1 00:00:53,345 --> 00:00:56,223 For this small Wisconsin community of under 700 persons, 2 00:00:56,307 --> 00:00:57,850 10 years of trying to forget 3 00:00:57,933 --> 00:01:00,728 have been wiped away in a single day. 4 00:01:02,146 --> 00:01:04,440 The return of the name of Ed Gein 5 00:01:04,522 --> 00:01:07,234 means return of memories, 6 00:01:07,318 --> 00:01:10,404 memories that many have been trying to forget. 7 00:01:11,030 --> 00:01:15,075 [man] In 1957, this small-town Wisconsin horror story 8 00:01:15,159 --> 00:01:18,078 was being exposed to the world. 9 00:01:18,162 --> 00:01:19,705 [woman] Ed Gein, he's the first 10 00:01:19,789 --> 00:01:22,082 well-known American serial killer. 11 00:01:22,166 --> 00:01:25,419 But it's the fact that he repurposed people's bodies, 12 00:01:25,503 --> 00:01:29,215 and that's what -- that's what's so upsetting about him. 13 00:01:29,298 --> 00:01:30,382 [laughs] 14 00:01:30,466 --> 00:01:32,676 [dramatic music plays] 15 00:01:34,345 --> 00:01:37,264 Ed Gein has been going to graves 16 00:01:37,348 --> 00:01:40,267 and digging up, excavating bodies. 17 00:01:40,351 --> 00:01:44,771 [Schlesinger] He took skin and fashioned lampshades with it 18 00:01:44,854 --> 00:01:47,817 and upholstery on his chair and couch. 19 00:01:47,900 --> 00:01:50,820 I've never had a case where a person wanted 20 00:01:50,902 --> 00:01:52,279 to wear somebody else's skin. 21 00:01:52,363 --> 00:01:54,740 I don't think I ever heard of a case like that 22 00:01:54,824 --> 00:01:57,116 in the annals of crime. 23 00:01:57,201 --> 00:02:01,288 [Berrill] It might be satisfying to defile dead bodies, 24 00:02:01,372 --> 00:02:04,959 but there's nothing more powerful than killing someone. 25 00:02:07,336 --> 00:02:11,799 It's like he ran out of bodies, so he decided to create his own. 26 00:02:17,263 --> 00:02:20,099 I'd never heard Gein's voice. 27 00:02:20,182 --> 00:02:25,312 So to now actually encounter this incredible piece 28 00:02:25,396 --> 00:02:29,650 of firsthand evidence is astonishing to me. 29 00:02:32,027 --> 00:02:34,697 -That's incredible. Yes! -Oh, that's awesome. 30 00:02:34,780 --> 00:02:37,116 -Yes! -Yes! 31 00:02:37,199 --> 00:02:39,618 I mean, no one knew of the existence of this tape. 32 00:02:39,702 --> 00:02:41,620 [Marcus] We've been debating for years, like, 33 00:02:41,704 --> 00:02:43,163 what did Ed Gein sound like? 34 00:02:43,247 --> 00:02:47,126 I have been playing Ed Gein in my brain for so long. 35 00:02:47,209 --> 00:02:48,711 I don't know what to expect. 36 00:03:21,911 --> 00:03:23,996 [Schechter] I mean, this casts a whole new light 37 00:03:24,079 --> 00:03:25,748 on the Gein case. 38 00:03:25,831 --> 00:03:28,918 [Lee] For a researcher, we're always looking for data 39 00:03:29,001 --> 00:03:31,211 that gets us closer to the phenomenon. 40 00:03:31,295 --> 00:03:34,715 [man] He knows there are things he can't tell the police. 41 00:03:42,932 --> 00:03:45,017 The term "serial killer" doesn't come out 42 00:03:45,100 --> 00:03:50,606 for another 20, 30 years after Ed Gein was caught. 43 00:03:50,689 --> 00:03:55,819 I think it's why people adopt some of the details for movies. 44 00:03:57,988 --> 00:03:59,740 Gein was so enmeshed with his mother 45 00:03:59,823 --> 00:04:02,534 that he wanted to become his mother. 46 00:04:02,618 --> 00:04:04,370 [woman #2] Ed Gein was Norman Bates 47 00:04:04,453 --> 00:04:06,872 and Norman Bates was Ed Gein. 48 00:04:06,956 --> 00:04:12,503 The comparison between the two of them was so right on. 49 00:04:13,671 --> 00:04:15,673 Well, a-a boy's best friend is his mother. 50 00:04:18,341 --> 00:04:19,969 [dramatic music plays] 51 00:04:42,741 --> 00:04:45,119 [mid-tempo music plays] 52 00:05:12,855 --> 00:05:14,857 [clicks] 53 00:05:14,940 --> 00:05:18,318 [Schechter] I've always been interested in monsters. 54 00:05:18,402 --> 00:05:21,989 I had actually been working on a book about horror movies, 55 00:05:22,072 --> 00:05:24,491 and it was then that I discovered 56 00:05:24,575 --> 00:05:28,370 that both "Psycho" and "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" 57 00:05:28,454 --> 00:05:31,373 had been inspired by Ed Gein. 58 00:05:33,584 --> 00:05:36,045 I wrote the book "Deviant," 59 00:05:36,128 --> 00:05:40,299 which I consider the definitive biography of Ed Gein. 60 00:05:40,382 --> 00:05:42,468 I'd never heard Gein's voice. 61 00:05:42,551 --> 00:05:44,970 [man] Restless feeling. 62 00:05:45,054 --> 00:05:48,682 There are some kind of newsreel images of Gein -- 63 00:05:48,766 --> 00:05:53,812 one when he was arrested and one at his trial -- 64 00:05:53,896 --> 00:05:56,815 but you don't hear Gein's voice. 65 00:05:56,899 --> 00:06:00,027 So to now actually encounter 66 00:06:00,110 --> 00:06:04,531 this incredible piece of firsthand evidence 67 00:06:04,615 --> 00:06:06,825 is astonishing to me. 68 00:06:06,909 --> 00:06:08,827 Eddie is such a mythic figure, 69 00:06:08,911 --> 00:06:13,540 hearing, you know, this actual human voice, 70 00:06:13,624 --> 00:06:18,128 it just makes these crimes that much more real. 71 00:07:09,847 --> 00:07:11,849 [tense music playing] 72 00:07:38,000 --> 00:07:40,586 On this particular day, 73 00:07:40,669 --> 00:07:44,298 pretty much the entire male population, 74 00:07:44,381 --> 00:07:49,636 as well as some of the female population of Plainfield, 75 00:07:49,720 --> 00:07:51,471 was out in the woods. 76 00:07:51,555 --> 00:07:53,807 It was the first day of deer hunting season. 77 00:07:53,891 --> 00:07:55,350 [mid-tempo music plays] 78 00:08:04,943 --> 00:08:08,989 Frank Worden, who runs the hardware store with his mother, 79 00:08:09,072 --> 00:08:14,161 Bernice Worden, returns from a day of deer hunting. 80 00:08:15,037 --> 00:08:17,122 As soon as Frank enters her store, 81 00:08:17,206 --> 00:08:20,834 he's stunned to see a trail of blood 82 00:08:20,918 --> 00:08:24,838 leading from the sales counter out through the back. 83 00:08:26,965 --> 00:08:30,135 And he also spots some .22-caliber shell casings 84 00:08:30,219 --> 00:08:32,221 on the floor. 85 00:08:34,222 --> 00:08:36,558 He runs to the cash register, 86 00:08:36,642 --> 00:08:40,187 and he notices that there's a receipt made out 87 00:08:40,270 --> 00:08:42,356 for some antifreeze. 88 00:08:46,318 --> 00:08:50,322 Frank Worden had been in the store the previous day. 89 00:08:50,405 --> 00:08:55,535 Ed Gein came in asking about the price of antifreeze 90 00:08:55,619 --> 00:09:01,416 and also what Frank regarded as pestering Bernice, 91 00:09:01,500 --> 00:09:04,086 sort of floating the idea 92 00:09:04,169 --> 00:09:07,256 of their going out on a date roller skating. 93 00:09:33,532 --> 00:09:35,409 So, immediately, 94 00:09:35,492 --> 00:09:39,746 Frank Worden suspects that Gein is somehow involved. 95 00:09:52,968 --> 00:09:56,888 Eddie Gein was generally seen as kind of an oddball. 96 00:09:56,972 --> 00:10:00,309 People saw him as somewhat simpleminded, 97 00:10:00,392 --> 00:10:02,561 completely harmless. 98 00:10:02,644 --> 00:10:05,605 [man] How long did you say you'd known Mr. Gein? 99 00:10:05,689 --> 00:10:08,734 Well, I've known him ever since he was a little boy. 100 00:10:08,817 --> 00:10:10,652 He's lived here all his life in this farm? 101 00:10:10,736 --> 00:10:12,904 Well, I don't know whether he was born here or not, 102 00:10:12,988 --> 00:10:16,325 but the family moved up here around 50 years ago, probably. 103 00:10:16,408 --> 00:10:22,289 And, uh, I knew his dad more than 40 years ago 104 00:10:22,372 --> 00:10:25,417 when he used to haul potatoes in town. 105 00:10:25,500 --> 00:10:28,962 Frank immediately notifies Sheriff Schley, 106 00:10:29,046 --> 00:10:34,801 and Schley and a deputy proceed directly to the farmhouse. 107 00:10:34,885 --> 00:10:36,470 [dramatic music plays] 108 00:10:48,065 --> 00:10:50,650 They approached the house, Eddie's not home, 109 00:10:50,734 --> 00:10:53,653 and they go around to the woodshed. 110 00:10:53,737 --> 00:10:55,572 [tense music plays] 111 00:11:29,481 --> 00:11:31,358 There are no lights. 112 00:11:34,236 --> 00:11:37,030 They enter the shed. Completely dark. 113 00:11:38,907 --> 00:11:43,453 Suddenly they're confronted with this absolutely appalling sight. 114 00:11:45,997 --> 00:11:51,294 Bernice Worden's naked corpse strung up by her heels. 115 00:12:20,699 --> 00:12:23,743 Bernice Worden, this grandmother, 116 00:12:23,827 --> 00:12:25,871 her naked body 117 00:12:25,954 --> 00:12:28,748 is strung up from the rafters. 118 00:12:28,832 --> 00:12:33,128 She's been split open entirely, completely eviscerated. 119 00:12:33,211 --> 00:12:37,924 Her head has been cut off and is nowhere to be seen. 120 00:12:38,008 --> 00:12:40,594 You know, she's up there like some game animal 121 00:12:40,677 --> 00:12:42,596 that's been dressed out after the kill. 122 00:13:18,507 --> 00:13:21,843 I'm looking at the official autopsy report 123 00:13:21,927 --> 00:13:24,930 on Bernice Worden's body. 124 00:13:25,013 --> 00:13:27,599 It reads, in part, 125 00:13:27,682 --> 00:13:30,977 "The body of a murdered and mutilated woman, 126 00:13:31,061 --> 00:13:32,771 Mrs. Bernice Worden, 127 00:13:32,854 --> 00:13:37,150 has been found in the woodshed of the old Gein farmhouse." 128 00:13:37,234 --> 00:13:40,195 "The body had been found hanging by the heels 129 00:13:40,278 --> 00:13:44,533 from the roof bars -- decapitated and eviscerated. 130 00:13:44,616 --> 00:13:48,620 Head and viscera had been found in the same location, 131 00:13:48,703 --> 00:13:54,376 the vulva in a box, and the heart in a plastic bag." 132 00:13:54,459 --> 00:13:57,212 So after Schley and his deputy 133 00:13:57,295 --> 00:14:00,840 kind of collect themselves a little bit, they go back, 134 00:14:00,924 --> 00:14:03,843 and they're able to enter the house through the shed, 135 00:14:03,927 --> 00:14:05,637 which adjoins the house. 136 00:14:05,720 --> 00:14:12,811 And immediately they start stumbling on these other 137 00:14:12,894 --> 00:14:17,524 utterly horrific, utterly nightmarish sights. 138 00:14:17,607 --> 00:14:19,192 [dramatic music plays] 139 00:14:34,583 --> 00:14:36,835 On "The Last Podcast on the Left," we like to 140 00:14:36,918 --> 00:14:39,004 what we call is "defang the monster." 141 00:14:39,087 --> 00:14:42,841 But somebody like Ed Gein, whose sheer -- 142 00:14:42,924 --> 00:14:46,678 for lack of a better word -- playfulness of his crimes 143 00:14:46,761 --> 00:14:48,513 and what he was like as a person, 144 00:14:48,597 --> 00:14:52,017 mixed with what he actually did, is extremely unique. 145 00:14:52,100 --> 00:14:54,769 You see in his house too, like, 146 00:14:54,853 --> 00:14:59,774 truly it's -- it's an exteriorization of his own mind. 147 00:15:04,946 --> 00:15:07,741 Meanwhile, Ed has been located 148 00:15:07,824 --> 00:15:10,577 at the home of this neighbor of his, 149 00:15:10,660 --> 00:15:13,288 and they take Gein into custody. 150 00:15:13,371 --> 00:15:15,248 [tense music playing] 151 00:16:34,786 --> 00:16:36,913 [choir vocalizing] 152 00:17:14,409 --> 00:17:16,327 [Lee] Ed Gein, 153 00:17:16,411 --> 00:17:21,040 there's been so much out there about him in popular media. 154 00:17:21,124 --> 00:17:23,251 For a researcher, it's, you know, 155 00:17:23,334 --> 00:17:25,502 we're always looking for data 156 00:17:25,587 --> 00:17:27,505 that gets us closer to the phenomenon. 157 00:17:27,589 --> 00:17:29,591 I wanted to hear the man himself. 158 00:17:35,138 --> 00:17:37,056 Most serial killers that we know of, 159 00:17:37,140 --> 00:17:39,517 at least through the history of serial killing, 160 00:17:39,601 --> 00:17:41,227 are quite aware of what they're doing 161 00:17:41,311 --> 00:17:44,856 and are very intentional in their actions 162 00:17:44,939 --> 00:17:47,108 and just show no remorse. 163 00:17:47,192 --> 00:17:50,737 For us, as social and behavioral scientists, 164 00:17:50,820 --> 00:17:53,281 we can guess at their motivations 165 00:17:53,364 --> 00:17:56,576 and the things that are driving them to commit violent crimes, 166 00:17:56,659 --> 00:18:00,205 but usually the words coming from the mouths 167 00:18:00,288 --> 00:18:03,917 of the people themselves are the best source. 168 00:18:23,144 --> 00:18:27,440 [Berrill] My immediate reaction to listening to Gein 169 00:18:27,524 --> 00:18:30,443 is that he displays little or no emotion. 170 00:18:33,363 --> 00:18:37,242 He's being interviewed for the very first time 171 00:18:37,325 --> 00:18:44,123 about years of behavior that's quite bizarre and ghoulish. 172 00:18:44,207 --> 00:18:47,627 And you have to imagine that this guy's been living 173 00:18:47,710 --> 00:18:51,464 inside his head for a lot of years. 174 00:18:51,548 --> 00:18:54,759 He wasn't being overly defensive, 175 00:18:54,843 --> 00:18:59,764 and he wasn't being really angry or he wasn't acting annoyed. 176 00:18:59,848 --> 00:19:04,769 I mean, it's almost like this was a nonevent, 177 00:19:04,853 --> 00:19:09,148 which is kind of interesting given the time period 178 00:19:09,232 --> 00:19:12,026 that this whole thing took place. 179 00:19:12,110 --> 00:19:14,529 [up-tempo music plays] 180 00:19:27,625 --> 00:19:30,128 I think we have to remember this is, like, in the 1950s. 181 00:19:30,211 --> 00:19:35,133 This was a time when there was a kind of idyllic notion 182 00:19:35,216 --> 00:19:37,051 of the American family. 183 00:19:37,135 --> 00:19:39,971 You work hard, you have, like, a house 184 00:19:40,054 --> 00:19:41,639 with a picket fence and two kids 185 00:19:41,723 --> 00:19:43,516 and that kind of thing. 186 00:19:43,600 --> 00:19:47,478 Ed Gein's arrest must have been a massive shock 187 00:19:47,562 --> 00:19:50,023 to the American psyche and to the world 188 00:19:50,106 --> 00:19:52,984 because it disrupts this picture. 189 00:19:53,067 --> 00:19:56,487 He's a kind of meek, unremarkable man 190 00:19:56,571 --> 00:19:59,073 who could have been your neighbor. 191 00:19:59,157 --> 00:20:00,658 And there's something eerie about that 192 00:20:00,742 --> 00:20:04,037 that is disruptive to our collective ideas 193 00:20:04,120 --> 00:20:06,080 of what is a monster. 194 00:20:15,340 --> 00:20:17,508 [Schechter] Ed was born when his parents 195 00:20:17,592 --> 00:20:20,219 were living in La Crosse, Wisconsin. 196 00:20:20,303 --> 00:20:24,182 They were owners of a small kind of general store. 197 00:20:24,265 --> 00:20:27,769 He was the second child born to the family. 198 00:20:27,852 --> 00:20:31,940 We know very little about Ed Gein's older brother, Henry. 199 00:20:36,819 --> 00:20:39,906 From what we know and what we gather, 200 00:20:39,989 --> 00:20:47,580 George Gein was a somewhat feckless, unreliable individual. 201 00:20:47,664 --> 00:20:51,125 He was also evidently an alcoholic. 202 00:20:51,209 --> 00:20:55,588 George Gein, his life began in tragedy. 203 00:20:55,672 --> 00:21:00,301 It's -- Ed Gein's entire upbringing from, you know, 204 00:21:00,385 --> 00:21:03,930 40 years before he was born, it's like it was ordained. 205 00:21:04,013 --> 00:21:07,934 George Gein, coming to Wisconsin, 206 00:21:08,017 --> 00:21:10,937 his entire family dies crossing a river, 207 00:21:11,020 --> 00:21:13,731 and he was adopted by a different family. 208 00:21:13,815 --> 00:21:16,567 He is in no way whatsoever wanted. 209 00:21:16,651 --> 00:21:18,444 And then, of course, becomes a drunk. 210 00:21:21,656 --> 00:21:26,119 [Berrill] Having a father that's an alcoholic, 211 00:21:26,202 --> 00:21:30,081 when he's drunk is prone to violence, 212 00:21:30,164 --> 00:21:31,916 is a rough spot to be in -- 213 00:21:32,000 --> 00:21:34,836 well, for anyone, but particularly in a place where 214 00:21:34,919 --> 00:21:38,881 there's little or no likelihood of being rescued. 215 00:21:44,429 --> 00:21:51,144 That abuse can later on manifest in so many different ways. 216 00:21:51,227 --> 00:21:54,522 One can only guess at what some of the escapist fantasies 217 00:21:54,605 --> 00:21:58,526 might have been for this guy. 218 00:21:58,609 --> 00:22:02,947 His mother was the -- the better of two choices, obviously, 219 00:22:03,031 --> 00:22:08,870 even if she were somewhat aloof or cold 220 00:22:08,953 --> 00:22:10,663 or might have been overly controlling. 221 00:22:12,540 --> 00:22:14,876 [Schechter] From all available evidence, 222 00:22:14,959 --> 00:22:17,170 Augusta had been raised 223 00:22:17,253 --> 00:22:24,052 in a very, very stern, strict Lutheran household. 224 00:22:24,135 --> 00:22:26,137 In many ways, she fits the model 225 00:22:26,220 --> 00:22:30,183 of a classic kind of religious fanatic 226 00:22:30,266 --> 00:22:36,189 who is obsessed with the evils of the sins of the flesh. 227 00:22:37,065 --> 00:22:42,070 The lips of a strange woman drip honey, 228 00:22:42,153 --> 00:22:46,991 and her mouth is smoother than oil. 229 00:22:47,075 --> 00:22:51,496 [Schechter] Ed was subjected throughout his childhood 230 00:22:51,579 --> 00:22:55,500 to Augusta's harangues about the evils of womanhood 231 00:22:55,583 --> 00:23:00,505 and the decadence and corruption of the modern world 232 00:23:00,588 --> 00:23:06,177 and all the evil temptations that Ed might be exposed to. 233 00:23:06,260 --> 00:23:10,598 You cannot hide behind your beauty. 234 00:23:10,681 --> 00:23:13,601 Your beauty has made you evil. 235 00:23:14,602 --> 00:23:19,607 Augusta, she was a harrowing influence on Ed Gein. 236 00:23:19,690 --> 00:23:23,528 [Lee] Ed Gein, he grew up under the shadow 237 00:23:23,611 --> 00:23:26,364 of his mother's fanaticism. 238 00:23:26,447 --> 00:23:28,074 So I think he probably had this 239 00:23:28,157 --> 00:23:30,743 very paradoxical relationship to his mom 240 00:23:30,827 --> 00:23:33,371 where, on one hand, she was the source of everything -- 241 00:23:33,454 --> 00:23:36,707 his life, his sense of right and wrong -- 242 00:23:36,791 --> 00:23:40,253 but on the other hand felt resentful. 243 00:23:40,336 --> 00:23:45,383 [Schechter] Ed was a very extreme pathological form 244 00:23:45,466 --> 00:23:49,262 of what used to be called a mama's boy. 245 00:23:49,345 --> 00:23:53,724 Augusta was a saint who could do no wrong. 246 00:23:53,808 --> 00:23:57,436 Whenever he spoke about her after his arrest, 247 00:23:57,520 --> 00:24:00,398 he would -- he would burst into tears. 248 00:24:00,481 --> 00:24:05,403 When you have someone who's chronologically an adult male 249 00:24:05,486 --> 00:24:10,241 but yet they're -- they're psychologically fused 250 00:24:10,324 --> 00:24:12,785 with their mother, 251 00:24:12,869 --> 00:24:20,001 the worst-case scenario is a kind of a psychological incest. 252 00:24:21,669 --> 00:24:25,590 You know, how did they -- they come to be so close, 253 00:24:25,673 --> 00:24:30,595 and why was he unable to extricate himself 254 00:24:30,678 --> 00:24:33,764 from this relationship? 255 00:24:33,848 --> 00:24:40,646 This was the only person that he had any enduring contact with. 256 00:24:40,730 --> 00:24:43,482 So if there's any intimacy in his life, 257 00:24:43,566 --> 00:24:45,193 it was with his mother. 258 00:24:45,276 --> 00:24:47,445 And by that I mean, of course, 259 00:24:47,528 --> 00:24:49,488 emotional or psychological intimacy. 260 00:24:49,572 --> 00:24:54,660 Now, we don't know if there was any physical or sexual intimacy, 261 00:24:54,744 --> 00:24:55,912 but it can't be ruled out. 262 00:25:02,126 --> 00:25:04,879 When you want to understand this type of psychopathology 263 00:25:04,962 --> 00:25:06,631 that is so strong and so deviant, 264 00:25:06,714 --> 00:25:09,508 it's not just a result of poor parenting, 265 00:25:09,592 --> 00:25:12,178 he hated his mother, his mother did this to him, 266 00:25:12,261 --> 00:25:13,471 his mother did that to him. 267 00:25:13,554 --> 00:25:15,723 This is much, much deeper than that. 268 00:25:15,806 --> 00:25:18,059 There's so many people that are brought up 269 00:25:18,142 --> 00:25:20,645 in all of these bizarre sorts of ways. 270 00:25:20,728 --> 00:25:24,148 Almost none of them go out and do what Gein did. 271 00:25:24,232 --> 00:25:26,984 Some people have described Augusta 272 00:25:27,068 --> 00:25:30,404 as being a rigid Christian woman 273 00:25:30,488 --> 00:25:34,492 who sees sex as sinful and women as sinful, 274 00:25:34,575 --> 00:25:36,160 and Gein was to promise his mother 275 00:25:36,244 --> 00:25:37,703 never to have sex with women, 276 00:25:37,787 --> 00:25:40,039 stay by yourself, everyone's a bad, bad person. 277 00:25:40,122 --> 00:25:42,833 That's not Christianity. That's mental illness. 278 00:25:42,917 --> 00:25:44,877 And I think the biggest component 279 00:25:44,961 --> 00:25:50,383 that Ed Gein got from his mother is some sort of mental disorder, 280 00:25:50,466 --> 00:25:53,928 not necessarily her poor parenting, which never helps. 281 00:25:54,011 --> 00:25:58,599 But there's some level of mental illness with the both of them. 282 00:25:58,683 --> 00:26:05,398 Augusta seemed to see wickedness and sinfulness 283 00:26:05,481 --> 00:26:06,941 all around her. 284 00:26:07,024 --> 00:26:09,777 She came to see La Crosse 285 00:26:09,860 --> 00:26:13,906 as kind of a Midwestern Sodom and Gomorrah. 286 00:26:13,990 --> 00:26:21,455 And so she finally persuaded her husband to move to Plainfield, 287 00:26:21,539 --> 00:26:23,833 this small farming community. 288 00:26:32,216 --> 00:26:35,052 It was a little town of farmers. 289 00:26:35,136 --> 00:26:39,390 There was no irrigation like there is now. 290 00:26:39,473 --> 00:26:41,934 It was what you call a poor community. 291 00:26:43,894 --> 00:26:46,230 Well, nobody was better or worse than the other guy 292 00:26:46,314 --> 00:26:47,732 who was all equal -- poor. 293 00:26:47,815 --> 00:26:49,150 [laughs] 294 00:26:52,987 --> 00:26:55,072 When I first knew about Ed, see, 295 00:26:55,156 --> 00:26:57,908 I was only eight, nine years old, is all it was. 296 00:26:57,992 --> 00:27:01,287 And he was just part of the -- part of the group. 297 00:27:01,370 --> 00:27:02,747 But he was always pleasant 298 00:27:02,830 --> 00:27:04,457 and not troublesome or anything like that. 299 00:27:04,540 --> 00:27:06,125 I mean, he was just different. 300 00:27:06,208 --> 00:27:07,585 I don't know how to explain "different," 301 00:27:07,668 --> 00:27:11,297 but he was just kind of different. 302 00:27:33,527 --> 00:27:36,697 [grunts] 303 00:27:36,781 --> 00:27:38,199 [exhales sharply] 304 00:27:38,282 --> 00:27:40,326 You got Bernice Worden here. 305 00:27:52,463 --> 00:27:53,839 Yeah, Augusta and Henry 306 00:27:53,923 --> 00:27:56,217 are about 100 feet to my left down there. 307 00:27:56,300 --> 00:28:00,513 I think one of his victims is right behind us in the trees. 308 00:28:00,596 --> 00:28:03,808 My family came down from Quebec, Canada, 309 00:28:03,891 --> 00:28:05,810 and we lived in Wisconsin. 310 00:28:05,893 --> 00:28:07,645 We loved the weather, loved the people. 311 00:28:07,728 --> 00:28:09,188 Good place to live and raise your family. 312 00:28:09,271 --> 00:28:11,524 It's right here. 313 00:28:12,400 --> 00:28:14,652 I was driving through Plainfield a couple times a week 314 00:28:14,735 --> 00:28:17,321 and I noticed that hardware store 315 00:28:17,405 --> 00:28:19,073 and I started reading the books on Ed Gein 316 00:28:19,156 --> 00:28:20,533 and really got obsessed with it. 317 00:28:20,616 --> 00:28:22,993 So I started researching it right after that 318 00:28:23,077 --> 00:28:25,287 and wrote two books on it. 319 00:28:32,253 --> 00:28:35,464 Everybody say "hi" to Ed. This is it. 320 00:28:38,926 --> 00:28:40,928 Well, it kept getting stolen. 321 00:28:41,637 --> 00:28:45,516 Got George on the end, and you got Augusta here. 322 00:28:45,599 --> 00:28:49,979 Ed's here, and Henry's on the end. 323 00:28:50,771 --> 00:28:53,107 A lot of people come out here and visit Ed 324 00:28:53,190 --> 00:28:56,610 and take some of his mother's tombstone apparently. 325 00:28:56,694 --> 00:29:00,698 There's a lot missing compared to the last time I was here. 326 00:29:00,781 --> 00:29:03,242 A lot of history within Plainfield is right there. 327 00:29:25,139 --> 00:29:27,475 [projector clicks] 328 00:29:30,895 --> 00:29:33,063 April 1, 1940, 329 00:29:33,147 --> 00:29:36,317 George died from basically drinking. 330 00:29:38,903 --> 00:29:41,906 He didn't do nothing. He just basically drank. 331 00:29:41,989 --> 00:29:43,949 So once he died, the boys 332 00:29:44,033 --> 00:29:45,743 started working more around town, 333 00:29:45,826 --> 00:29:47,745 earning money to support the family. 334 00:29:47,828 --> 00:29:50,539 So he wasn't really missed. 335 00:30:00,174 --> 00:30:03,636 [Marching band plays] 336 00:30:05,930 --> 00:30:08,641 [Projector clicks] 337 00:30:12,186 --> 00:30:14,980 [Speaking German] 338 00:30:17,858 --> 00:30:20,110 -[man] Heil! -[crowd] Sieg heil! 339 00:30:20,194 --> 00:30:23,030 Henry had to go down for the draft in '42. 340 00:30:23,113 --> 00:30:28,869 The first number drawn by the secretary of war 341 00:30:28,953 --> 00:30:33,332 is serial number 158. 342 00:30:35,376 --> 00:30:38,003 Henry got rejected because he was too old. 343 00:30:39,213 --> 00:30:42,299 [Schechter] Henry seems to have been the more, 344 00:30:42,383 --> 00:30:45,886 let's say, well-adjusted of the two, 345 00:30:45,970 --> 00:30:49,682 though it wouldn't be hard to be more well-adjusted than Ed Gein. 346 00:30:52,268 --> 00:30:58,190 Henry kind of saw Augusta for what she was, 347 00:30:58,274 --> 00:31:01,402 and he wasn't going to let himself be 348 00:31:01,485 --> 00:31:05,322 totally dominated by her in the way Ed did. 349 00:31:05,406 --> 00:31:11,203 There's some evidence that he, you know, 350 00:31:11,287 --> 00:31:16,834 was trying a little bit to wean his younger brother 351 00:31:16,917 --> 00:31:20,379 away from Augusta's influence. 352 00:31:23,299 --> 00:31:26,760 It's not like Henry Gein was the normal brother... 353 00:31:26,844 --> 00:31:28,512 -No. -...who would have been 354 00:31:28,596 --> 00:31:30,889 just fine had he moved to Milwaukee. 355 00:31:30,973 --> 00:31:33,225 Henry Gein actually kind of creeps me out 356 00:31:33,309 --> 00:31:36,186 almost more than Ed, because it's like, Henry, 357 00:31:36,270 --> 00:31:38,188 you could have gotten the fuck out of there 358 00:31:38,272 --> 00:31:39,940 if you wanted to, whereas, like, 359 00:31:40,024 --> 00:31:43,527 Ed is obviously mixed a little different. 360 00:31:43,611 --> 00:31:46,572 [Marcus] These guys are spending many nights on the front porch, 361 00:31:46,655 --> 00:31:48,032 you know, sitting in front of their mother, 362 00:31:48,115 --> 00:31:51,076 her reading them sections from the Bible. 363 00:31:51,160 --> 00:31:54,204 And Henry, at this point, he wants to get away. 364 00:31:54,288 --> 00:31:58,542 Ed's brother might have been urging Ed to leave, 365 00:31:58,626 --> 00:32:02,212 talking about how terrible Mother was. 366 00:32:02,296 --> 00:32:03,881 Maybe he couldn't tolerate it. 367 00:32:03,964 --> 00:32:07,051 Maybe he found that so offensive. 368 00:32:07,134 --> 00:32:10,262 And maybe -- maybe he was jealous 369 00:32:10,346 --> 00:32:13,724 of his brother's ability to break away. 370 00:32:13,807 --> 00:32:16,268 They're in their early 40s at this time, 371 00:32:16,352 --> 00:32:19,980 and Henry, for the first time, brings up to his brother, 372 00:32:20,064 --> 00:32:22,107 "Do you think maybe you're a little too close to Mom?" 373 00:32:22,191 --> 00:32:24,109 -Ooh-hoo-hoo-hoo! -Ooh! Don't do that. 374 00:32:24,193 --> 00:32:25,736 -Not good. -Don't say that to Eddie. 375 00:32:25,819 --> 00:32:28,739 [Berrill] I can understand the older brother saying, 376 00:32:28,822 --> 00:32:33,911 "Well, this really isn't a place I want to wind up staying." 377 00:32:33,994 --> 00:32:38,165 Whereas Ed just couldn't. So he was stuck. 378 00:32:38,248 --> 00:32:40,668 It's kind of like being psychologically enslaved. 379 00:32:40,751 --> 00:32:44,588 You know, like, no one physically tied him to a chair, 380 00:32:44,672 --> 00:32:46,423 but he was kind of psychologically 381 00:32:46,507 --> 00:32:48,801 tied to the chair. 382 00:32:51,428 --> 00:32:54,181 Later on in his life, Henry actually found a girl 383 00:32:54,264 --> 00:32:57,101 that he wanted to move in with, and she actually had a -- 384 00:32:57,184 --> 00:32:58,811 had a child of her own. 385 00:32:58,894 --> 00:33:01,605 And that was against everything Augusta taught him. 386 00:33:01,689 --> 00:33:03,982 And I think that's what happened when he died. 387 00:33:04,066 --> 00:33:07,903 The reason why he died -- because Ed got upset. 388 00:33:21,041 --> 00:33:24,253 [Projector clicks] 389 00:33:30,926 --> 00:33:37,182 This is a newspaper article from May 19, 1944. 390 00:33:38,058 --> 00:33:43,981 "Funeral services were held here this afternoon for Henry Gein, 391 00:33:44,064 --> 00:33:49,319 42, town of Plainfield farmer, who died of a heart attack 392 00:33:49,403 --> 00:33:51,071 while trying to protect his farm 393 00:33:51,155 --> 00:33:55,492 from the ravages of a grass and brush fire." 394 00:33:55,576 --> 00:33:59,413 And the evening, several hours after the search began, 395 00:33:59,496 --> 00:34:04,168 found the dead body of Mr. Gein lying facedown. 396 00:34:04,251 --> 00:34:07,421 Apparently, the man had been dead for some time 397 00:34:07,504 --> 00:34:09,214 when he was found 398 00:34:09,297 --> 00:34:13,969 and it appeared that death was the result of a heart attack. 399 00:34:21,518 --> 00:34:25,438 It was a normal farming afternoon when Ed Gein 400 00:34:25,522 --> 00:34:29,525 and his brother Henry were out in a field burning brush. 401 00:34:29,610 --> 00:34:32,237 Supposedly, Ed was separated from his brother, 402 00:34:32,321 --> 00:34:34,989 and Ed ran back to town. 403 00:34:50,839 --> 00:34:54,051 Ed ran back to town, said he couldn't find his brother, 404 00:34:54,134 --> 00:34:55,594 and the police came out, and Ed led them right 405 00:34:55,677 --> 00:34:58,138 to where Henry was laying facedown in the grass, 406 00:34:58,222 --> 00:35:00,808 and there was a bump on the back of his head. 407 00:35:00,891 --> 00:35:04,895 And so they basically ruled that he died of asphyxiation, 408 00:35:04,978 --> 00:35:07,147 and the police stopped investigating. 409 00:35:08,816 --> 00:35:11,235 [Schechter] Such accidents were not uncommon 410 00:35:11,318 --> 00:35:13,570 because when you start a brush fire, 411 00:35:13,654 --> 00:35:15,906 you know, there's a great deal of smoke involved. 412 00:35:15,989 --> 00:35:17,616 And there had been other people 413 00:35:17,699 --> 00:35:19,952 who had died of smoke inhalation. 414 00:35:20,035 --> 00:35:24,957 [Reid] All I heard is that they thought that Ed had 415 00:35:25,040 --> 00:35:27,793 maybe murdered his brother, but we don't know that. 416 00:35:27,876 --> 00:35:29,294 I don't know. 417 00:35:29,378 --> 00:35:32,005 Heard that he was jealous of his brother. 418 00:35:32,089 --> 00:35:33,298 Don't know that either. 419 00:35:33,382 --> 00:35:35,759 [Lee] Ultimately, we'll never know. 420 00:35:35,843 --> 00:35:39,429 And only Ed Gein would know. 421 00:35:39,513 --> 00:35:41,598 But the circumstances of the case 422 00:35:41,682 --> 00:35:43,308 and when we look at his life history 423 00:35:43,392 --> 00:35:47,354 and the intense attachment that he had to his mother, 424 00:35:47,437 --> 00:35:49,815 you could come up with a very plausible explanation 425 00:35:49,898 --> 00:35:53,902 that he wanted to have his mother to himself. 426 00:35:58,866 --> 00:36:01,660 We all know he did it. [Laughs] 427 00:36:12,129 --> 00:36:16,675 Shortly after Henry died, Augusta suffered a stroke. 428 00:36:18,051 --> 00:36:21,638 And suddenly Ed found himself 429 00:36:21,722 --> 00:36:23,724 taking care of his mother. 430 00:36:23,807 --> 00:36:27,519 Ed suddenly has a one-on-one relationship with his mother, 431 00:36:27,603 --> 00:36:30,898 this person who is his everything. 432 00:36:31,481 --> 00:36:33,525 [Schechter] Augusta had always been the one 433 00:36:33,609 --> 00:36:35,235 who had taken care of Eddie. 434 00:36:35,319 --> 00:36:39,865 Now he found himself dressing her and feeding her, 435 00:36:39,948 --> 00:36:41,491 helping her. 436 00:36:41,575 --> 00:36:43,368 [Bowser] Augusta, she was bedridden. 437 00:36:43,452 --> 00:36:45,495 And Ed actually used to climb in bed with her and stroke her 438 00:36:45,579 --> 00:36:48,874 and stuff and caress her and that and make her happy. 439 00:36:48,957 --> 00:36:51,877 Took care of her. Kind of the way he wanted it. 440 00:36:59,676 --> 00:37:03,096 Of course, Eddie was very, very devastated 441 00:37:03,180 --> 00:37:07,684 to see this woman who he'd always regarded as godlike 442 00:37:07,768 --> 00:37:10,395 suddenly reduced to this kind of state. 443 00:37:36,171 --> 00:37:38,674 [Projector clicks] 444 00:37:48,684 --> 00:37:54,314 Augusta died on December 29, 1945, a year after Henry. 445 00:37:54,398 --> 00:37:59,111 The descriptions they have of Ed Gein at her funeral -- 446 00:37:59,194 --> 00:38:00,779 his face covered in snot, 447 00:38:00,862 --> 00:38:02,948 saying that she was too good for this world. 448 00:38:03,657 --> 00:38:07,119 Ed Gein was so obsessed with her and so ensconced 449 00:38:07,202 --> 00:38:12,165 in the world that she created for him that a fuse blew. 450 00:38:16,211 --> 00:38:20,507 [Schechter] Ed really only had one close relationship 451 00:38:20,590 --> 00:38:22,009 in his whole life. 452 00:38:22,092 --> 00:38:24,261 He wasn't close to his brother. 453 00:38:24,344 --> 00:38:26,430 He hated his father. 454 00:38:26,513 --> 00:38:30,851 You know, Augusta was his entire emotional world. 455 00:38:30,934 --> 00:38:32,936 And now she was gone. 456 00:38:33,020 --> 00:38:34,604 He was living in squalor. 457 00:38:34,688 --> 00:38:36,940 Once his mom is no longer around, 458 00:38:37,024 --> 00:38:39,109 he's left to his own devices. 459 00:38:39,192 --> 00:38:42,988 He feels this tremendous sense of loss and trauma, 460 00:38:43,071 --> 00:38:46,116 and he descends into this darkness. 461 00:38:46,199 --> 00:38:53,123 So from that point on, Ed really becomes obsessed 462 00:38:53,206 --> 00:38:55,917 with resurrecting his mother somehow. 463 00:39:07,387 --> 00:39:10,140 [Marcus] He went to her grave and prayed every night 464 00:39:10,223 --> 00:39:12,017 for her to rise from the grave. 465 00:39:12,100 --> 00:39:14,978 I mean, he would go night after night -- "Please rise. 466 00:39:15,062 --> 00:39:17,731 Please, Mother. Please come back." 467 00:39:19,441 --> 00:39:21,651 These are Ed Gein's medical records 468 00:39:21,735 --> 00:39:25,363 dated December 19, 1957. 469 00:39:25,447 --> 00:39:27,824 It reads, "After the death of his mother, 470 00:39:27,908 --> 00:39:29,659 he felt that he had a special power 471 00:39:29,743 --> 00:39:31,745 whereby he could raise the dead to life 472 00:39:31,828 --> 00:39:33,121 by an act of his willpower." 473 00:39:36,124 --> 00:39:38,835 [Berrill] I guess he couldn't tolerate the idea 474 00:39:38,919 --> 00:39:41,588 of being separated from his mother 475 00:39:41,671 --> 00:39:43,507 despite the fact she was dead. 476 00:39:43,590 --> 00:39:49,513 I guess the idea that he might be able to possess her corpse 477 00:39:49,596 --> 00:39:52,849 or her body would be a source of comfort for him. 478 00:39:52,933 --> 00:39:55,769 [Indistinct whispering] 479 00:39:59,940 --> 00:40:03,944 [Lee] There could have been a part of him that was fearful of, 480 00:40:04,027 --> 00:40:06,613 you know, digging up his mother's corpse 481 00:40:06,696 --> 00:40:10,242 and realizing that that was, you know, a shell of his mother 482 00:40:10,325 --> 00:40:12,619 and it wasn't actually his mother anymore. 483 00:40:12,702 --> 00:40:15,247 It raises more questions. 484 00:40:16,164 --> 00:40:18,375 What were you planning to do with your mother? 485 00:40:18,458 --> 00:40:22,129 Like, were you going to stuff her and turn her into a doll? 486 00:40:22,212 --> 00:40:24,214 Was there some kind of a desire 487 00:40:24,297 --> 00:40:27,884 to physically be with his mother? 488 00:40:27,968 --> 00:40:31,555 And in that sense, I do mean sexually. 489 00:40:31,638 --> 00:40:34,099 [Indistinct whispering] 490 00:41:04,254 --> 00:41:07,132 [Projector clicks] 491 00:42:01,478 --> 00:42:03,438 Watch out for the ice. 492 00:42:09,402 --> 00:42:11,863 This is the gravesite of Eleanor Adams. 493 00:42:11,947 --> 00:42:13,490 This is one of the graves that was actually exhumed 494 00:42:13,573 --> 00:42:15,325 a couple days after they caught Ed. 495 00:42:15,408 --> 00:42:16,826 And they got down to the casket. 496 00:42:16,910 --> 00:42:18,370 They opened it up, and it was empty. 497 00:42:32,259 --> 00:42:36,471 Augusta's buried probably, say, about 12 feet off from here. 498 00:42:38,431 --> 00:42:43,353 It's so close. I mean, very close. 499 00:42:43,436 --> 00:42:44,729 So Mom would have been watching him. 500 00:42:44,813 --> 00:42:46,564 [Laughs] 501 00:42:58,159 --> 00:43:01,621 The other bodies served as proxies -- 502 00:43:01,705 --> 00:43:05,166 you know, close to his mother, but not quite his mother. 503 00:43:11,214 --> 00:43:13,216 [Schlesinger] In Gein's case, he was following this. 504 00:43:13,300 --> 00:43:14,384 He knew when there was a funeral -- 505 00:43:14,467 --> 00:43:15,969 he read about it in the paper -- 506 00:43:16,052 --> 00:43:18,596 and would dig the corpse up almost the next day 507 00:43:18,680 --> 00:43:19,806 or that evening. Why? 508 00:43:19,889 --> 00:43:21,891 Because the dirt at that point 509 00:43:21,975 --> 00:43:25,353 would be very soft and it would be easy to get out. 510 00:43:58,553 --> 00:44:01,306 When the judge is sort of telling him 511 00:44:01,389 --> 00:44:03,933 and reviewing details with him in the case, 512 00:44:04,017 --> 00:44:05,769 he kind of goes along with the details 513 00:44:05,852 --> 00:44:07,645 and says, "Yeah, that's probably what happened." 514 00:44:09,564 --> 00:44:12,776 He's not denying it, but he's also not confessing to it. 515 00:44:12,859 --> 00:44:17,447 So I think he's sort of taking this kind of, like, 516 00:44:17,530 --> 00:44:20,158 passive approach to his role in this. 517 00:44:21,785 --> 00:44:26,039 He has been going to graves and digging up, 518 00:44:26,122 --> 00:44:28,958 excavating bodies and using their body parts. 519 00:44:29,042 --> 00:44:33,046 That process, you know, is very difficult in its own ways. 520 00:44:33,129 --> 00:44:36,508 There's practical challenges that come with digging a body up 521 00:44:36,591 --> 00:44:39,511 that is typically buried six feet underground. 522 00:44:51,314 --> 00:44:54,734 Clearly, he had a number of fantasies or ideas 523 00:44:54,818 --> 00:44:59,072 about what needed to be done with these bodies. 524 00:44:59,155 --> 00:45:03,159 I mean, there was a reason for digging up these graves 525 00:45:03,243 --> 00:45:05,995 and taking these women out. 526 00:45:06,079 --> 00:45:08,373 Someone doesn't wake up one day and say, 527 00:45:08,456 --> 00:45:09,999 "I think I'll go out and start digging up 528 00:45:10,083 --> 00:45:11,835 bodies in a cemetery." No. 529 00:45:11,918 --> 00:45:14,838 This begins 10, 15, 20 years earlier 530 00:45:14,921 --> 00:45:18,341 in the offender's mind, in his fantasies. 531 00:45:18,425 --> 00:45:22,679 Now, sometimes fantasy serves as a substitute for action, 532 00:45:22,762 --> 00:45:26,850 but other times, fantasy paves the way for later action. 533 00:45:26,933 --> 00:45:29,894 In Gein's case, it's pretty obvious that his fantasy 534 00:45:29,978 --> 00:45:33,857 was so strong, he actually acted it out and did it. 535 00:45:33,940 --> 00:45:35,692 There's a kind of fantasy life, 536 00:45:35,775 --> 00:45:38,194 and then there's actually the reality of, like, dealing with 537 00:45:38,278 --> 00:45:41,781 bodies that have decomposed very badly in the ground 538 00:45:41,865 --> 00:45:43,074 for sometimes years. 539 00:46:12,562 --> 00:46:13,980 [Ed] That's right. 540 00:46:17,358 --> 00:46:19,652 It's quite bizarre. 541 00:46:19,736 --> 00:46:24,407 I mean, after all, how many bodies do you need? 542 00:46:24,491 --> 00:46:27,243 He wanted the bodies and he mutilated the bodies 543 00:46:27,327 --> 00:46:29,120 and desecrated the bodies. 544 00:46:29,204 --> 00:46:33,082 But what he did with the body parts is itself extraordinary. 545 00:46:33,166 --> 00:46:34,959 [Projector whirs, clicks] 546 00:46:40,548 --> 00:46:43,468 [Women vocalizing] 547 00:46:51,768 --> 00:46:53,686 [Projector clicks] 548 00:47:12,789 --> 00:47:14,332 [Schechter] He would dig up these corpses 549 00:47:14,415 --> 00:47:16,459 and -- and bring them back to his farmhouse 550 00:47:16,543 --> 00:47:23,383 and dissect them and -- and fashion different artifacts 551 00:47:23,466 --> 00:47:25,343 out of the body parts. 552 00:47:36,896 --> 00:47:39,023 [Marcus] The word that people used over and over again 553 00:47:39,107 --> 00:47:41,901 after they discovered the house was "revolting." 554 00:47:41,985 --> 00:47:44,487 And that to me was the perfect adjective 555 00:47:44,571 --> 00:47:46,072 for what was going on in there. 556 00:48:03,464 --> 00:48:06,718 These little bowls made from human skulls 557 00:48:06,801 --> 00:48:08,678 that he'd eat beans out of. 558 00:48:08,761 --> 00:48:10,054 You know, you'd walk into his room 559 00:48:10,138 --> 00:48:12,932 and he's got skulls on each of the four -- 560 00:48:13,016 --> 00:48:14,851 on each of the four bedposts. 561 00:48:14,934 --> 00:48:19,689 He's got a box full of vulvas with little ribbons 562 00:48:19,772 --> 00:48:21,691 -wrapped around them. -Somebody's jealous. 563 00:48:21,774 --> 00:48:26,696 He was a voracious reader of the kind of pulp men's magazines 564 00:48:26,779 --> 00:48:28,865 that were very, very popular at the time, 565 00:48:28,948 --> 00:48:32,243 which would have articles about things like headhunting. 566 00:48:55,141 --> 00:48:57,727 He would sit there and read these books, 567 00:48:57,810 --> 00:48:59,729 you know, these true crime books, true crime magazines. 568 00:48:59,812 --> 00:49:01,439 -He loved -- -Just eating beans. 569 00:49:01,522 --> 00:49:04,901 Eating beans, reading about Nazis making lampshades 570 00:49:04,984 --> 00:49:06,277 out of human skin. 571 00:49:08,821 --> 00:49:14,786 These acts seem to have been modeled to some extent 572 00:49:14,869 --> 00:49:17,997 on the Nazi atrocities that were coming to light 573 00:49:18,081 --> 00:49:21,709 and being published in these pulp magazines. 574 00:49:24,003 --> 00:49:28,257 For a guy like Ed, discovering photographs 575 00:49:28,341 --> 00:49:32,679 or newsreels from World War II, 576 00:49:32,762 --> 00:49:35,348 maybe he couldn't have imagined that before he saw it. 577 00:49:40,853 --> 00:49:45,817 In the Gein case, he took skin and fashioned lampshades 578 00:49:45,900 --> 00:49:51,322 with it and upholstery on his chair and couch. 579 00:49:52,031 --> 00:49:54,826 [Berrill] The fact is, when you see all the bodies piled up 580 00:49:54,909 --> 00:49:57,829 and you see people as disposable, 581 00:49:57,912 --> 00:50:01,999 you understand that people were experimented with... 582 00:50:03,793 --> 00:50:08,339 ...if you're inclined emotionally or psychologically 583 00:50:08,423 --> 00:50:09,966 to that type of thinking, 584 00:50:10,049 --> 00:50:13,010 even if you don't want to admit it, 585 00:50:13,094 --> 00:50:16,264 it grabs your attention in sort of the wrong way. 586 00:50:22,937 --> 00:50:27,984 [Schechter] There was apparently a belt he made out of nipples. 587 00:50:28,067 --> 00:50:31,028 It was this totally nightmarish environment. 588 00:50:32,238 --> 00:50:38,828 [Berrill] I think the notion of using the human flesh or skin 589 00:50:38,911 --> 00:50:43,166 to make objects or to upholster a chair 590 00:50:43,249 --> 00:50:47,086 or something like that is kind of peculiar. 591 00:50:47,170 --> 00:50:53,509 Almost suggests to me that you are finding comfort 592 00:50:53,593 --> 00:50:56,387 in that these skulls are keeping you company 593 00:50:56,471 --> 00:50:58,222 and that you're so disturbed 594 00:50:58,306 --> 00:51:01,267 that you feel that you're surrounded by people. 595 00:51:09,525 --> 00:51:12,695 Gein isn't disinterring bodies because he's lonely 596 00:51:12,779 --> 00:51:14,197 and has nobody to talk to. 597 00:51:14,280 --> 00:51:16,699 This is very perverse behavior. 598 00:51:16,783 --> 00:51:19,535 And the -- the level of his disturbance 599 00:51:19,619 --> 00:51:21,704 goes really to the core of his personality 600 00:51:21,788 --> 00:51:24,248 and to the core of his sexual dynamics. 601 00:51:41,140 --> 00:51:44,977 The sexual instinct itself is very, very strong. 602 00:51:45,061 --> 00:51:48,231 But the sexual instinct itself is complicated, 603 00:51:48,314 --> 00:51:52,568 and there can be perverse sexual arousal patterns. 604 00:51:52,652 --> 00:51:55,238 Look what he's creating items from. 605 00:51:55,321 --> 00:51:59,575 Most of it's genitals and vaginas and nipples 606 00:51:59,659 --> 00:52:00,952 and these sorts of things. 607 00:52:14,757 --> 00:52:16,759 When Gein looks at what he did 608 00:52:16,843 --> 00:52:18,427 and he sees the heads all over the place, 609 00:52:18,511 --> 00:52:20,263 this is very arousing to him. 610 00:52:20,346 --> 00:52:21,848 This is very stimulating to him 611 00:52:21,931 --> 00:52:26,102 because look at the domination he has over these people. 612 00:52:26,185 --> 00:52:29,689 He can cut them up. He can desecrate them 613 00:52:29,772 --> 00:52:32,483 in all these various ways. He has total domination. 614 00:52:32,567 --> 00:52:36,904 That is very, very arousing for somebody like Gein. 615 00:52:38,030 --> 00:52:40,867 [Lee] He is on record saying that he didn't have 616 00:52:40,950 --> 00:52:43,286 sexual relations with corpses. 617 00:52:43,369 --> 00:52:46,038 [Schlesinger] This may come as a shock to people -- 618 00:52:46,122 --> 00:52:48,374 Criminal defendants don't always tell the truth. 619 00:52:48,457 --> 00:52:49,959 They lie all the time. 620 00:52:50,042 --> 00:52:53,838 So you really can't go by what Gein said. 621 00:52:53,921 --> 00:52:57,967 When you look at his behavior, notwithstanding his denial 622 00:52:58,050 --> 00:53:00,344 that he had sex with the bodies, is he capable of it? 623 00:53:00,428 --> 00:53:04,348 Obviously he's capable of it. Look exactly what he did. 624 00:53:09,770 --> 00:53:11,856 There were these rumors that he was a cannibal. 625 00:53:20,448 --> 00:53:23,159 In the Gein case, when the police entered the home, 626 00:53:23,242 --> 00:53:26,996 they saw a human heart in a frying pan on a stove. 627 00:53:27,079 --> 00:53:29,165 Now, it doesn't take a lot of imagination 628 00:53:29,248 --> 00:53:30,833 to raise the question -- What's he doing 629 00:53:30,917 --> 00:53:33,252 with a human heart in a frying pan on a stove? 630 00:53:33,336 --> 00:53:36,422 I mean, did he eat some of the body parts? 631 00:53:36,505 --> 00:53:38,341 That's not unheard of. 632 00:53:38,424 --> 00:53:40,843 Could he have eaten some of the victims? 633 00:53:40,927 --> 00:53:44,055 The answer is, obviously he's capable of it. 634 00:53:44,138 --> 00:53:48,059 There's very little that Gein is not capable of. 635 00:53:49,518 --> 00:53:52,229 [Projector clicks] 636 00:54:04,700 --> 00:54:05,660 [Gunshot] 637 00:54:17,463 --> 00:54:19,465 [Up-tempo jazz music plays]