Latest / The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories / Behind Ed Gein's Case： Catching America’s Most Brutal Killer - Documentary

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Behind Ed Gein's Case： Catching America’s Most Brutal Killer - Documentary · The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories

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Speaker 1: This program contains graphic violence and sexual situations. Viewer discretion
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Speaker 1: is advised to bloody crime scenes, dozens of empty graves.
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Speaker 2: Someone was going in and digging up corpses.
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Speaker 1: A sick obsession with mother, and a suit of human skin.
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Speaker 2: He starts putting on female skin, female breasts, actual breast.
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Speaker 1: A plot from a Hollywood horror film. This is a
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Speaker 1: terrifying true story.
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Speaker 3: Monsters are real, and the scary thing is they look
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Speaker 3: just like you and I.
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Speaker 1: The actual events that inspired the movie's Psycho of the
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Speaker 1: Lambs and many more stories of terror behind the screams.
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Speaker 1: Small Town, America, nineteen fifty four. It's a time of
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Speaker 1: peace and prosperity in rural Plainfield, Wisconsin, a town of
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Speaker 1: less than eight hundred people. By early evening, most of
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Speaker 1: the locals have settled in for the night, but a
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Speaker 1: dim light still shines inside one local tavern. The owner,
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Speaker 1: Mary Hogan, is busy cleaning up after a long day
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Speaker 1: of work. She's a tough, outspoken woman who can hold
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Speaker 1: her own against drunk and disorderly patrons. There's just one
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Speaker 1: person left in her bar. As he quietly SIPs his coffee,
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Speaker 1: she goes about her routine you have enough coffee over there.
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Speaker 1: What she doesn't realize inside this man, a flame of
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Speaker 1: cruelty and hatred is burning, slowly, growing more intense and
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Speaker 1: more deadly. Watching Mary intently, the man reaches inside his
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Speaker 1: jacket for a cold metal object, an instrument of death.
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Speaker 1: The next morning, the middle aged bar owners nowhere to
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Speaker 1: be found. The peace of Plainfield is shattered. It's a
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Speaker 1: crime that will one day inspire countless horror films, A
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Speaker 1: violent attack that sends waves of terror throughout the entire community.
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Speaker 1: Why would anyone want to hurt Mary Hogan? And is
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Speaker 1: the assailant someone living here in Plainfield?
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Speaker 2: I think when you look at individuals and small communities,
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Speaker 2: they tend to believe that they know everybody, that they
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Speaker 2: know everything that's going on. They're typically long term families
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Speaker 2: that have lived there, and they see the big city
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Speaker 2: as that place where crime happens, and there's a lot
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Speaker 2: of violence, very very different from the location in which
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Speaker 2: they live. So anytime you have violent crime in a
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Speaker 2: small community like that, it's going and especially really aberrant
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Speaker 2: violent crime, it's going to have a huge impact on
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Speaker 2: the public there.
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Speaker 1: The job of finding Mary Hogan falls on Sheriff Harold S. Thompson,
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Speaker 1: nicknamed Topper. He's a tough, serious man, a father of
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Speaker 1: twelve children. Although he's a veteran peacekeeper, he's only been
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Speaker 1: assigned as sheriff, temporarily used to settling misdemeanors and local disputes.
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Speaker 1: Violent crime is something entirely new for Topper.
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Speaker 2: Most of these investigators and police officers were appointed. They
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Speaker 2: have very little training, so they don't have any experience
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Speaker 2: working cases like this. It becomes a daunting task when
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Speaker 2: they're faced with a disappearance of an individual.
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Speaker 1: Arriving at the sheriff, Thompson pushes open the door to
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Speaker 1: Mary's tavern and immediately sees the bloody signs of a
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Speaker 1: violent struggle. He scans for anything out of place. A
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Speaker 1: cash box lays empty on the counter, but something tells
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Speaker 1: him this is something far more sinister than a robbery.
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Speaker 3: In every crime scene, you have something that is being
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Speaker 3: targeted by the suspect. The problem with this crime scene
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Speaker 3: is that you've got missing cash from the scene, but
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Speaker 3: you also have a missing body from the scene. Typically,
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Speaker 3: in a robbery, we're looking for the thing that's being taken.
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Speaker 4: It's gonna be cash.
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Speaker 3: It's gonna be some sense of valuables, some object perhaps,
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Speaker 3: But when a body is missing, it's clear that the
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Speaker 3: target is not just property, it's a person.
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Speaker 1: Thompson finds a single bullet casing resting ominously on the floor,
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Speaker 1: clear evidence. The pool of bloolood is from a gunshot
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Speaker 1: wound on the bar. A spilled coffee mug sits upright,
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Speaker 1: marked with a bloody fingerprint. Thompson wonders, does this print
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Speaker 1: belong to the killer?
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Speaker 3: A bloody fingerprint at the scene is really important to
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Speaker 3: us because it indicates it's probably been left at the
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Speaker 3: time of the crime. But remember in the fifties we
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Speaker 3: don't have the same kind of database as we have today.
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Speaker 3: A fingerprint database is going to be very very if
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Speaker 3: at all. Without a known suspect with fingerprinting custody, there's
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Speaker 3: nothing to match.
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Speaker 1: Bloody drag marks lead from the bar, through the red
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Speaker 1: puddle on the floor toward a door outside. The trail
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Speaker 1: ends at a set of tire tracks.
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Speaker 3: Every crime scene hopefully leaves you with some form of
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Speaker 3: forensic evidence. In this particular situation, inside you've got blood
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Speaker 3: smears from the body being drug and outside you've got
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Speaker 3: tire tracks. The problem, of course, is you're going to
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Speaker 3: have to have a a series of tires to match
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Speaker 3: the tracks to. So it may have some investigative value
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Speaker 3: for you along the way, but more importantly, it'll have
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Speaker 3: value once you find the guy who has the tires.
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Speaker 1: Sheriff Thompson's baffled by the senseless crime. Without a body,
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Speaker 1: he has no way of knowing if this is a
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Speaker 1: kidnapping or a killing. Witnesses who left the bar the
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Speaker 1: previous day say that Mary locked up at around four
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Speaker 1: point thirty in the afternoon, but the evidence suggests that
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Speaker 1: sometime later she let her attack her inside and made
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Speaker 1: him a cup of coffee. The assailant was probably someone
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Speaker 1: she knew very well. Recognizing his lack of experience and
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Speaker 1: need for help, Sheriff Thompson calls the crime lab in
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Speaker 1: nearby Madison to inspect the scene.
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Speaker 5: Yeah, hey, Ron, is Sheriff Thompson Donner.
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Speaker 4: At the Sheriff's station.
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Speaker 3: If you don't have expertise and you haven't worked a
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Speaker 3: ton of these scenes, there's probably going to be something
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Speaker 3: you miss. And that's why smaller agencies will sometimes call
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Speaker 3: a larger agency that has experience doing a number of homicides,
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Speaker 3: you have a better chance of catching that missing detail.
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Speaker 1: Thompson also starts a list of potential suspects. Mary Hogan
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Speaker 1: had no known enemies, but her past is shrouded mystery.
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Speaker 1: Twice divorced, she moved to Plainfield from Chicago. Some locals
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Speaker 1: believe she may have managed a big city brothel. There's
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Speaker 1: even talk around town that Mary had ties to the mob.
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Speaker 1: Was Mary in trouble with the mafia, and if so,
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Speaker 1: did they follow her all the way to Plainfield to
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Speaker 1: take her out.
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Speaker 3: There's kind of a history in a period of time
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Speaker 3: in America when the mob, loosely referred to organized crime
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Speaker 3: was seen as more influential by investigating agencies. So at
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Speaker 3: this point we're looking at the potential that a mob
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Speaker 3: hit could be in place here at this scene.
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Speaker 1: But there's a problem with this theory of a mob assassination.
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Speaker 1: Unlike Chicago, Plainfield is a small, close knit community. People
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Speaker 1: tend to notice when sharply dressed city folk drive into town.
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Speaker 1: Even an average looking stranger couldn't pass through without being
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Speaker 1: noticed by someone.
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Speaker 3: If it's a mob style execution, I would either expect
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Speaker 3: there to be a body still at the scene, executed
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Speaker 3: in a particular fashion, or nobody at all. What you
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Speaker 3: have here is a kind of a combination of both,
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Speaker 3: which really doesn't make sense from the perspective of a
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Speaker 3: mob execution.
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Speaker 1: If the mob isn't responsible for Mary's disappearance, maybe someone
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Speaker 1: living in Plainfield is to blame. Mary's outspoken manner could
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Speaker 1: have rubbed a bar patron the wrong way. One possible
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Speaker 1: suspect is a tavern regular town oddball ed Geen. So
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Speaker 1: it's common knowledge in Plainfield that the forty eight year
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Speaker 1: old man had a tough upbringing. His father was an
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Speaker 1: abusive alcoholic, and his mother, Augusta, was an obsessively puritanical woman.
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Speaker 1: She railed against the pleasures of the flesh, you can't
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Speaker 1: trust any of them, and kept her sons at arm's length,
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Speaker 1: a behavior that only made Ed crave her attention more.
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Speaker 1: It also made him very awkward when it came to women.
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Speaker 2: Ed had made comments about Mary in the past, so
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Speaker 2: when people are focusing on like who could have done this?
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Speaker 2: Why is she gone? What happened to her? Ed's name
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Speaker 2: sort of surfaces comes up to the top.
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Speaker 1: While Ed's considered harmless by everyone in town, he was
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Speaker 1: involved in another bizarre incident, a decade before the Mary
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Speaker 1: Hogan investigation, Ed and his brother Henry Geen are heading
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Speaker 1: out to clear some dry overgrowth from an area close
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Speaker 1: to their home. The men set a patch of grass ablaze,
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Speaker 1: and as the winds kick up, things quickly get out
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Speaker 1: of hand. They fight to get the blaze under control,
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Speaker 1: and when the flames finally go out, Ed walks out
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Speaker 1: of the field alone. He goes straight to a neighbor
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Speaker 1: asking for help to find his brother Henry, but then, strangely,
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Speaker 1: at the scene of the fire, he guides the neighbor
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Speaker 1: directly to his brother's motionless body.
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Speaker 3: As an investigator, if I'm watching Ed bring this group
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Speaker 3: to look for his brother and he seems to know
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Speaker 3: exactly where to go immediately, is it a coincidence? I
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Speaker 3: don't want to, at least eliminate the possibility that he
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Speaker 3: knew where his brother was because he was the last
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Speaker 3: person to see his brother alive. If you're assembling the
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Speaker 3: most reasonable inference from evidence, this seems very suspicious.
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Speaker 1: And there are other puzzling details. Henry's body and clothing
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Speaker 1: show no sign of burns, and there are mistify curious
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Speaker 1: bruises on his head. Ed suggests his brother probably fell
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Speaker 1: and hit his head on a rock. The whole incident
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Speaker 1: is strange, but without proof, the locals accept Ed's story.
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Speaker 1: A medical examiner says his brother must have died from
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Speaker 1: smoke inhalation.
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Speaker 2: They've talked to Ed and although he's he's a bit odd,
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Speaker 2: they don't really have anything else to go on.
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Speaker 1: The reason townfolks are so quick to dismiss Geen even
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Speaker 1: though his behavior is strange. He's known throughout playing field
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Speaker 1: for his willingness to help. He works odd jobs, chops,
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Speaker 1: would whatever it takes to lend a hand.
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Speaker 2: People would come to Ed and say, hey, Ed, can
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Speaker 2: you help me load this hay? Heed can help help
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Speaker 2: me fix this fence, and Ed would accommodate them. He
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Speaker 2: would go and do these things, sometimes for money, sometimes
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Speaker 2: just because you know he was living in in this community.
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Speaker 2: He did babysit for a couple of families because Ed
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Speaker 2: is really more comfortable with children than he is with adults.
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Speaker 2: He's socially undeveloped because he's lived on this farm his
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Speaker 2: whole life. His small his very diminutive stature. He doesn't
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Speaker 2: appear to be threatening to anybody.
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Speaker 1: For these same reasons Sheriff Thompson can't see Geen as
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Speaker 1: a suspect in Mary Hogan's disappearance. He turns his attention
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Speaker 1: to other missing persons cases in the area.
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Speaker 2: Sheriff Thompson is the fire you're looking for it, thanks Jasy.
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Speaker 2: When you have those types of incidents in a small
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Speaker 2: geographic location, the likelihood that they are not connected is small.
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Speaker 3: When investigators are looking at this particular case, there are
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Speaker 3: several people at the time who are missing within a
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Speaker 3: timeframe relatively similar. And what you're doing when you have
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Speaker 3: a number of people who are missing of this nature
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Speaker 3: is you're trying to find the common threat. Is there
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Speaker 3: something about each victim that's so common that you could
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Speaker 3: attribute them to the same suspect. Do they seem like
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Speaker 3: they could be actually connected to one another in some way?
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Speaker 4: Are they connected geographically?
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Speaker 3: Are they connected because of the same age, the same sex.
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Speaker 1: The sheriff uncovers three missing persons cases that have all
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Speaker 1: gone unsolved, and they all happened within two hours of Plainfield.
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Speaker 1: Case number one, an eight year old girl, Georgia Weckler,
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Speaker 1: went missing walking less than a half mile home from school.
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Speaker 1: She disappeared in broad daylight. Case number two, forty two
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Speaker 1: year old Victor Travis and his friend Ray Burgess and
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Speaker 1: off into the woods near Plainfield to hunt deer. No
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Speaker 1: trace of the men or their car was ever found. Finally,
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Speaker 1: case number three, just one year before Mary Hogan's disappearance,
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Speaker 1: teen Evelyn Hartley was babysitting a small child. When she finished.
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Speaker 1: Just one of her tennis shoes was left at the
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Speaker 1: scene of the crime.
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Speaker 2: There is blood found at the scene where she disappears.
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Speaker 2: There's apparent drag marks. It looks like she was injured
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Speaker 2: at that location and removed from the location. It's very
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Speaker 2: similar to Mary Hogan, injured at the location and removed.
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Speaker 1: Thompson notes that in each case, huge search parties combed
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Speaker 1: nearly every inch of the surrounding landscape looking for any
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Speaker 1: sign of what happened to these miss girls and men.
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Speaker 1: But after days and weeks of searching nothing. There's only
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Speaker 1: one lead in the Georgia Weckler case, a dark Ford
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Speaker 1: sedan seen once on the road leading to George's home
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Speaker 1: and again later in tone. But is this enough to
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Speaker 1: catch a criminal?
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Speaker 4: At best?
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Speaker 3: A description of a Ford, especially if it's very generic
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Speaker 3: in its description, is only going to give you a
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Speaker 3: piece of circumstantial evidence you could later put in part of.
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Speaker 4: A cumulative case.
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Speaker 3: But it's not going to be like that one aha
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Speaker 3: moment where you say wow, only one person in town
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Speaker 3: owns a ford, and a community like this where so
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Speaker 3: many fords are present, there's no way to connect the
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Speaker 3: ford to any one particular individual in that community. It's
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Speaker 3: just going to be one piece of a larger puzzle.
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Speaker 1: One witness claimed he saw a young girl in the
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Speaker 1: back seat pleading to go home, and a man shoving
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Speaker 1: her down out of sight. Then the car was gone,
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Speaker 1: But was Georgia of the young girl in the back seat?
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Speaker 1: Was this a drifter kidnapping people for ransom, well for
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Speaker 1: some other evil purpose? And has the drifter returned? Thompson
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Speaker 1: ponders the evidence, and it just doesn't add up young
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Speaker 1: Georgia Weckler, teen Evelyn Hartley, the male hunters, and middle
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Speaker 1: aged Mary Hogan. If one man committed all these crimes,
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Speaker 1: he has no clear method or motive.
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Speaker 3: In this case, you've got a middle aged woman, you've
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Speaker 3: got two young girls, and you've got two hunters that
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Speaker 3: are part of the potential missings that people are looking
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Speaker 3: at and you're trying to say to yourself, well, what
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Speaker 3: is it about these five different missing people that is
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Speaker 3: similar or dissimilar. There's a lot of differences here between
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Speaker 3: these five missing persons.
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Speaker 2: I think if we were to look at these crimes
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Speaker 2: in present day, of course, we might say that there
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Speaker 2: may be some connection. Especially in these small communities. We're
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Speaker 2: talking hundreds of people. They might refer to this as
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Speaker 2: sort of a serial crime. Again, we don't have any bodies,
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Speaker 2: so we don't even know that there's homicides. All we
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Speaker 2: have our disappearances of individuals. We suspect there's been foul
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Speaker 2: play because there's blood at a couple of these scenes,
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Speaker 2: but all we have is that they've disappeared.
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Speaker 1: With no strong suspects. In the latest disappearance of tavern
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Speaker 1: owner Mary Hogan, Sheriff Topper Thompson sets his sights on
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Speaker 1: hunting down the assailant's vehicle he used it to transp
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Speaker 1: his victim. Matching the tracks found at the scene is
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Speaker 1: the best lead he has.
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Speaker 3: It's not unusually have a crime scene where you don't
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Speaker 3: have a lot of physical evidence, just a few small things,
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Speaker 3: and you do the best you can with what you have,
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Speaker 3: and in this particular case, we've got tire tracks. Unfortunately,
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Speaker 3: there's a lot of work to go from tire track
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Speaker 3: to specific suspect with that tire. In some ways, all
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Speaker 3: evidence can be divided into two categories. Evidence that leads
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Speaker 3: you directly to a suspect and evidence that, once you
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Speaker 3: have a suspect, can connect you to a crime.
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Speaker 4: Tire tracks are more in the second category.
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Speaker 3: I can't use the tire track and immediately tell you
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Speaker 3: who the suspect is, but if you can give me
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Speaker 3: the suspect who's got a car, I can match the
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Speaker 3: car in reverse to the tire track.
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Speaker 1: Thompson goes farm by farm looking for any suspicious cars, trucks,
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Speaker 1: or people, but each location leads to a new dead end.
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Speaker 1: Either the assailant's left towne or he's very good at
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Speaker 1: covering his tracks.
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Speaker 3: If we're going to start with the tire track, we
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Speaker 3: got to ask the question while looking for a local suspect.
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Speaker 3: This is a huge county and there are dozens hundreds
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Speaker 3: of cars.
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Speaker 1: Give it.
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Speaker 3: Somebody who drove through all of that work could be
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Speaker 3: for nothing.
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Speaker 1: Adding to the challenge. In this small farming community, Sheriff
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Speaker 1: Thompson has limited resources and manpower. The properties are spread
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Speaker 1: out over acres, covering every inch is nearly impossible.
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Speaker 3: In any murder investigation, you're asking a question. Is this
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Speaker 3: a single event or is this a connected series of events?
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Speaker 3: Is this part of a series of murders or just
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Speaker 3: one particular murder. If it's part of a series, you're
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Speaker 3: trying to ask yourself the question what's driving the killer?
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Speaker 1: What the sheriff doesn't know is that right here in
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Speaker 1: one's peaceful plainfield, a place of honest labor and holy worship,
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Speaker 1: a deviant mind is committing acts even more twisted than murder.
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Speaker 1: Under cover of darkness. The predator stalks not only the living,
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Speaker 1: but the dead in local cemeteries. Armed with a shovel
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Speaker 1: and lantern, this deviant mind is searching for something inside
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Speaker 1: human graves. Digging up a freshly buried coffin, he opens
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Speaker 1: the lid, takes what he needs, then fills the hole again,
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Speaker 1: leaving no sign that anything ever happened. And he does
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Speaker 1: it over and over. The most chilling part, this thief
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Speaker 1: isn't looking for hidden treasure. He wants the corpses themselves,
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Speaker 1: the females.
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Speaker 3: Every theft scene has a target, something that the suspect
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Speaker 3: is interested in, which is why the theft is occurring
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Speaker 3: and grave robbing. You have to ask the question what
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Speaker 3: is being targeted? Is it property? Is it jewelry, is
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Speaker 3: it clothing? Or is it something more sinister? Is it
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Speaker 3: the actual body that's in the grave. In this particular case,
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Speaker 3: it doesn't appear that property is the target. Instead, it's
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Speaker 3: the bodies.
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Speaker 1: He's a selective thief. He's stolen whole bodies before, but
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Speaker 1: sometimes he takes just an arm, a leg, or even
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Speaker 1: a head. What macabre purpose could all these dead bodies
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Speaker 1: possibly serve?
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Speaker 2: Digging up corpses suggests some kind of paraphilic behavior, whether
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Speaker 2: it's necro feelia having sex with the bodies, whether it's
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Speaker 2: voyeurism wanting to look at the dead bodies. In this case,
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Speaker 2: the bodies that were being dug up were basically middle
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Speaker 2: aged women, so we've got a certain type of individual
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Speaker 2: that's being dug up.
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Speaker 1: These nightly activities have gone unnoticed for years. The thief
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Speaker 1: only visits fresh graves, leaving them just as he found them.
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Speaker 1: It's an act no one could possibly believe is happening
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Speaker 1: in Plainfield. But things will never be the same in
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Speaker 1: this town. Ever again. Three years after the disappearance of
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Speaker 1: Mary Hogan, Sheriff Topper Thompson has moved on and there's
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Speaker 1: a new sheriff in charge. His name is Arch Slay.
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Speaker 1: Slay's is baffled by Mary's case as his predecessor, but
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Speaker 1: all that is about to change. Late one morning, hardware
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Speaker 1: store owner Bernice Warden is checking inventory with her son Frank,
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Speaker 1: when Ed Geen shows up. Frank, Hi, Bernice.
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Speaker 4: Born and Ed how are you today? Oh? Can't complain,
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Speaker 4: say Bernice, would you?
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Speaker 1: Gen invites Bernice to go out roller skating.
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Speaker 4: Oh, I don't know. Ed stores keeping me pretty busy
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Speaker 4: these days.
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Speaker 1: He's asked before, and she's always said no. When she declines, yeah, Hey,
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Speaker 1: we're pretty busy stalking up here.
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Speaker 5: He turns to Frank that you're still going deer hunting tomorrow,
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Speaker 5: right Frank, crack a dawn could miss that, Bernice.
25:57
Speaker 4: I need a gallon at Anna Freese.
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Speaker 1: Come back tomorrow and get it.
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Speaker 4: Okay, I'll make a note of that, see you tomorrow.
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Speaker 1: Around four o'clock. The next day, Art, it's Frank, I
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Speaker 1: need you to come down to the store right now.
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Speaker 1: Frank calm down on Sheriff Schlay gets a panic phone
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Speaker 1: call from Frank. He asks the sheriff to rush over
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Speaker 1: to the store that something has happened to his mother,
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Speaker 1: and he thinks he knows who's responsible.
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Speaker 2: Ed Gean, I need you to get down here right now.
26:36
Speaker 4: Art, all right, right, Frank, come down, I'll be there
26:38
Speaker 4: in a second.
26:45
Speaker 1: Entering the store, Sheriff Schlay is immediately struck by how
26:49
Speaker 1: similar it looks to the Mary Hogan crime scene three
26:51
Speaker 1: years earlier.
26:53
Speaker 2: Something's wrong, Art, Look, there's blood on the floor.
26:56
Speaker 1: Frank tells Shlay when he got back from deer hunting,
27:00
Speaker 1: his mother was gone, the cash register was missing, and
27:04
Speaker 1: one of the rifles for sale had us spent cartridge
27:08
Speaker 1: still inside the chamber.
27:10
Speaker 2: Okay, well, it could have been a robbery.
27:12
Speaker 1: I don't think so.
27:13
Speaker 4: I think it was ed Dean.
27:17
Speaker 1: Sheriff Schlay scans the scene. He sees bloody streaks on
27:22
Speaker 1: the shop floor. It indicates Bernice was dragged away, but
27:27
Speaker 1: this clue won't help to identify the assailant.
27:30
Speaker 3: In the nineteen fifties, we don't have the technology that's
27:33
Speaker 3: available to us today, and the technology to collect certain
27:35
Speaker 3: forms of evidence for DNA or blood typing or any
27:38
Speaker 3: other forensic comparisons.
27:41
Speaker 1: Luckily, that's not the only clue. Look right here, Frank
27:48
Speaker 1: shows Sheriff Schlay the most critical piece of evidence, a
27:52
Speaker 1: sales receipt for anti freeze, the same item Dean had
27:56
Speaker 1: inquired about the day before.
28:01
Speaker 4: Bernice's son.
28:02
Speaker 3: Although he's not a homicide detect not trained that way,
28:04
Speaker 3: he's got a real motivation. He's got an avid interest
28:07
Speaker 3: number one in this kind of a crime scene, but
28:09
Speaker 3: number two.
28:09
Speaker 4: This is his mom that's missing.
28:11
Speaker 3: He's motivated in a way that most homicide detectives aren't.
28:15
Speaker 1: Immediately, Sheriff Schlay's mind starts racing. He reviews the evidence
28:21
Speaker 1: left in the store, and a vision of the horrible
28:24
Speaker 1: attack starts to take shape. With Frank out hunting all morning,
28:31
Speaker 1: Bernice would have been all alone when Ed returned to
28:36
Speaker 1: Warden's hardware store.
28:39
Speaker 4: Hey, Ed, I've got that Annie freezing wanted.
28:44
Speaker 1: Bernice keeps rifles behind the counter for sale. All Ed
28:49
Speaker 1: needs to do is find a way to get Bernice
28:51
Speaker 1: to head and back. Then forgotten he could make his move.
28:59
Speaker 5: I have to do some work on the shed today,
29:01
Speaker 5: so I need some fourpenny nails.
29:03
Speaker 4: Oh okay, I have those in backs, so just hang
29:06
Speaker 4: on it.
29:11
Speaker 1: Slipping behind the counter, he could quickly grab an unloaded
29:14
Speaker 1: rifle off the wall and quietly step back into the
29:18
Speaker 1: front of the store. His next step is proof this
29:25
Speaker 1: attack must have been premeditated. With no AMMO on display,
29:30
Speaker 1: he must have brought his own cartridge. Pulling the bullet
29:34
Speaker 1: from his jacket pocket, he could silently load the weapon
29:39
Speaker 1: and wait for his victim to return. Okay, Ed, I
29:46
Speaker 1: got the nails you wanted?
29:47
Speaker 4: How many of them are?
29:48
Speaker 1: As Bernice made her way to the front of the store,
29:51
Speaker 1: she had no way to know. Ed Gean was seething
29:57
Speaker 1: with anger. You should have gone roller.
30:01
Speaker 4: Skating with Mead.
30:15
Speaker 1: Schlay speculates Gene could have removed the cash register to
30:19
Speaker 1: disguise the true nature of his crime, the same trick
30:23
Speaker 1: used before when Mary Hogan vanished. But are the two
30:28
Speaker 1: crimes truly related and is Geen really a monster living
30:33
Speaker 1: in plain sight?
30:35
Speaker 3: So here we have another scene, a missing female gunshot
30:39
Speaker 3: won't blood of the scene. The body is missing, very
30:42
Speaker 3: interesting and very distinct, and it's very similar to what
30:45
Speaker 3: happened to Mary earlier. These two crimes appear to be connected.
30:52
Speaker 1: Immediately, Sheriff Schlay picks up his partner, Dan Chase, and
30:56
Speaker 1: the hunt is on. The officers quickly locate Geen outside
31:02
Speaker 1: a neighbour's home. They approach carefully. He could be armed
31:13
Speaker 1: and dangerous.
31:16
Speaker 3: So as a detective, when you're approaching somebody, you think
31:19
Speaker 3: maybe a suspect in a crime.
31:20
Speaker 4: Is this guy going to be armed?
31:22
Speaker 3: You've really planned these things out in your mind, so
31:24
Speaker 3: as you make the approach, you're making it safely, and
31:26
Speaker 3: you're making it tactically.
31:29
Speaker 1: One of the officers asks Gane to tell him where
31:32
Speaker 1: he's been all day.
31:33
Speaker 2: What did you do today?
31:34
Speaker 1: Gan says, He's just been doing chores and I found
31:37
Speaker 1: some wood at.
31:40
Speaker 5: Grady Ranch.
31:42
Speaker 1: That's when they use a common law enforcement trick to
31:45
Speaker 1: get to.
31:45
Speaker 4: The truth, and once you start from the top of you.
31:49
Speaker 1: They asked Gane to repeat what he said, I found.
31:53
Speaker 4: Some wood at this Smith ranch.
31:58
Speaker 3: The best tacticy is if you're trying to determine if
32:01
Speaker 3: someone's telling the truth, it's simply to have them tell
32:03
Speaker 3: the same story over and over again.
32:04
Speaker 4: The old Grady own place.
32:06
Speaker 3: Asked the question from a slightly different angle, and as
32:09
Speaker 3: you listen to the response, you're listening for the slight variation.
32:12
Speaker 5: Smith Blake Grady Smith lace.
32:15
Speaker 3: Would indicate that this person's not telling you the truth.
32:18
Speaker 4: Smith place.
32:20
Speaker 1: Dean can't remember the lies he's told. His story changes.
32:25
Speaker 1: He's up to no good then no not good. Friend
32:31
Speaker 1: Dean's mind collapses after years of murder and mayhem, perhaps
32:39
Speaker 1: the guilt, perhaps the sheer evil must come out.
32:43
Speaker 4: Calm down and all right, what have you been friend for?
32:46
Speaker 4: Missus Warden said, Missus Warden ed, yes, yeah, She's dead And.
32:51
Speaker 1: At this point not even the police know for sure
32:55
Speaker 1: what happened to Bernice. They arrest Gan on the spot,
33:00
Speaker 1: take him to jail with Geen and custody. Sheriff Schley
33:07
Speaker 1: an officer Chase race to search the Geen family farm.
33:11
Speaker 1: There's no time to lose. This secluded property, nine miles
33:16
Speaker 1: from town, stretches over ninety five acres, and Bernice could
33:22
Speaker 1: be anywhere. They begin just a short drive off the
33:32
Speaker 1: road at ed Geen's very dark and forbidding home. Many
33:39
Speaker 1: of the local children believe it's haunted by an evil spirit.
33:45
Speaker 1: They have no idea how right they are. The officers
33:52
Speaker 1: slowly move toward the building, looking for a way in.
34:00
Speaker 3: You can actually enter the residence if they have a
34:01
Speaker 3: sense there's a possibility that somebody's still alive, is injured,
34:05
Speaker 3: is an entre need of help. It's extigen circumstances. That's
34:09
Speaker 3: the motivation they have to actually enter the house.
34:14
Speaker 1: They notice a shed in the back of the home.
34:17
Speaker 1: Schlay can see the door only has a rickety latch.
34:22
Speaker 1: He lifts his foot up and kicks hard.
34:34
Speaker 3: Anytime you walk into a scene like this, you have
34:36
Speaker 3: a kind of a tension between.
34:38
Speaker 4: Discovery and danger.
34:41
Speaker 3: You know, you have a sense that I'm going to
34:43
Speaker 3: discover something that's powerful, that's going to make this case.
34:45
Speaker 3: Maybe I'll even discovered Bernice alive.
34:46
Speaker 4: That would be great.
34:47
Speaker 3: There's always a sense of danger too. You don't know
34:49
Speaker 3: that Edgean is acting alone. You don't know what's going
34:52
Speaker 3: to be in there, who's going to be in there.
34:53
Speaker 3: You can walk in and get ambushed. So as you're
34:55
Speaker 3: walking into a scene like this, you're always on the
34:57
Speaker 3: edge of your seat, You're always on guard.
35:07
Speaker 1: The officer's flashlight beams reveal trash everywhere, but what they're
35:19
Speaker 1: about to see they could never imagine and we'll never forget.
35:26
Speaker 1: As Sleigh turns to search the corner, he feels something
35:31
Speaker 1: heavy brush against him. Something hanging from the ceiling. It's
35:40
Speaker 1: a human body.
35:42
Speaker 4: O God.
35:50
Speaker 1: Bernice Wooden, loving mother, widow and respected business owner, hangs
35:55
Speaker 1: upside down, beheaded and split down the middle. A deer
36:00
Speaker 1: is butchered after a hunt. It's the revolting act of
36:09
Speaker 1: a sick, perverted mind.
36:17
Speaker 3: No matter how tough you think you are as a cop,
36:19
Speaker 3: and most of us when we train, we think we're
36:20
Speaker 3: pretty tough about these kinds of things, especially if you're
36:22
Speaker 3: working homicides, some scenes are worse than others. And here
36:27
Speaker 3: you have the most horrific scene, one of the worst
36:29
Speaker 3: scenes in.
36:29
Speaker 4: The history of homicides.
36:33
Speaker 3: He reacts like probably most of us would, runs out
36:35
Speaker 3: of the room and throws up.
36:45
Speaker 2: When you look at it, it's not a crime of passion.
36:49
Speaker 2: There clearly is a plan here. It's done in a
36:53
Speaker 2: very methodical way. Her feet are spread apart on a bar.
37:01
Speaker 2: She's been hoisted up by a block and tackle. Her
37:04
Speaker 2: hands have been tied to her sides. She has been
37:07
Speaker 2: essentially eviscerated, opened up from her sternum all the way
37:11
Speaker 2: up up to her pubic bone, and all of her
37:15
Speaker 2: internal organs are gone. And of course we're talking about
37:19
Speaker 2: police officers who have never seen anything like this. They
37:24
Speaker 2: look at Bernice and they're not even sure if it's
37:27
Speaker 2: Bernice or not because the corpse doesn't have a head.
37:31
Speaker 2: It's clear that he had done this kind of activity before.
37:35
Speaker 2: Clearly he was skilled at it.
37:41
Speaker 1: And Bernice isn't Edgen's only trophy. Inside the main home,
37:49
Speaker 1: his demented decorations are everywhere, parts of bodies, women's skulls,
38:01
Speaker 1: and hidden under a burlap sack, the face of Mary
38:05
Speaker 1: Hogan turned into a horrifying mask.
38:14
Speaker 2: You were wondering, well, why would he do this? Why
38:16
Speaker 2: is he collecting all of these different body parts? I mean,
38:21
Speaker 2: this really goes to the psychosis that Ed has.
38:27
Speaker 1: But ed Dean's greatest prize is the one that truly
38:31
Speaker 1: gives a glimpse into the psyche of a madman. Propped
38:35
Speaker 1: up in a dusty, cluttered room, Schlave finds a full
38:39
Speaker 1: body garment Gean had sown from human skin. He wore
38:45
Speaker 1: this suit to become female.
38:49
Speaker 2: Ed has still got this fixation on his mother. At
38:55
Speaker 2: some point fairly shortly after her death, Ed is actually
39:00
Speaker 2: believing that he has the power to will her back
39:04
Speaker 2: to life, bring her back from the dead, and when
39:07
Speaker 2: he can't do that, he essentially recreates her in himself.
39:21
Speaker 2: He starts putting on female skin, female breast, actual breas,
39:27
Speaker 2: starts wearing a vagina and actually dancing around out at
39:33
Speaker 2: night in the moonlight. I mean, it's a very macabre,
39:36
Speaker 2: kind of very creepy scene. But from a psychotic standpoint,
39:41
Speaker 2: what you really see is Ed trying to become his mother.
39:51
Speaker 1: Seeing this house of horrors, Sheriff Schlay comes up with
39:54
Speaker 1: a possible motive in the murders of Mary Hogan and
39:57
Speaker 1: Bernice Worden. To Ed Geen, his mother, Augusta was a
40:04
Speaker 1: saintly figure, incorruptible and free of sin. And though Mary
40:10
Speaker 1: Hogan and Bernice Warden reminded him of his mother, in
40:14
Speaker 1: his eyes, they were the opposite. They brought out something
40:19
Speaker 1: inside him that Augusta fought all her life to suppress
40:24
Speaker 1: Gean's manly lust.
40:26
Speaker 3: I can't believe you.
40:27
Speaker 4: Looked at that horrorble girl, sin do you have to learn?
40:30
Speaker 1: He wanted these women, and this urge went against everything
40:34
Speaker 1: he'd been raised to believe. It drove him to insane violence.
40:42
Speaker 2: When his mother died, it was devastating for Ed. He
40:46
Speaker 2: lost not only his very best friend, but he lost
40:49
Speaker 2: his support structure.
40:51
Speaker 4: Ed I think.
40:52
Speaker 2: Essentially was socially and emotionally lost at that point.
40:59
Speaker 1: Geane's thing made of human flesh, his bloody crimes and
41:06
Speaker 1: his childish simpletons grin horrify and mystify the public. How
41:12
Speaker 1: could a man like this exist?
41:16
Speaker 3: That the psychology of Edgain is fascinating to me. What
41:19
Speaker 3: drove him to take these two victims when he did
41:22
Speaker 3: years apart, and what he did in the middle of
41:24
Speaker 3: all those years, and is really it seems that it
41:26
Speaker 3: is far more fascinated with the parts he got from
41:31
Speaker 3: the murders than the actual victims themselves.
41:42
Speaker 2: Clearly, Ed is psychotic. He has serious mental health problems.
41:49
Speaker 2: And it's the mental illnesses. It's the way he perceived,
41:53
Speaker 2: his thinking patterns about his mother and his activities that
41:58
Speaker 2: drives his crimes. And we can see you have an
42:00
Speaker 2: individual who's digging up corpses, He's cutting out vaginas, he's
42:06
Speaker 2: cutting off breasts, he's cutting off the skin, he's cutting
42:10
Speaker 2: off the skull and taking off the hair on the skull.
42:14
Speaker 2: He's wearing it. He's making clothing out of a woman's skin.
42:18
Speaker 2: This is incredibly aberrant behavior, but it's his crimes are
42:23
Speaker 2: driven by this severe mental illness.
42:29
Speaker 1: Sheriff Archley, overcome by the atrocities he witnessed inside Geen's home,
42:35
Speaker 1: can't contain his anger. He attacks Gen in his jail cell,
42:45
Speaker 1: repeatedly slamming him against a wall, hoping he can force
42:52
Speaker 1: Gen to confess to murder. He never does. He maintained
43:00
Speaker 1: his innocence throughout the murder trial. In court, he claimed
43:05
Speaker 1: he killed Bernice Worden by accident, that the sight of
43:08
Speaker 1: blood made him faint. He couldn't recall how she came
43:12
Speaker 1: to be hanging in his home. So where did he
43:17
Speaker 1: get the huge array of human body parts police found
43:20
Speaker 1: in his home? He says he pulled them from local graves.
43:28
Speaker 2: He's admitting to the police that he has engaged in
43:32
Speaker 2: digging up corpses from local cemeteries. Some he took with him,
43:37
Speaker 2: some he returned, some he removed body parts from, some
43:41
Speaker 2: he was skinning. But he's engaged with this. These dead individuals,
43:46
Speaker 2: all women, and it's so unusual for people because for
43:52
Speaker 2: the time in nineteen fifty seven, the baseline of behavior
43:58
Speaker 2: isn't what we have today.
44:00
Speaker 4: We don't have.
44:01
Speaker 2: Twenty four hour, seven day a week news and it
44:04
Speaker 2: was so unusual, so bizarre, that it just captured the
44:09
Speaker 2: national audience.
44:12
Speaker 1: Although he was ultimately found guilty of murder, he never
44:16
Speaker 1: saw the inside of a prison cell. Labeled insane, he
44:21
Speaker 1: spent the rest of his life in a mental institution.
44:25
Speaker 3: There are only three things that motivate any homicide financial greed,
44:30
Speaker 3: sexual relational lust, and the pursuit of power. But there's
44:33
Speaker 3: a fourth category to assess, and that is just crazy.
44:36
Speaker 3: Is somebody so insane that they're not even motivated by
44:39
Speaker 3: anything and they're just doing it without a motivation because
44:43
Speaker 3: they're crazy. This is something we have to assess, especially
44:46
Speaker 3: we come to trial. Were they able to make free
44:48
Speaker 3: choices and they were driven by one of these three
44:50
Speaker 3: things they could have resisted, or are they just so
44:53
Speaker 3: crazy they couldn't make a free choice.
44:56
Speaker 2: I think that he was very mentally disturbed, and there's
45:00
Speaker 2: no question when he is interviewed by a number of
45:05
Speaker 2: psychiatrists and psychologists that they all are in agreement that
45:10
Speaker 2: he is psychotic and they describe him as schizophrenic, which
45:14
Speaker 2: is clearly I think the case. When you look at
45:17
Speaker 2: Edgeen's history, I think that the delusions that he had,
45:32
Speaker 2: and perhaps some of the auditory hallucinations. This severe mental
45:38
Speaker 2: illness had him acting in ways that we might characterize
45:43
Speaker 2: them as evil. But I would say that when you're
45:46
Speaker 2: talking about psychopaths, people who understand the difference between right
45:51
Speaker 2: and wrong and simply choose to do wrong, that is
45:55
Speaker 2: probably an individual that I would describe as more evil.
46:06
Speaker 1: It was an unsatisfying end for the people of Plainfield.
46:10
Speaker 1: With no way to strike out at Geen the man,
46:13
Speaker 1: they wreaked their vengeance on Geen's family home, burning it
46:18
Speaker 1: to the ground. But even after he died in a
46:24
Speaker 1: mental hospital twenty seven years after his arrest, the memory
46:28
Speaker 1: of his horrible crimes lived on, buried in his family plot.
46:34
Speaker 1: Geen's tombstone was vandalized repeatedly. Authorities finally placed it in
46:39
Speaker 1: storage for safekeeping.
46:42
Speaker 2: Ed Gean turned life in Plainfield, Wisconsin on its head.
46:47
Speaker 2: Media poured in for the trials. For all the attention
46:51
Speaker 2: in these very aberrant homicide cases, national attention, international attention.
46:57
Speaker 2: The world had its eye focused on Plainfield, Wisconsin and
47:02
Speaker 2: the residents there. They were never going to be the
47:04
Speaker 2: same because in their minds and in their hearts, they
47:09
Speaker 2: realized can I really know if there's not another ed
47:13
Speaker 2: Geen out here, someone that I know who could be
47:16
Speaker 2: doing the same thing. The attention from nineteen fifty seven
47:21
Speaker 2: to present day never left Plainfield, Wisconsin. It always has
47:24
Speaker 2: that moniker as the city that grew the monster ed Geen,
47:30
Speaker 2: the psychotic monster that was digging up graves and cutting
47:35
Speaker 2: up women and wearing women's clothing and a houseful of
47:40
Speaker 2: vaginas and breasts and lamps and chairs made out of
47:44
Speaker 2: human skin. That community will always be known for that,
47:47
Speaker 2: and not for the people that were in the community,
47:50
Speaker 2: And I think that was very difficult for them to
47:53
Speaker 2: deal with. They never wanted that focus.
47:57
Speaker 1: But the legacy of ed Geen will never die. He
48:01
Speaker 1: put a face on true horror. And the most shocking
48:05
Speaker 1: thing is how plain and simple that face of terror
48:10
Speaker 1: truly is.
48:12
Speaker 3: Monsters are real, and the scary thing is they look
48:15
Speaker 3: just like you and I.
48:17
Speaker 1: In nineteen fifty nine, just two years after Gene's arrest,
48:21
Speaker 1: Wisconsin native Robert Bloch published the book Psycho. In it,
48:27
Speaker 1: the main character Norman Bates, obsessed with his late mother,
48:31
Speaker 1: kills victim after victim in the small town of Fairvale.
48:35
Speaker 1: The film adaptation of Block's novel is one of the
48:38
Speaker 1: most famous horror films of all time, and behind it
48:45
Speaker 1: all is ed gen a man who could have gone
48:50
Speaker 1: unnoticed by the world if it weren't for his sick
48:54
Speaker 1: appetite for female flesh and a bizarre obsession with his mother.
49:03
Speaker 4: In many ways, ed Gean was a very ordinary guy.
49:06
Speaker 3: He lived alongside his victims for years before they became
49:09
Speaker 3: his victims. I think that's what's so shocking about ed
49:12
Speaker 3: Dean's case is it's horrifying a thing that there's somebody
49:15
Speaker 3: who could be just like us, looks like us, lives
49:17
Speaker 3: with us, interacts with us, and in the end it
49:20
Speaker 3: becomes a predator of us. And that's why I think
49:23
Speaker 3: Edgeen has lived on in infamy as the face of evil.
49:27
Speaker 1: Two bloody murders, a grave rubber that steals human bodies,
49:34
Speaker 1: and a suit sewn from female flesh. These things shouldn't
49:40
Speaker 1: be real, but they are. It's the true story of
49:45
Speaker 1: ed Gean, a psycho, the ghoul of playing Field. Behind
49:52
Speaker 1: the screams