"MOTHER'S BOY: The Making of Ed Gein and His Dark Legacy" (Part 2 of 2)

0:03 Caalarogus Shark Media. Good morning, I'm Reed Carter, Sunday, October twelfth, twenty twenty five. Yesterday we showed you what ed Geen did. The murders, the grave, robbing, the house full of human remains fashioned into furniture, two women dead, forty graves violated, fifteen different bodies turned into household items. Today we tell you about Augusta Gean, Ed's mother, The woman who raised him in isolation on a Wisconsin farm. The woman who taught him that all women except her were sinful, disgusting vessels of satan. The woman who forbade him from having friends, relationships, or any life outside her control. The woman who died in nineteen forty five and left Ed so broken that he spent the next twelve years trying to bring her back by robbing graves of women who looked like her, by murdering women who reminded him of her, by wearing a suit made from women's skin so he could become her.

1:05 Today we also tell you how ed Geen became entertainment. How his crimes inspired Norman Bates keeping his mother's corpse in Psycho, How he inspired leatherface wearing human skin masks in Texas Chainsaw Massacre. How he inspired Buffalo Bill making a woman's suit in Silence of the Lambs. How the quiet farmer from Plainfield, Wisconsin became the template for every skin wearing, mother obsessed serial killer in American cinema. And today we ask the uncomfortable question, what does it mean that we turned ed Gean into entertainment, that we built horror franchises on his crimes? That Netflix just released a series dramatizing the man who murdered Bernice Warden and Mary Hogan and turned them into furniture. I'm read Carter, this is part two of Celebrity Trials, Mother's Boy, the psychology, the trial, the legacy, and why ed Gean should be fascinating.

2:01 But he is. And that's the problem. To understand ed Geen, you have to understand Augusta Geen. And to understand Augusta you have to understand that she was one of the most controlling, fanatically religious, psychologically abusive mothers in American criminal history. Augusta Villelmina Leerka was born in eighteen seventy eight in Wisconsin to German immigrant parents. She was raised in a strict Lutheran household, where women were subservient, children were obedient, and God's judgment hung over every action. She absorbed these lessons completely, then she weaponized them. In nineteen hundred, Augusta married George Geen. She was twenty two. George was a tanner, then later a carpenter. By all accounts, George was weak, passive, an alcoholic. Augusta despised him, called him worthless, told her sons their father was a failure and a sinner. Made it clear that George's only purpose was providing money, and that otherwise he was beneath contempt. Augusta had two sons, Henry born in nineteen oh one, Edward born in nineteen oh six. From the moment they were born, Augusta controlled every aspect of their lives, not with love, with religion, with fear, with the absolute certainty that she alone knew God's will and everyone else was damned. Augusta believed that the world outside her farm was evil. Cities were cesspools of sin. Other people were corrupt women. All women except

3:34 her were prostitutes and temptresses sent by Satan to lure good men into damnation. The only safe place was the green farm. The only righteous person was Augusta. Everyone else was going to hell. She made sure Ed understood this from childhood. Other children were sinful. Playing with them would corrupt him. School was necessary for education, but dangerous for socialization. To go to school, learn his lessons, and come home immediately, no friends, no talking to other children, no participation in anything social. Other families might have gone to church for community, Augusta went to church to judge. She attended a small Lutheran church in Plainfield, where she sat in the front row and glared at other parishioners, whom she considered insufficiently pious.

4:22 She read from the Bible every day at home, focusing particularly on the Old Testament passages about death, murder, divine retribution, and female sin. Augusta was obsessed with female sexuality as sin. She read ed passages from the Bible about Harlot's and Jezebel and women leading men astray. She told him that women's bodies were disgusting, that sex was a sin unless it was for procreation within marriage, that any woman who enjoyed sex, or dressed immodestly or laughed too loudly was a whore destined for hell all women except Augusta. She was different. She was pure, she was righteous. She was the only woman in the world who wasn't corrupted by sin.

5:06 Ed absorbed all of this. He had no choice. Augusta controlled what he read, what he heard, who he talked to, where he went, what he thought. From ages five to forty, Ed Geen lived under total psychological domination by his mother. The Green Farm was one hundred sixty acres outside Plainfield, isolated, no close neighbors, the perfect place for Augusta to create her closed world. She ran the farm with Germanic efficiency, made the boy's work constantly physical. Labor was godly, Idleness was sin ed and Henry did farm work from dawn to dusk, then came inside for Bible reading and more lectures about sin and salvation. George Geen was barely present.

5:54 He drank, he disappeared for days. He had no authority in his own home. Augusta made all decisions, controlled all money, ran everything. George was just an occasional figure stumbling drunk through the background of Ed's childhood. Henry, the older brother, started questioning Augusta as he got older, started pushing back, started suggesting that maybe their mother was wrong about some things. Maybe other people weren't all evil, Maybe the world outside the farm wasn't hell on earth. Augusta punished Henry for this insolence, berated him, called him sinful, told him he was becoming like his worthless father. The conflict between Henry and Augusta grew more intense as Henry entered his twenties and thirties. He wanted to escape, wanted a life outside the farm, but Augusta wouldn't allow it. Ed, meanwhile, never questioned. Augusta, never pushed back, never developed the psychological independence that Henry showed.

6:56 Ed believed everything Augusta said. Believed women were sinful, believed the outside world was evil. Believed his mother was the only pure person on earth. Believed his purpose was serving her. When other boys in school talked about girls, Ed was horrified. When other teenagers started dating. Ed stayed home. When other young men got married and started families, Ed remained at the farm with his mother. He didn't go to dances, didn't have girlfriends, didn't have any relationship with any woman except Augusta. People in Plainfield noticed Ed was odd, socially awkward, would laugh at inappropriate times. Seemed nervous around women, but he was harmless. Helped with farm work, did odd jobs, babysat children and was good at it. Gentle and patient. Strange, yes, dangerous no. April first, nineteen forty George gen dies heart failure, likely alcohol related. He's sixty six years old. Augusta shows no grief. George was a sinner and a failure. His death changes nothing for her except removing an annoyance. She still has her sons, She still has her farm. She still has complete control. May sixteenth, nineteen forty four, Henry and Ed are fighting a brush fire on the farm.

8:17 The fire gets out of control. Henry disappears in the smoke. Ed runs to get help, returns with fire fighters. They find Henry's body lying in an area of the farm that the fire hadn't reached. He's dead. The official cause of death is listed as asphyxiation from smoke, but Henry has bruises on his head. The fire didn't reach where his body was found. Ed reported Henry missing, then led searchers directly to the body, even though visibility was poor. The circumstances are suspicious. Some investigators suspect Ed killed Henry that the brothers fought, that Henry said something about Augusta that Ed couldn't tolerate, that Ed struck Henry and left him to die. There's no evidence, no witnesses, no proof, but the suspicion lingers did Ed kill his brother to protect his mother's honor. Will never know for certain. What we do know is that after Henry's death, it was just Ed and Augusta. Ed was thirty eight years old, never had a job off the farm, never had a girlfriend, never had any life separate from his mother. He was perfectly content with that arrangement. Augusta was his entire world.

9:32 December twenty ninth, nineteen forty five. Augusta suffers a stroke. She's paralyzed on her left side. Ed cares for her, devotedly feeds her, bathes her, dresses her, talks to her constantly, even though she can barely respond. He's terrified of losing her. She's the only person who matters, the only person who ever mattered. Augusta recovers somewhat. She's weaker, but she's still Augusta, still dominating, still controlling, still the center of Ed's universe. December twenty ninth, nineteen forty five, exactly one year after her first stroke, Augusta has a second stroke. This one is fatal. She dies at home with Ed beside her.

10:17 She's sixty seven years old. Ed is thirty nine, and for the first time in his life, he's alone, completely, utterly alone. The woman who controlled every moment of his existence is gone. The woman he believed was the only pure person on earth is dead. The woman who gave his life structure and meaning and purpose no longer exists. Ed's response is psychological collapse. He boards up Augusta's bedroom, boards up the parlor where she spent time, boards up the upstairs, seals off entire sections of the house so they remain exactly as Augusta left them, creates a shrine to his dead mother in the rooms where she lived.

10:59 The rest of the house deteriorates into squalor, trash, piling up newspapers, accumulating clutter and filth everywhere. Ed lives in one small room and the kitchen lets. Everything else decay except Augusta's rooms. Those stay pristine, untouched, waiting for her to return. But Augusta doesn't return, and Ed can't accept that she's gone. Forever. So two years after her death, around nineteen forty seven, Ed starts reading obituaries, looking for middle aged women, women who resemble Augusta, women who might in some way bring her back. That's when the grave robbing begins. Ed is trying to resurrect his mother, trying to surround himself with women who look like her, trying to study female anatomy so he can understand the woman who controlled his entire life, trying to become her by wearing skin fashioned from women who reminded him of her.

11:58 The psychiatric experts who later evaluate Ed call this a mother fixation and gender confusion and necrophilic tendencies, clinical terms for what happened when Augusta Gean spent forty years psychologically destroying her son and then died, leaving him broken in ways that expressed themselves through grave robbing and murder. Did Augusta Gean create Ed Geen the killer? Yes and no. Plenty of people have controlling, religious, psychologically abusive mothers and don't become serial killers. Plenty of people have isolated childhoods and don't rob graves. Plenty of people lose their mothers and grieve normally instead. Of making furniture from corpses. But Augusta created the specific conditions that, combined with whatever was already wrong with Ed, psychologically produced the Butcher of Plainfield.

12:51 She isolated him from normal social development. She taught him that women were disgusting and sinful. She made herself the only acceptable female in his universe. Then she died and left him with no ability to process loss, no social skills, no relationships, and no identity separate from being her son. Ed tried to fill that void with corpses, with grave robbing, with murder, with a woman suit that let him become Augusta. None of it worked, none of it brought her back. But Ed kept trying for twelve years until Sheriff Art Schley opened the door to his farmhouse and found Bernice Warden hanging from the ceiling back with more in a moment.

13:44 After ed Geene's arrest, psychiatrists spend months evaluating him, trying to understand what combination of factors created the Butcher of Plainfield, trying to determine if he's competent to stand trial, trying to answer whether he understood right from wrong when he killed Bernice Worden and Mary Hogan. The psychiatric reports paint a picture of profound psychological dysfunction. Ed has what they call a mother fixation. His entire psychological development was arrested by Augusta's dominance. He never developed a separate identity, never individuated, never became a complete person independent of his mother. Ed also shows evidence of gender confusion, not transgender identity in the modern understanding, but a deep conflict about his own masculinity and a desire to literally become female. The woman's suit wasn't just a costume. It was Ed's attempt to physically transform into a woman, specifically into his mother. When psychiatrists ask ed why he robbed graves and murdered women, he struggles to articulate it. Says he wanted to study female anatomy, Says he wanted to understand women. Says he wanted to have women around. Says his mother told him women were disgusting, but he needed to see for himself.

15:00 He doesn't express remorse, not because he's without conscience, but because he genuinely doesn't seem to understand why what he did was wrong. In Ed's mind, the women he robbed from graves were already dead. They weren't using their bodies anymore. Why shouldn't he use them? Why shouldn't he study them? Why shouldn't he fashion them into useful items. The murders are harder for Ed to explain. He claims not to fully remember killing Mary Hogan or Bernice Warden, says he was in a daze. Says it felt like watching someone else do it, says the memories are fragmentary and dream like. Psychiatrists debate whether this dissociation is real or convenient. Some think Ed genuinely entered a dissociative state during the murders, that the act of killing triggered such psychological conflict that his mind protected him by creating distance from the memory.

15:54 Others think Ed remembers perfectly well, but claims amnesia because it's easier than confronting what he did did. What's clear is that Ed doesn't have psychopathy in the classic sense. He's not charming or manipulative. He doesn't enjoy causing suffering. He doesn't torture victims or prolong their deaths. His murders are quick, single gunshots, efficient mechanical. The violence comes after death during the butchering process, and even that is methodical rather than frenzied. Ed isn't killing for pleasure. He's killing to obtain bodies, fresh bodies that he can work with, preserve, fashion into his creations. The women themselves are secondary to what they provide. They're raw materials, components tools for Ed's project of resurrecting or becoming his mother. That psychological disconnect treating human beings as raw materials is what makes Ed so disturbing. He's not sadistic. He's practical, the same way a carpenter selects goodwood for a project Ed selected women who fit his criteria, the same way a craftsman works carefully with his materials. Ed carefully butchered and preserved his victims.

17:05 There's also the necrophilia. Ed admits to having sexual contact with some of the bodies from graves, not all of them, some were too decomposed, but the fresher ones. Yes. He doesn't volunteer this information, has to be asked directly, then confirms it without shame or embarrassment. Psychiatrists note that Ed shows no understanding of social norms around death, bodies or human dignity. He was raised in complete isolation, with only Augusta's bizarre worldview as reference. He has no framework for understanding why robbing graves is wrong or why making lampshades from human skin is horrifying. To Ed, these are just things he did. Projects he worked on solutions to his loneliness.

17:48 The question for the legal system becomes is Ed insane? Does he meet the legal definition of not knowing right from wrong? He clearly knows society disapproves. He hid his activities, lied when people asked about his nighttime trips, kept the house locked, and discouraged visitors. He understood that other people would object to what he was doing. But did he understand that it was morally wrong or did he just understand that it was socially unacceptable. There's a difference. Lots of people do things they know others disapprove of without believing those things are actually wrong. Ed seems to fall into that category. He knew people would be upset if they found out about his grave robbing and his human skin furniture, but he didn't believe what he was doing was actually wrong. The women were dead, He wasn't hurting anyone who was alive. Why should anyone care? This is the psychological impact of Augusta's isolation. Ed never developed normal moral reasoning because he never had normal social experiences to build that reasoning on. His only moral framework was Augusta's framework.

18:56 Everything is sin except what Augusta permits, and Gusta was gone, so Ed created his own permissions. The psychiatric evaluation concludes that ed Gen suffers from schizophrenia, not the type with dramatic hallucinations and delusions, but a subtle form characterized by emotional flatness, social withdrawal, bizarre thinking, and inability to distinguish reality from his internal fantasy world. In Ed's mind, his mother is still alive in some form. The women he robs and kills aren't really gone, they're transformed. The distinction between living and dead is blurred. Is this legal insanity?

19:37 The courts will spend years trying to answer that question. November nineteen fifty seven, ed Geen is arrested, confesses to two murders and forty grave robberies. The case seems straightforward. Put him on trial, convict him, execute him, or imprison him for life. Just this is served, Except it's not straightforward because ed Geen might be legally insane, and if he's insane, he can't stand trial. And if he can't stand trial, he can't be convicted. And if he can't be convicted, what happens to him? January nineteen fifty eight, Judge Herbert Bundy orders ed to undergo psychiatric evaluation to determine if he's competent to stand trial. Competency is different from insanity. Competency means does the defendant understand the charges against him? Can he assist in his own defense? Can he participate meaningfully in legal proceedings. Ed is evaluated by psychiatrists at Central State Hospital in Walpin, Wisconsin. They spend months observing him, testing him, interviewing him, trying to determine if he's capable of standing trial. The psychiatrists conclude, No, ed Green is not competent. He suffers from chronic schizophrenia.

20:53 He cannot understand the nature and consequences of the proceedings against him. He cannot assist his attorney in preparing a de He's mentally ill to the point where a trial would be meaningless. Judge Bundy accepts this finding. January sixth, nineteen fifty eight. Ed Geen is committed to Central State Hospital indefinitely. Not as punishment as treatment, with the possibility that he might eventually become competent and face trial. This outcome horrifies Bernice Worden's family, horrifies Mary Hogan's family, horrifies the people of Plainfield, who wanted to see Ed stand trial and be punished for his crimes. Instead, he's in a mental hospital, receiving treatment, protected from trial because he's too mentally ill to understand it. But this is the law.

21:44 You can't try someone who doesn't understand what's happening. It violates due process, even if everyone knows Ed is guilty, even if he confessed, even if the evidence is overwhelming. The sixth Amendment guarantees the right to a fair trial, and you can't have a fair trial with a defendant who doesn't comprehend the proceedings. So Ed sits in Central State Hospital for years, receiving antipsychotic medication, attending therapy sessions, participating in hospital activities, being evaluated periodically to see if his competency has been restored. March nineteen sixty eight, ten years after being committed, Ed is evaluated again. The psychiatrists determine that his condition has improved. He's no longer actively psychotic, he understands the charges against him, he can assist in his defense. He's competent to stand trial. November nineteen sixty eight, ed Gean finally faces trial, eleven years after Bernice Warden's murder.

22:45 He's sixty two years old. The trial is for Bernice's murder only. Prosecutors decide to try the clearest case rather than introducing the complications of Mary Hogan's older murder. The trial lasts one week. The evidence is overwhelming. Edie confession, the receipt with his name, Bernice's body found in his house. Ed's lawyers don't contest the facts. Their defense is insanity. Ed was legally insane at the time of the murder, unable to understand that killing Bernice Warden was wrong. The jury hears from psychiatric experts. Here's Ed's confession. Here's about the grave robbing and the human skin furniture and the woman suit. Here's about Augusta Geen and the isolated childhood and the mother fixation. November fourteenth, nineteen sixty eight, after one day of deliberation, the jury returns its verdict not guilty by reason of insanity. Ed Geen is not convicted of murder. He's found legally insane at the time of the crime, which means he's not criminally responsible, which means no punishment, no prison sentence, no execution, just continued commitment to a mental hospital. Judge Robert Golmar accepts the verdict and orders Ed committed to Central State Hospital for the rest of his life, this time not for treatment to restore competency, but as punishment and protection for society. Ed will never be released. We'll spend the rest of his life in psychiatric custody. The families of Bernice Warden and

24:16 Mary Hogan get no satisfaction from this verdict. No conviction, no punishment, just a determination that Ed was too crazy to be held responsible for butchering their loved ones and turning them into furniture. But this is the insanity defense working as designed. If someone genuinely cannot understand right from wrong due to mental illness, punishing them is meaningless. They're not deterred, they can't learn from punishment. They need treatment and permanent confinement, not vengeance. The question is whether Ed truly couldn't understand that murder was wrong, or whether he just had such bizarre psychology that he didn't care. The jury decided the former ed was insane, genuinely legally insane, to disconnected from reality to be held criminally responsible. So ed Geen never serves a day in prison, never receives punishment for his crimes, spends the rest of his life in a mental hospital, where he becomes, by all accounts, a model patient. He's cooperative, helpful, polite to staff, participates in therapy, takes his medication without complaint, follows all rules, causes no problems. He's so well behaved that he's given increased privileges access to books, magazines, television. He's allowed to work in the hospital kitchen, becomes friends with some staff members.

25:38 The horrifying truth is that ed Geen, the butcher of Plainfield, who murdered women and robbed graves and made furniture from human skin, is apparently a pretty decent guy. Once he's medicated and supervised. He's not violent, not aggressive, not dangerous to other patients or staff, just a quiet, odd older man living out his days in institutional care. In nineteen seventy four, ed Is transferred to Mendota Mental Health Institute in Madison, Wisconsin. It's a less restrictive facility than Central State, more freedoms, better conditions. Ed continues being a model patient, continues cooperating with treatment, continues living peacefully in psychiatric custody.

26:22 July twenty sixth, nineteen eighty four, ed Gen dies cancer, specifically respiratory failure secondary to lung cancer. He's seventy seven years old. He's been in psychiatric custody for twenty six years. Never faced execution, never served a prison sentence, just lived quietly in mental hospitals until cancer killed him. He's buried in Plainfield Cemetery, Plainfield, the town where he committed his crimes, where Bernice Worden lived and died, where Mary Hogan disappeared. His grave is unmarked at first, but someone eventually places a small stone with just his name and dates. Grave robbers repeatedly steal Ed's headstone, not because they're fans, but because it's worth money. Collectors want pieces of ed Gean's grave marker. The macabre fascination that will define his legacy is already beginning. In two thousand, Ed's headstone is stolen again and never recovered. His grave remains unmarked, now just a spot in Plainfield Cemetery, where the Butcher of Plainfield rests among the people whose graves he once robbed. Bernice Warden is buried in Plainfield Cemetery too, about two hundred feet from ed Geen, the woman he murdered, and the man who murdered her resting in the same cemetery. That's how small Plainfield is, That's how intertwined these stories remain.

27:50 Ed Geen died in nineteen eighty four, but culturally he never died. He became immortal, not as ed Geen, but as every skin wearing, mother obsessed serial killer who came after. Let's start with the first and most famous, Norman Bates. Writer Robert Bloch is living in Wisconsin, about thirty five miles from Plainfield. The ed Gen story is still fresh. It's only been two years since the murders. Block is a horror writer, and the ed Geen case fascinates him, not the grave robbing or the furniture. The mother fixation, the idea of a man so dominated by his mother that even after her death, he can't escape her control.

28:31 Block writes a novel called Psycho. It's about Norman Bates, a man who runs a motel with his mother, except his mother is dead. Norman killed her years ago, then couldn't accept her death, so he preserved her corpse and keeps it in the house. He talks to her, argues with her. When the mother personality takes control, Norman dresses in her clothes and commits murders, then forgets about them. Sound familiar dead mother, preserved corpse, son who can't let go Oh, psychological split causing murders. The son doesn't remember. That's ed Geen. Not literally block change details, but the core psychology is ed the mother fixation, the inability to accept her death, the crimes committed while mentally dissociated. Alfred Hitchcock makes Psycho into a movie. Anthony Perkins plays Norman Bates.

29:23 The movie is shocking for its time, the shower scene, the twist ending revealing Norman's mother has been dead all along, the portrait of a seemingly normal man who's actually profoundly disturbed. Psycho becomes one of the most influential horror films ever made, creates the template for the American serial killer movie, and at its core is ed Geen's relationship with his mother, Ed's inability to escape her control. Even after death. Ed's psychological fracture that made him capable of murder while believing himself innocent. Norman Bates is ed Geen sanitized, made cinematic, given a different story but the same psychology, and millions of people watch Psycho without knowing they're watching a dramatization of the Butcher of Plainfield. Tobe Hooper makes the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It's loosely inspired by true events. The opening text claims those true events are ed Geen's crimes. Leatherface, the killer wears masks made from human skin, lives in an isolated farmhouse full of bones and body parts used as furniture, kills with brutal efficiency. His family uses human remains to decorate their home. Lampshades, chairs, walls covered in bones and skin. That's ed Geen's house. That's what police found when they searched Ed's farmhouse. The skin, masks, the bones, the furniture made from human remains, leather faces ed green, with the grave robbing removed and the violence amplified for

30:56 horror purposes. The Texas Chainsaw mass becomes a horror classic, spawns sequels, becomes a franchise, and Most people who watch it don't know they're looking at a recreation of ed Gen's farmhouse. Don't know that the horrifying decorations in Leatherface's house were real items found in Ed's home. Thomas Harris publishes the Silence of the Lambs. It's about FBI trainee Clarice Starling hunting a serial killer called Buffalo Bill who's kidnapping women and skinning them. Why is he skinning them? Because Buffalo Bill wants to become a woman. He's making a woman's suit from real women's skin. He's planning to wear it to transform himself, to literally become female by wearing skin taken from female victims. That's ed Geen. That's the woman's suit police found in Ed's house. That's Ed's stated motivation. He wanted to become a woman, specifically, wanted to become his mother, so he made a suit from the skins of women who resembled her. The Silence of the Lambs becomes a movie. Buffalo Bill, played by Ted Levine, dances in his basement wearing his woman suit. Would you fuck me? I'd fuck me, he says into the camera, admiring himself wearing someone Else's skin. The movie wins five Academy Awards, including Best Picture. It's acclaimed as a masterpiece of psychological horror, and at its core is ed Gean's woman suit, Ed's desire to transform into a woman. Ed's

32:27 crimes made cinematic and given to a fictional killer. Three landmark horror films, Three iconic villains Norman Bates, Leatherface, Buffalo Bill, all derived from ed Geen, all taking pieces of his crimes in psychology and making them into entertainment. And it doesn't stop there. Ed Gean influences countless other films, books, TV shows. Anytime you see a serial killer with a mother fixation, that's Ed. Anytime you see someone wearing human skin, that's ED. Anytime you see furniture made from human remains, that's Ed. He becomes the template, the archetype, the original that everyone copies and reinterprets and builds on. The Butcher of Plainfield becomes Hollywood's favorite serial killer, inspiring literally dozens of fictional characters. Which brings us to twenty twenty five and Netflix's Monster, the ed Geen Story. This is the latest in the Monster anthology series that previously covered Jeffrey Dahmer and the Menendez brothers, Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan producing, Charlie Hunham playing ed Geen. A prestige series with major stars and big budget recreating Ed's crimes for streaming audiences.

33:40 The show is getting attention, getting reviews, getting viewers. People are watching ed Geen murder Bernice Werden and Mary Hogan, watching him rob graves, watching him make furniture from human skin, all dramatized, all given cinematic treatment, all turned into entertainment. And I have complicated feelings about this. On one hand, telling Edgen's story has value. Understanding how a person becomes capable of these crimes matters. Examining the psychology of killers can help prevent future killings. True crime has educational value when done responsibly. On the other hand, ed Geen murdered two women and violated forty graves. Bernice Warden and Mary Hogan are real people who died horribly. Their families are real people who suffered. Turning that into entertainment feels exploitative, feels like profiting from their tragedy feels like we've forgotten they were real victims, not characters in a horror story.

34:42 The problem with ed Gen's cultural legacy is that the more famous he becomes, the more forgotten his victims become. Everyone knows ed Geen. Everyone knows about the skin masks and the woman's suit and the furniture made from human remains. But how many people know Bernice Warden's name? How many people know Mary Hogan ran a tavern? How many people remember they were real women, with real lives who died because ed Geen decided they fit his criteria. The cultural fascination with ed Geen has turned him into a character, a monster, a horror movie villain, and in the process we've dehumanized him, which paradoxically makes us forget that his crimes were real, that his victims were real, that this isn't fiction. Norman Bates is fiction, leather Faces fiction, Buffalo Bill is fiction. But ed Geen was real. And because we've turned him into the inspiration for fictional killers, we start thinking of him as fictional too, as a character, as entertainment. That's the dark side of ed Gain's legacy.

35:47 We took real horror, two women murdered, forty graves, robbed, a house full of human remains, and we made it into movies and TV shows and books. We made it consumable, made it safe, made it something you can watch with popcorn on a Friday night. And in doing that, we've forgotten that Bernice Warden's son found his mother's headless body, that Mary Hogan's family waited three years to learn she was dead, That dozens of families discovered their loved one's graves had been robbed and their remains turned into furniture. So yes, watch Monster the ed Geen Story on Netflix. Watch Charlie Hunham play ed. Watch the recreation of the farmhouse, and the crimes and the psychology. But remember, while you're watching, this isn't just a horror story. This happened. These were real people, real crimes, real victims who deserved better than being forgotten in our fascination with the monster who killed them.

36:42 Back with more in a moment. Ed Geen spent twenty six years in psychiatric custody from nineteen fifty eight to nineteen eighty four, from age fifty two to age seventy seven, in a quarter century in mental hospitals, and by all accounts, he was a model patient. He took his medication without complaint, attended therapy sessions, followed all rules, never caused problems, never showed violence toward other patients or staff. The same man who murdered two women and robbed forty graves became in psychiatric custody, harmless, cooperative, almost pleasant. Staff members who worked with Ed over the years report that he was polite, helpful, would assist with tasks around the ward, would help other patients, would engage in conversations about normal topics, weather, sports, current events.

37:40 He seemed like a harmless, older man with an unfortunate past. Ed was allowed certain privileges. He could read books and magazines, watch television, work in the hospital kitchen, which he enjoyed because it reminded him of farm work. He was good at following routines, good at repetitive tasks, good at keeping busy. He rarely talked about his crimes. When he did, it was matter of fact, no emotion, no remorse that staff could detect, just acknowledgment that, yes, he'd done those things, the way someone might acknowledge they'd once worked as a carpenter or lived in a different town. Events that happened but didn't seem to affect him emotionally. Some psychiatric staff believed Ed's medication controlled his symptoms, that without antipsychotics, he might decompensate back into the psychological state that enabled his crimes.

38:32 Others thought Ed was only dangerous in the specific circumstances that existed before his arrest. Living alone, isolated without supervision or social contact, in a structured environment with support, he was fine either way. Ed lived out his years peacefully, no incidents, no relapses, no signs of the man who'd committed such horrifying crimes, just an aging psychiatric patient who followed rules and caused no trouble. In nineteen seventy four, when he was transferred to Mendoda Mental Health Institute, a reporter asked ed if he had any regrets. Ed thought about it, then said he regretted that his house had been so messy when police arrived. Said his mother would have been ashamed of how disorganized he'd let things get.

39:19 That's ed Gean, still thinking about his mother, still worried about her disapproval. Not regretting the murders or the grave robbing, or the furniture made from human skin, regretting that his house wasn't tidy enough. July nineteen eighty four, Ed is diagnosed with lung cancer. By this point, he's seventy seven years old, spent most of his adult life in psychiatric custody. The cancer is advanced inoperable. He has months to live at most. July twenty sixth, nineteen eighty four, Ed dies respiratory failure caused by the cancer. He dies peacefully in the hospital with medical staff present. No suffering, no drama, just an old old man dying of cancer after living longer than either of his victims. He's buried in Plainfield Cemetery.

40:06 His grave is initially marked with a simple stone, just his name and dates, no epitaph, no explanation, just Edward Theodore gen August twenty seventh, nineteen o six July twenty sixth, nineteen eighty four. The headstone is stolen repeatedly collectors want pieces of ed Geen memorabilia. His grave marker becomes a souvenir. Eventually, after the headstone is stolen for the last time in two thousand and never recovered, the grave is left unmarked today. If you visit Plainfield Cemetery you can find where ed is buried if you know where to look, but there's no marker, just a spot of ground. The Butcher of Plainfield rests in an unmarked grave in the town where he committed his crimes. Bernice Warden is in the same cemetery, about two hundred feet away. She has a proper headstone.

41:00 Mary Hogan is buried in a different cemetery, but also has a marked grave. The victims are memorialized properly. The killer is unmarked. Maybe that's appropriate. Ed Gean got enough attention in life, got famous, got turned into movies and books and TV shows. His victims deserve the memorials. He deserves to be forgotten. But he won't be forgotten because every time someone watches Psycho or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre or The Silence of the Lambs, they're watching ed Gean's legacy. Every time someone watches Monster the ed Geen Story on Netflix, they're engaging with his crimes. Ed Geen will be remembered forever for the worst possible reasons, for the most horrifying crimes.

41:41 And that's his legacy, not the quiet old man who died peacefully in a hospital bed, the Monster, the Butcher of Plainfield, the man who murdered women and robbed graves, and made furniture from human skin. That's how history remembers ed Geen. That's how it should remember him. The ed Geen Story two parts, two days, The crimes and the psychology, the murders and the mother, the horror, and the legacy. Ed Geen murdered Bernice Warden and Mary Hogan, robbed at least forty graves, turned human remains into furniture, made a woman suit from real women's skin so he could become his mother. Was found not guilty by reason of insanity, spent twenty six years as a model patient in psychiatric hospitals.

42:30 Died peacefully of cancer in nineteen eighty four. And somewhere along the way, ed Geen became entertainment. Became the inspiration for Norman Bates and Leatherface and Buffalo Bill, became the template for every skin wearing, mother obsessed serial killer in American horror. Became famous not for what he did to his victims, but for the creative ways he violated their bodies. That's the uncomfortable truth about ed Gan's cultural legacy. We turned real horror into entertainment, turned real victims into plot devices, turned real crimes into horror movies and TV shows and books that we consume for fun. Monster The ed Geen Story is streaming on Netflix now. It's well made, well acted, thoughtfully produced, and it's built on the murders of Bernice Worden and Mary Hogan, built on the violation of forty graves, built on crimes that devastated families and traumatized a community.

43:26 Should we watch it? Should we consume entertainment based on real murders? I don't have a simple answer. True crime serves a purpose education, understanding, prevention, But there's a line between education and exploitation, between understanding and glorification, between remembering victims and celebrating killers. I think the line is this, when we tell these stories, we have to remember the victims, have to say their names, have to honor their lives, have to treat them as real people who mattered, not as props. In the Killer's story, Bernice Warden was fifty eight years old hardware store owner Frank Warden's mother, respected member of Plainfield community. She opened her store on the morning of November sixteenth, nineteen fifty seven, and ed Geen shot her with a point three to two caliber rifle.

44:19 She should have lived another twenty years, had grandchildren, enjoyed retirement, died peacefully of old age. Instead, she's remembered as ed Geen's victim, as the body hanging in his summer kitchen, as the murder that finally got ed caught. That's not fair to Bernice. She was more than how she died. Mary Hogan was fifty one years old, tavern owner, divorced, worked hard running her business alone. She disappeared December eighth, nineteen fifty four, and wasn't found for three years. Her family spent three years wondering where she was, hoping she was alive, then learn she'd been murdered, dismembered, and turned into a mask. Mary deserves better than being a footnote in ed Geen's story. She deserves to be remembered as a person, as someone who lived and worked and mattered to her family and community. That's what we owe victims when we tell these stories. Remember them as people say their names, Honor their lives. Don't let them be forgotten in our fascination with the monsters who killed them. Ed Geen was a monster, but he was also a human being, created by specific circumstances, an abusive mother, severe mental illness, complete isolation, and a psychological break after Augusta's death. Understanding how he happened matters not to excuse him, not to sympathize, but to understand so we can recognize warning signs, so we can prevent future ed Geenes. But understanding ed Geen

45:53 shouldn't mean forgetting Bernice Worden and Mary Hogan shouldn't mean turning their deaths into entertainment. Wouldn't mean profiting from their tragedy without honoring their memory. So watch Monster, the ed Green Story. If you want, watch Psycho, Watch Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Watch Silence of the Lambs, consume the cultural legacy of the Butcher of Plainfield. But while you're watching, remember this wasn't fiction. This happened in Plainfield, Wisconsin in nineteen fifty seven. Two women were murdered, forty graves were robbed, a house full of human remains was discovered, families were devastated, a community was traumatized, and Hollywood turned it into entertainment. I'm reed.

46:38 Carter ed Geen died in nineteen eighty four, but his legacy lives forever, not because of what he did to his victims, because we won't stop making movies about him. Remember Bernice Worden, Remember Mary Hogan. Remember the dozens of women whose graves were robbed and whose remains were violated. There the real story there, Who deserved justice? There? Who we should remember? This has been celebrity Trials, the ed Geen Story, two parts, covering the crimes, the psychology, the trial, and the legacy of the Butcher of Plainfield. Tomorrow we're back to regular programming, whatever fresh horrors America produces, whatever celebrities do stupid things, whatever trials grip the nation. But for this weekend, we remembered ed Geen, not because he's fascinating, but because Bernice Worden and Mary Hogan deserve to have their stories told completely, deserve to be remembered as more than ed Geen's victims. See you Monday,