Oct. 11, 2025

"THE BUTCHER OF PLAINFIELD: Inside Ed Gein's House of Horrors" (Part 1 of 2)

Show Notes
Transcript

Reid Carter begins a two-part weekend special on Ed Gein, timed with Netflix's Monster series. November 16, 1957: Sheriff Art Schley enters Ed Gein's Wisconsin farmhouse looking for missing hardware store owner Bernice Worden and finds her headless body hanging from the ceiling. Then the inventory begins: lampshades made of human skin, skulls turned into bowls, furniture upholstered in human flesh, a "woman suit" made from real women. Reid covers the murders of Bernice Worden and Mary Hogan, the dozens of graves Ed robbed, and his confession delivered with chilling calm. Part one of the story that inspired Psycho, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Silence of the Lambs.

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Calarogus Shark Media. Good morning, I'm Reed Carter. Saturday, November sixteenth,

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nineteen fifty seven, Sheriff Art Schlay and Captain Lloyd's Schoforster

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push open the door to ed Gen's farmhouse outside Plainfield, Wisconsin.

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They're looking for Bernice Warden, the fifty eight year old

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hardware store owner who disappeared that morning. The last receipt

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in her store has ed Geen's name on it. There's

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a trail of blood leading out the back door. The

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farmhouse is dark, cluttered, smells of death and decay. Shlay

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moves through the kitchen toward a summer kitchen in the back.

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He lights a match. Hanging from the ceiling, suspended by ropes.

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At the ankles is a headless human body, gutted, dressed

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like a deer carcass. It's Bernice Warden. That's when Schlay

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starts looking around, really looking, and what he finds over

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the next several hours will haunt him for the rest

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of his life, will haunt everyone who enters that farmhouse

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will change American horror forever. Lamp shades made from human skin,

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wastebaskets made from human skin, chair seats upholstered in human skin,

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bowls made from the tops of human skulls. A shoe

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box containing nine volvas, leggings made from human leg skin,

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a corset made from a female torso, four noses, whole

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human bones, a pair of lips on a window shade drawstring,

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ten female heads with the tops sawed off, a hanging

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human head, masks made from the faces of real women,

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a mammary vest made from female breasts, and a full

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woman suit, an entire body suit fashioned from real human

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skin that someone could wear to become a woman. This

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isn't fiction. This isn't a Netflix horror series. This is

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what police found in ed Geen's farmhouse on November sixteenth,

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nineteen fifty seven, and we're about to tell you how

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it got there. I'm Reed Carter. Netflix just released Monster,

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the ed Geen Story. Before you watch the Hollywood version,

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hear the real story. This is part one of Celebrity Trials.

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The Butcher of Plainfield November sixteenth, nineteen fifty seven. Plainfield, Wisconsin,

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population six hundred and forty two. The kind of small

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town where everyone knows everyone, where crime means kids tipping

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over mailboxes, where the biggest excitement is Friday night football

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and the Saturday hardware store run. Bernice Warden owns Worden

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Hardware and Implements store on Main Street. She's fifty eight

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years old, widowed. Her son Frank is the Deputy Sheriff

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of Waushara County. She's respected, hard working, reliable. Opens the

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store every morning at eight sharp Saturday morning. Her son Frank,

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stops by the store around eight thirty. His mother isn't there.

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The store is open, but nobody's behind the counter. Frank

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finds the cash register open, finds blood on the floor,

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Finds a trail of bloe blood leading out the back

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door to where his mother usually parks. He finds the

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last receipt written in the sales book for anti freeze,

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a half gallon of anti freeze sold on credit. The

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name on the receipt ed Geen. Frank Worden knows ed Geen.

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Everyone in Plainfield knows ed Geen. Quiet bachelor farmer who

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lives alone on the Old Green property about seven miles

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outside town. Does odd jobs for people, baby sits occasionally harmless,

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odd maybe keeps to himself, but harmless except now Frank's

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mother is missing. There's blood on the floor, and ed

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Geen's name is the last thing written in her sales book.

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Frank calls Sheriff Art Schlee. They drive to Geen's farm.

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The house is dark, seemingly empty, but there's a pickup

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truck parked outside, fresh tire tracks. They decide to wait

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for a search warrant rather than enter immediately. While they wait,

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they canvass the neighborhood, ask around about ed Geen, and

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they start hearing stories, odd stories, Ed talking about how

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he could get women's bodies anytime he wanted, Ed talking

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about the anatomy of women in disturbing detail, Ed making

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unsettling jokes about death and bodies. Still, he's ed Geen,

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weird Ed who does odd jobs and babysits kids. He

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might know something about Bernice's disappearance. But he's not a suspect,

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not really, not yet. By late afternoon they have the warrant.

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Schlay and Captain Schofforster approach the farmhouse. It's a decrepit

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two story building hasn't been maintained in years, boards, loose windows,

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broken paint peeling. The property looks abandoned, even though Ed

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lives there. They enter through the front door. The interior matches,

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the exterior trash everywhere, old newspapers, stacked floor to ceiling, clutter, filth, decay.

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The only room that looks maintained is Ed's bedroom and

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a small kitchen area where he apparently eats. They move

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through the house room by room. Everything is covered in

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dust and grime, piles of junk, random objects. The place

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feels more like a hoarder's nest than a home. Then

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Schlay enters the summer kitchen, a small addition off the

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back of the house that stays cooler in warm weather.

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It's darker here. He lights a match. That's when he

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sees the body hanging from the ceiling, suspended by ropes

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tied around the ankles, headless, gutted from sternam to pelvis,

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completely eviscerated. The torso has been split open and all

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internal organs removed. It's been dressed out like a deer carcass,

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like something you'd see hanging in a slaughterhouse. Shlay staggers back.

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He's seen bodies before. He's a sheriff in rural Wisconsin.

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He's seen farm accidents, car crashes, hunting incidents. But this

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is different. This is deliberate methodical, surgical. He forces himself

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to look closer. The body is female, the head has

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been cut off cleanly, the hands are bound. This isn't

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a hunting accident. This is murder and butchery. Schlay runs

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outside and vomits. Then he calls for backup, every available officer,

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the state police, anyone, because if ed Geen did this

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to Bernice Warden, what else is in that house? The

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answer is everything, everything you could possibly imagine if you

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were designing a house of horrors, and things you couldn't

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imagine because they're too depraved for normal human minds to conceive.

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The inventory takes hours, it takes days, It takes weeks

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before they've cataloged everything found in Edgen's farmhouse, and with

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each new discovery, the horror deepens because this isn't just

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about Bernice Warden. This is about dozens of victims, dozens

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of women who ended up as household items in ed

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Geen's collection. Once police realize what they're looking at in

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ed Gen's farmhouse, they start documenting everything, photographing everything, cataloging

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every single item, because this isn't just a murder scene.

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This is evidence of crimes beyond comprehension. Let me walk

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you through what they found and understand. These aren't props

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from a horror movie. These are real human remains turned

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into functional household objects by a man who lived alone

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on a Wisconsin farm. In the kitchen they find four

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chairs with seats upholstered in human skin. Not covering, not decoration.

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The actual seat material is human skin that's been tanned

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and treated and used as upholstery. Someone sat in these chairs,

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ed sat in these chairs, maybe offered them to guess

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when people visited. They find a waste basket made from

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human skin. A functional waste basket, something you'd throw trash into,

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made from a real woman's skin. They find lamp shades,

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multiple lamp shades made from carefully removed and preserved human skin.

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Someone turned on these lamps red by the light they cast.

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The skin is thin enough to let light through, thick

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enough to be structurally sound. In the bedroom they find

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bowls made from the tops of human skulls. The skulls

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have been sawed in half horizontally, the top portion removed,

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the inside cleaned out. The result is a bowl shaped

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object made from the upper half of a human skull.

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These bowls contained random items, nails, rubber bands, everyday odds

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and ends. Ed used them as storage containers. They find

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a shoebox. Inside are nine volvas preserved in newspaper, just

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sitting in a shoebox like someone else might store photographs

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or mementos. Nine women's genitalia, carefully removed and saved. They

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find a heart, a human heart, sitting in a saucepan

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on the stove, like Ed was planning to cook it

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for dinner, or maybe he already had, nobody knows. They

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find a refrigerator in the summer kitchen, near where Bernice's

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body was Hanging Inside the refrigerator is a human head,

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carefully preserved, the face intact. But here's where it gets

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even worse. They find masks, multiple masks made from real

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human faces, not replicas, not rubber Halloween masks, actual preserved

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human faces that have been carefully removed from skulls and

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treated to maintain their appearance. You could hold these masks

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up to your own face. You could wear them, and

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based on the evidence, Ed did wear them. They find

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what investigators initially describe as a mammary vest, a vest

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made from a female torso with breasts attached. The entire

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chest and breast area of a woman removed, preserved, and

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fashioned into a wearable item. They find leggings made from

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human leg skin, complete leg skins that have been removed,

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treated and could be worn. They find whole human bones, femurs, skulls, ribs,

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some cleaned and displayed, others just lying around like furniture parts.

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They find ten female heads with the tops sawed off.

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Ten women's heads kept as souvenirs with the skull caps removed,

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Some mounted on bedposts, others sitting on shelves. They find

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four noses in a cup, just four human noses stored

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in a cup like spare buttons. They find a pair

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of human lips hanging as a decoration on a window

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shade pull actual lips, dried and preserved, used as home decor.

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They find a drum made from human skin stretched over

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a can, a functional drum, an instrument made from a person.

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And then they find the woman's suit. This is what

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haunts investigators most. It's a complete body suit made from

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the skins of real women, the torso, arms and legs

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of multiple women, pieced together to create something someone could wear,

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could put on, could become a woman by wearing the

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skin of dead women. Scattered throughout the house are organs

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in various states of preservation, internal organs that ed apparently

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kept because he found them interesting or useful. Hearts, livers, intestines,

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all stored like someone else might store tools or crafts supplies.

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The Wisconsin State Crime Lab later determines that ed Gen's

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farmhouse contains remains from at least fifteen different women, fifteen

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not including Bernice Warden, whose body was still hanging when

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police arrived. Think about that number. Fifteen women whose bodies

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were turned into household items. Fifteen women who ended up

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as furniture and decorations and masks and suits in ed

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Geen's house. But here's what makes this even more disturbing.

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Ed Geen didn't just kill these women. That would be

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horrible enough. Most of these women ed dug up from

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their graves. The grave robbing started years before Bernice Warden's murder, started,

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years before anyone even suspected Quiet ed Geen of anything

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worse than being awed. He would read obituaries in the

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local newspaper, find middle aged women who'd recently been buried,

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wait for a quiet night, go to the cemetery with

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a shovel and dig them up. Sometimes he took the

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whole body, sometimes just the head, sometimes just specific parts

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he wanted for whatever project he had in mind. He

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was selective, methodical, patient. This wasn't impulsive grave robbing. This

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was a systematic operation spanning years. Police eventually connect ed

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to at least forty grave robberies. Forty over the course

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of about twelve years, ed Gen dug up at least

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forty graves in three different cemeteries around Plainfield, all women,

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all middle aged, all matching a specific physical description. When

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they excavate some of the graves Ed mentioned, they find

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empty caskets or caskets with only the lower half of

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the body remaining. Ed preferred taking the parts from the

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torso up more useful for his purposes. The night watchman

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at one cemetery remembers seeing a dark figure near fresh

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graves multiple times over the years, but never investigated because

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he assumed it was grieving family members. It was Ed

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with a shovel robbing graves while the watchman unknowingly stood

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guard and ed did all of this while maintaining his

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reputation as harmless. Odd Ed the guy who babysat your kids.

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The guy who did odd jobs for seventy five cents

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an hour, the guy who helped farmers with butchering because

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he was good with a knife. That guy that was

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ed Geen, and he was spending his evenings robbing graves

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and his weekends turning corpses into furniture. But ed Geen

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didn't just rob graves. He murdered at least two women,

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maybe more. Definitely two Bernice Warden, whose body was hanging

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in his summer kitchen when police arrived, and Mary Hogan,

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whose disappearance three years earlier suddenly makes terrible sense back

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with more in a moment. December eighth, nineteen fifty four,

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three years before Bernice Warden's murder, Plainfield, Wisconsin. Mary Hogan

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owns a tavern about five miles from ed Geen's farm.

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She's fifty one years old, divorced, runs the tavern by

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herself most evenings. It's a small operation, local farmers, regulars,

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people from town stopping by for a drink. Late afternoon,

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December eighth, a customer enters the tavern. The place is empty.

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There's blood on the floor, a lot of blood, a

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blood trail leading out the back door, shellcasings from a

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point three to two caliber rifle. Mary Hogan is gone.

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Police investigate, no body, no witnesses, no suspects, just blood

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and shellcasings and a missing woman. The case goes cold.

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Mary Hogan becomes another unsolved disappearance in arl, Wisconsin. Maybe

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she ran away, maybe she had enemies, Maybe it was

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a robbery gone wrong, nobody knows. Fast forward to November sixteenth,

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nineteen fifty seven. Police are searching ed Gen's farmhouse. They've

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already found Bernice Warden's body, already started cataloging the horrors.

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Then they find a mask, a mask made from a

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human face. But this face is different from the others.

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This face has been carefully preserved with particular attention to detail.

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The skin tone is different, darker tanned from sun exposure.

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The features are distinct, recognizable. One of the investigators recognizes

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those features, the prominent nose, the shape of the face.

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He'd seen this face before at Mary Hogan's tavern. This

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is Mary Hogan's face, carefully removed, preserved, and kept by

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ed Gean as a mask. They keep searching. They find

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mary Hogan's head in the refrigerator. The same refrigerator, where

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Ed stored other body parts like someone else stores leftovers. Suddenly,

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Mary Hogan's disappearance makes sense. She didn't run away, She

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didn't have enemies who killed her. Ed Geen walked into

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her tavern on December eighth, nineteen fifty four, shot her

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with his point three to two caliber rifle, dragged her

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body out the back door, drove her to his farm,

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and over the following weeks, dismembered her and incorporated her

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remains into his collection. Mary Hogan became a mask, became

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a head in the refrigerator, became part of the inventory

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that police discovered three years later. She disappeared on a

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Tuesday evening in nineteen fifty four and wasn't found until

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nineteen fifty seven, by which time she'd been reduced to

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identifiable remains in a house of horrors. The investigation into

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Mary Hogan's disappearance had focused on her estranged husband, her

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ex boyfriends, customers who might have had grudges. Nobody looked

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at quiet Ed Geen. Nobody suspected the bachelor farmer, whoccasionally

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stopped by the tavern for a beer. He was just

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ed harmless. Ed except Ed had seen Mary Hogan and

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decided she fit his criteria. Middle aged, dark hair, sturdy build,

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reminded him of someone, so he killed her, took her body,

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and kept parts of her as trophies for three years

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while investigators chased false leads and her family wondered what happened.

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That's the thing about ed Geen that makes the story

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even more chilling. He didn't just kill impulsively. He selected

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victims based on specific criteria. Women who looked a certain way,

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women who reminded him of someone, women he could incorporate

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into his collection. Bernice Worden fit the criteria. Mary Hogan

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fit the criteria. The women whose graves he robbed all

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fit the criteria. There was a pattern, a type, a

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specific esthetic ed was pursuing with his murders and his

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grave robbing, and for years nobody noticed because ed Gean

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was harmless. Ed Gean babysat children, ed Gean helped with

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farm work. Ed Gan made joke and laughed and seemed

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like just another lonely bachelor farmer trying to get by.

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Mary Hogan's family didn't get closure for three years, didn't

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know she was dead until police found her remains in

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Ed's house. Didn't know she'd been murdered, dismembered, and turned

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into a mask until November nineteen fifty seven. Bernice Warden's

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son found his mother's body the same day she disappeared,

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but he had to live with knowing what ed had

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done to her, how she'd been butchered, how her body

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had been dressed out like a deer carcass, how Ed

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had methodically removed her head and internal organs with the

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same skill he'd used helping farmers butcher livestock. Two women murdered,

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at least forty graves robbed, fifteen different bodies identified in

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the remains, and all of it happening in quiet Plainfield, Wisconsin,

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where everyone knew ed Geen and nobody suspected a thing.

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We'll be right back with ed Gen's confession and the

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grave robbing operation that supplied his house of horrors. Ed

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Geen didn't start with murder. He started with graves, and

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he was patient about it. Nineteen forty seven, approximately two

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years after his mother, Augusta died, ed is forty one

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years old, living alone on the family farm. Isolated, grief stricken,

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he starts reading obituaries in the Plainfield newspaper, looking for

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middle aged women, looking for women who fit his criteria.

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When he finds one, he waits, waits for the funeral,

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waits for the burial, waits for a few days so

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the grave is no longer watched. Then, on a quiet night,

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he drives to the cemetery with a shovel Ed is

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a farmer. He knows how to dig. He's strong, patient, methodical.

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He excavates down to the casket. Usually takes him several

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hours of steady digging. He works alone in the dark,

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listening for anyone approaching, but cemeteries at two in the

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morning are empty. Nobody's watching except the dead. He reaches

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the casket, pries it open, looks at the body inside.

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If it's too decomposed, he moves on. If it's relatively fresh,

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He takes what he needs, sometimes the whole body, sometimes

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just the head, sometimes specific parts. He's selective. Then he

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fills in the grave, smooths over the dirt, makes it

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look undisturbed. By morning, there's no sign anyone was there.

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The family visiting the grave the next week has no idea.

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The casket six feet below contains half what they buried.

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Ed does this approximately forty times over twelve years, forty graves,

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three different cemeteries. Never gets caught, never even gets suspected

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until after they find Bernice Worden's body and he starts confessing.

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Police eventually excavate several of the graves ed mentioned. They

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find empty caskets, caskets with only the lower half of

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the body remaining, Caskets that ed had carefully opened, robbed

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and resealed without anyone noticing. Think about the families of

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these women. Think about burying your mother, your wife, your sister,

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visiting the grave bringing flowers, believing their resting peacefully, then

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finding out years later that ed Geen dug them up

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weeks after the funeral and turned them into lampshades. That's

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the additional horror of ed Geen's crimes. He violated not

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just the living, but the dead. Women who died natural deaths,

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been buried by grieving families, should have been at rest. Instead,

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they ended up as furniture in ed Geen's farmhouse. The

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graves ed robbed all belonged to middle aged women. Most

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were between forty five and sixty years old. Most had

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died of natural causes heart attacks, cancer, age related illness,

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Their deaths were normal, their burials were normal. What happened

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after was anything but normal. Ed specifically targeted women who

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resembled his mother. That's what the psychiatric evaluations would later reveal.

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Every woman whose grave he robbed looked like Augusta Geine,

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same age range, same build, same general appearance. Ed was

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trying to resurrect his mother through the bodies of women

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who reminded him of her. But grave robbing has limitations.

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Bodies decompose. Preserved remains aren't the same as fresh bodies,

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and Ed wanted fresh bodies. Wanted to work with material

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that was pliable, usable, fresh enough to treat and preserve

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and fashion into his creations. That's why he murdered Mary

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Hogan in nineteen fifty four. That's why he murdered Bernice

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Warden in nineteen fifty seven. Fresh bodies, women who fit

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his criteria, women he could kill and butcher and add

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to his collection without waiting for them to die natural

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and be buried and be dug up after decomposition had started.

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The grave robbing was practice was experimentation, was ED learning

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what he could do with human remains. The murders were

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the graduation. The moment Ed decided he didn't have to

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wait for women to die and be buried. He could

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create his own supply, and he did methodically, carefully, with

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the same patience he'd shown digging up graves in the

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middle of the night. Ed Geen didn't kill in rage,

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didn't kill impulsively. He killed the way a craftsman approaches

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a project, selected his materials, planned his work, executed with precision.

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Mary Hogan disappeared and nobody suspected Ed. Three years later,

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he walks into Bernice Warden's hardware store and does it again,

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and probably would have kept doing it if Frank Warden

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hadn't found that receipt with Ed's name on it. If

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Ed had paid cash instead of credit, he might never

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have been caught, might have killed again and again until

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someone finally noticed the pattern. Ed Geen is arrested the

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evening of November sixteenth, nineteen fifty seven, at a neighbor's

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house where he'd been eating dinner. He's not home when

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police first search his farm, because he's having dinner with

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his neighbors, making pleasant conversation, acting completely normal while Bernice

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Warden's body hangs gutted in his summer kitchen seven miles away.

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Police bring him to the station. He's calm, cooperative, almost cheerful.

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They start questioning him about Bernice Warden. Ed doesn't deny anything. Yes,

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he was at the hardware store that morning. Yes, he

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bought anti freeze on credit. Yes he shot Bernice Worden

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with his point three to two caliber rifle. Yes, he

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put her body in his pickup truck. Yes, he brought

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her back to his farm. Yes, he hung her up

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and dressed her out like a deer carcass. He explains

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all of this matter of facty, like he's describing how

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he fixed a fence or repaired attractor. No emotion, no remorse,

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no apparent understanding that what he's describing is horrifying. It's

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just what happened, just the facts. When investigators ask about

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Mary Hogan, Ed confirms that too. Yes, he killed Mary

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Hogan in December nineteen fifty four, walked into her tavern,

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shot her, dragged her body out, brought her to his farm.

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Same process as Bernice, same methodical approach. Two murders. Ed

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confesses to both. Provides details that only the killer would know.

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Case closed, except then investigators start asking about the other

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remains in his house, the furniture made from human skin,

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the masks made from faces, the bulls made from skulls.

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Where did all of that come from? Ed explains about

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the grave robbing. Says he started doing it a few

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years after his mother died in nineteen forty five. Says

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he wanted to have women around, wanted to study them,

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wanted to understand female anatomy, so he robbed graves forty

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graves over twelve years. He provides names, dates, cemetery, locations,

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00:26:03.599 --> 00:26:08.480
specific graves. He remembers. Some he can't remember exactly. Forty

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graves over twelve years means some blur together, but he

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remembers enough that investigators can verify his confession. They excavate graves,

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find them empty or partially empty, find that Ed was

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telling the truth about his systematic grave robbing operation. Then

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comes the strange part. Ed claims he can't really remember

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