Ed Gein Pt. 1

Speaker 1 Hey, listeners, producer Chelsea here. For the next two weeks, we're revisiting our episodes on Ed Gein.

Speaker 1 They first aired in 2018, but if you follow True Crime in the Media, you know he's been in the spotlight again.

Speaker 1 Today, in part one, you're going to hear about Gein's origins, who he was before he became the butcher of Plainfield, and all about his descent into grave robbing and murder.

Speaker 1 Next week, we'll finish out his story with everything that happened after his arrest. Let's dive in.

Speaker 3 Hi, I'm Greg Poulson, and this is Serial Killers, a podcast diving into the minds and motives of the world's most notorious serial killers.

Speaker 3 Today, we're going to take a look at the life of Ed Gein, the butcher of Plainfield, a murderer, grave robber, and the inspiration behind many notorious movie villains.

Speaker 3 I'm here with my co-host, Vanessa Richardson. Vanessa's not a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist, but she's she's done a lot of research for the show.

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Speaker 3 And don't forget to subscribe while you're there because a new episode comes out every Monday. You can also find us on Facebook and Instagram at Parkast and on Twitter at Parkast Network.

Speaker 2 Now, let's get back to the case of Ed Gein.

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Speaker 3 Gein's neighbors in Plainfield, Wisconsin, mostly knew him as Weird Old Eddie, but there was way more to that innocent nickname than they ever thought.

Speaker 3 When he was arrested in 1957, he also confessed to the 1954 murder of Mary Hogan and admitted to making around 40 visits to graveyards to exhume buried bodies between 1947 and 1950.

Speaker 3 Initially, the court ruled that Gein was legally insane and he was institutionalized.

Speaker 3 In 1968, doctors re-evaluated Gein and said he was competent enough to stand trial for the murder of Bernice Warden. Gein was found, quote, not guilty by reason of insanity.

Speaker 3 Even though his home was filled with human flesh and bones, Gein denied to district attorney Earl Kaleen upon his arrest that he ever consumed any human parts as a meal or had sexual contact with any of the dead bodies.

Speaker 2 Psychiatrists formally diagnosed Gein as schizophrenic, mentally incompetent, and a sexual psychopath who exhibited symptoms of acute transvestism, fetishism, and necrophilia.

Speaker 2 In the 1950s, sexual psychopathy wasn't a psychological term, but a legal one that encompassed a broad range of behavior.

Speaker 2 Many people still label Gein as a necrophile and cannibal, despite his insistence that he remained a virgin until his death in 1984.

Speaker 2 Modern psychology actually has multiple classifications for necrophilia, which is defined as the sexual attraction to dead bodies, and two of them don't involve having intercourse.

Speaker 3 That's very interesting. Did these classifications and understanding of necrophilia exist back when Gein was arrested in 1957?

Speaker 2 Well, our current understanding of the condition was revealed in a study in 1989, a few years after Gein's death.

Speaker 3 So, if Gein were alive today, would he be considered a necrophiliac?

Speaker 2 Possibly.

Speaker 2 If Gein did not engage in sexual activity with the corpses he dug up, he could have been experiencing necrophilic fantasy in which the desires and sexual attraction to the dead stay in the person's head.

Speaker 2 He could have also been considered a pseudo-necrophile who only feels a transient attraction to corpses and only occasionally act on it in sadistic ways.

Speaker 3 The crime abusive corpse is broadly defined in the United States as corpse mutilation, sexual contact, exploitation, and even illicit storage.

Speaker 3 Gein has also stated that he often fell into a daze-like state when he made his many visits to the graveyards.

Speaker 2 And that is also a common symptom experienced by necrophiles, Greg. Most psychologists say necrophiliacs fear rejection, so intimacy with a corpse provides them with a partner that will not say no.

Speaker 2 Some wish to be reunited with a now deceased significant other, and then there are those who do it to receive a self-esteem boost by exhibiting some kind of control over the victim.

Speaker 3 For Gein, he was drawn to exhume the corpses of women who resembled his mother.

Speaker 2 Dr. R.
Warmington wrote the following in his evaluation of Gein's motives prior to his commitment to a mental hospital.

Speaker 2 Quote, the motivation is elusive and uncertain, but several factors come to mind.

Speaker 2 Hostility, sex, and a desire for a substitute for his mother in the form of a replica or body that could be kept indefinitely, end quote. Dr.

Speaker 2 Martin Miller's psychological assessment of Gein at his trial further pointed to Gein's mother, Augusta, as a significant motivator for his crimes. Dr.

Speaker 2 Miller stated, quote, his activities were the result of a split level of consciousness. In his conscious mind, his mother was as good a woman as it was possible to be.

Speaker 2 The hatred he felt on account of her mistreatment of him was pushed onto women who reminded him, in appearance or situation, of her, end quote.

Speaker 3 We'll need to take a look into Ed Gein's early life to examine how his particular relationship with his mother may have triggered his crimes as an adult.

Speaker 3 Ed was born Edward Theodore Gein on August 27, 1906, in La Crosse County, Wisconsin.

Speaker 3 His father, George, was an often unemployed alcoholic, and his mother, Augusta, was a one-time grocery store owner, housewife, and devout Lutheran.

Speaker 3 Young Ed had a flat, fleshy growth on his left eyelid, and he was bullied at school due to his droopy stare.

Speaker 3 His parents often argued about Ed's school situation and many other things in their tense marriage. In these frequent arguments, George threatened to have an affair and leave the family.

Speaker 3 Augusta accused George of being a failure and a drunk who was unable to fulfill his husbandly duties with her. They taunted each other and sometimes got violent.

Speaker 3 Augusta often prayed for her husband's death right in front of her two sons.

Speaker 3 Ed and his older brother Henry grew up on a 275-acre farm in the town of Plainfield, which was isolated from the rest of the population.

Speaker 3 Augusta preferred it that way, because she didn't want her sons to be tainted by what she believed to be the evils of the world, other women. Augusta was not a warm, sweet, and caring mother.

Speaker 3 She was brash, domineering, and fanatically religious. Throughout Ed and Henry's lives, she instilled in them the idea that women were, quote, painted harlots due to their short skirts and makeup.

Speaker 3 She punished her sons when they attempted to make friends at school.

Speaker 3 When she caught Ed masturbating in the bathtub at age 12, she poured hot water on him and told him that his genitalia was, quote, the curse of man.

Speaker 3 Vanessa, how likely is it that Augusta's behavior could have influenced Ed's later attitude toward women?

Speaker 2 Very likely, Greg. Parents have a significant influence on how their children turn out.

Speaker 2 Mothers who create a stressful environment for their children put them at risk of developing their own emotional issues.

Speaker 2 A strong mother-and-child bond is necessary for the child's healthy emotional development. But Augusta and Ed's closeness was so intense that even her older son Henry questioned it.

Speaker 2 Ed has been quoted as calling her a saint, and he worshipped her, despite her cruelty. It's likely that he saw her this way as part of coping with her abusive tendencies.

Speaker 2 According to Gein's testimony in 1957, his mother greatly influenced his relationships with women, or rather, lack thereof.

Speaker 3 Gein told the district attorney, quote, I blame all my trouble on my mother. She should have made me a girl.
I almost never went out with girls. I was afraid of them.

Speaker 3 All I could think of was my mother and how much I really loved her, end quote.

Speaker 2 And it was his mother who introduced him to his first mutilated corpse, a moment that likely linked Augusta and death in his mind for the rest of his life.

Speaker 3 Augusta and George Gein made a rule. Ed and Henry were forbidden to enter the farm's slaughterhouse.
One day, seven-year-old Ed decided to defy his parents' wishes and sneak into the slaughterhouse.

Speaker 3 He saw a hog carcass hung upside down. Ed watched Augusta slice the animal's torso right down the center with a large, sharp blade.
Young Ed observed as she proceeded to gut the pig.

Speaker 3 Ed witnessed his mother put the innards of the corpse into a metal tub, all while Augusta and George were covered in blood from head to toe. Young Ed felt something he didn't know how to define.

Speaker 3 Finally, Augusta noticed her trespassing son. She didn't mind his presence.
Instead, she asked what he thought of the slaughter. Young Ed was confused.

Speaker 3 He didn't know exactly what he was feeling down below.

Speaker 3 Young Eddie had ejaculated for the first time as he watched this gruesome sight.

Speaker 3 Could Gein have been sexually excited by this disturbing moment? Was it an innocent spontaneous arousal by a young boy entering puberty?

Speaker 3 Or maybe it was merely an Oedipal moment between mother and son? Vanessa, what do you think?

Speaker 2 Well, certainly early childhood events can mold our sexual preferences as adults, including what turns someone on and off. For Gein, his view of sex as an adult could have been warped by this memory.

Speaker 2 His first moment of sexual pleasure has been forever linked to his mother and a bloody corpse.

Speaker 3 Now that we've gotten to know Gein's family, we'll next examine how their tragic deaths affected him and how his first suspected victim may have been his own brother.

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Speaker 3 Throughout his 30s, Ed Gein had watched his immediate family die one by one. First, his father George died of a heart attack on April 1st, 1940.
Ed and Henry continued to live at the Gein family farm.

Speaker 3 To help with expenses at home, Ed and Henry worked as handymen around town. Ed was mostly seen as harmless, and chilling as this sounds, he was often hired to babysit children.

Speaker 3 Henry also found work stringing up wires for a utility company and as a labor foreman. Ed and Henry got along well, except when it came to their mother.

Speaker 2 Unlike Ed, Henry saw his mother as a controlling, domineering presence in his life, one that he wanted to get away from.

Speaker 2 Henry fell in love with a divorced single mother and hoped to marry her, but he noticed that Ed was still fiercely devoted to Augusta.

Speaker 3 Some believed Ed's intense love for his mother made him turn against Henry, but was it enough to motivate Ed to kill his brother?

Speaker 3 Henry Gein died on May 16th, 1944, at age 43 under mysterious circumstances.

Speaker 3 On that day, Ed and Henry were trying to put out a marshland fire near the family farm. How the fire started has been long debated.

Speaker 3 Ed told police that Henry started it so they could burn off dry grass. I coaxed him and tried to keep him home, but he just kept at me until I took him there, Ed was quoted saying.

Speaker 3 The local newspaper, however, reported that Ed started the fire, but that's not the most suspicious part of what happened.

Speaker 3 Ed and Henry tried to extinguish the flames together, but got separated as the fire burned out of control. Once the fire was extinguished, Ed couldn't find his brother and reported him as missing.

Speaker 2 And here's where it gets really interesting. When the authorities arrived, Ed led them right to Henry's body.

Speaker 2 When the police asked Ed how he knew where Henry was, Ed's only explanation was, quote, funny how that works. Police thought so too, but in a more serious way.

Speaker 2 They became suspicious of the bruises found on Henry's head, leading them to think he could have been murdered rather than killed by the fire.

Speaker 3 Two days later, the Washera Argus newspaper reported Henry Gein's cause of death, saying it was due to asphyxiation. The coroner had determined that there was no foul play in Henry's death.

Speaker 2 But in the years following, people began to suspect that Henry's death may not have been accidental.

Speaker 2 Based on Ed's comments, there could have been some tension between the two siblings earlier that day. It's been theorized that Ed saw Henry as a threat to his relationship with their mother.

Speaker 2 Henry's continued comments to Ed about Augusta may have sent Ed over the edge this time.

Speaker 3 By age 38, Ed Gein had only one family member left, his mother, but sadly, only for a little while. Soon after Henry's death, Augusta began feeling faint.

Speaker 3 Gein took his mother to Wild Rose Hospital, where a doctor determined Augusta had suffered a stroke. It would leave Augusta frail and dependent on her son, which Gein did not mind.

Speaker 3 He became her full-time nurse, caring for her at home and completing all the chores she ordered him to do around the farm. In the evenings, he'd sit by her side and read to her.

Speaker 9 Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger or discipline me in your wrath. Have mercy on me, Lord, for I am faint.
Heal me, Lord, for my bones are in agony. My soul is in deep anguish.

Speaker 3 How long, Lord?

Speaker 3 How long?

Speaker 3 It wasn't long at all. On December 29, 1945, Augusta suffered another stroke and died at age 67.

Speaker 3 In addition to Ed Gein, a few of Augusta's siblings showed up to her funeral, but he was by far the most devastated. He wept uncontrollably, his face covered in tears and snot throughout the funeral.

Speaker 3 Geen was now all alone. on the farm and in the world.
By age 39, Ed Gein had seen the deaths of his father George, his older brother Henry, and his beloved mother Augusta.

Speaker 3 Her death had devastated Gein. He still performed odd jobs for the townsfolk, but he stopped showering and shaving.
The Geen farm had overgrown weeds and rusted equipment.

Speaker 2 Depression after experiencing the loss of a parent is very common, especially when the parent and child are close.

Speaker 2 Psychologists recommend socializing with friends in order to renew one's sense of control and to distract from any worries or pain.

Speaker 2 So, Gien tried to seek out companionship in Plainfield and do what his mother didn't want him to do. He tried to make friends.
It was not easy for him, though.

Speaker 2 Townsfolk often observed his awkwardness and wrote him off as just a weird, lonely guy.

Speaker 3 Gien joined a threshing crew to harvest farmers' crops, and he would often have lunch with them. While the rest of the crew took smoke breaks, Guin was said to fixate on the farmer's wives.

Speaker 3 Many got the uncomfortable feeling that he was leering at them, but if the women stared back, Gein would look away. They considered him harmless.

Speaker 3 The men on the crew felt the same way about Gein, who they regarded as a hard worker.

Speaker 3 Gein hunted rabbit and squirrel with some of the locals, but refused to hunt deer because he said he did not want to remove its internal organs. That's right.

Speaker 3 Gien claimed to his new friends that he couldn't stand the sight of blood.

Speaker 2 Yet Gein was fixated on violence and murder. He loved true crime magazines and often talked about the murders he read about to anyone who would listen.

Speaker 2 He studied the medical textbook Gray's Anatomy, but his innocent obsession started to turn into preparation and research for his eventual crimes.

Speaker 2 His favorite reading materials are said to include stories about cannibals, body snatchers, and Ilse Koch, the bitch of Buchenwald.

Speaker 2 She was the wife of Nazi Colonel Karl Koch and has been labeled as one of the worst villains of the Holocaust. Karl Koch commanded the Buchenwald concentration camp, which held over 20,000 prisoners.

Speaker 2 Together, Ilse and Karl had a reputation for sadism.

Speaker 2 Like Gien's mother, Ilse Koch was large, German, and brash, which may have led to his fascination with her.

Speaker 2 She whipped prisoners as she rode past them on horseback and would often force them to have sex with her. Ilse ordered the death of inmates who had tattooed skin that she liked.

Speaker 2 She then used the skin to make lampshades, book covers, and gloves. She also had a collection of human heads.

Speaker 3 It seems like Gein may have taken inspiration from his readings and emulated these stories in real life.

Speaker 2 It really does, Greg. Gein was also fascinated by stories about cannibals and headhunters in the South Seas.

Speaker 2 He especially enjoyed the descriptions of how to shrink human heads and delighted in a story about a drum made from the stretching of human skin.

Speaker 2 It was information that may have provided some of the inspiration for his crimes.

Speaker 3 Could these stories have inspired Gein to commit his similar heinous crimes later in life?

Speaker 2 It's definitely possible. Some interest with true crime tales is healthy and simply a part of human nature.
Even today, the public is riveted by stories about real-life crimes in the media.

Speaker 2 For us, it's a way to explore the mysteries of human nature with our listeners of our true crime podcast.

Speaker 2 Psychologists have said that we get a jolt of adrenaline when hearing about the misdeeds of serial killers. Part of it just comes from wanting to know why someone would commit such horrible crimes.

Speaker 2 As for Ed Gein, perhaps he dived into his reading material for entertainment at first, but then his interest took a deadly turn.

Speaker 2 He may have been part of the copycat effect, which is when media coverage and public fascination with murder and suicide results in imitation crimes.

Speaker 3 Well, it becomes obvious that eventually Gein found more comfort in his reading material than he did in people. He began retreating from the town and his new friends.

Speaker 3 The distractions of the outside world weren't enough. He missed his mother.

Speaker 3 He regularly visited Augusta's grave and wished her back to life. Years later, Gein told investigators that he even dug up his mother's body.

Speaker 3 Do you believe that Augusta's death was what pushed Gein over the edge?

Speaker 2 Well, it's entirely possible. According to Gein, he did not start visiting cemeteries often until after his mother's death.

Speaker 2 Out of his three deceased family members, he missed and mourned her the most.

Speaker 3 Gein admitted to making around 40 visits to local graveyards at night from 1947 until 1950.

Speaker 3 He told District Attorney Colleen, quote, I started to visit graveyards in the area regularly about 18 months after my mother died.

Speaker 3 Most nights, I would just stand and have private conversations with my ma. Other times I couldn't make myself go home without raising one of them up first.

Speaker 3 Maybe on about nine occasions, I took somebody or a part of somebody home with me. It was kind of an evil spirit I couldn't control.
⁇ End quote.

Speaker 3 During his days, Gein focused on digging up the cadavers of newly deceased women who had been middle-aged or older. He even knew some of the women while they were alive.

Speaker 3 He didn't remember all the names of the bodies he exhumed, but he recalled the name Eleanor Adams. She was a 51-year-old Plainfield resident who reminded Gein of his mother.

Speaker 3 He seized her corpse only a few hours after her family buried her.

Speaker 2 Gein confessed to Crimelab polygraph specialist Joe Wilomovsky that he would open half the caskets and remove the heads. Occasionally, he would also remove the vagina.

Speaker 3 Gein did have a collection of dead women's genitalia. The following is a graphic description of Gein's collection.
Listener discretion is advised.

Speaker 3 Police found nine dried vulvas in a box in Gein's home. He admitted to sprinkling them with salt for reasons unknown.

Speaker 3 He also created a belt out of female nipples and a wearable vest he made from a woman's chest and breasts.

Speaker 3 He admitted to wearing this vest, as well as covering his own genitalia with a preserved vulva. Vanessa, why did he fixate on female body parts and why only women?

Speaker 2 Many of the interviews and evaluations conducted after Gein's arrest detailed his primary motivation as regaining closeness to Augusta.

Speaker 2 There are other conversations, however, that suggests that he also had an interest in becoming a woman.

Speaker 3 Gein's sexual identity, as well as his motives, were more complex than originally thought.

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Speaker 3 Ed Gein was a curious man, but he was also very eager to understand what it would be like to be a woman.

Speaker 3 Even before his mother Augusta's death, though, he wondered what it would be like to have a vagina instead of a penis.

Speaker 3 After her death, Gein became fascinated with Christine Jorgensen, a World War II soldier who received gender reassignment surgery in Denmark in the 1950s.

Speaker 3 Gein would often talk about it to the townspeople, but they wrote off his interest in the procedure as him just being weird old Eddie.

Speaker 3 Vanessa, could he have been considered transgender?

Speaker 2 Well, psychology did not have a deep understanding of transgender people, gender identity, and sexual orientation in the 1940s and 1950s.

Speaker 2 The first edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders was published in 1952 and listed homosexuality, cross-dressing, and rape under a section called Sexual Deviations.

Speaker 2 In the 1950s, Gein's desires puzzled the investigators and psychologists who evaluated him at the time.

Speaker 2 The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory indicated that Gein had a feminine identification.

Speaker 2 One psychologist was quoted saying that Gein was a frustrated transsexual, while others theorized that he simply craved closeness to his deceased mother.

Speaker 2 During that time period, though, psychology often attributed homosexuality and gender identity issues to what they called improper mothering.

Speaker 2 The era did not pay as much attention to the father's possible role in the development of psychosis.

Speaker 3 So by today's standards, could we consider Gein to be someone who was transgender or at least wanted to be?

Speaker 2 Look, today, the American Psychological Association defines transgender as having a gender identity that differs from one's sex assigned at birth.

Speaker 2 Some transgender people transition to the other gender and some do not.

Speaker 2 The term gender identity means the basic conviction of being a man, woman, or genders such as genderqueer or gender non-conforming.

Speaker 2 Sexual orientation refers to one's sexual attraction, behavior, and emotional attachments.

Speaker 2 Gein has stated interest in gender reassignment surgery to become female, but it would be up to him whether he would identify as transgender. As for his sexual orientation, not much is known.

Speaker 2 As we talked about before, Gein claimed to be a virgin until his death at age 74. He had a keen interest in the female anatomy, but it's unclear if he was ever sexually attracted to a woman or a man.

Speaker 3 He did, however, obsess over women who reminded him of his mother. Gein often drove to Pine Grove to grab a beer at a tavern managed by Mary Hogan, his first known victim.

Speaker 2 She was described as a heavyset woman who spoke with a German accent. Hogan's resemblance to Augusta fascinated Gein, but also confused him.

Speaker 2 Unlike his mother, Hogan was a foul-mouthed divorcee with suspected ties to organized crime. And for Gein, that was unacceptable.

Speaker 3 On Wednesday, December 8th, 1954, a farmer named Seymour Lester walked into Hogan's empty bar and found a puddle of blood on the floor.

Speaker 3 A trail of the blood led from the puddle to the back parking area. Police found a used.32-caliber pistol cartridge nearby, but they couldn't find Hogan's body.

Speaker 2 It has been theorized that Gein stayed at the tavern late one night and shot Hogan as she was closing the bar. He then dragged her bloody body to the back where his pickup truck was parked.

Speaker 2 Some sources have stated he actually loaded her body into a sled and dragged her back to his farm.

Speaker 2 Police thought that maybe her checkered past caught up to her, or perhaps she was attacked by local hoodlums.

Speaker 2 It would be several years before Gein would confess to murdering Hogan, yet Gein seemed to express his involvement in an unexpected way, through humor.

Speaker 3 Farmer and sawmill owner Elmo Uick employed Gein as a handyman.

Speaker 3 Ewick noted how much time Gein spent at Hogan's tavern and once joked, quote, Eddie, if you had spent more time courting Mary, she'd be cooking for you instead of missing, end quote.

Speaker 3 Gein's response, however, was more morbid than humorous. He said, quote, she's not missing, she's down at the house right now, end quote.

Speaker 3 He made similar so-called jokes anytime she was mentioned, even including some odd details. I went and and got her in my pickup truck and took her home, Gein remarked another time.

Speaker 2 As the saying goes, there's truth in every joke. Sigmund Freud theorized that jokes often contain the unconscious desires or aggressive feelings of the person relaying the humor.

Speaker 2 Gein, however, could have been joking around, or he could have been being weirdly sincere.

Speaker 2 His harmless reputation in the town, though, led people to think he was trying to find some awkward humor in Hogan's disappearance.

Speaker 3 These jokes began to give Gein a reputation in town for being more than just weird old Eddie, especially when a creepy rumor began to circulate among the Plainfield townspeople that Gein had a collection of shrunken heads.

Speaker 3 Shrunken heads are severed human heads that have been removed from the body and preserved for display.

Speaker 3 A common method of preparing shrunken heads involves removing the scalp and hair and then cooking the head in a pot of boiling water where it shrinks in size.

Speaker 2 The process was used by the Jivaroan tribes of the Amazon rainforest in Ecuador and Peru.

Speaker 2 The tribes believed that shrinking the heads would block the vengeance of evil spirits and give control of the deceased person's soul. The heads were also a symbol of victory and skill for the tribes.

Speaker 2 Guin possibly picked up this technique in his readings. It could have been another way for him to assert his power over his victims.
Perhaps he thought the procedure would absolve any of his guilt.

Speaker 2 Or this may have been inspired by his reading about Il-Secoch and the South Seas.

Speaker 3 Teenager Bob Hill claimed to have seen Gein's collection. Hill and Gein often hunted rabbit together and went to the movies.

Speaker 3 They were good friends, which is why Hill was one of the few people Gein let inside his decaying house. On one of those visits, Gein showed Hill the shrunken heads.

Speaker 3 Gein claimed that his cousin fought in the Philippines during the war and sent the heads from there.

Speaker 3 On another occasion, Gein invited his neighbors Donald and Georgia Foster to the house to consider a trade. He wanted to exchange his farm for their house.

Speaker 3 The Fosters were puzzled by the proposition since Gein's farmland was much larger than their lot, but they still considered the deal.

Speaker 3 Georgia Foster told reporters that the house was awfully dirty and full of stuff piled all over the floor. She had heard rumors of Gein's head collection and decided to ask him about it.

Speaker 3 Foster said she pointed to a bedroom, then jokingly asked Gein, is that where you keep your shrunken heads? Gein smiled and joked back.

Speaker 3 No,

Speaker 9 they're in this other room over here.

Speaker 2 The Fosters didn't think much of Gein's response at the time and declined the trade for unknown reasons. But around this time, residents in Plainfield adjacent towns began vanishing.

Speaker 2 After his arrest, Gein Gein was a suspect in some of their cases, but these victims did not resemble his mother or the profile of his other victims.

Speaker 2 Serial killers, however, don't always murder who they consider to be their so-called ideal victim. When the urge to kill occurs, they will often settle for a substitute victim to satisfy themselves.

Speaker 2 And these missing Wisconsin residents may have been just that for Gein.

Speaker 3 In 1947, an eight-year-old girl named Georgia Weckler went missing in Jefferson, Wisconsin, which is located over an hour away from Plainfield.

Speaker 3 A 43-year-old Adams County farmer named Victor Bunk Travis and his hunting buddy Ray Burgess were last seen at Mack's Bar in Plainfield in 1952. They disappeared, along with Burgess's car.

Speaker 3 15-year-old Evelyn Hartley vanished in 1953 during a babysitting job in La Crosse. None of the bodies were ever found.
They could have ended up in Gein's collection as well.

Speaker 3 Hogan may not have been Gein's first victim, and she definitely wasn't his last.

Speaker 2 Local shopkeeper Bernice Worden was Gein's only other known victim. She also bore a resemblance to Augusta in looks and personality.

Speaker 2 She was a no-nonsense businesswoman and widow who was a devout Methodist. Gein may have even asked her out to the new roller skating rink.
That is, before he shot her.

Speaker 3 But those stories will have to wait until next week, when we'll also talk about Gein's trial, his institutionalization, and the media fascination surrounding his arrest.

Speaker 2 We'll also examine Gein's insanity plea and why he only stood trial for the murder of Bernice Worden. Thanks again for tuning in to Serial Killers.

Speaker 3 If you want to listen to any previous episodes of Serial Killers, you can find them on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, SoundCloud, Stitcher, and Spotify, or on our website, parcast.com, spelled p-a-r-c-a-st-t.com.

Speaker 2 If you like what you hear, please leave a five-star review or tell us what you think on social media. We're on Facebook and Instagram as at Parcast and Twitter at Parcast Network.

Speaker 3 It seems simple, but it really helps our show.

Speaker 2 Join us next Monday as we continue delving into the twisted psyche of Ed Gein, the butcher of Plainfield.

Speaker 3 Have a killer week.

Speaker 2 Serial Killers was created by Max Cutler and developed by Ron Cutler. It is a production of Cutler Media and is part of the Parkast network.

Speaker 2 It is produced by Max and Ron Cutler, sound design by Kenny Hobbs, with production assistance by Carrie Murphy. Additional production assistance by Carly Madden and Maggie Admire.

Speaker 2 Serial Killers is written by Mallory Cara and stars Greg Poulson and Vanessa Richardson. Our amazing voice actor is Mike Caposi.

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