Ed Gein [serial killer]

Calvin

“Welcome to the infamous edition of the Headstones and Microphones where we use AI to step into the past through a researched, first-person simulation done through creative story telling of history's most infamous people. Now, let’s meet our guest.”

Calvin

"Welcome to the podcast. Let’s start at the absolute beginning, where the public narrative hasn’t yet distorted who you were. When and where were you born, and what was your given name?"

White Male Guest

"I was born Edward Theodore Gein on August 27, 1906, right out in La Crosse County, Wisconsin."

Calvin

"What was your hometown and home life like as a child?"

White Male Guest

"Well, early on we moved out to a 155-acre farm just outside of Plainfield, Wisconsin. My mother, Augusta, wanted us away from what she saw as the sins and immorality of the city. It was real isolated out there, with our closest neighbors nearly a mile away. Home was strict. My father, George, was a hard-drinking man who could be real angry and abusive. But it was my mother who truly ruled the house. She raised my older brother Henry and me under constant, heavy religious preaching, warning us about the evils of the world and telling us that carnal desires were a curse."

Calvin

"Was there a story behind your name, or a nickname that stuck with you?"

White Male Guest

"Most folks just called me Ed around town, but after everything came to light in 1957, the newspapers gave me names I never would have called myself. They started calling me the Butcher of Plainfield and the Plainfield Ghoul."

Calvin

"What were you like as a child, and how many years of schooling did you actually attend?"

White Male Guest

"I was a real shy, quiet boy, and I didn't have any friends. A growth on my left eyelid gave me a bit of a lazy eye, and I had a lesion on my tongue that made me talk a little strange, so the other kids at school would poke fun at me. If I ever even tried to make a friend, my mother would punish me severely for it. I stayed in school until I graduated the eighth grade around age fourteen, and then I dropped out to stay and work on the farm, though I always did keep up a love for reading."

Calvin

"Was there a specific moment when you realized you were fundamentally different from everyone else?"

White Male Guest

"I can't say there was a single journal entry or formal assessment back then, but as a boy, I felt the difference every day. While other kids were running around together, I was completely isolated on that farm, caught between my father's beatings and my mother's harsh lectures, realizing my world just didn't look like anyone else's."

Calvin

"What’s a decision that changed everything for you, but felt small at the time?"

White Male Guest

"It didn't seem like a choice at the time, but after my mother passed away in late 1945, the loneliness in that empty farmhouse became too heavy to bear. I started reading books on human anatomy, grave robbing, and South Sea headhunters. In 1947, eighteen months after she died, I made the decision to go to the local cemetery at night. It started with just visiting her grave, but soon, driven by strange visions, I began digging. I kept her room entirely boarded up to preserve it exactly as it was, and I confined myself to just two small rooms in the house while I began gathering things from the local graveyards."

Calvin

"Let's talk about your early run-ins with the law. Before the world knew your name for your most infamous actions, what was your very first arrest or interaction with law enforcement, and what were the consequences?"

White Male Guest

"I never actually had a juvenile record or any arrests as a young man. I was just seen as a harmless, eccentric local handyman who did odd jobs and babysat for the neighbors. My very first actual arrest didn't happen until November 16, 1957, when the authorities came to my farm looking for Bernice Worden, and that was the end of it all."

Calvin

"At what moment did you realize your name would never be forgotten?"

White Male Guest

"It was right after my arrest in November 1957. Once the deputies searched my property and found the remains of Bernice Worden and Mary Hogan, along with the various items I had fashioned from the cemetery caskets, the media frenzy exploded. Reporters and investigators from all over the world completely descended on our quiet little town of Plainfield. The news was everywhere, and I knew right then the quiet life I had was gone forever."

Calvin

"Did fame make you more dangerous, or did it simply expose who you already were?"

White Male Guest

"The notoriety didn't change what I did, because it only came after everything was uncovered. The public spotlight simply laid bare the heavy obsessions and the deep psychological deterioration that had been going on entirely in secret behind the boarded-up windows of my farmhouse for a whole decade."

Calvin

"Who do you believe betrayed you first: a person, society, or your own instincts?"

White Male Guest

"I didn't have any accomplices to turn on me, as I did everything on my own. But my own mind and memory started slipping away from me toward the end. And on that final morning, it was a simple sales slip for a gallon of antifreeze that I left behind at the hardware store that gave my name to the sheriff's deputy."

Calvin

"What was your most unique habit or a random fact about you that would surprise people?"

White Male Guest

"People might be surprised to know how much of an avid reader I was, especially about anatomy and the wider world, despite never traveling. The physical exam for the army draft in Milwaukee back in 1942 was the absolute farthest I had ever traveled from my home in my entire life."

Calvin

"What did the public never understand about the pressure you were under at the time?"

White Male Guest

"During the long interviews and assessments with the doctors at the state hospital, I tried to explain the intense, magnifying attachment I had to my mother and the immense grief that broke my mind when she died. The public saw a monster, but inside that house, it was just an overwhelming, desperate loneliness and a mind completely crowded by strange visions."

Calvin

"Did you have any known rivalries that defined your career?"

White Male Guest

"I didn't have rivalries with other criminals or gangs. But after my arrest, there was a great deal of friction between the different local authorities. Sheriff Arthur Schley of Waushara County was brand new to the job and kept quiet, while Sheriff Herb Wanserski from the neighboring county kept stepping in to talk to the newspapers, sharing all kinds of wild theories about what I had done."

Calvin

"What personal battles were you fighting privately while the world was watching?"

White Male Guest

"While the state was preparing its cases, I was fighting a severe mental breakdown. The doctors and psychiatrists who examined me immediately after my arrest determined that I was suffering from deep schizophrenia and a severe mental illness, which kept me from being able to understand a courtroom for a very long time."

Calvin

"What was your darkest moment, and was there ever a time you wanted to walk away from it all?"

White Male Guest

"My darkest times were the nights spent wandering those cemeteries between 1947 and 1951, entirely consumed by a desire to recreate a presence I had lost, feeling completely unable to stop the compulsions that drove me out into the dark."

Calvin

"What truth was hardest to escape when you were alone at night?"

White Male Guest

"When I was alone, I struggled terribly with my own memory. During the examinations at Central State Hospital, I honestly complained of major memory deficits. There were terrible things the investigators asked me about, like the passing of Mary Hogan, where I genuinely could not piece together the full truth of what had happened in my own mind."

Calvin

"When the law finally closed in, how exactly were you brought to justice? Walk me through the final arrest, the charges that ultimately stuck, and the legal outcome of your trials."

White Male Guest

"On the evening of November 16, 1957, the police arrested me at a local grocery store after Frank Worden noted I was the last customer in his mother's shop. They searched my farm and found the remains. I was officially charged with first-degree murder in the Waushara County Court for the death of Bernice Worden. Because of my mental state, the judge ruled me unfit to stand trial in January 1958, and I was committed to the Central State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. Ten years later, in 1968, doctors decided I could finally participate in a trial. I was found guilty of the murder, but during the penalty phase, the court declared me not guilty by reason of insanity, and I was sent right back to the psychiatric institutions."

Calvin

"What’s the craziest rumor ever told about you, and what part of your story has been exaggerated the most?"

White Male Guest

"The rumors were wild because the sheriff put a ban on talking to the press, so the reporters just made things up. The district attorney told papers I was a cannibal, and some local folks claimed I used to tell them they were a few pounds shy of a dinner platter. Others claimed I was responsible for every missing person for miles around, including my own brother Henry's death in a brush fire back in 1944, even though the coroner had ruled that a total accident long before."

Calvin

"What is the biggest misconception people have about your life?"

White Male Guest

"People assume I was a calculated, bloodthirsty monster who hunted down dozens of victims. In reality, the vast majority of what the police found came from grave robbing newly buried caskets. Despite all the rumors and the movies they made based on me, I was only ever linked to and charged with the two deaths."

Calvin

"What would surprise people most about your ordinary, human side?"

White Male Guest

"Local folks always knew me as a mild-mannered, soft-spoken guy. I was a dependable handyman around Plainfield who fixed fences, helped out on farms, and was even trusted by local parents to babysit their children."

Calvin

"When, where, and how did you pass away?"

White Male Guest

"I passed away on July 26, 1984, at the age of seventy-seven. I was staying at the Mendota Mental Health Institute in Madison, Wisconsin, and the cause of my death was respiratory failure brought on by cancer."

Calvin

"Was your downfall caused more by your own flaws or by the world changing around you?"

White Male Guest

"It was entirely the collapse of my own mind. The world outside Plainfield was moving right along into the modern era, but I was completely trapped in the past, completely undone by my own psychological illness and the grief I couldn't escape."

Calvin

"What past regrets did you carry with you to the end? If you could erase one decision from your life, would you—or was it necessary to become who you were?"

White Male Guest

"I always carried the deep regret of the lives taken and the pain caused to the families in Plainfield. If I could have quieted the voices and the visions after my mother died, and chosen to seek help instead of opening those cemetery gates, I would have taken a completely different path."

Calvin

"What scared you more: getting caught, losing power, or being forgotten?"

White Male Guest

"Losing my mother was the only thing that ever truly terrified me. Once she was gone, the fear of being entirely alone in that silent farmhouse outweighed any fear of the law or what the world thought of me."

Calvin

"When you look back now, do you see yourself as the villain, the hero, or something in between?"

White Male Guest

"The court and history rightfully see the tragedy and the horror of what I did, labeling me a villain. In my own broken mind back then, I didn't see a hero or a villain—I just saw a man completely lost in the dark, trying to piece together a world that had completely fallen apart."

Calvin

"Ed, before we sign off today, do you have any closing remarks about the interview or the stories you've shared that you would like to leave with our listeners?"

White Male Guest

"I just hope folks realize that isolation and an untreated, breaking mind can lead a person down a deeply dark road. I appreciate the chance to speak quietly and set the facts straight from the rumors."

Calvin

"And that wraps up another conversation from beyond the grave. Thanks for joining us on The Headstones and Microphones Podcast. Remember—Do better with the life you have been given and choose to do good in this life. Please help spread the word by sharing and following the pod."