposts, quote, as decorations.

What? And those are from the grave robbing? Yeah, full skeletons. My God. This is like that's... Oh, it gets even worse. Okay. Elsewhere in the house, they found five heads, full human heads, flesh and all, wrapped in plastic bags.

Nine death masks made of human skinned heads. Like, so just like human faces. Yeah. Nine of them. Yeah. Drums made out of bone and human skin, several bracelets and belts made out of skin and hair and quote, preserved female organs. Okay.

Hours later, more men arrive at the farm and they bring like a large generator and some lights now because they want to be able to see what the fuck is going on at this point. Or they have to be able to. Yeah, they have to, unfortunately. And it somehow became more nightmarish in there. Because remember, he's being fueled, we talked about this in part one, by fantasies, like

wild fantasies, and also Nazi crime literature. Because remember, we talked about that in the first part. He's being fueled by a lot of fucked up shit here. Like nightmare stuff. And so he had fashioned his own lamps and other items from human skin. And in one drawer, officers found nine shriveled vulvas. Oh my God. One had been painted silver and trimmed with red ribbon, and another had been covered in

salt. What? Yeah. There was also a jar full of noses, and an old Quaker oats container that held various pieces of human head and face skin. Oh my God. You would never be the same. Like, how do you just go back to your house

after working this scene and eat dinner with your family? I do, I'm like, I wonder so much for these investigators. Truly. I'm like, you guys weren't okay after this. No way, and no one was fucking going to therapy back then. No one was going to therapy back then. So these men just left and went home. They probably just put that in the darkest place of their mind somehow and never revisited

it. We talking about it, you can picture it in your mind and you're sitting there going, oh my God, like they can turn your stomach just even thinking about it. Being there is incomprehensible. Truly incomprehensible. It really is. I can't imagine seeing that. No. And then just having to go about your daily life after that. Yeah. I mean, you think about how scary it is when you're in like a haunt. Like a Halloween haunted house.

That's exactly what this sounds like. And you're in the dark and you bump into something and you're like, and then they shine a light on it and it's like this ghoulish little thing hanging or something and you're like, oh my God then they shine a light on it and it's like this ghoulish little thing hanging or something and you're like, oh my God, that scared me. And it genuinely scares you. Your heart is beating like crazy and you're like, holy shit. I had a fight or flight response and I'm off.

This is that man standing in a pitch black, filthy kitchen full of shit backing up to get a better view and backing into Bernice Warden's body. Like in a farm in the middle of nowhere. Yes, in one of the worst possible positions you could ever find a human body. Oh, my God. I just can't even fathom that.

No, this, the fact that Ed Gein was a real human being is really a thought. It really is. And they finally made their way. This is when they made their way into Ed's life. was a real human being is really a thought. It really is. And they finally made their way, this is when they made their way into Ed's bedroom and found the skeletons attached to the bedposts. And probably horrible other things. And as Schechter wrote, wild as it seemed, some of Gein's loathsome creations were obviously

meant to be worn. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run dark. In this new crime thriller, religion and crime collide when this small Montana community is rocked by a gruesome murder. As the town is whipped into a frenzy, everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager. But local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group.

Enter federal agent V.B. Laro, who has been investigating a local church for possible criminal activity. She and Ruth form an unlikely partnership to catch the killer, unearthing secrets that leave Ruth torn between her duty to the law, her religious convictions, and her very own family. But something more sinister than murder is afoot, and someone's watching Ruth. With an all-star cast led by Emmy Award nominee Santa Layton and Star Wars Kelly Marie Tran, Chinook plunges listeners into the dark underbelly of a small town where the lines between truth and deception are blurred, and even the most devout are not who they seem. Shannuk is available to listen to now exclusively with your Wondery

Plus subscription. You can subscribe to Wondery Plus on the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Hey, morbid, this is Weirdos. Since Elena betrayed me and didn't go through with our brilliant plan for opening episode 544, the Career Girl Murders Part 1, we thought that we'd get it right with this go-round, as we tell you about one of our favorite deep dives that you might have missed within our feed. In August 1963, Patricia Tolles returned home from work to find her apartment demolished. Shaken, she contacted one of her roommate's fathers, who stumbled across a truly grisly murder scene.

The media created a narrative that would, to their benefit, sell newspapers. Every headline set out to make single women feel afraid and deter them from pursuing personal independence, instead of focusing on how people are depraved and that we should stop assholes from being assholes. You can find this episode by following morbid and scrolling back a little bit to episode 544, the career girl murders part one, or by searching morbid career girls wherever you listen to podcasts. There were several pale pairs of pants and leggings made from human skin, as well as quote, a garment fashioned from the upper torso of a middle-aged woman, which could be donned

as a kind of vest. The most disturbing to the investigators were the nine human masks Which appeared to have been carefully removed from each skull and left on display That's so Scary a bunch of them were dried and almost mummified others looked like he had tried to keep them fresh because he had rubbed oil on them and Some still had lipstick and makeup on oh god because he had rubbed oil on them. And some still had lipstick and makeup on because they had like lips and their cheeks had roots. Like these are real human people that once lived. Oh my God. That's like, there's not

even words. But then he had cut the eye holes out. So they were just like these gaping eye holes. That's so scary. That's the thing. I'm like, I don't know how you leave this place and ever sleep again. No, you would ha- that's- how do you- I didn't even think of that. I'm like, how do you go sit with your family? How do you go to bed? Yeah, you close your eyes. What the fuck are you dreaming about? That must haunt you.

Truly. Truly haunt you. Because sometimes I'll have nightmares about like cases that we cover. Yeah. Like if I think too- And we don't even see these things. Ian Brady and Myra Hindley. Yeah, that fucked me up for a long time. I had horrible nightmares about that.

And that was just me hearing a description or seeing horrifically like seeing like a picture of somebody, you know what I mean? Like I, which again, like I'm doing that in my, can I need a quick little side note just to take us away from this for a second? Because like, you know what, why not? Just to travel. Cause I also want to know if anybody else feels this way. I wish I had this ability.

I have this thing where if I have an image in my head or visual in my head that I don't like and I want to stop thinking about it, I just in my mind, like a dry erase board or like an Etch a sketch almost like just wipe it away. And I visually see the image get wiped away. That's really interesting with an eraser. And then I can pretend it doesn't exist. It's just like right now tool in her brain. It's not there anymore. That image that I just thought back to from the Ian Brady and Myra Hinley case. I hate that. It's gone. I don't have that.

And I can just like, I can like literally like, like, kind of compress it into a different part where I don't, I'm not going to, it's not going to pop into my head anymore unless I call it back. The more I think about like wanting to get rid of an image in my head like that, the more it stays. I think that's a think that's common. I think. I don't know when I started being able to do this, but I...

That's interesting. It's helpful. I mean, it's a coping mechanism for sure. It's a helpful thing to have because like those kinds of things, I just can't... Yeah, luckily I can't remember that one particular thing. Thank God, because that ruined me for a long time. It's gone. Anytime like it gets brought up, I just go, whoop, whoop.

Yeah. And I don't have to think about it anymore. Wow. We even, we took a minute away, but I was still there. Yeah, right. Like that was just, this is a gnarly one. Yeah. So in his bedroom as well, Arnie Fritz found a large moth eaten, horse hide robe hanging on the back of the door. Wait, what? Like horse hide robe hanging on the back of the door. Wait, what? Like horse skin robe.

Oh. Um, when he took it off the hook on the back of the door, he discovered that inside of the folds of this robe was a brown horse skin. Yeah. Like a horse hide robe, I guess. Um, it was, there was a brown paper bag and it had something inside of it. This was like folded into the robe. Okay. So he looks into the bag and he just kind of like shines the light in there. And he said, he saw what looked like a mass of long human hair connected

to what looked like skin. So he reached inside and he grabbed what it was by the hair and pulled out whatever was in the bag and it was revealed to be the desiccated head of Mary Hogan. Oh my god. The tavern owner. Now that was shocking. Oh my god. And that specific action would change you fundamentally as a human.

Pulling that out of a bag. On a molecular level you would be a changed human. I can't even imagine. Now a large team of men work through the night and well into the next morning going room by room, excavating what truly felt like just an endless, infinite amount of human bones, macabre trophies, any manner of horrors you could think of.

They were finding- They must have had to take like shifts. Like you need to go take a minute. Yeah, just emotionally. Yeah. Physically, spiritually exhausted. Like how are you calling out what you're finding? Cause you know, during crime scenes they have to do that.

Like exactly. Like I, okay, I found this over here. Especially the guy who opens the drawer and is like, I've got nine vulvas in this drawer. Like how do you... I communicate that. You don't just yell that. Like you're just like, am I seeing what I think I'm seeing? Can somebody come look at this and make sure?

And then did they have to have people come out and confirm what was what? No, they just kind of like, that's when they go to the crime lab too, to like, you know, all the testing on it and make sure. Yeah. So early the next morning, they finally made their way to the boarded off section on the first floor of the house. And that's early the next morning, they finally got to that boarded off section, totally boarded off.

And that's Augusta's room, right? Well, that's so they pride the boards off. And they open the door into what have, it must have felt like to them. And they described it this way, that like, it felt like a portal. Like, cause it was just like, because unlike the rest of the house, which is a fucking nightmare, Augusta Gein's parlor and bedroom, it was like her bedroom in a little living room, which was always called the parlor back then.

Pristine condition. Right, because she was super clean. She was super clean. There was a thick layer of dust covering everything obviously. But they said that you would have thought that he had just organized the space before they got there. Like it was brand new, like never touch. And they didn't know it at the time,

but they were the first people to step into that room since Augusta's passing. Wow. He had boarded that thing up exactly how she left it and never opened it up. It was just preserved. It's so creepy. And they said they walked in and it was just like, what the fuck is this? That's where the Norman Bates of it all comes.

Like the preserving mama kind of thing. Especially that being the backdrop to what you've just been through. It's fucked up. These people are going through this house like we just talked about, seeing the worst shit you could ever conjure up in your darkest imagination. Then to pry that thing open, they probably thought they were going to go into something even gnarlier, even gnarlier in the dark sense like that. They were like, oh shit, like what are we going to find in here? And then they opened that up and it must have been so fucking unsettling because

you're just like, what is this? Like, why is this untouched? Why is this boarded off? And like, what is going on? So elsewhere, one of the lead criminologists had set up a workstation and started photographing and cataloging all the just gruesome items that were found in the house. It's also really fun to me, side little trick, that it's like the 50s to hear like a criminologist. It is.

I was just thinking that. I don't know. I'm like, just like, wow, look at this go. Yeah. When you said the crime lab, I was like, damn, it's only like 1957, I think. It was like in its... Infancy. Infancy, but it's still like, wow, that's wild.

That's still a thing. That was still a thought process. So he started photographing to Bernice Warden's body, and he had to photograph it while it's still hung from the ceiling. Oh, that's horrific. And then he went on to the other organs, which were found all around. Her heart was found in a plastic bag sitting in front of Ed's stove. Her entrails were later discovered wrapped in an old newspaper and folded inside an old

suit. It took some time, but eventually they found Bernice's head, which had been put in a burlap sack and was just stuffed between two old mattresses in the corner of the summer kitchen. Weird and awful. Right? And it's just like, what? There's no rhyme or reason to any of this. But everything is just everywhere.

Why is it in between two mattresses and a burlap sack? Like, what was the thought process? Which I know we're never gonna understand that thought process. And I don't want to. Nobody's gonna understand that. But it's just like, when you look at it at face value, you're just like, what? Why did you put her head there?

But obviously, you know, finding her, her head was discarded of very callously in a burlap sack shoved between two dirty mattresses. Like what the fuck? That's bad enough. But when they took it out of the sack, the technician realized quote, what Ed had done was take two 10 penny nails, bend them into hooks, connect them with a two foot length

of twine and stick one nail into each of Bernice Warden's ears. This way, the head could be hung in his bedroom as a trophy or wall ornament. Like you would hang a deer head. Wow. So he was planning to mount her head on the wall. Like that's a person. As a trophy.

That is a person. A person that you saw daily. And that was nice to you. That didn't do shit to you. Yeah, she was kind to, like she was totally fine with him. Even though he was annoying her, she still, everybody was like, she was nice to him. Like she never treated, and she wouldn't have,

she wasn't an unkind woman. She just wasn't that kind of person. And I just can't get past the fact that that, she's somebody's grandmother. Yeah. And like for her son to know what happened to her, that's beyond. I can't.

Like you're never the same after somebody is murdered, I can't imagine. Yeah. Like knowing somebody that was murdered and especially having it be like your mom or loved one. But like this? Oh.

And just mutilated, desecrated afterwards? Like, we're sitting here saying, and it's still valid, how do the detectives move on in the crime scene? For sure. Analysts, but her son to know that this happened to her? Knowing that, I can't. And then to just have to like raise his kids still? Yeah, it's like, what do you do?

What do you tell them? You know, like, how do you cope? I don't know. But finally, 12 hours after Frank Warden had stopped in to check on his mother, law enforcement officials and crime scene technicians had finally finished just the first pass at the crime scene. There would be more evidence to collect as they went back, but for now, the sheriff and his deputies wanted to talk to Ed Gein.

Yeah. Did they? Honestly, nothing he would ever say could really explain what they saw in that house. Even a portion of it? Yeah, so it was like, I don't really know what we're going to get here, but... Where do you start? So after his arrest in the Hills driveway,

Ed was taken to the nearby town of Watoma, where he was locked in a jail cell in the back of the county courthouse. So the sheriff entered the courthouse hoping that Ed would have made a full confession by the time he got there. But what he found out was that Ed really hadn't said much of anything since they picked him up. He was pretty quiet.

Still very haunted by what he'd just seen at Ed Gein's farm, Shelley entered the cell and immediately grabbed Ed and started slamming him against the concrete wall. Three deputies tried to separate the men and they ended up being able to before any real damage was done. But if the sheriff was trying to, which I imagine he was trying to like scare or knock a confession out of him, it didn't do much because he got even quieter. He just turned off. He just turned complete. Cause he was pretty quiet before he would like kind of say something every once in a while, nothing relevant to like he was talking to him a little bit. But after this, he just shut right down.

Wow. And you know, after what Shlee has just been through and all of them had just been through at the house and seeing the monstrous things of this man, like taking Bernice Warden's head out of that burlap sack, finding Mary Hogan's head in that sack. And this is a small town, like everybody knows everybody. Like this whole police force probably grew up with these women.

Wardens is an institution. The tavern is a place everybody goes. They've seen these women their whole lives. Yeah. Like to see what was done to them and to bump into Bernice Wardens' body hanging from a ceiling like that and completely gutted. I can't say I blame him for throwing this man against a wall. I can't say that either. The rage he must have felt, the exhaustion, the stress, the trauma

and the rage that he was probably feeling walking in there and seeing this little shit just sitting there being like, I'm not saying anything. Every horrid emotion you could ever feel wrapped up into one. Oh, I can't. It just exploded. So he's being quiet. Ed won't say a damn thing. And in the meantime, the current coroner, Dr. F. Eigenberger,

began his examination of Bernice Warden's body. And he was detailing, I mean, considerable mutilation that had occurred post-mortem thankfully, but still a scheme of things. And again, it all happened post-mortem, but it had been done very methodically and with a lot of precision. It wasn't like hacking away and like, you know, ragged cuts and stuff.

He was very, it was like a hunter. From the report, this is what it says. First, that the entirety of Bernice Warden's vulva and surrounding areas were removed and kept in a box. The body cavities had been completely eviscerated together with most of the diaphragm. Inspection of the trunk and extremities revealed how the body had been hoisted by the heels. There was a deep cut above the Achilles tendon of the right leg, and a pointed crossbar made of a rough wooden stick covered by bark had been forced underneath the tendon.

The other side of the crossbar had been tied to a cord which was tightly fastened to a cut of the leg above the heel. This cut had severed the Achilles tendon and had necessitated the tying with the cord to hold the body securely to the crossbar. The length of the crossbar was estimated as about three feet. Both wrists had been tied with longer hemp rope to the corresponding ends of the crossbar attached to the feet, thus holding the arms firmly when the body had been suspended by the heels.

The thoracic and abdominal viscera had been separately kept, wrapped in newspaper and hidden in a bundle of old clothing. These viscera consisted of both lungs and the trachea, the aorta from the base of the abdominal bifurcation, the esophagus, stomach, small and large intestines with mesentery and omentum to the lower rectum. And block with this were removed the spleen pancreas adrenals kidneys with the ureters upper half of urine bladder and internal genital organs, excuse me, separately removed had been the heart without the pericardium and it was put in a plastic bag and her liver was also separate.

Okay. That's a lot of work. Yeah. It's a lot of work that took him a long time to methodically do that. They weren't just torn out like this. And why? Also the medulla oblongata, which is the connection between the brainstem and the spinal cord, appeared to had been ripped out of her neck and that portion of the spinal cord was never

found. Interesting. So, a shocking report. To say the least. But the most significant findings that were discovered during the examination, especially of her head, it showed a round hole at the back of the skull, about six centimeters above the hairline. But other than the bullet hole at the back and the postmortem damages caused by those

10 penny nails, there was no additional signs of trauma having been caused to the head. So it was the shot from the rifle. But the coroner did notice that there was blood in both nostrils, which he said was because of the bullet entering her head. There was no exit wound. And once x-rayed, they found the 22 caliber bullet lodged in the skull just above the right eyeball. Based on his examination he concluded that

the gunshot was the sole cause of death and it was fired from a short distance away and she likely had died within seconds to minutes after being struck. God. Now, the coroner's report included no unexpected or shocking revelations after they looked at the crime scene because they had found all of these body parts everywhere and organs. But in the original notes on the examination, those like the person that was transcribing his notes for him was his wife, who was also his secretary, the coroner. Yeah. And she had jotted down like, just kind of like her thoughts on the report as well, which was strange. Like she wrote sex slayer and the battered beauty on the back of the notes. Strange. And Schachter notes, what makes the phrase so arresting is its utter incongruity in the context of the postmodern report. The notetakers notation

has the shamelessness of a tabloid headline. Yeah. Indeed, her attempt to come up with a titillating catchphrase for the crime anticipates the kind of treatment that the Gein horrors were about to receive in the press. Now, given the number of law enforcement officers out at the Gein farm, like some having come from far away as Chicago, the local press and residents knew something fucking massive had happened there, but they had no idea the details yet. The first news accounts started trickling out slowly on the afternoon of November 17th, which is like mere hours after they left the farm. It was just saying that Bernice Warden had been abducted, she had disappeared, and that

she had been murdered and her body had been discovered on the Gein property. Yeah. There was no mention of the state of her remains or any of the other fucking horrific shit they found on that farm. That would come though. Once the details were released, the town of Plainfield, and honestly the entire state of Wisconsin at that point, was horrified by what they were hearing. Everyone started referring to the home as the murder factory and like the den of death. The rumors went rampant, even somehow making an unthinkably

horrific situation more horrific. I'm like, I don't think you guys need to do that. No, you don't. It's pretty bad on its own. In their first press conference on the story, Washarah County District Attorney fielded questions from the press, but they really didn't have a lot to say when it came to like motive. They were like, I don't think there's real like tangible motive here. Like there's a lot of scary shit and I don't really know if we're going to understand why this happened.

This person is just simply disturbed. Yeah, they were able to match the fingerprints on the Marlin rifle used in the shooting of Bernice Warden to Ed Gein. So they immediately were able to match him to it. And what they said was he probably picked up the gun from the rack and shot her as she looked out the window. Yeah. And it's like, okay, yeah, I guess.

That's what the district attorney, Earl Kylene, told reporters. And he had actually been present for Ed's interrogation. So he offered a little bit of insight into Gein's psychology from his point of view, district attorney. Didn't really do a lot to explain what they found, but according to what Ed said, he said, quote, "'He was in a daze when he butchered Mrs. Warden,

similar to the blackouts that occurred while he robbed graves. So he did admit to shooting Bernice and mutilating her body, but he could not recall the killing or the mutilation that followed. He said that he, quote, only remember dragging her body from the store. Okay. So during the initial interrogation, Ed had admitted it was possible he had killed others. Possibly. But then he dropped another strange bomb because he said the additional human remains that

they found in their house were things that he had collected at random from cemeteries. That's what he said. And they were like, wait, what? Like, what was that? And he admitted for the last five years, he had been making nocturnal nightly visits to local cemeteries. He said he didn't always rob graves. Sometimes he would just go.

But he robbed graves a lot of the time. And then he would just leave whatever he didn't want in the grave and cover them up. And according to him, he left them in apple pie order. No. Yep. He's like, I just took what I want, put everything back, left it in apple pie order. No. Yep, he's like, I just took what I want, put everything back, left it in apple pie order. No. Yep.

That's terrifying. No, he didn't just open graves willy nilly. Apple pie order. Yeah, apple pie order. That'll change apple pie for you. Yeah, thinking of Ed Gein saying it. The way he knew which graves to go to, because he didn't just like willy-nilly open graves,

he would read the recent obituaries in the newspaper and he would find the bodies of newly dead middle-aged women are older, like Mama Augusta. And in fact, many of the women, he knew them when they were alive, interacted with them and shit. And now he kept their skull caps as bowls and their skin as lampshades and their heads in bags. And did he admit that like he was going after people that looked like his mom or reminded him of his mom?

He admitted it, but he didn't see, I don't think he himself connected the deep psychology behind that, but he was like, oh yeah, she looked like my mother. Or like I wanted, like he admits that like, he basically wanted to keep his mother around and that's why he made that like skin suit of like a middle-aged woman. Cause wearing it made him feel like his mother was still there.

So like he wasn't there when he was wearing it, he was his mom in his own mind't there when he was wearing it. He was his mom. He was in his own mind. Like his mom was there again. That's how deeply, deeply fucked up this guy is. Yeah. Like he is on another level. We will never get to the bottom of what's happening with him. That's okay. And they of course asked him because there was all these rumors of cannibalism that had gone around out of nowhere. Those are the ones that like making a truly horrific situation more horrific. Yeah. I mean, he's eating out of skull bowls.

He is. So it's not a far-fetched thing to ask. They asked him, did you intend to eat your murder victims? And Ed said no. And so Kylene said on that point, he still has a lapse of memory. So he didn't know if he had or not? Yeah. He had first, like at first he was like, no, I don't think so. But then I think they push further and he was like, and he just like stopped answering it. So I think they were like, oh, like, he might have, he doesn't remember, I guess.

But even though that, like that's what happened. So there's no confirmation in that moment of like whether he was or not, because at first he said no, then he just kind of didn't give an answer. But Kylene went in front of reporters and was like, it appears to be cannibalism. You can't like, what? Like you need to find-

You can't say that. Just because it's like, why make it even more sensational if you don't need to? Right, and you can't 100% say that for fact. Yeah. And it's unclear why he felt confident enough to claim that as motive for the crimes, because then he's using it as like, that's the motive to eat people.

And it's like, I feel like that's a jump. Well, especially like with everything that was left and like put out for decoration. Yeah, that's the thing. And it's like, maybe they, and I'll give it to them, maybe they just couldn't figure out a motive. What else are you going to come up with? There's really no boundaries in this case. So it's like, is that really crazy to think about? And as the news spread all over the country, locals in and around Plainfield struggled

with the idea that this man that they had hired to fix their roofs and babysit their children was a grave robbing murderer and now potential cannibal. With a house full of the most horrific things you could possibly imagine. There was an editorial published days after the news all broke and it was Ed Marola of the Plainfield Sun who stated that he wouldn't believe the rumors of grave robbing until those graves had been opened and found empty. He said people are still stunned by the greater crime, the killing of Mrs. Warden to think much about grave robbing.

But he also noted that people around town were kind of relieved by the arrest, of course, because they had been pretty like jittery is how they put it since the disappearance of Mary Hogan. So they were happy that like there wasn't a killer running around the streets anymore. But after his confession, investigators took Ed with a gaggle of reporters to the farm and had him give them a step-by-step tour of everything. Where he had disemboweled his victims, where he had thrown the blood out behind the outhouse, all that stuff.

Wow. The photos are available, photos of him being walked around. Okay. They're just weird because everyone's like, everyone there was like, he looks so small and shy and just like a country dude with a deer hunting cap on. Cause they were just walking them around and everybody there was like, even the reporters were like, it's weird. He's just like this mild mannered little guy in a deer hunting cap.

Like he looks like any old guy walking down the street. And Schechter wrote, it was almost impossible to believe that such a meek looking fellow was by his own admission and in the strict sense of the term a ghoul. Soon after all this investigators felt that there may be a thread to pull for another case to possibly connect Ed Gein to the abduction of Evelyn Hartley, a 15-year-old babysitter taken from the home she was babysitting at and never seen again. One of the reports said that among, and this is horrific, among the body parts that were found, one of them appeared to have been from

a younger woman and not a middle-aged woman. And there were clippings of Hartley's case found among Ed Gein's things, like clippings of the investigation. And that's weird. Lieutenant Vern Weber, who was the chief of detectives of the La Crosse PD, did a press conference where he spoke about this possible connection. Shoes were found at the Hartley abduction scene and they were size 11 and a half, but he said, gene worn eight. So that would be like a pretty big discrepancy. Like he'd be walking around flopping around with those shoes. There was apparently a denim

jacket left at the scene that had a stripe left on the back of it. Like a harness was worn with that jacket on, like almost like a painter would use or a logger or something like that. Ed was a handyman and he was a sometimes logger and he would wear a harness to get up into trees. So they were like, that could be his, but they never really reconciled that correctly.

Like they were never even sure to prove if it was him or not. It just was one of those things that like it could be, it kind of does fit with it. He also told the press he would be checking out Gein's alibi about being out doing odd jobs the day Evelyn disappeared. They were also sending all the teeth and heads out to be compared to Evelyn's dental charts, just in case. Now along with the Evelyn Hartley connection, Weber also had to spill some more details about what was found in the farmhouse.

He told reporters, according to Schechter, there were 10 women's heads, some with eyes and some without, and that a few of them, quote, were complete with skulls and some were just skin. He said they were found everywhere, like behind chairs and furniture and shit, and they were remarkably well preserved. Gein had told them that he cured the heads in a brining solution. Weber also said he saw with his own eyes a chair made out of human skin, and he mentioned that Gein had told him he prayed himself out of a lot of his urges, but would sometimes

come to and he'd be in the middle of digging up a grave or something. And that, that was when he would stop. Uh, he also was very adamant that he never ate human flesh. So he told detective Weber, I never ate human flesh. Okay. Um, and Weber said he believed him. Okay. He did say that he didn't believe the motive was cannibalism. I don't think there was a motive. I don't either. I don't know if I believe it or not. I mean, I guess maybe, who knows. But Gein claimed to him that when he was younger, he wanted to be a doctor. He had dreams of becoming a doctor. And so his grave robbing was a matter of scientific curiosity. He liked to dissect human beings to see what's inside. Weber ended the conference by saying, quote,

he is a very sincere and meek fellow. You'd never believe he would be the kind of guy to do such a thing. You feel like he needs help awful bad. Yeah, I would say so. And for an investigator to say that, usually they're like, fuck this guy, like this guy's like, he needs fucking help.

Like there's something wrong here. To most people in Plainfield, Ed was known as the not too bright, but pretty harmless guy who helped them out and liked to babysit kids. Hate. When you look back on that now and you go, oh, fuck. Hate that, hate that, hate that. So the idea that he could be capable of the literal worst acts that the human brain can

conjure is just unthinkable. Reporters seemed eager to track down literally anything that had any other view of Ed besides like, he's just this harmless dope in town kind of thing. Like everybody just said the same thing. So just a few days after Bernice Warden's body was discovered, reporters published an interview with a Plainfield local named Adeline Watkins, who claimed that she had carried on a 20-year affair with Ed. So she said, everything that the papers are saying about him couldn't be true, not the guy that she knows.

She said, he was so nice about doing things I wanted to do that sometimes I felt I was taking advantage of him. Okay. Now, described in the papers as a quote, severely plain woman with graying bangs and horned worm glasses. That's a read. Imagine being called severely plain. Not even just plain Jane.

But so severe. Severely plain Jane. She claimed that she and Gein had gone on regular dates weekly for two decades and shared a love of books, among other things. She said, we never read the same ones, but we like to talk about them anyway. And she said, Eddie liked books about lions and tigers in Africa and India. I never read that kind of book. And their relationship, according to her, came to an end in 1955 when she said no to his proposal of marriage. She said, that night he proposed to me,

not in so many words, but I knew what he meant, which I was like, mm. And she said it was very important for her to make clear to the press that she didn't refuse to marry him because of anything to do with him. She said, I turned him down, but not because there was anything wrong with him, it was something wrong with me.

I guess I was afraid I wouldn't be able to live up to what he expected of me. Huh. Is there any truth to this? So everybody was just kind of like, huh? Like what? And a day later, Adeline gave another interview to the Plainfield Sun where she described the relationship in a little different terms.

Like suddenly it switched a little. He wasn't like the perfect guy. It wasn't like this whole thing. So now she's being scrutinized, of course. People are like, wait a second. And suddenly the story fell apart and was determined to be completely fabricated. She just made that up.

She just made that shit up. Why would you ever wanna be like, yeah, I dated that guy? She wasn't just severely plain. She was severely fucked up. She so what they said later was she had quote, fallen victim to the wiles of the big city press. The city papers were hungry for human interest news. They played up the innocent, innocent enough relations to spin the story.

The truth is his relationship with Adeline Watkins was super casual if they had even met at all. Like they might not have ever met. I believe that. And she would go on later to claim that the stories reported about her and Ed in the papers were completely false. It was like, I don't know where they came from. Someone just pulled that out of their ass. So now we are at the point where everyone has spun this story. Like the cannibalism rumors are coming out, making it worse. Ed's claiming he never tasted human flesh. That was not something he did.

But the rumor mill is going crazy. Now we have people coming out of the woodwork saying that they were in a 20 plus affair with him when the man never left his fucking farmhouse except to like babysit and do odd jobs. And then we're just like rot in that house. We've discovered the hidden Augusta room that has been preserved. We found the most horrific shit in the world in there. We have found Mary Hogan's head, but now they need to prove that he murdered her and not that he just somehow procured her head.

Obviously they believe he did, but they need to find proof of it. They have the proof of the Bernice Warden murder, but that's where I'm going to leave you for now. For part three, because you know what? I think everybody needs to digest what just happened here. Horrible choice of words. Yeah, I know. Wow. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. Yep.

Some of you are just going to go to work now. Yeah, I'm sorry about that. That's crazy. I'm sorry about that. But we'll be back for part three. It's a story. It's certainly a story. It's certainly a story. It's true.

It's unfortunately true. That was morbid. We hope you keep listening. And we hope you keep it weird. But that's not really that you'd lie about dating Ed Gein because that's a weird fucking choice. Yeah, don't do that. That's what I got out of that.

That's all you got out of that. No, I'm kidding. What the fuck? or on Apple podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.