Ed Gein: The Butcher of Plainfield (Part 2) | Morbid | Podcast | Forensic Files

hey weirdos I'm Ash and I'm Elena and this is [Music] morbid this is morbid yeah you know what
I forgot what did you forget a couple like I think it was like last week this happened and I was going to say I'm Ash
and that's big Anna over there big Anna and I never did it oh yeah cuz I took uh
my kids to see Frozen live yeah and of course the girls were like you're going to cuz they wanted to dress up of course
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 their cuz I I was Anna
for their birthday party a few years ago I have an Anna gown I do have an anag gown they wanted me to dress up as Queen
Anna a couple years ago so I did it's Mom [ __ ] uh 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 cuz it's going to be crazy there first of all never second
of all don't know if I can fit into that on awn still like 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 you know what whatever like bodies Chang not concerned about it but like I don't
want to try to fit into it either no my day I was like you know what is there any other I was like how about I do my
hair like Queen an so I did like the braid 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 The Cape the Queen Anna cape
so like I was rocking out and we get there was rocking out Queen she send me a picture she's like Sunday mom [ __ ] I'm
like eating breakfast at like 12:00 at my counter I was like what's up I'm on my way to Frozen [ __ ] it was great and
we were in the bathroom which was I saw a 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 [ __ ] chaotic in there and I had all three girls cuz they all decided
they had to go to the bathroom at the same time girls go to the bathroom and packs only one of them had to yeah it's
just a girl thing but they did make me and John get all through the crowd and then John was like God speed and just
waited outside and so we go in there it's just Mania and this and one of our listen who hi if you're listening hi we
I was just like hey what's up and she like she got carried away by a crowd I was like bye fleeting anas 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 I will only refer to you as big Anna from this point forward and I was like hell yeah cuz like they have like
little Anna in the show and everything so I like 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 Anna here so I was like well yeah I am big Anna what's up what's it was great the girls loved it
they were like that girl thought you were Anna and I was like n 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 or no they used to look at those
little like matching cards and be like Mama Mama and they'd point they' we had like the Frozen matching cards and
they'd be like Mama on Anna all the time and daa on the dad no it was on not Christ weirdly it was on Hans which I
was like they'll love that for us John does not have mutton chops but like sure be a lot cooler if did cooler he
did you hear that John some muton he's like goodbye uh he used to have some pretty sick uh
not mutton chops but like he had like the like sideburns yeah like cool sideburns that were much bro you know
pronounced uh but yeah so that was fun um and before we get into this you know our part two of Ed G here which uh by
the way is going to be the gross part oh goody we just we just did some lunch so
that's good yeah it's going to get just um blanket trigger warning over this entire thing cuz I honestly don't know
how to insert enough trigger warnings into this thing I'll just be saying the word trigger warning 100 times and
that'll annoy everybody and me yeah uh so I'm just going to say it right now this is a rough one we're going to talk
about mutilation we're going to talk about some really horrible trinkets that he took from
actual human bodies we're going to be talking about vulvas in a box wow so just like know that that's where this is
going okay you know that that Karen 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 you are so wow wow so wow uh but
before I draw you know jump into that why don't I just give you a nice little uh Tik Tok recommendation oh I love
those let's go I haven't done one of those in a little Whiley I follow this gal uh her name is Becky an gallentine
because her uh handle on Twitter or Twitter rip uh Tik Tok is my bloody gallentine okay
she's fascinating she's uh she collects her and her boyfriend I believe uh 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 [ __ ] they're just like a 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 it's she's very interesting let's go you know blow it up
she's do what she got she's got a blue check she's killing it already but like you know like she's great so just go
follow her she fun follow her before the Tik Tok goes away before the Tik Tok goes away get as much as you can uh but
but yeah go follow her and now on to uh really horrific [ __ ] so yay everybody hang tight be really Brave now when we
left you we were talking about The Disappearance of Mary Hogan The Tavern owner who uh Ed G had taken a liking to
Yes uh she was gone Without a Trace as far as they were concerned we also touched upon The
Disappearance in October 1953 of 15-year-old Evelyn harle uh she was the babysitter who
disappeared and 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 like shoes on the ground a blood trail leading outside like looked like she had been loaded
into a car and taken away and like everyone was just going missing in this area yeah there was a lot of missing but
that one in particular is going to come back okay at least a little bit so following Mary Hogan's disappearance it
wasn't lost on many planfield 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 uh
anyone look into that so he would just they'd be like oh you know like that Mary Hogan thing is pretty wild huh Ed
and he 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'm 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 really 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 seemed suspicious to others there was also the time that the teenage son of local sto
store owners Irene and Lester Hill told his parents of horrifying things that he
had seen at gan's house oh Bob Hill was probably the closest thing Ed had to a friend when he was much younger than him
um and he was one of the very few people who had ever been to the Gan Farm ever uh before or after Augusta's death so
this was like a big deal wow and according to sheer um whose book we have Linked In the show notes it was one of
those it was on one of those visits that Ed showed Bob quote a pair of Pres D human
heads now come again 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 collector
items kind of thingk question mark question I don't know how to even explain that like he's not saying like
oh look at these heads that I took off people like it's like he's like oh these are like artifacts kind of thing um 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
gan's house but like Ed's comments about Mary Hogan few if any of the residents really thought much of these reports as
sheer 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 Gan to own okay 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 like 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 no someone
should have called him 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 cuz that's 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 or thinking it's an artifact I can sort of can 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 you know fiction stuff he reads in non-fiction that's like very
dark and scary and if you're at the house you're probably seeing those kind of things you're also seeing like the
disarray that the house is in exactly so it just all like 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 like we always say overreact check it out
just overreact call some no one's going to get upset if they go out there and they say you know what we didn't find
anything all right well at least we checked you know what you they probably would have found something they would
have found a lot of things as we'll see uh in hindsight like we just said the residents of planfield probably regret
not taking these things seriously uh but in 1957 like we're saying it now in 20 what
is it four now what year we like where am I but in in 1957 very few Americans in the midwest or really anywhere else
cuz remember this is the Midwest too um would very few of them would have believed their nebor neighbors to be
capable of murder at all much less any of the other crimes that he ended up committing uh in fact the shocking
murder and this will kind of put it into perspective a little more like TimeWise
this helped me the shocking murder of the Clutter family in hcom Tech Kansas um you know detailed by Truman capote's
book in Cold Blood that was still nearly 2 years away from happening wow that hadn't even happened yet and most
believed murder to be something confined to you know on it like what they thought
was the morally questionable or morally gray cities on either Coast not in the center of the
country [ __ ] um but still I'm sure a lot of people look back and were like E I
wish I had said something there like you know I don't know of course but again that's probably where their minds were
we in the mid center of the country where it's supposed to be safe it's supposed to be quiet again the inkle
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 just murder people yeah what
are you talking about this is a quiet town where nothing ever happens Keith Morrison is not voicing anything over he
isn't yet now November 16th marked the beginning of deer hunting season in wasara County
um 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 8:00 a.m. he loaded a large gas can into his 194 7 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 wardens had been a planfield 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 um she would occasionally be assisted by her
son Frank because Bernice herself had expanded the business so much H yeah that she needed help running the place
cuz she was such a badass business lady love that um and like I Bice 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 a uh she
was known to be and said to be a little sharp tonged quote unquote love it but I
think that's code for people not knowing how to handle an assertive woman who speaks her mind so they use like nasty
verbage to describe her yeah because like they can't handle the Keat the heat so like get out of the kitchen exactly
get out of Bernice's kitchen she doesn't want you there 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 love it she loved to fish she was real good at it so
she was like a a really well-rounded lady yeah people liked her she was really well respected she ran a badass
business that everybody needed now also little tid bit 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 Playfield wow yeah 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 g 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 stuff the carbon copy into the register yeah so that transaction was done Ed left the store she was like
cool that was easy peasy by 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 like I I might want to upgrade and he was like you know like can I see this
one here so Bice 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 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
her backs to him she's just looking out the window oh man according to Harold sheor 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 uh 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 for do not
believe he is not sick but there's there's something very wrong here like there's there is some premeditation
that's happening absolutely D 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 beyond MH but these like moments of
premeditation are what are very confusing you know and what confus a lot of people about him it's 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 uh 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 loaded the bullet into the Chamber of the Marlin rifle and he had aimed it at the
back of her head oh my God 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 she would have no way of like thinking he
brought his own ammunition why would that ever cross your mind why would she ever think that no one heard the sound
of the rifle firing inside the store that morning but across the street at the Philip 66 station Bernard machinski
I think it is did see the warden's truck pull out of the garage and the warden had wardens had like a pickup truck for
the store um and that was a little before 9:00 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 MH 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 um and Frank was very
confused he was like what do you mean like what 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 um very concerned for his mother's safety Frank called Sheriff Arch Le 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 we called this Chief Deputy Arie 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 Ed was last last receipt he was like he's weird like and he's been coming he had been coming
around more frequently kind of like almost like harassing her in a way like now once the sheriff and deputy arrived
Frank showed them the blood and explained his theory uh Ed Gan 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 going to be alone that morning exactly although they weren't quite as
convinced of Ed's guilt cuz remember Ed's just like the weird dude he's the babysitter of the town like everybody's
just like he's I don't know he's weird he's shy like I don't think so even when they found all this [ __ ] people were
like what like that guy like he just cuz he was so quiet right and like unassuming like he wasn't aggressive he
wasn't like he's just weird like just like a weird Oddball so they were like I don't
know about that but they trusted and the 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
Gan uh cu the large crowd like they had heard about The Disappearance and you know this is a small town yeah 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 in yes um she told him that Ed was at her house getting ready to drive Bob her son down
to see what was happening in town oh wow cuz apparently Bob was like a teenager so he was like oh there's like some [ __ ]
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 a companied by deputy and I think his name is pokey Spees I'm pretty sure okay uh 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 blowby blow account of his day up to
that point so he explained he'd gone down to wardens that morning for antifreeze uh then he recounted his
movements afterwards you know until he arrived at the hills house a short time earlier seemed like a normal day uh 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 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 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 oh and Chase was like framed you for what yeah like we haven't said anything
yet 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 uh how do you know and he was like oh well I just heard about The Disappearance while I
was downtown and I assumed somebody was going to try to pin it on me cuz I'm like the town
weirdo and they were like huh come with us you want to come with us real quick so they took him into custody now still
hoping to find Warden alive at this point uh sheriff schle and Captain this is such a hard name to say Scherer I
think it is Sherer yes the captain will say okay uh they decided to check the G Farmstead for any evidence of where
berinice might be M like most people in planfield and Beyond neither of them had
ever been to the G farm and they were shocked by the state and this is at night by the way they're they're coming
to the G 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 oh 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 flashlight like it's
pitch black yeah and they step back to the sheriff steep back and like steps back and just sweeps his light across
the room just to get a full SC feel 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 Shea 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 Mah heer 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 so he stumbles out of the house and it's snow is outside and he just drops to his knees and begins
vomiting uh yeah I would think so and this is like he's like new oh I forgot you had said that he like so he's like
great a moment later the captain followed equally horrified like they were both and they're and he's like
seasoned the captain yeah well number one imagine first of all you're going into this sh nasty place where there is
Grime covering every single surface and there's trash everywhere so it already smells like a trash they were 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 oh God brutal some of the most horrible you'll see I mean this is what he did to that woman is 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 an like a
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 which
I was like d 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 Sunport PR like something like that I imagine
not positive but it's a farmhouse so that's what I see it as I'm going Google it um 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 um and most of the men at the farm that night like we said like
a lot of them are seasoned law enforcement professionals and see they some seen some [ __ ] 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 [ __ ] that makes it even [ __ ] 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 like in the warmer weather interesting I'm glad you looked that up me too um cuz I always pictured it as
like a sun porch but it's sort of like it it's a different building I think it can attached to the 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 [ __ ]
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 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 M 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 yeah but he will say he doesn't like and and we'll see eventually that
the investigators do believe parts of what he's saying eventually because they like I really do think he black out
sometimes yeah because he would say he would like get these urges to go like rob a grave cuz 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
CU remember who he was brought up by that's what he learned yeah 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 ABS but I don't think he's I don't think he's sane
he's not all there some 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 defitely there
something wrong definitely so there was like the coffee can of you know chewed up gum there was a shelf that just had a
bunch of yellowing and cracked Dentures all over it e and then there was a sink full of
sand that's weird yeah it was did he ever explain any of these things not like those things in particular but any
of like the weird [ __ ] that they found I think he was just like I just this is my
stuff 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 [ __ ] is going on but then they stumbled on the real horse 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 soff top of a human skull that's a skull cap that he's using as a bull 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 [ __ ] ghoulish things that are scattered around his house and in the kitchen they found a
bunch of other skull caps being used as as Bulls wow um they also found several complete skeletons in the house
including two that had been stuck on Ed's bed posts quote as decorations what and those are from the grap Robin yeah
full skeletons my 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 y 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 [ __ ] is going on at this point and or they have to be able to yeah they have
to unfortunately um 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 yeah and also Nazi crime
literature right because remember we talked about that in the first part he's being fueled by a lot of [ __ ] up [ __ ]
here nightmare stuff and so he had fashioned his own lamps and other items from human skin yeah and in one drawer
officers found nine shriveled vulvas oh my God one had been painted silver and trimmed with red ribbon and
another another had been covered in salt what yeah there was also a Jar full of noses and an old Quaker Oats container
that H 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 [ __ ] 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 in your mind and you're sitting there going oh my God like it can turn your stomach just even thinking
about it being there is incomprehensible truly Inc 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 like a Haun like a Halloween haunted house that's exactly what this sounds and you're in the dark and you
bump into something and you're like H and then they shine a light on it and it's like this ghoulish little thing
hanging or something you're like oh my God that scared me and it genuinely scares you like your heart is beating
like crazy and you're like holy [ __ ] I had a fighter flight response in a h this is real life that man standing in a
pitch black filthy kitchen full of [ __ ] backing up to get a better View and backing into
Bernice warden's body like in a 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 Gan was a real human being is 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 bed post and probably
horrible other things and as sheer wrote uh wild as it seemed some of G gan's Lo
loathsome Creations were obviously meant to be worn there were several P pairs of pants
and leggings made from human skin oh my God as well as quote a garment fashioned
from the upper torso of a middle-aged woman which could be dawned as a kind of 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 they had like lips and right their cheeks had Rouge these are real human people were 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 I'm like I don't know how you leave this place and ever sleep again no you would
have that's how do you I didn't even think of that I'm like how you sit with your family how do you go to bed yeah
you close your eyes what the [ __ ] are you dreaming about that must haunt you truly truly haunt
you cuz sometimes I'll have nightmares about like cases that we cover yeah like if I think too you don't even see Brady
and Myra Henley yeah that [ __ ] me up for a long 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 my can I need a quick little side note just to take us away from this for a
second why not just to travel cuz 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 etcha 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 B just has the paint tool in her brain it's not there anymore that image that I
just thought back to from the Ian Brady and Myra Henley case it's gone I don't have that and I can just like I can like
literally like like um kind of compress it into a different part where I don't I
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 stays I think that's a 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
it's a helpful thing to have because like those kind of things I I just can't yeah luckily I can't remember that one
particular thank God cuz that ruined me for a long time it's gone anytime like it gets brought up I just
go 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 um yeah so in his bedroom as well Arie Fritz found
a large motheaten horsey 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 horse skin yeah like a horse hiide robe I guess um it was there was a brown paper bag
and it had something inside of it this was like full folded into the robe okay so he looks into the bag and 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 uhhuh and pulled
out whatever was in the bag and it was revealed to be the desiccated head of Mary Hogan oh the
tavern now that was shocking oh my God yeah and that specific would change you fundamentally as human 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
maob trophies any manner of Horrors you could think of they were finding and they must
have had to take like shifts like you need to go take a minute yeah just emotionally physically
spiritually exhausted like and how are you calling out what you're finding you how do like exactly like I okay I found
like especially the guy who opens the drawer and is like um I've got nine vulvas in this drawer like how do you
communicate 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 like they 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 M it
must have felt like to them and they described it this way that like it felt like a portal yeah like cuz it was just
like because unlike the rest of the house which is a [ __ ] nightmare right Augusta G's parlor and bedroom it was
like her bedroom in a little living room which was always called The Parlor back
then um pristine condition right cuz 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 touched 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 [ __ ] is this
that's where the Norman baits of it all comes yeah like the preserving Mama kind
of thing especially that being the backdrop to what you've just been through that it's like it's [ __ ] up
these people are going through this house like we just talked about go seeing the worst [ __ ] 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 [ __ ] like what are we
going to find in here and then they opened that up and it must have been so [ __ ] unsettling cuz you're just like
what is this like why is this un perfect like why is this boarded off and like what is going on yeah 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 Trek that it's like the 50s to hear like a
criminologist it that I don't know I'm like just like wow look at look at look at I SC yeah when you said the lab I was
like damn what 1957 I think I mean it was it was like in its infancy infancy but it's
still like wow like that's wild that was like still a thought process um so he started photographing to Bernice
warden's body while it's and he had to photograph it while it's still hung from the ceiling oh that's horrific um and
then he went on to the other organs which were found all around um 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 uh it took some s some time but eventually they found Bernice's head yeah uh 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 no there's no Rhyme or Reason to any of this but like it's but everything is just everywhere why is it
in between two mattresses and aapse out like what was the thought problem which I know we're never going to understand
that thought process nobody's going to understand that but it's just like when you look at it at face value you're just
like what 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 [ __ ]
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
twoot 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 like kind to you yeah she was kind to like she was totally fine with him
even then 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 didn't she wasn't an un 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 that's beyond you're like you're
never the same after somebody is murdered I can't imagine 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 we're
sitting here saying and it's still valid how do the detectives move on in the crime scene analysts but her son to know
that this happened to her 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 you know like how do you cope I don't know but finally 12 hours after Frank Warden had stopped into
check on his mother law enforcement officials and crime scene technicians had finally finished just the first pass
at the crime scene um there would be more evidence to collect as they went back but for now the sheriff and his
deputies wanted to talk to edgein yeah uh 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 um still very haunted by what he'd just seen at edgin's Farm shelle 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 yeah it
did didn't do much because he got even quieter he just after that he just turned complet
because he was pretty quiet before he would like kind of say something every once in a while nothing relevant but
like he was talkative a little bit but after this he just shut right down wow and you know after what shle has just
been through and all of them had just been through at the house 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 GRE up The Tavern is a place everybody goes
they've seen these women their whole lives like to see what was done to them and and to bump into Bernice warden's
body hanging from a ceiling like that and completely gutted I can't say I blame him for throwing this man against
a wall like I 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 [ __ ] just sitting there being like I'm
not saying anything every horrid emotion you could ever feel 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 cor coroner Dr F urger began his
examination of Bernice warden's body um and he was detailing I mean considerable
mutilation that it occurred postmortem thankfully but but a scheme of things um and again it it all happened postmortem
but and 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 yeah um from the report this is what it says uh first
that the entirety of Bernice warden's vulva and surrounding areas were removed and kept in a box uhhuh uh 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 This is going to be rough cuz I'm
talking about how oh he did it so like just know that yeah 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 oh my
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 3 ft 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 en llarge
intestines with mesentary and momentum at the B at the to the lower rectum and block where with this were removed the
spleen pancreas adrenals kidneys with the urits upper half of urine bladder and internal 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 alanga which is the
connection between the brain stem 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 um especially of her head um it showed a
round hole at the back of the skull about 6 cm above the hairline um 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 okay so it was the shot from the right um but the coroner did notice that there was blood in both
nostrils which he said was because of the bullet entering her head right um there was no exit wound and once x-rayed
they found the 22 caliber bullet lock Ed in the skull just above the right eyeball wow based on him 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 Corner's report included no unexpected
or shocking revelations after they had looked at the crime scene because they had found all of these body parts
everywhere in organs um but in the original notes on the examination those like um 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 Sher notes what makes the phrase so arresting is its utter in
congruity in the context of the postmodern report the notaker 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 Gan Horrors were about to receive in the Press oh God now given the number of Law Enforcement
Officers out at the G Farm like some having come from far away as Chicago wow uh the local press and residents knew
something [ __ ] 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 uh it was just
saying that Bernice Warden had been you know abducted she had disappeared and that she had been murdered and her body
had been discovered on the G property yeah there was no mention of the state of her remains or any of the other
[ __ ] horrific [ __ ] they found on that farm though that would come though yeah
once the details were released the town of planfield and honestly the entire state of Wisconsin at that point was
horrible ified by what they were hearing everyone started referring to the home as the murder Factory and like the den
of death uh the rumors went rampant even somehow making a 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 wasara County uh 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 [ __ ] 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 uh match the uh fingerprints on the Marlin rifle used in the shooting of Bernice
Ward and two edgin so they immediately were able to match him to it um 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 um that's what the
district attorney Earl kylen told reporters um and he had actually been present for Ed's interrogation so he
offered a little bit of insight into gan's Psychology from his point of view psyri attorney um didn't really do a lot
to explain what they found but according to uh according to what Ed said he said
quote he was in a days when he butchered Mrs Warden similar to the blackouts that
occurred while he robbed Gra so he did admit to shooting Bernice and M mutilating her body but he could not
recall the killing or the mutilation that followed he said that he quote only remembered 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 cuz 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 5 years he had been making nocturnal
nightly visits to local cemeteries he said he didn't always Rob Graves sometimes he would just go uhhuh 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 that's it's terrifying now he didn't just open Graves willy-nilly
apple pie order apple pie order that'll change apple pie for you yeah thinking of Ed Gan saying it the way he knew
which Graves to go to cuz he didn't just like willy-nilly open Graves uh he would
read the recent obituaries in the newspaper and he would find the bodies of newly dead middle-aged women or
older like Mama Augusta uhhuh and in fact many of the women he he knew them when they were
alive interacted with them and [ __ ] and now he kept their skull caps as bowls and their skin as lampshades in their
heads and 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 like
he would 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 yeah cuz 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 he was
mind like his mom was was there again that's How Deeply deeply [ __ ] up this guy is yeah like he is levels levels 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 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 kylen said on that point
he still has a lapse of memory so he didn't know if he had or not yeah at 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 he doesn't remember I guess um but even though that like that's what happened so there's no
confirmation in that moment of like whether he was or not cuz at first he said no then he just kind of didn't give
an answer but kylen went in front of reporters and was like it appears to be cannibalism like you what like you need
to find just because it's like why make it even more Sensational you don't need can't 100% say that for fact and it's
unclear why he felt confident enough to claim that as motive for the crimes cuz 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 especially like with everything that was left
and uh like put out for decoration yeah that's the thing and it's like maybe they and I I'll give it to them maybe
they just couldn't figure aut motive what else are you going to come up with that I there's 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 planfield struggled with the idea that this man that they had hired to fix their roofs and babysit
their children kids 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 marola the planfield son who say 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 um 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 right so they were happy that like there wasn't a killer running
around the streets anymore you know yeah but after his confession investigators took Ed with a gaggle of reporters to
the farm and had him give them a stepbystep tour of everything no thank you where he had disembed his victims
where he had thrown the blood out behind the out house all that stuff wow the photos are available photos of him being
walked around oh okay um 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 cuz they were just walking him around
everybody there was like even the reporters were like it's weird he's just like this mild mannered little guy in a
dear hunting C like he looks like any old guy walking down the street and sheer 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 yeah
soon after all this investigators felt that there may be a thread to pull for another case to possibly connect Ed G to
the Abduction of Evelyn Harley the 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 uhhuh one of
them appeared to have been from a younger woman and not a middle-aged woman and there were clippings of
Harley's case found among Ed gin's things like clippings of like the investigation and that's weird
Lieutenant Vern Weber was the chief of detectives of the lacrosse PD did a press conference where he spoke about
this possible connection um shoes were found at the heartley abduction scene and they were size 11 and a half but he
said gin warn eight so that would be like a pretty big discrepancy like he'd be walking around flopping around with
those shoes yeah um 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 um so they were like
that could be his but they never really reconciled that correctly like they were
never 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
um he also told the Press he would be checking out gan's Alibi about being out doing odd jobs the day Evelyn
disappeared okay they were also sending all the teeth and heads out to be compared to Evelyn's Dental charts yeah
just in case right now along with the Evelyn Harley connection Weber also had to spill some more details about what
was fil found in The Farmhouse yeah he told reporters according to Shear 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 [ __ ] and they were remarkably well
preserved Gan had told them that he cured the heads and a brining solution e uh Weber also said he saw with his own
eyes a chair made out of human skin and he mentioned that Gan had told him he prayed himself out of a lot of his urges
but would sometimes come too 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 did 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 you who knows but Gan
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 like to dissect human beings to see what's inside uh 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 [ __ ] this guy come on like this guy's like he needs [ __ ]
help like there's something wrong here to most people in planfield Ed was known as the not too bright but pretty
harmless guy who helped them out and liked to babysit kids hate which you look back on that now and you go oh [ __ ]
ha that hate that hate that so the idea that he could be capable of 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 beside like he's just this harmless dope in town kind of thing like everybody just said the same
thing so uh just a few days after uh Bernice warden's body was discovered reporters published an interview with a
planfield local named Adeline Watkins who claimed that she had carried on a 20-year affair with it
she said 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 gray
bangs and horned wor glasses that's a imagine being called severely PL not even just plain Jane s Plain Jane she
claimed that she and gan 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 m 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 what like like what and a day later Adeline gave another interview to the L field
son 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 what did and suddenly the story fell apart and was determined to be completely fabricated she just made
that up she just made that why would you ever want to be like yeah I dated that guy she wasn't just severely plain she
was severely [ __ ] up [ __ ] up she uh so what they said later was she had quote Fallen victim to the Ws of the big
city press the city papers were hungry for human interest news so they played up the innocent innocent enough
relations to spin the story the truth is her his relationship with Adeline Watkins was super casual if they had
even met at all yeah like they might not have ever met I believe that um and she
would go on later to claim that the stories reported about her and Ed in the papers were completely false what the f
and was like I don't know where they came from somebody just pulled that out of their ass so that 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 [ __ ] Farmhouse except to like babysit and do odd jobs and then would just like rot in that
house we've discovered the hidden Augusta room that has been preserved we found the most horrific [ __ ] 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 yeah obviously they believe he did but they need to find proof of it they have the
proof of the Bernice Warden murder right but that's where I'm going to leave you
for now okay 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 wow yep some of yall 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 true it's unfortunately true that was morbid uh we hope you keep
listening and we hope you keep it weird but not so Weir that you lie about dating Ed ke cuz that's a weird [ __ ]
Choice yeah don't do that that's what I got out of that that's all you got out of that
[Music] okay [Music] what the [ __ ]

What drove the mild-mannered farmer to commit such hideous and depraved acts in America’s heartland, and why do people from around the world continue to find him so infamous?

Thank you to the magical Dave White of Bring Me the Axe Podcast for research!

References

Associated 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.

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Brief Summary

Hosts discuss Ed Gein's gruesome murders, grave robbing, and the shocking artifacts found in his home.

Key points

Big Anna Moment. A child hilariously refers to Ash as 'big Anna' during a chaotic bathroom scene.
Trigger Warning. Ash prepares the audience for a rough discussion ahead, emphasizing the need for trigger warnings.
Bernice Warden's Background. Bernice Warden, a respected businesswoman, is introduced before the unfolding tragedy.
The Gruesome Discovery. Sheriff and Captain discover a woman's body hanging upside down in a farmhouse.
Chilling Evidence Found. Investigators uncover horrifying artifacts made from human remains in Ed's home.
Shocking Discoveries. A large team uncovers countless human bones and trophies in Ed's home.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I have a stomach ache but I'm being Really Brave right now.

Ash shares her feelings before discussing a difficult topic.

5:03WatchApr 11, 2024

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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