Camp Gagnon - Ed Gein: The Killer That Inspired Many Horror Films

Episode Date: August 28, 2025

Who was Ed Gein, and how many horror movies did he inspire? Today, we take a closer look at the DARK and STRICT upbringing of one of the most famous killers. We’ll talk about The Childhood of Ed Gein, The Death of Ed Gein’s Family, Digging Up Bodies, Ed Gein’s Possible Victims, The Death of Mary Hogan, Human Body Parts Found in Ed’s Home, and other interesting topics. WELCOME TO CAMP! 🏕️👕🧢 GET YOUR CAMP DRIP HERE: http://camp-rd.com🏕️ Get Today In History Email Here (Free): https://camp.beehiiv.com/🎟️ 🎫 Comedy Tour Tickets Here: https://markgagnonlive.comTimestamps:0:00 Who Was Ed Gein4:23 The Childhood of Ed Gein9:56 Gien’s Arrive In Plainfield11:23 Ed’s Begins Getting Bullied13:53 The Death of Ed Gein's Family17:20 Ed Gein’s Shrine Room + Exhuming His Mother18:32 Ed Gein’s Possible Victims19:37 The Death of Mary Hogan + Digging Up Bodies22:54 The Capture of Ed Gein24:43 Human Body Parts Found In Ed’s Home29:49 Was Ed Gein a Monster or Misunderstood?

We are diving into one of the most disturbing and historically significant cases in American criminal history, the story of Edward Theodore Gein, better known as the butcher of Plainfield. Now, this isn't just another zero-killer story. Ed Gein's crimes were so shocking and so bizarre that they literally changed how America viewed criminal behavior and directly inspired some of the most notorious horror movie villains of all time, including Norman Bates from Psycho, Leatherface from Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs. We're going to explore Gein's twisted family dynamics, his isolated upbringing in rural Wisconsin,

the psychological breakdown that followed his mother's death, grave robbing, and the absolutely horrifying discoveries police made when they searched his farmhouse in 1957. So, if you are ready to learn about one of America's most notorious criminals and understand how his story shaped our modern understanding of criminal psychology, you're in the right place. So sit back, relax, and welcome to camp. What's up, people, and welcome back to camp. My name is Mark Gagnon, and thank you for joining me in my tent where every single week we go through the most interesting, fascinating and controversial stories from around the world from all time through all ages. The purpose of the show, if you don't know, is for me to deep dive into all the topics that I find fascinating, some of which are morbidly fascinating, such as today.

Now, as always, I'm joined by a dear friend, a compadre, a brother, a father figure in many ways. The Greek freak himself, Christos, Papadapidus. What's up, everyone? I didn't even ask you a question. You just jumped in for no reason, dude. I mean, oh my, my, the comments are going to cook you for this one, all right? If you feel like the comments were rough before, I mean, just wait. I mean, this point made a terrible mood.

But maybe that's the point, because this is, unfortunately, a terrible topic, okay? This is quite morbid and dark and twisted in many different ways. But if you're like me, growing up, I was fascinated by the psychology of serial killers. I actually took a class in college that was dedicated to this. It was a philosophy class that was, diving into this exact topic, the parapherias and the internal workings of the criminal mind, why these people exist in our society, why they go through these cooling periods, why there is even such a fascination about them.

I think they embody so much of our deepest fears. Like they're these humans that almost become monsters in their own right and what led them to be this way and what are the details about their lives that might be unsavory for mainstream media. Well, today we're diving in. We're going into the story of Ed Gein. If you're not familiar with this guy, let me take you back to 1957. Police are investigating the disappearance of a widow, a woman named Bernice Warden.

She's the owner of a hardware store where they've got some raw materials and other things are sold. And they have a suspect, a man named Ed Gein. And the police arrived to his farm without really knowing what they were going to find. And they were following basically like a, you know, a 5-7 guy. He had like a droopy eyelid and an accent that was like maybe German or something. And besides that, it was just, you know, had somewhat of a slow sort of, you know, sort of droning kind of voice. And they discovered that the house was completely full, full in every corner with different things.

That includes plates made of human skulls and lamps made out of human skin and cutlery with bones. and some of the most twisted and darkest inventions of a master psychopath. So today we're going to learn all the details about the infamous and disgusting, Edward Gein. Now, before we dive into this too far, I just want to say I'm not going to try to get, you know, too lost in the case here. There's some things when it comes to like the analysis of serial killers and psychopaths that I on a personal basis am just more really curious about, you know? I like to know what caused it, if anything, why these people exist. And like I said before, I just want to know the internal working. So I'm going to do my best to not glorify the gory parts because, again, to me, that is not what these things are about. But unfortunately, in order to

understand the totality of this awful story, there's going to be some parts that I'm going to dive into. So heads up, preface, yada, yada. But you clicked on a video like this. You pretty much knew what you were getting into. But again, my curiosity, I always watched these in the interrogation videos of like, you know, psychopaths and serial killers. And I just want to know truly what is going on. How do they act? I'm just, I'm so fascinated by this dark facet of humankind. So this story is one of the more well-documented ones in terms of its pull on pop culture. I mean, there are movies today that exist solely because of this evil man. I mean, Texas chainsaw massacre, leather face, you know, this killer from this series is based on this guy, Edward Theod

Gine. Interestingly, Edward Gien was actually not a serial killer by the strictest definition, according to, you know, FBI experts. So what professional investigators define typically as a serial killer is a person who murders, typically three victims or more with, you know, in a given time period, typically with a month of cooling down. So a serial killer needs to kill three people with a month in between each murder. I mean, if you're a crazy person and you kill three people in the same day, that would make you a mass murderer and that's it. So before we go, any further into Ed Gein. We should probably go to the beginning, where, you know, most of us get our start, and that's our parents. So, Ed Gein, his father was George, who was born in 1879, and George

experienced a lot of hardships in his early life, though these specific details of his childhood are not really documented in any historical records. What we do know is that George grew up to be what we describe as a weak-willed man in some way, somewhat frail in stature. He was known to have struggled with alcohol and had difficulty really maintaining employment. And he worked sort of various jobs, including an insurance salesman and a carpenter and whatever he had to do in order to get by. And on the other hand, we have Ed Gein's mother, Augusta. And she is very important to Ed's psychological development as a child. Historical records indicate Augusta came from a strict German immigrant family and was raised with very harsh religious discipline, though the

specific details of her childhood are not exactly known. Augusta grew up. up in a harsh environment that shaped her into a domineering personality. The description of Augusta shows her as a woman of, you know, German descent, she was tall, she was loud and she was very strong, almost like a physically imposing woman, though her exact height is somewhat disputed. And this background led Augusta to develop strong resentment and more specifically negative views towards many women. Augusta is a person who, in documented accounts, expressed views that women were opportunists and morally corrupt, and they came to the world to corrupt men reflects, you know, Augusta's worldview in a pretty clear way.

So George meets Augusta and she, you know, seeing him as someone weak and malleable, was able to control and manipulate him. And that was Augusta's approach through their whole relationship. Besides getting married, Augusta wanted children, specifically hoping for a daughter so she could raise her according to a strict moral code. Their first child was born in 1902, and they named him Henry, Henry Gein. That is Ed's older brother. After that, about four years later in Wisconsin, little Edward was born in 1906. By this point, we already have two children in the Gine family, and we should also remember that Augusta had strong negative feelings towards women in general.

So when she found herself with two sons instead of a daughter, she developed certain frustrations and told them regularly about the dangers of succumbing to what she viewed as the corrupting influence of women. So she had raised them with this misogynistic mindset. Regarding Ed's early childhood experiences and memories, specific memories are difficult to really historically verify. What we do know is that Augusta was documented as being extremely controlling and verbally harsh with her children. Historical accounts describe a household where Augusta dominated through intimidation and discipline. And by 1909, George, Edgine's father, bought a store with

his savings, a grocery store, which he worked out for a long time. He worked very hard, and the town kind of began to know him pretty well. People already read. recognized it as the Gein's store, and there the Geens began to become, you know, a somewhat respected name. Also remember that this little town, LaCross, Wisconsin, was extremely small. So eventually, Augusta took control of the store from George. That's right. Accounts for the Gein family didn't document Augusta making George signed contracts that ceded the business. What is documented is that by 1911, the city directory listed Augusta as the store's proprietor, while George was just a lowly clerk. And some contemporary reporting,

again, portrays her as this dominant spouse in the household. Eventually, Augusta decided to sell the store, and with all the money that they collected, they moved to Plainfield. Now, yes, this is the infamous name, where Edward Gein is known as the cannibal, or the butcher of Plainfield. What's up, people? Quick announcement. If you are a fan of Camp Gagnon or Religion Camp, I have great news because we are dropping

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new gear. You can see some of the images here of some of the products that we got. And anytime you buy a t-shirt, you help this show directly operate. It is a huge, huge lift. And I'm very grateful for everyone that reps the gear, especially at the live shows, seeing you guys wearing the t-shirts at the shows truly makes my life. It's the coolest thing ever. I cannot believe people are actually wearing clothes that me and my friends are designing eye message chats. Like, you think this is cool. It's the craziest thing in the world, and I'm so grateful for everyone that does it. Check it out. We got the link in the description. Now, let's get back to the show. Now, if you don't know what Plainfield is, it's a community that today is, you know, more or less developed.

But in those times, it was very rural, where to get, you know, to the center of town, you would have traveled a considerable distance. And in other words, just to get to their next door neighbor, the Geans had to walk significantly. And that's just how isolated they were, completely from society, towns, everything, basically. And this isolation seems like it had a really negative effect on little Ed. So by age seven, he would start to recount some of these experiences. So when Ed would return from school or from errands, any mention of friends or social interaction would result in some severe punishment from Augusta, who viewed the outside influence of the world as corrupting and dangerous.

One would think that this type of strict upbringing, you know, so much indoctrination of Augusta's beliefs, that her children would fear her. But it isn't necessarily so, according to some psychoactive. psychological analysis. Actually, Ed Gein developed a complex relationship with his mom. Despite her harshness, he came to view her as, you know, this central good, like a figure in his life, someone that he both feared but also depended on completely. So while Ed was exploring around Plainfield on the farm that they had, he discovered areas of the farm dedicated to butchering livestock. And like most farm children, Ed was exposed to the realities of, you know, animal slaughter as a part of, you know, farm life. And while some

accounts suggest that this had a particular psychological effect on Ed. The details and his reactions are, again, largely matter of speculation. So, continuing with his development, Ed didn't have many friends at school. In fact, his mother discouraged really any friendship. And if Ed came home from school mentioning friends, his mother would respond harshly, telling him that children outside of the house were, again, corrupting his pure soul. So this was the type of treatment that Augusta had towards her son just for making friends at all. I mean, specifically, male friends who was just completely red enough because women, again, according to his mother, were extremely corrupting. These incidents and the general atmosphere of control led Ed to some

social difficulty. In many of the photos of Ed, you can see that he had a facial asymmetry, though the specific cause of this sort of physical characteristic is not documented in medical records. It was a challenge for him and he was often bullied. So among the challenging upbringing and the social isolation. Ed also couldn't develop normal social skills. He had problems communicating clearly and connecting with others. He was described as being intellectually slow, maybe on the lower threshold of what you would consider even intellectually capable. So his manner of speaking wasn't the clearest, and he was awkward in social situations, and he was also so isolated on his farm that this led to common bullying throughout school. I mean, he was a target for many bullies. And

On the other hand, the girls were afraid of him, and as a result, he was even more and more reclusive. But not everything was negative in Ed's life. He enjoyed reading, and he would read books about crime and adventure stories and various magazines. And this was actually a common hobby for many young people of the era, though that other people would read a lot of significance into his reading choices. So as he grew up, his mother's strict control intensified, and her punishments were more severe over time. Among the rules, she made them read the Bible every day. and instilled to them the strict moral codes about sexuality and the evils of lust and relationships with women insisting that they remain pure and avoid the female corruption. And all this controlling behavior continued until Ed was in his 20s and even into his 30s.

And already being an adult, this level of maternal control was very strange. And the specific nature of the relationship has been subject to a lot of speculation from psychologists. Although the exact daily interactions that they had is not known, we know that they had a science. psychological dependency. And typically, this just refers to an unhealthy reliance on another person for emotional stability and decision-making. And Ed developed an extreme emotional dependency on his mother that would continue well into his adult years. But what about his brother? Henry, he grew up in basically the same environment. And despite all of the same treatment from their mother, he was somewhat more independent than Ed. He was able to interact more normally with the townspeople

and even had some social relationships that he kept private from his mom. But various times, Henry expressed concerns about Ed's extreme attachment to their mom and his extreme detachment from everyone else. Eventually in 1944, at age 40, a significant event occurred that may have been Ed's first involvement with violence. This is suspected, but not conclusively proven, but basically a brush fire started on the outskirts of the farm. And this was somewhat common in rural areas. Both brothers went to help fight the fire. During this incident, Henry disappeared. And when Ed reported him missing and led authorities to Henry's body, there were some inconsistencies in Ed's account that raised suspicions amongst the

investigators. The official cause of Henry's death was listed as asphyxia, presumably from smoke inhalation. However, some investigators noted aspects of the scene in Ed's behavior that seemed strange, although no charges were officially filed and the death was ruled incidental. Again, this was 1944. Ed's account of the events had some inconsistencies. He claimed that the fire started in the morning, but it was the evening when Henry was found. And there were other details that didn't quite align, leading some to suspect that Ed had some involvement or potentially even cover up, although this was, of course, never proven. Now, going back a bit to 1940, his father, George also died of heart failure.

So this might seem like it would be devastated for the family, but the reality is that George's death had basically no impact on any of the kids or his wife. George had been such a peripheral figure in the family and due to his alcoholism and somewhat detached borderline abusive behavior didn't really seem to affect the kids as much. Now, the same cannot be said for Ed's mother. In 1945, Augusta Gein suffered a stroke which left her bedridden for months and she was able to recover somewhat and was mobile again by the winter of 1945 until she suffered another stroke in December. And the specific circumstances surrounding her strokes are not definitively

documented, but what's clear is that Augusta's death had a profound and devastating psychological impact on Ed, who had been completely dependent on her for emotional stability and life direction. Now, it's important to note everything that is built up until this point. You have a kid who is developmentally disabled in some capacity. I don't know if at this point he had been strictly diagnosed with schizophrenia, but is certainly dealing with the mental health issues that we will learn about later. He's extremely isolated, raised in a very strict household, has a detached, you know, abusive father and a strict mother who despised alcohol and instilled all of this religious guilt and, I mean, misogynistic ideas about women. And now the woman that he relied on for everything

is now gone. Obviously, this made Ed, you know, now no longer a young man, devastated and filled with this psychological turmoil. In fact, in later interviews and evaluations, mental health professionals identify her death as the critical turning point in his psychological deterioration. Rather than attributing his psychological break to a single incident, mental health professionals who, examine Ed, combine a bunch of factors, everything we mentioned. I mean, this, you know, strange maternal dependency and mental health issues and isolation, all exacerbated by the death of his mother. So now we have a 41-year-old adult with all the psychological. psychological background we've analyzed dealing with this profound loss living on an isolated remote farm

with no living family left besides all that he had never really developed normal adult independence or social skills basically he only knew kind of survival skills due to his delayed developmental state so he knew how to generally cook and some farm work and all these crucial developmental phases where individuals you know create relationships and independence from their parents is non-existent Immediately after the passing of his mother, Ed's behavior began to get increasingly, increasingly more bizarre. So he sealed off the rooms in his house that had belonged to his mother and his brother and preserved them exactly as they had been. These rooms became almost like shrines that he maintained but rarely ever entered. And then sometime after his mother's death, Ed made the bizarre decision to exhume her body from the cemetery.

Now, this is an act that obviously represents a clear break from reality. and the normal grieving process and really marks the beginning of his descent into criminal parapherolic behaviors that would later shock the entire nation. Now, I told you at the beginning of this video that Edward Gein cannot be considered a serial killer for two reasons. One, he wasn't proven to have killed more than two people, and the victims he did kill were not spread out over the typical serial killer timeline. Several disappearances occurred in the area during the 1940s and 50s, and some have actually

speculated that those are connected to Gein. So, just in short, May 1st, 1947, Georgia Wechler, just a young eight-year-old girl, mysteriously disappears when she left her house to walk to school. And the only evidence of her disappearance were some tire marks where she was last seen. June 17, 1952. Victor Travis and Ray Burgess, two middle-aged men, disappeared after leaving a local bar. Witnesses report hearing a vehicle, leave the area quickly. 1953, Evelyn Hartley, 15 years old, disappears while babysitting. Her clothing was found some distance from the house, along with evidence of struggle. These disappearances put Plainfield in the spotlight as people began to wonder what was happening

in this small town. However, there's no definitive evidence linking Ed Gein to these cases. They do remain unsolved to this day. Now, we move into Ed Gein's first confirmed victim, Mary Hogan, a 60-year-old woman who owned a local tavern in 1954. This woman was described as a large imposing figure who could handle difficult customers and had a commanding presence in her establishment. And there are various theories about why Ed targeted Mary Hogan specifically,

with some suggesting that she may have reminded him of his mother in some way, though this is just psychological speculation. Between Ed and the townspeople, there was generally a relationship of casual acquaintance. Ed wasn't seen as threatening, and most people viewed him as just kind of like a quiet oddball who lived in an isolated farm. And people recognized him, but didn't. really pay him much attention seeing him as just, you know, a harmless guy. Remember, we're talking about the 1950s. This was an era of much less suspicion and fear. And communities, especially small

ones, were pretty trusting and acts of random violence were so rare. So Mary Hogan had some interaction with Ed as she, you know, he occasionally would go to her tavern. And one day, in December, in 1954, Mary Hogan disappeared from this very tavern. The scene showed signs of violence with blood evidence, but no body was found at the time. At the time, there wasn't the sophisticated investigation techniques that we have today, and Mary Hogan's disappearance while concerning to the community didn't immediately lead to any arrests. Among local speculation, Ed's friend made a comment to him about the disappearance,

and Ed's response reportedly was, she isn't missing. She's at the farm. Though the friend assumed that this was just Ed's odd sense of humor, the subsequent behavior began to unfold. Ed later described experiencing periods of psychological disturbance following his mother's death, though these specific details are, again, his own later accounts.

What is documented is that after Mary Hogan's murder, Ed began to systematically visit local cemeteries, and he would read obituaries and local newspapers and identify recently deceased individuals, specifically women, and then he would go and exhume their bodies for reasons that mental health professionals still continued to debate till this day. Ed's method was to visit cemeteries at night and basically dig up these bodies,

and in that era, these burial practices were a little different, right? Graves were typically a bit shallower and less secure than, you know, graveyards today. Ed later claimed that during these activities, he experienced disassociative episodes, though the accuracy of these, you know, self-reported episodes is just his own personal statements. He said he would find himself back at his farm with the exhumed remains without any clear memory of the process, though this could represent, you know, like a genuine disassociation or an attempt from him to actually minimize his culpability and just say, hey, I was insane. Now, having grown up on a farm, Ed had learned practical skills related to animal processing like we had mentioned, like skinning animals,

preserving hides, meat processing, and actually creating, you know, different items from animal parts. And as a result, it's important to clarify that for someone raised on the farm, these skills are really normal and necessary for rural life. Learning to process animals and work with hides is extremely useful and profitable for, you know, an agricultural setting. But what made Ed's situation abnormal is that he would use these farming skills and apply them to the human remains. And again, these psychological motivations behind this have been subject to extensive research and speculation. Now, this leads us to what eventually gets Ed captured. So we fast forward three years to November 16, 1957, Ms. Bernice Warden owned a hardware store that sold various supplies and materials

needed by the community, and this 58-year-old woman was well-known in town and had regular interactions with many of the local residents. But on this day, Bernice Warden disappeared from her store. Evidence that the scene indicated once again violence had occurred with blood found on the premises. Ed's critical mistake here was that Bernice Warden was not just any townsperson. She was the mother of Frank Warden, a local law enforcement officer. Frank had previously been suspicious of Ed due to his unusual behavior and had noted Ed's frequent visits to this very store. Ed left considerable evidence at the crime scene.

Most obviously, there was a receipt with Ed's name at the store, indicating that he had been there on the day of the disappearance. Additionally, witnesses had seen a man matching Ed's description and vehicle leaving the area. Unlike the general townspeople who viewed Ed as, you know, a harmless, eccentric guy, Frank Warden had observed Ed's behavior more critically and had concerns about his interactions with his mother. This professional law enforcement perspective led to Ed being quickly identified as a suspect. Now, as you might expect from someone with Ed's limited social skills and his psychological state, when police arrived to question him about Bernice Warden's disappearance,

his response immediately raised suspicions. When police asked Ed if they knew anything about Bernice Warden or her disappearance or where she is, he just became defensive and nervous. His responses were inconsistent, and he volunteered information that hadn't been requested at all, including references to her being dead before police had even established that she was murdered. Ed's behavior during questioning clearly indicated. guilt, and his story contained numerous inconsistencies about his whereabouts and activities

on that specific day. Based on this suspicious behavior and the evidence from the crime scene, police obtained a warrant to search Ed's property. And what they found is truly disturbing. When police searched Ed's house, they initially found the first floor covered in just dust and debris filled with old furniture, and the house appeared to be generally in a state of decay, with evidence of pest infestations and poor maintenance. However, when they expanded their search to the outbuildings, this is where they found some of the most horrifying discoveries in law enforcement to this day. A shed behind the house, the police found Bernice Warden's body. It was decapitated and hanging upside down, similar to how an animal

would be treated. Times reporting published two weeks after the arrest also noted her head was in a box and her heart was in a different compartment near the stove, which confirms organ removal. Accounts from Wisconsin outlets say that the deputy who first lit the scene ran outside and vomited. Another local piece quotes, participating officer and says Sheriff Art Schley also became sick. The discovery is documented in crime scene photos that remain some of the most disturbing images in American criminal history ever. The search of Ed's property continued for over a week because after finding Bernice Wharton's body, investigators realized that they had initially dismissed as old dusty furniture was actually items

made from human remains. The complete inventory of items found included 10 skulls with the tops taken off and used as bowls and human skulls mounted as bedposts and a heart found in a bag and human skin and many more discoveries that are personally just too gruesome to even detail. And the motivations behind Ed's creation of these items is still, again, debated amongst psychological experts. Various people have proposed different theories around the psychology that actually drives this behavior. Some mental health professionals have suggested that Ed's actions represent attempts to cope with death, specifically his mother's passing and his own psychological issues, though these specific mechanisms involved continue to be debated. What is clear from the evidence

is that Ed had been systematically collecting human remains and fashioning them into functional and decorative items over a period of several years. Ed did seal off certain rooms in the house that belonged to his mother, preserving them as they were when she was alive. And these rooms contained his mother's belongings and appeared to, you know, be a shrine to her. The discovery of Bernice Warden's body processed in this manner indicated that Ed had killed her fairly recently. And during the search, investigators also found what they initially thought was a wig, and upon further examination, it was actually an entire skull.

This was later identified as belonging to Mary Hogan, Ed's first confirmed victim from three years before. Now, for clarification, while Ed's house contained remains from numerous individuals, he was only charged with two murders. The additional human remains were determined through investigation to have come from exhumed bodies rather than additional murders. Now, Ed provided evidence to support this claim

by showing investigators which graves he had disturbed, and when authorities checked in these locations, they found that the graves had indeed been opened and their bodies had been removed. This distinction was important for the legal proceedings, as it meant that Ed was charged with two murders and various counts of grave robbing and desecration of human bodies,

rather than classified as multiple. independent murders. Ed was arrested and initially confessed to the murders of Bernice Warden and Mary Hogan. He maintained that the other human remains in his house were just from grave robbing, which was largely corroborated by the fiscal evidence. Due to questions about his mental competency, Ed was initially declared unfit to stand trial and was committed to the Central State Hospital for the criminally insane for psychiatric evaluation. In 1968, 11 years after his arrest, Ed was deemed mentally competent to stand trial, and he was tried for the murder of Bernice, warden, and found guilty of first-degree murder. But due to his documented mental illness,

he was sentenced to life in a mental health institution rather than prison. Ed spent the remainder of his life in Wisconsin's state mental health facilities first at Central State Hospital and later at Mendota Mental Health Institute in Madison, where he died of respiratory failure, July of 1984 at age 77. Now, this story is obviously gruesome and disturbing for many reasons, but Ed's story has left a lasting impact on American culture in crime psychology to this day. I mean, his case has been studied extensively by criminologists and mental health professionals as an example of how extreme childhood trauma, social isolation, and mental illness can all come together to contribute to the development of severely deranged behavior.

His crimes have inspired numerous fictional characters and psychopaths in films that we have mentioned before, and the case continues to be studied in academic settings as researchers seek to understand the complex psychological and social factors that can contribute to such deranged criminal behavior. Ed's story will continue to be remembered as one of the most disturbing cases in American criminal history ever, and it illustrates the profound impact that psychological disturbances can have when they are left untreated in certain extreme situations. I mean, truly, I mean, grotesque, like the fact that he would do this alone and, like, this disassociation. I remember a professor even when I took this class in college, he would describe, you know, people that would do these things and they would disassociate. And in a certain way, you know, I think that that's probably him trying to absolve himself from guilt, you know, like he was found competent to stand trial after being in this mental hospital for a while. So I wonder truly how psycho he was.

Like, of course, like you can see his behavior. This guy is not an normal human being. But was he actually disassociated the entire time? I don't know. It is interesting to me that, you know, not everyone with childhood trauma goes on to commit these atrocious acts, and not everyone with mental health issues will go on to do these things, but having a specific sort of conflation of multiple things all at once with a trigger

could cause someone to truly do the most disturbing and grotesque behavior you could even possibly imagine. For whatever reason, in the mind of a. had gain due to the trauma as well as the schizophrenia, he saw the desecration of these bodies as somehow a solution for the grief that he was experiencing, that somehow he could become his mother, this woman that he had this psychological dependence on, and that if he was able to exume these bodies and somehow interact with them, that he would no longer be distant from this woman that he needed. And it is a disturbing, bizarre way that the brain would try to cope with

with some type of loss. And I think in a lot of ways, this case underscores the importance of understanding the intersection between mental health and violent crime and the role of, you know, community awareness and prevention and, you know, in a lot of ways,

the necessity of forensic psychology in, you know, profiling offenders, potentially, you know, even before they offend. And his legacy not only reshaped, like, public fears. I mean, truly, the most, you know, macabreation of a human person, but also inspired deeper, academic and investigative approach to pathology and the hidden warning signs of, you know,

future violence. And ultimately, you know, these crimes remind us that criminology must continue to evolve, not only to solve crimes after the fact, but to identify and address the conditions that make such horrors possible. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the bizarre and twisted psychology of Ed Gein. Thank you guys so much for joining us for this episode. If there's anything I missed, feel free to drop a comment if there's anything that you learned or if you have only any personal thoughts as to what kind of events can turn someone into a killer like Ed. Please drop them in. Like I said, I read every single comment. And if there's other profiles of other killers or monsters you're interested in, I enjoy doing these psychological deep devs. So drop them in the comments.

Thank you guys so much for joining us for another episode of Camp. I'll see you guys next week. If you've made it to the end of this episode, you are clearly someone who understands that Beneath every historical event lies a deeper truth waiting to be uncovered. You're the type of person who knows that real history is more fascinating than any fiction. And we deeply appreciate that about you. I'll be honest. That's exactly why I personally invite you to sign up for today in history. Our free newsletter that goes beyond the surface of historical events,

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