In this episode we cover Ed Gein, also known as the Butcher of Plainfield or the Plainfield Ghoul, was an American murderer and body snatcher. His crimes committed around his hometown in 1957, gathered widespread notoriety in 1957 after authorities discovered that he had exhumed corpses from local graveyards and fashioned trophies from their bones and skin. He also confessed to killing two women, tavern owner Mary Hogan in 1954 and hardware store owner Bernice Worden in 1957. Gein was initially found unfit to stand trial and confined to a mental health facility. By 1968, he was found competent to be tried, but was found legally insane and remanded to a psychiatric institution.
00:00:39.920Violent content or whatever, but it is what it is, even if it's historical.
00:00:43.020So, anyway, here he is, guys, Ed Gein right here.
00:00:44.840Edward Theodore Gein, born August 27, 1906, died July 26, 1984.
00:00:50.000Also known as the Butcher of Plainfield or the Plainfield Ghoul, was an American murderer and body snatcher.
00:00:54.900So, Gein's crimes committed around his hometown of Plainfield, Wisconsin, gathered widespread notoriety in 1957
00:00:59.500after authorities discovered that he had exhumed corpses from local graveyards and fashioned trophies and keepsakes from their bones and skin.
00:01:06.720Gein also confessed to killing two women, tavern owner Mary Hogan in 1954 and hardware stow owner Bernice Worden in 1957.
00:01:13.920Gein was initially found unfit to stand trial and confined to a mental health facility.
00:01:17.800By 1968, he was judged competent to stand trial.
00:01:20.280He was found guilty of the murder of Worden, but he was found legally insane and was remanded to a psychiatric institution.
00:01:28.320He died at Mendota Mental Health Institute from respiratory failure resulting from lung cancer on July 26, 1984, at age 77.
00:01:35.540He was buried next to his family in the Plainfield Cemetery in a now unmarked grave.
00:01:39.760And I'm sure you guys, if it was marked, people would be going crazy.
00:01:42.780So, this him doesn't look like the saneness of individuals, so I'm not surprised.
00:14:35.100After his mother's death, he remained at the farm and lived off the meager earnings from odd jobs that he performed.
00:14:40.540Eddie boarded off the rooms his mother used the most, mainly the upstairs floor, the downstairs parlor, and the living room.
00:14:48.980He preserved them as a shrine to her and left them untouched for the years to follow.
00:14:54.540He resided in the lower level of the house, making use of the kitchen area and a small room located just off the kitchen, which he used as a bedroom.
00:15:02.480It was in these areas that Eddie would spend his spare time reading death cult magazines and adventure stories.
00:15:10.920Look at how disheveled the house is, man.
00:15:12.500Like, you could see that this guy just had zero order, zero type of discipline, and really couldn't get anything done without his mom there.
00:15:20.400And this is the importance of having a strong father figure that teaches you how to live without the confinements of your...
00:15:27.080Within, you know, the parameters of your parents just babying you everywhere.
00:15:29.920This is a man that quite literally had zero ability to be on his own.
00:15:35.240Eddie would immerse himself in his bizarre hobbies that included nightly visits to the graveyard.
00:15:40.920After the death of his mother, Eddie became increasingly lonely.
00:15:45.320He spent much of his spare time reading pulp magazines and anatomy books.
00:15:49.820The rooms he inhabited were full of periodicals about Nazis, South Sea headhunters, and shipwrecks.
00:15:56.260Eddie learned about the process of shrinking heads, exhuming corpses from graves, and the anatomy of the human body from his readings.
00:16:04.300He became obsessed with these weird stories, and he would often recount some of them to the children he babysat.
00:16:10.920Eddie also enjoyed reading the local newspapers.
00:16:14.480His favorite section was the obituaries.
00:17:17.840You guys should definitely go check that one out, the 2003 version.
00:17:20.300Know what it was like to have breasts and a vagina, and he often dreamed of being a woman.
00:17:26.260He was fascinated with women because of the power and hold they had over men.
00:17:32.320He acquired quite a collection of body parts, some of which included preserved heads.
00:17:37.120On one occasion, a small boy that he sometimes looked after visited Eddie's farm.
00:17:43.520He later said that Eddie had shown him human skulls that he kept in his bedroom.
00:17:48.360Eddie claimed the shriveled heads were from the South Seas, relics from headhunters.
00:17:53.380When the young boy told people of his experience, his story was quickly dismissed as a figment of the young boy's imagination.
00:18:00.960Then, somewhat later, the boy was vindicated when two other young men visited Eddie Gein's farm.
00:18:07.120They, too, had seen the preserved heads of women, but thought them to be just strange Halloween costumes.
00:18:13.640Rumors began to circulate, and soon most of the townspeople were gossiping about the strange objects Eddie supposedly possessed.
00:18:21.560However, no one took the story seriously until Bernice Warden disappeared years later.
00:18:26.480In fact, people would often joke with Eddie about having shrunken heads, and Eddie would just smile or make reference to having them in his room.
00:18:35.440No one thought he was telling the truth, or maybe they just didn't want to believe it was true.
00:18:41.020During the late 1940s and 1950s, Wisconsin police began to notice an increase in missing persons cases.
00:22:06.320And the other thing, too, you guys got to know is that this is why serial killers, like, you know, from the 60s all the way up until really the 90s, right?
00:22:12.420From the Zodiac Killer all the way up until, like, people like Jeffrey Dahmer, etc.
00:22:15.500They went crazy in the 70s and 80s because, again, this is before DNA was able to positively identify people, right?
00:22:22.460You got someone like BTK who was committing murders for 30 plus years, right?
00:22:26.060Go watch the BTK breakdown and feel like I want.
00:22:28.500And they weren't able to identify them until 2005 because they were able to use DNA that was found back in 1974 to identify them and link them to that crime scene.
00:22:36.440So, very common that a lot of these cases would go unsolved.
00:22:42.120In the winter of 1954, a Plainfield tavern keeper named Mary Hogan mysteriously disappeared from her business place.
00:22:50.640Police suspected foul play when they discovered blood on the tavern floor that trailed into the parking lot.
00:22:57.500Police also discovered an empty bullet cartridge on the floor.
00:23:00.420Police could only speculate about what might have happened to Mary because they had no bodies and little useful evidence like the other four missing people.
00:23:09.540The only other standard tie among these cases was that all of the disappearances happened around or in Plainfield, Wisconsin.
00:23:19.120On November 17, 1957, after discovering Bernice Worden's headless corpse in the shed and her head and other gruesome artifacts in Eddie's house,
00:23:28.440police began an exhaustive search of the remaining parts of the farm and surrounding land.
00:23:34.520They believed Eddie may have been involved in more murders.
00:23:37.980The bodies might be buried on his land, possibly those of Georgia Weckler, Victor Travis and Ray Burgess, Evelyn Hartley, and Mary Hogan.
00:23:47.340While excavations began at the farmstead, Eddie was being interviewed at Watoma County Jailhouse by investigators.
00:23:53.780Gein, at first, did not admit to any of the killings.
00:23:59.120However, after more than a day of silence, he began to tell the horrible story of how he killed Mrs. Worden and acquired the body parts found in his house.
00:24:08.940Gein had difficulty remembering every detail because he claimed he had been in a dazed state at the time leading up to and during the murder.
00:24:16.600Yet, he recalled dragging Worden's body to his Ford truck, taking the store's cash register, and taking them back to his house.
00:24:24.980He did not remember shooting her in the head with a .22 caliber gun, which autopsy reports later listed as the cause of death.
00:24:32.780When asked where the other body parts came from discovered in his house, he said that he had stolen them from local graves.
00:24:40.000Eddie insisted that he had not killed any of the people whose remains were found in his house, except for Mrs. Worden.
00:24:46.600However, after days of intense interrogation, he finally admitted to the killing of Mary Hogan.
00:24:57.620Again, he claimed he was in a dazed state at the murder time, and he could not remember exact details of what actually happened.
00:25:05.800The only memory he had was that he had accidentally shot her.
00:25:10.660Eddie showed no signs of remorse or emotion during the many hours of interrogation.
00:25:15.340When he talked about the murders and of his grave-robbing escapades, he spoke very matter-of-factly, even cheerfully at times.
00:25:23.780He had no concept of the enormity of his crimes.
00:25:30.520It was suggested that during the trial, he plead not guilty because of insanity.
00:25:35.820Gein underwent a battery of psychological tests, which later concluded that he was indeed emotionally impaired.
00:25:41.840Psychologists and psychiatrists who interviewed him asserted that he was schizophrenic and a sexual psychopath.
00:25:49.460His condition was attributed to the unhealthy relationship he had with his mother and his upbringing.
00:25:55.480Gein apparently suffered from conflicting feelings about women, his natural sexual attraction, and the unnatural attitudes that his mother had instilled in him.
00:26:03.600This love-hate feeling towards women became exaggerated and eventually developed into full-blown psychosis.
00:26:11.020While Eddie was undergoing further interrogation and psychological tests, investigators continued to search the land around his farm.
00:26:18.060See, guys, and I don't mean to bring this back to intersexual dynamics, but this is the importance of understanding women and knowing how they think.
00:26:24.680Because when you understand women, right, and you know how they think, well, then you can attract them.
00:26:29.420And then if you can attract them, you don't need to do crazy stuff like this to go ahead and get your sexual gratification.
00:26:34.900Oh, the RP makes you angry and misogynistic, blah, blah, blah.
00:26:37.640No, if you use it correctly, it helps you understand women so that you don't hate them for what they'll never be to you, an idealistic lover.
00:26:45.020Because a lot of you guys, you know, not you guys, but a lot of people that, you know, get in a relationship with women, et cetera, they tend to look at women from an idealistic standpoint.
00:26:52.780Disney fairytale, oh, she's going to love me unconditionally.
00:27:09.800Yeah, of course, he's a psychopath as well.
00:27:11.420But like, this is the importance of being able to be attractive and know what the hell you're doing.
00:27:16.180Police discovered within Eddie's farmhouse the remains of 10 women.
00:27:21.040Although Eddie swore that the remaining body parts of eight women were taken from local graveyards, police were skeptical.
00:27:28.120They believed that the remains could have come from women Eddie may have murdered.
00:27:31.920The only way police could ascertain whether the remains came from women's corpses was to examine the graves Eddie claimed he had robbed.
00:27:40.740After much controversy about the morality of exhuming the bodies, police were finally permitted to dig up the graves of the women Eddie claimed to have desecrated.
00:27:49.420All of the coffins showed clear signs of tampering.
00:27:53.160In most cases, the bodies, or parts of the bodies, were missing.
00:27:57.600There would be another discovery on Eddie's land that would again raise the issue of whether Eddie did, in fact, murder a third person.
00:28:05.960On November 29th, police unearthed human skeletal remains on the Gein farm.
00:28:10.440It was suspected that the body was that of Victor Travis, who had disappeared years earlier.
00:28:16.760The remains were immediately taken to a crime lab and examined.
00:28:20.460Tests showed that the body was not that of a male, but of a large, middle-aged woman, another graveyard souvenir.
00:28:27.480Try as the police did, they could not implicate Eddie in the disappearance of Victor Travis or the three other people who had vanished years earlier in the Plainfield area.
00:28:36.440The only murders Eddie could be held responsible for were Bernice Warden and Mary Hogan.
00:28:43.500When investigators revealed the facts about what was found on Eddie Gein's farm, the news quickly spread.
00:29:01.980Reporters from all over the world flocked to the small town of Plainfield, Wisconsin.
00:29:06.440The town became known worldwide, and Eddie Gein reached celebrity-like status.
00:29:12.620People were repulsed, yet at the same time drawn to the atrocities that took place on Eddie Gein's farm.
00:29:19.800Psychologists from all over the world attempted to find out what made Eddie tick.
00:29:24.780During the 1950s, he gained notoriety as being one of the most famous of documented cases involving a combination of necrophilia, transvestism, and fetishism.
00:29:34.920Even children who knew of the exploits of Eddie began to...
00:29:39.060He was one of the first before, you know, the Ted Bundys and the Jeffrey Dahmers.
00:30:33.020Yeah, she studies psychology in Venezuela, guys.
00:30:35.320Jokes to, as Harold Schechter suggests in his book, Deviant, exercise the nightmare with laughter.
00:30:42.580These distasteful jokes became known as giggers and were quick to become popular worldwide.
00:30:47.740Back in Plainfield, residents endured the onslaught of reporters who disrupted their daily life by bombarding them with questions about Eddie.
00:30:57.640However, many of them eventually became involved in Eddie's mania and contributed what information they had.
00:31:05.280Plainfield was now known to the world as the home of the infamous Eddie Gein.
00:31:09.680Most residents who knew Eddie had only good things to say about him.
00:31:13.940Other than that, he was a little peculiar, had a quirky grin, and a strange sense of humor.
00:31:19.640They never suspected him of being capable of committing such ghastly crimes.
00:31:27.280The little, shy, quiet man the town thought they knew was, in fact, a murderer who had violated the graves of friends and relatives.
00:31:35.280After Gein spent 30 days in a mental institution and was evaluated as mentally incompetent, he could no longer be tried for first-degree murder.
00:31:45.320Plainfield's people immediately voiced their anger that Eddie would not be tried for the death of Bernice Worden.
00:31:51.680Yet there was little the community could do to influence the court's decision.
00:31:56.300Eddie was committed to the Central State Hospital in Wapun, Wisconsin.
00:31:59.680Soon after Eddie was sentenced to the mental institution, his farm went up for auction and some of his other belongings.
00:32:07.480Thousands of curiosity seekers converged on the small town to see Eddie's possessions auctioned.
00:32:13.820Some of the things to be auctioned off were his car, furniture, and musical instruments.
00:32:19.140The company that handled the business of selling Eddie's goods planned to charge a fee of 50 cents to look at Eddie's property.
00:32:26.380The citizens of Plainfield were outraged.
00:32:29.020They believed Eddie's home was quickly becoming a museum for the morbid, and the town demanded something be done to put it to an end.
00:32:37.980Although the company was later forbidden to charge an entrance fee to the auction, residents were still not satisfied.
00:32:52.740So much so that there's so many lawsuits that are put out there to not allow serial killers to monetize off of their memorabilia or anything they create while they're still alive.
00:33:03.140Or even the families of the serial killer, because it just garners so much interest and finances.
00:33:09.540Of March 28, 1958, the Plainfield Volunteer Fire Department was called to Eddie's farm.
00:33:15.480The place quickly burned to the ground as onlookers watched in silent relief.
00:33:23.580Police believed that an arsonist was responsible for the blaze because there was no electrical wiring problems with the house.
00:33:30.840Although police carried out a thorough investigation, no suspect was ever found.
00:33:35.320When Eddie learned of the destruction of his house, he simply said,
00:37:24.820You know, luring guys back to his house.
00:37:27.060Oh, I'll get you a job working for me.
00:37:28.700And next thing you know, he's trying to kill him.
00:37:29.780Indeed, apart from certain peculiarities, the disconcerting way he would stare fixedly at nurses or any other female staff members who wandered into his line of vision, it was hard to tell that he was particularly crazy at all.
00:37:44.380Superintendent Schubert told reporters that Gein was a model patient.
00:37:48.920If all our patients were like him, we'd have no trouble at all.
00:37:53.460On July 26, 1984, he died after a long bout with cancer.
00:37:58.540He was buried in Plainfield Cemetery next to his mother, not far from the graves he had robbed years earlier.
00:38:39.020Because a lot of other podcasts that we do, you kind of have to watch it to see what's going on.
00:38:42.020But this one's a little bit more audio-friendly.
00:38:44.040I just want to state that I found this documentary very interesting because they mention a lot of stuff that they don't mention in other documentaries.
00:38:50.400And I watched plenty on YouTube about Ed Gein.