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hey weirdos I'm Elena I'm Ash and this is [Music] morbid morbid this is morbid today yeah
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we're hitting a biggie today wa we're hitting a biggie and it's going to be real morbid and it's going to be real
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morbid for about three episodes fantastic oh well we're doing Ed um yeah we're doing Ed guys as you know from
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clicking on this episode I've only ever really heard this covered probably on like maybe like two other shows really
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yeah it's covered on every podcast well I don't listen to like a lot of True Crime just cuz we do it a lot not cuz I
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don't you know appreciate yeah exactly appreciate um but yeah hesitantly excited to hear your coverage yeah I
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mean this is this is definitely one of those that like I said has been covered everywhere like that's I think that's
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why we just like waited a little while and also because it's like a it's gnarly it's a heavy story it's a sad story it's
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an awful story it's a gruesome story it's all those things and I knew it was going to be multipar so you got to like
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you know you got to place those in the right spots yeah but you know what the time has come and you guys have asked
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for this episode for a long time time so it's time to cover the man who you know is the
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inspiration behind some of the most iconic horror characters multiple psycho is based after him oh Norman Bates
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that's Ed [ __ ] I forgot that also confession I still haven't seen it we got to make you watch psycho oh no I
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want to actually yeah we're gonna have we're going to do that on screen yeah we'll do it um you know Silence of the
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Lambs Texas Chainsaw Massacre all of those things were at least in part inspired a little bit by this case
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oh okay I forgot the Silence of the Lambs was at least little bits and pieces are taken you know for characters
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or for the story for sure and I mean I see why it's a very strange and UNS settling case like this guy isn't
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prolific when it comes to murdering people and prolific by standards of like how many people he murdered yeah uh but
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he's prolific in many other ways many other not good ways depraved ways yeah and he also is a murderer he committed
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horrible murders maybe of his own family who knows shoot and we will get into it
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um but yeah so let's start off with just talking about who Ed G is ok let's go right into his pretty horrific childhood
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oh good love that uh so Edward Theodor Gan was born August 27th 1906 in Lacrosse Wisconsin 19 6 also I know I
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hate that I like both of those names Edward and Theodore yeah I mean they're great names that's the thing like
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they're they're very these are just like names that are so palatable they are you
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know it's okay if you like them it's okay if you like them uh but he was the second of two boys born to George and
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the pretty Infamous Augusta Gan that name also pops off Augusta Augusta I would not [ __ ] with her mostly
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because I know a lot about her Point like just like the little I've just been like leaking out this I need to say
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something let me tell you about austa but austa well you know I say she's Infamous only because she seems to have
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definitely played a role in twisting edg's mind into something that was kind of Beyond repair yeah for sure um it's
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sad it's really sad like it's it's horrific how she treated her children I feel like this is very much a nurt
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versus naturee flipped a bit so who's to say you know like cuz I it's it's so hard to
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like that's a hard debate I feel like you can never pinpoint for sure but we always say and like it's pretty clear in
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studies and such that like nurture has plays a role it just plays a role absolutely like it's it's not always the
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that's that's the cause and nature is not always that's the cause it's the combo of both I feel like is always the
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one that's the the ticking Time Bomb yeah I feel like in in every case it's probably like some
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combo of both and it's just a matter of how much yeah which one is way more than
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the other one you're right exactly and here I would say nurture was definitely The Higher One on the
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scale the way it's cuz we have to remember like kids minds are so easily molded because they are just open to
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whatever and like their caregivers are the ones that are going to be the ones that have the most influence over what
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they think what they believe how they feel about themselves how they feel about the world around them it is very
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easy to turn a kid into just whatever kind of robotic scary human you want to turn them into if you really go for it
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and it sounds like Augusta really went for it she had an agenda here um and obviously something's wrong something's
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wrong with ad something big wrong something's wrong with Adin on a cellular level there cuz the things he
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did are just far beyond the scope of any imagination and like we say a lot of people have shitty childhoods and a lot
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of people have shitty parents and a lot of people have caregivers that put [ __ ]
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into their mind and somehow they are able to break out of it someday true or at least be able to manage enough to not
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murder people and you know decorate their house with remains if you can manage not to do that I would say that's
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best I I would say you're you're really you're doing well you're doing cuz also that's not [ __ ] easy no so
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for real good job if you're like like cuz if you you know like trauma is trauma especially childhood trauma like
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I can't imagine like the you know there's certain levels but it's like at the high level of childhood trauma I
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can't imagine having to come out of that and become a functioning adult well I'm
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27 and I'm still working on it so EXA so you know well done if you're working through it right now well done if you
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have PL to work through it and well done if you have worked through it good job on all those good job guys um but George
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and Augusta had wed in December 1899 and according to crimer writer Harold sh shreer shreer excuse me that's hard to
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say oh that's hard to say it's sheer Sher there it is it's kind of fun to say Harold sheer uh he said quote their
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marriage had the quality of a particularly lacerating nightmare that's a writer though that's
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sentence is metal as [ __ ] but the reality is sad and horrible a lacerating nightmare y that'd be a really good band
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had the quality of a particularly lacerating nightmare what a description you gave me everything I needed it's so
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elegant it is and it gave me everything I needed to know about that marriage you
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I know like a particularly lacerating nightmare got it got it that's not a marriage I'd like to be a part of no
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definitely not so it's sad already you're like oh oh [ __ ] H so even by early 20th century standards for
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marriage which was definitely not like let's get married cuz we love each other romance romance romance it was really
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like you got to be practical with your marriage basically it's like for the best of the of the family kind of thing
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right George and Augusta's marriage made little sense even by those standards like to those around them people were
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like you sure you really that George had suffered a lifetime of hardship and as a
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result well he had no faith in religion no faith in God he was not into that he had developed cripplingly low
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self-esteem he had a tendency to judge himself so harshly like everything was his fault he believed wow he would put
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everything on himself and I think he had also been kind of taught that like I think he had also grown up in a place
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where he was the scapegoat that's sad um Augusta on the other hand was I'll give
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it to her this she was a hard worker like if she Augusta is a hard worker she's just she's going to be a hard
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worker she was industrious and she was also she had a strong work ethic very rigid sense of morality and that came
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BEC from her being a deeply religious woman um she was also a Stern disciplinarian she was self-righteous
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domineering and inflexible oh fun great qualities in a human and she is also someone who quote
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never doubted for a moment moment the absolute correctness of her beliefs or her right to impose them by whatever
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means on the other people around her by whatever means that's the part that really got me she sounds like a [ __ ]
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nightmare to be honest like if you're like you believe what you believe if you think you have a right to impose those
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beliefs by whatever means necessary on people who don't want that that's [ __ ] up also what does that mean by whatever
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means necessary isn't it very ominous it's got a very ominous tone it truly does and again she was I'll give it to
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her she was a hard worker and she probably could have thrived as a business owner if she had just become a
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business owner and not decided to delve into the realm of being a mother yeah she doesn't very she doesn't sound very
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motherly to yeah there's not a lot of nurturing Happening Here by you know conventional standards uh I again open a
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business she would have killed it yeah but she did not um there wasn't really a honeymoon phase for the Gans I don't
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think no I didn't I didn't really see that coming down the pike for them yeah it's not like oh the honeymoon phase is
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over and now she shows who she is no like there it's you know again a marriage of practicality and I don't
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even really know how practical it was nobody's really sure why this happened to be quite honest that's like really
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sad cuz I feel like we say this so much but you think about like walking down the aisle taking vows the whole nine and
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just for what for lacerating nightmare that sucks particularly lacerating nightmare yeah so her I mean she had
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already kind of shown George who she was that she was you know very religious very strict very all this but her true
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personality really revealed itself pretty quickly after they got married she was like well here it goes that's so
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rough that like it was already pretty rough before they got married and then he's like all in and it's like H but
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wait there's more yeah and George like I said he had crippling low self-esteem he
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had zero self selfworth I mean he was already kind of a shadow of a guy at that point and he became even more of a
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shadow yeah like this is not going to help yeah he just withdrew into himself unfortunately he began drinking very
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heavily alcoholism shortly followed things got so bad at one point because it was a constant House of like
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according to all the sources we could find that it was a constant House of the two of even before kids them just being
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miserable with each other and like George just kind of retreating into himself drinking and kind of isolating
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and him B and her berating him so it's just that kind of awful environment of just neither one of them are doing well
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with each other you know and not something you would ever want to bring kids into no but back then obviously I
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know it was like yeah not as easy to not have kids of course but if you could have a perfect world here you if you
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could choose like just black and white probably don't right right but but at one point George snapped and hit Augusta
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oh that's not the answer Bud silence is not the answer and Shear wrote at that afterwards quote she would draw herself
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to her knees and pray fervently for her husband's death what like outwardly I don't think God is like down
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with that like I don't think God is down with you hitting people either no I think this is none of this is really
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this is awful yeah it's not great so not surprisingly I would say Augusta's views
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on sex as a whole uh were extreme uh even for those Among Us who consider themselves the most Pious I would say
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that her views are a little scary oh no um sex before marriage was just out of the [ __ ] question I mean
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unquestionably a sin you will die for and burn in the pits of hell like don't do not pass go do not collect $500 like
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you death bye wow um but even within marriage sex between husband and wife and only husband and wife of course
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always uh was unpleasant and just a responsibility necessary to procreate like something [ __ ] we just have to do
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it and it's only to have kids that's it it reminds me in Gilmore Girls of Lane Kim and her mom Mrs Kim yes when Lane's
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getting married and she's trying to like explain to Lane you know the wedding night and Lane's like no no no I got it
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and she's like no let me explain it to you and she says if you're lucky you only have to do it once like me oh my
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God and Lane's just like ah if you're lucky that's so sad if you're lucky you only have to do it once oh my God and I
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was like oh my that's that stuck with me which like go Miss cim a but like like just once just one time and then never
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again [ __ ] that sorry and that was Augusta's view on it just like have kids that's it and out of religious
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obligation have kids wow so this is all like not great this is wild this is so dark yeah you ain't seen nothing yet I'm
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like this is so dark and then I just sit my poppy yeah I'm just like just wait until part two oh good uh but be you
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know Augusta seems like she's a little intolerant of anything and is certainly anything less than Perfection she also
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kept immaculate home immaculate which like good for her like good for you keeping an Immaculate home I suppose
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that's tough to do especially you know when you're living in 1906 without a Swiffer it's really without a Swiffer I
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feel like it's really dusty in 1906 really dusty but she kept it but that was part of her like obsession with
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perfection too it wasn't like she just liked her home clean it was like All Is Lost well there's that whole phrase I'm
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sure she lived by cleanliness next to God godliness I think you had it right yeah wait I think we said said the same
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thing I think you said Next to Godliness which I think is right I think it's close to I I said like down the block or
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something from it it's it's in the it's in a nearby County to Godliness I think uh but but like given that giving her
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obsession with perfection her intolerance for essentially anything her attitudes towards
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sex it's pretty unclear besides religious obligation why she would have thought children was her path in life I
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think just cuz you supposed to quot um and I think it was like social expectations it was also 1906 not a lot
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of ways to prevent that from happening I suppose except that they were having sex
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only to have kids right so that was the agenda here so I think it was a religious and social obligation for sure
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um but it certainly wasn't out of love for the need to nurture another living thing doesn't sound like it but whatever
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the case Henry Gan was born in January 1902 this is Ed's older brother okay and was followed four years later by Ed now
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in the early years of Ed and Henry's lives George struggled to keep the family afloat he was working you know
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just whatever jobs he could find to provide even the most essential of needs it was tough
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times after a few years he went into business for himself and he opened a small meat and grocery shop in 1909
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which is like okay George nice um but George had no business bu sense no experience whatsoever definitely not
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experience owning a business of that kind or any kind of that so the store just started falling downhill went into
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financial problems oh no and Augusta's solution to this issue was just push her husband aside and take over the
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operation of the store okay she put him in the position of a clerk she said you're you're nice to people she said
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demoted and then while this you know this didn't do anything to improve their uh domestic relationship I imagine if
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you already hate each other working together is not the answer probably not great and especially her demoting him
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and just taking it over but one thing about Augusta she going get it done she's going to get work done she's going
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to do it her work ethic and determination were exactly what was needed for this store okay and she did
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turn things around in a very short period of time and she ended up managing them into a place where they were
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financially sustainable nice all right okay Augusta again it feels like this is where Augusta would have thrived she you
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know she didn't enjoy domestic life not I think out of again social and religious obligation she felt like that
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was her Duty and that was what she was supposed to do but I think if she could have opened her mind a little bit she
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would have been a great business woman just that way just demote him to go take care of the kid exactly like hopefully
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he's got his drinking under yeah because again she that's the other thing it's like we also have George falling into
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the Shadows here and you know his alcoholism is kind of taking things over it ends up [ __ ] with his health later
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like you know it's and obviously you know he did hit her so it's like this is just not a great situation for anybody
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it's just like damn man oh man it's all bad it's all bad it's all bad and um again just become a business owner and
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then the world would have been one less edgin you know that's always something to strive for but although things in the
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business were doing well you know finally at home things were definitely not not great following Henry's birth
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Augusta struggled to bond with him when he was little um and that's and seemed almost resentful of his presence and I
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wondered quickly I was like could this be undiagnosed postpartum and I do wonder if that played a role in here but
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when you read a little more into it it doesn't feel like it has the Hallmarks of that kind of situation okay it feels
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like it's just who she is she this wasn't the path she was planning to take like out of a want to take it yes it was
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more out of a expectation yeah and then it's also I think what happened I think if she had had she really wanted a girl
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yeah and I'll explain why in a second but I think if she had had a girl she would have been a little
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more bonded okay or what she saw as bonded in her own head you know what I mean like not a conventional Bond I
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don't think I don't think I just don't know if she was capable of that kind of kind of thing to be honest but because
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it was a boy she really wasn't happy she had always maintained a I mean bottom of
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the barrel opinion of men like they're all bad they're all horrible and again she wanted a girl so she was very
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disappointed when she had a boy I'm wondering about like what her upbringing was like yeah she grew up she was raised
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in Germany oh wow okay yeah so there's not a lot known about her upbringing but you know who knows yeah but she saw so
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when she got pregnant for a second time she saw that as an opportunity to get what she wanted and then she got another
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boy yeah uh so she was equally disappointed but Shea writes quote Augusta was not the kind to give in
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Despair and she took the swaddled newborn in her arms and made a sacred vow this one would not grow up to be
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like the rest of them this one she promised would be different okay which sounds like that
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that could have the whisper of a promise you know pretty all right like it's a little okay like you're just like oh
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okay are you you like love him into be a good man you know like is that that no and also like him and his brother are
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not that far apart so why can't they both be good ones exactly I don't understand because Henry was like
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neglected and abandoned by her like just totally yeah I don't want anything to do
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with you and then I think so I think she looked at Henry as like that's the mistake I didn't want that
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then she has another child she's like well that's also a mistake but she's like I guess I should try to fix this
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one like make it what I want both girl and Ed became something like a pet to Augusta and again this is not to to say
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that she treated him with kindness and compassion and love and nurturing because unfortunately some people don't
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do that to their pets no she just focused a lot of time on him mostly bad attention and the way that she saw it
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was if I can't have girl I can't have the or even the child I want in any way because she just did not see these
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children as the ones she wanted she figured you know what at least Ed I can shape him into being at least something
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resembling what I want if not physically at least in character oh no so for years
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Augusta would berate Ed at every opportunity and because her her main plan here and this is what makes me
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think this is more just like austa is an [ __ ] yeah because it's like she had a
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plan here and her plan was to break Ed completely so that she could he would literally just worship her and he she
00:22:04
could control his every thought yeah and that's [ __ ] up like that's not just to think that way is so
00:22:12
maniacal and your own kid yeah and he would she would tell him that he was stupid tell him you did pointed out
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every mistake he made would humiliate him any slip up he made was a big deal and she would just make him feel the
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lowest of the low that's sad and would always remind him only a mother could love you so she literally told him no
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will ever love you only your mother could love you mean and it's like and it's literally like you are such a
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[ __ ] waste that only I could love you so like don't even bother I can't imagine treating number one anybody this
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way but I can't imagine treating a child this way a child your child yeah only a
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mother can love you can you imagine like hearing your mom say those words like that's really [ __ ] up so [ __ ] up as
00:23:00
we know going to do some very traumatizing and again her whole idea was to make him fear her respect her and
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worship her and worship her yeah big time and that is so diabolical it is that that's exactly it it's so [ __ ] up
00:23:16
so while she would never be capable of recognizing it her very abrasive personality and I mean
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self-righteousness had left her feeling isolated from everyone around her like she was going to admit that but she was
00:23:29
she was isolated I mean who would want to hang out with a woman to be around and George loathed being around her and
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did everything he could to stay away from her or just avoid catching her eye like any of her attention this is so sad
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and again in Ed she saw an opportunity not to build a lasting relationship through trust and love and nurturing and
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compassion but to manipulate and twist him into who someone who would love her no matter what and would desperately
00:24:01
seek her approval and praise that was the other part of the equation was she needed him to desperately need her
00:24:08
praise and approval cuz nobody else really did it sounds like and some and in all of that together would mean he
00:24:14
would never leave her and that was her whole idea is you will never leave me and that's not why you have children you
00:24:21
want to send them off into the world yeah you want to hope that they come back out of their own valtion to be with
00:24:26
you right so this is unhealthy and with few other influences to contradict any of this abuse it didn't take long for Ed
00:24:33
to become totally reliant on her for all social emotional any of his needs he relied on her for everything every move
00:24:43
he made and years later whenever anyone would ask about his mother he would literally become tearfully sentimental
00:24:50
and would say she was like nobody else in the world wow like he was even when she died even he was like she was
00:24:57
everything because he she had just ingrained that she had beaten it into him it's
00:25:03
literally like a it's wild also what a way to word that yeah cuz cuz I think she might have not been like anyone else
00:25:10
in the world she was unique when Ed was s years old Augusta decided the family could make more money farming than they
00:25:17
would operating the store so she sold off the business and relocated the family to a small farm outside Camp
00:25:23
Douglas which is about 40 minutes outside lacrosse and you know while it was true that she did believe there was
00:25:30
going to be a good future in farming it was like you know it was that time it felt like it was a good move she did
00:25:35
have another motive for this it was to get her family particularly her youngest her young and impressionable and baby Ed
00:25:43
away from the urban in what she believed to be evil landscape of Lacrosse uhuh but for unknown reasons the farm outside
00:25:51
Camp Douglas didn't work out and then less than a year later they moved again uh so in 1914 they ended up settling on
00:25:57
a one 195 Acre Farm [ __ ] I wish and it was in PL fields which is a pretty small
00:26:05
really rural community on the other side of the state and to be honest their Farmstead when compared to everyone
00:26:11
else's was very sprawling it was a twostory huge and like there was a two-story home there was like a bunch of
00:26:18
out buildings a large barn there was like all kinds of stuff um and the property was actually purchased and
00:26:26
owned by Augusta and back then that's like virtually unheard of exactly unheard of it's real
00:26:34
estate and business anything would like this is why it was strictly in the domain of men at that time and again
00:26:42
Augusta really had the chops to be a thriving businesswoman if she had just changed her [ __ ] tune yeah but if
00:26:49
fleeing Urban moral Decay truly was her intention she couldn't have picked a more appropriate location to be honest
00:26:55
like it was the right move they near nearest neighbors were like a quarter mile away damn and the house was
00:27:02
surrounded on all sides by Meadowland trees Fields like it was total isolation and Augusta liked it um that's a lot to
00:27:11
bring a child like kids into though like kids don't need to be isolated the isolation is tough that is a tough thing
00:27:18
and she was isolating because she said the religious and moral standards of plane Fields were scandalously low she
00:27:24
had determined wow right after getting there according to Augusta I'm sure they were probably like some of the most
00:27:29
religious people ever and she's like not enough literally in reality planfield the people there were as hardworking and
00:27:35
God-fearing as most of the other rural Midwestern communities of the time go I had a feeling but looking down on them
00:27:42
allowed Augusta to feel morally Superior which is what she lived for right uh in
00:27:46
fact she not only deemed the town to be of low moral character but also concluded that the churches there were a
00:27:51
lot in plane Fields were insufficient to provide moral and religious guidance for
00:27:56
Ed in particular and she said nope I'm going to take the responsibility on of providing religious instruction to him
00:28:03
oh goodie yeah now in their new home she continued to dominate Ed's life I mean occupying every moment of his time
00:28:12
nitpicking at everything he did in fact the only time Ed had any break was the hours that he was at school but there he
00:28:20
kind of faced a different set of problems so he was living in constant stress and abuse and manipulation all
00:28:27
kinds of things obviously at home so nobody can really tell what kind of student he would have been if he wasn't
00:28:34
going through all that he did like so I guess so I mean things were what they were so he did struggle in the classroom
00:28:42
but he was an Avid Reader okay he was a very good reader um living an isolated life on the farm like you were pointing
00:28:49
at and being completely cut off from peers and potential Friends by his mother Ed was incredibly lonely and like
00:28:56
had and like socially you feel weird being like that's so sad that Ed was lonely like we always say the kid feel
00:29:04
bad for the kid not the adult really [ __ ] yeah and on the off chance that he did make any kind of like fleeting
00:29:10
connection with someone from school just like a friend the relationship was immediately cut off because when Augusta
00:29:17
found out about it she would be like they're from an awful family no way like you are not to speak to them they're
00:29:22
evil she would literally cast them out as evil like they're a demon in a child's body you are not to talk to them
00:29:29
what the [ __ ] so terrify that kid to be like oh [ __ ] like I can't tell where
00:29:33
these demons are in kid bodies oh my God to go that far I can't imagine not wanting my child to make friends any
00:29:42
friends what yeah and the isolation and loneliness made him seem odd to other kids at school obviously and even when
00:29:48
he tried to like imitate their normal social behaviors he would come off as like really robotic and like sometimes
00:29:54
inappropriate like he just didn't know how to do it and he had a congenital lazy eye oh and he also had a growth on
00:30:01
his tongue that impeded his speech sometimes oh no so he would often get picked on yeah of course decades later
00:30:08
when he underwent a series of psychological testing for his crimes his IQ was determined to be very average wow
00:30:15
so he was not like below he was not high above he was just average so he was struggling strictly from a social from
00:30:22
social and just yeah and like an emotional kind of situation but um he only made it as far as 8th grade and he
00:30:29
graduated 8th grade at 16 and then he stopped school oh wow to work on the f eth grade yeah exactly so things at
00:30:38
school might have been bad for Ed but they were definitely no better at home at this point um while the idea of
00:30:43
owning a farm made sense to Augusta at the time uh she and her husband had no farming experience I was I was wondering
00:30:51
yeah and they didn't have the money to hire someone who did or pay for the Machinery that you know would make the
00:30:56
work less ardu and terrible yeah so instead they just worked all day just to produce enough food to feed themselves
00:31:04
and nothing more to really show for their work awesome and things only got worse by the time Ed and Henry reached
00:31:10
their teenage years cuz now they were spending the majority of their time working on the farm but their father's
00:31:16
heavy drinking had finally caught up to him and in addition to being you know to
00:31:21
him having significantly decreased productivity because of this he was getting sicker he started exhibiting
00:31:27
signs of Psy ological decline as well oh wow uh with no additional money to hire
00:31:31
help there was really nothing they could do except take all of George's slack on
00:31:36
the three of them so Augusta Henry and Ed are just working to the Bone damn now not in school and completely cut off
00:31:45
from the outside world at this point Ed was isolated on the farm with only his brother and his mother and his brother
00:31:52
is like kind of ambivalent to him right now like they're they're like they're fine like they're not mean to each other
00:31:58
they're not but like I think Henry was struggling in his own I'm sure way and Henry had a much different view of
00:32:05
Augusta than Ed had yeah and we find out later that it Ed had no idea Ed did not
00:32:12
know how Henry felt this just we all love Mom we all worship mom like see and that leads you to believe too cuz I know
00:32:20
we were having like the nature versus nurture discussion that like something in that nature is off yeah because for
00:32:26
Henry to see that like this is and also having like the exact same experience as
00:32:30
Ed like mostly I know she kind of like picked on Ed more well I think that's that's where the thing bends a little
00:32:37
that's the fork in the road and she kind of just abandoned Henry like she didn't
00:32:41
want anything to do with him but he saw her for what she was but he so he saw that and he was angry because he was
00:32:47
being treated as nothing and probably berated and abused and whatever like right but Ed was the he certainly got
00:32:55
abused he certainly got braided but it was an obsess iive kind of like I'm molding him to be what I want him to be
00:33:01
but Henry was just isolated completely from her and so I think the way that he saw it was
00:33:08
like like I hate her I don't like her I obey her because I'm scared of her and he will eventually tell Ed this and
00:33:15
we'll see where that leads but see even I feel like that's still such a nature thing like in like that small capacity
00:33:22
because with him like Henry undergoing all those same circumstances like that we were just saying like you could see
00:33:28
him turning out [ __ ] up too like absolutely the fact that he was abandoned and she treated him so shitty
00:33:34
exactly so there's something interes yeah there's something off in both ways for sure but yeah he just we'll find out
00:33:41
when he but but in this in these moments Ed was thinking that Henry is in the same boat right he's not see he's not
00:33:50
understanding that like this is a different scenario so it's interesting what happens when he finds that out oh
00:33:55
good now and Al also his parents are just completely unstable in every way imaginable so he doesn't have a lot to
00:34:03
go to so to cope he would Retreat into books and fantasy a lot and as you Grew Older those fantasies increasingly
00:34:12
included included women he was being told constantly that women are evil wh women are morally bankrupt women are
00:34:23
disgusting women will ruin you awesome like he was literally like like it was hammered into his head but he's a
00:34:31
human like he's and he's a young boy at this like it's just natural and giving her given her feelings about sex in
00:34:38
general and the wickedness and immorality of the locals Augusta swiftly and strongly addressed her son's growing
00:34:46
interest in women he was like oh this is not going to this is not going to work so he she focused nearly all of her ey
00:34:53
on the corrupting influence of modern women she just started hammering this [ __ ] in that was like the main thing of
00:34:59
all her religious teachings to him now cuz she saw that he started just like liking girls yeah like having a crush or
00:35:06
something or just being like wow she's pretty right like and she was like nope can't have that I'm the only woman for
00:35:12
you it's like oh wow okay now despite having literally no experience with basically no experience with modern
00:35:22
women whatever she believed modern women to be Augusta had seen enough in the newspaper and magazines to know that
00:35:29
they were morally bankrupt and no son of hers was ever going to sink as low as to
00:35:34
associate with women oh my not going to associate whenever the subject came up mostly because she would bring it up
00:35:41
because she was obsessed about it she would immediately reach for her Bible and begin quoting scripture and
00:35:47
according to Shear she would take both of her boys by the hand and make them swear to her that they would keep
00:35:53
themselves uncontaminated by women uncont became too stressing to resist she would say even the sin of Onan Onan
00:36:02
I think was preferable to the vess of fornication Dave looked it up and it's a passage from Genesis where it basically
00:36:10
says that Onan or Onan I don't know he pissed off God because he quote spilled his seed on the ground instead of into
00:36:18
his wife no I'm leaving so masturbation we're talking about she's saying they're
00:36:23
both sins fornication and masturbation are both saying masturbation is I'd rather you whack it than touch
00:36:29
disgusting women and she told Ed in order to show he loved her he had to stay a virgin or
00:36:36
he didn't love his mother oh that is on so many levels fizzy fizzy [ __ ] and this is like a 17 18yearold boy oh God
00:36:49
that she's sitting there saying you have to stay a virgin or you do not love me that is putrid that is that's rancid
00:36:56
that is Rancid oh my God yeah so not great uh and it should go without saying that you know
00:37:03
given the dire circumstances on the farm the just unending isolation and the overwhelmingly negative and twisted
00:37:10
influence of his mother uh the Gan family stood no chance of getting any better at this point does it sound like
00:37:16
it not great so by the late 1930s I and this is just like depressing it's like after a lifetime of misery
00:37:25
abuse heavy alcoholism and just being a Shadow of Yourself George G's Health had declined to the
00:37:32
point where he was barely able to get out of bed and he could not leave the house wow so finally on April 1st 1940
00:37:39
George Gan died from heart failure at age 66 much to the relief of his wife and children who were sick of picking up you
00:37:48
know the slack of the farm while also taking care of him oh yeah okay I hope his next life was better I I hope I hope
00:37:56
something like damn what a that's a rough cuz it sounds like he had a rough life leading
00:38:02
up to like childhood and everything it just never got better so for the last several years of his life George's
00:38:09
family had basically viewed him as a burden at that point which is I know it's all depressing um but now that they
00:38:16
were free of that burden all it kind of did was free them up to work more yeah uh and at the same time the American
00:38:23
Military entered World War II the following year and still eligible for the draft Ed was called to nearby
00:38:29
Milwaukee for the exams that would see if he was eligible for military service um had he been deemed eligible and sent
00:38:36
to Europe the G farm and Augusta's life probably would have crumbled into ruins to be honest yeah uh but fortunately for
00:38:42
her the Army rejected Ed because of a growth on his left eyelid which caused the lid to droop and slightly impaired
00:38:49
his vision a little bit oh okay his mother was very relieved so he was not eligible for military service without
00:38:55
their father to care for Ed and hen began taking odd jobs around planfield in order to help support their mother
00:39:02
and keep the farm running yeah and uh although like he had only gone to school until eth grade and had struggled he was
00:39:11
Ed Gan was very Adept at like manual labor cuz obviously he had done a ton at the farm he learned a lot yeah um so he
00:39:18
had no trouble finding work around town like installing Windows you know do fixing roofs like doing these little odd
00:39:26
jobs like other hand stuff he was known as like a local handyman okay you could call Ed and he'll fix that [ __ ] he's
00:39:33
good at it what a thought um and surprising oh there's another thought here so surprisingly he also had no
00:39:38
trouble finding work as a babysitter what a [ __ ] thought yep many of the families in and around
00:39:45
planfield hired him as a babysitter can you imagine knowing growing up as a child that Edan babysat you said that
00:39:54
man babysat my ass babysat my ass what and I mean like that sounds ghoulish mortifying that sounds ghoulish it
00:40:05
sounds that is a baller two truths in a lie though baller two in a lie you [ __ ] win that game you better use
00:40:13
that don't lose that don't uh maybe do lose that though time honestly you don't want to think about that but honestly
00:40:20
thinking about like the awful hideous rancid acts he is going to commit later in his life that sh that is rightfully
00:40:28
shocking to think of him as a babysitter oh yeah but when you really think about
00:40:34
this okay it makes a little bit of sense because paqua Edan is stunted I don't know where
00:40:44
he's stunted but he's stunted of course that boy has no social skills to to even
00:40:49
consider he feels very weird around his peers he doesn't know how to act he feels judged he he's terrified he's
00:40:57
always feeling the eyes of everybody else on him but with kids he feels like I can just hang with them like he's
00:41:06
literally I think these and these kids all they care about is that you're being nice well it was probably a him to like
00:41:13
have fun cuz he never had had fun in his childhood I think these kids probably helped him have fun and it's like all
00:41:19
these kids care about is that you're nice and you're playing with me they don't care that you're weird and he was
00:41:23
nice to them and he was nice and he played with them from everything could find nobody had problems with their kids
00:41:29
with him when he was like of that age right that's [ __ ] crazy like a teenager kind of thing like there was no
00:41:36
reports of anything weird happening no reports of him like hurting a child or wow not being anything but a very decent
00:41:43
babysitter that people kept hiring over and over again that's so interesting and
00:41:47
I think it's partially because like he he probably related better CU they had the social skills that he had which is
00:41:55
none to to see that's really sad like you don't need to act a certain way around kids they just care that you're
00:42:00
funny and you hang out right you know so when you think of it that way you're like okay like maybe I can see cuz it
00:42:08
was shocking to me that like people kept hiring him I was like is everyone all right in planville but planfield but I
00:42:14
get it I mean he seems by all reports that and how would they ever [ __ ] well that's the thing how are you
00:42:18
supposed to know and at this point it doesn't seem like he showing any quote unquote signs of what he's going to
00:42:23
become it seems like at this point he's a weird kid he's just a weird odd shy like painfully shy CH kid yeah which
00:42:32
probably endearing to people that he was shy like he wasn't like the scary thing
00:42:36
right so it's like again if he's being good with the kids how would these people have any other idea that he could
00:42:42
become this monster you know but now the time working outside of the home and away from
00:42:50
Augusta proved to be positive for Ed and Henry um but it was Henry who like really benefited from the whole thing
00:42:58
head had always been a little defiant when it came to his mother's strict rules cuz again different situation
00:43:03
between the two of them and he always had a very tumultuous relationship with her yeah so Ed kind of reluctantly left
00:43:11
his mother's side to go do these jobs like he was not happy to be away from her interesting yeah but Henry thrived
00:43:18
when he was away from the oh I'm sure he was probably like thrived let's live baby yeah like he was like see you later
00:43:24
he was like YOLO see you and again this distance and finally breaking away from what I can only imagine is a completely
00:43:31
stifling and suffocating environment on that farm I'm sure it was [ __ ] awful oh yeah this gave Henry a little more
00:43:38
perspective on Ed's relationship with Augusta like even more so he was able to see like something's wrong here yeah he
00:43:44
had always found it a little more than strange their relationship but I think he really like was like wait a second
00:43:52
and the brothers really it was the only thing they never saw eye eye on they were always pretty pretty decent with
00:43:56
each other wow because again while Ed held their mother in the highest esteem it came as a shock to him when he
00:44:05
learned that Henry [ __ ] loathed her and obeyed her out of pure fear wow he was shocked and he was angry he was like
00:44:15
what do you mean you don't love her like what do you mean you loathe her what are
00:44:19
you talking about and he was like [ __ ] her like are you kidding me have you looked at our life what so they
00:44:25
disagreed vehemently on their opinions about their mother and this was the first time they' ever like come to this
00:44:31
at one point but Ed loved his brother very deeply according to him and after the passing of their father he was kind
00:44:39
of the only other person that Ed had in his life and he was the only one in his life who didn't Dominate and consume him
00:44:46
right so it's like this is a very different relationship but I almost think that he didn't even know how to
00:44:51
handle that kind of relationship yeah I mean that makes sense that he wouldn't know if Henry was Ed's last connection
00:44:59
that even somewhat approximated some kind of love and support or anything like that which it sounds like he might
00:45:04
have been that connection came to an end on May 16th 1944 a fire broke out on the G Farm
00:45:12
according to Ed he and Henry had been burning some grass and vegetation near the Marshland on the property when the
00:45:19
fire escaped control okay and they needed to call for volunteer firefighters to help put out the fire
00:45:26
now despite Ed's explanation there's always been a little confusion about how this fire started whether it was
00:45:32
intentional or not and how it got so far out of control but whatever the cause when the firefighters got there
00:45:40
pretty quickly and were able to get the fire extinguished but when the smoke cleared Henry was nowhere what and so
00:45:47
they gathered a search party to look for Henry and Ed seemed to lead the search he first told them I don't know where
00:45:55
Henry is like I have no idea then he led the search team directly to Henry okay who was found laying face down dead from
00:46:05
what later was going to be determined to be a heart attack a heart attack there's
00:46:09
also reports that it's asphixiation that he died of okay but I saw more heart attack than
00:46:17
fixation what members of the search team and volunteer firefighters couldn't understand was how Henry had seemed to
00:46:23
have died as a result of the fire yet neither his body nor his clothes showed any signs of smoke or fire
00:46:31
damage also there were bruises on his head that could not be explained what and when the fire
00:46:39
investigators mentioned all this to Ed Ed's reply was and I quote funny how that
00:46:47
works what funny how what works it it doesn't work actually Ed I think Henry is Ed's first murder you think and I
00:46:57
think he killed him because he could not handle what he had found out about his mother wow or I think that austa said
00:47:06
something that led that Ed's Twisted mind took as kill him what the [ __ ] and I think it's kill
00:47:16
him be alone with Mom oh I really hate that a lot I think it's a little mixture of all of those things and how do you
00:47:23
think he did it that he ended up with bruises and a heart attack I think he probably
00:47:27
beat him over the head with something or hit him in the head with something didn't do like a typical autopsy they
00:47:32
didn't do any autopsy oh there was no autopsy so they said this looks weird let's not do anything about it they were
00:47:38
like yeah weird cool cool cool yep so I think that his brother Henry is his first personally that's strange and just
00:47:46
the response of like funny how that works funny how that works and led them right to him yeah like too weird so what
00:47:54
the [ __ ] and he was far away from the fire yeah what exactly it doesn't make sense no
00:48:01
one wanted to investigate this hello no do you think they were scared of this family I don't even think so I think
00:48:07
they were just it's the 40s they were just like e whatever put on their they put on their Fedora and walked away oh
00:48:14
no not Fedora I think when Henry after Henry Died Ed's last tie to reality was severed essentially yeah and he was now
00:48:23
left alone on the farm with Augusta with big mama which uh to be honest is probably likely how she would have
00:48:30
preferred it all along so she was probably fine with that unfortunately it wasn't long before Ed's life was upended
00:48:36
again because just a few months later his mother who he had always saw as indestructible began complaining that
00:48:43
she was feeling sick and faint she rushed her to the nearest hospital and they learned Augusta had suffered a
00:48:49
stroke and she would need to be on bed rest for the foreseeable future um he was at the hospital and home on the farm
00:48:57
just doting on her wherever she was refused to leave her bedside spend his days waiting on her and his evenings
00:49:05
reading to her from the Bible like he was forever watch next to her that's sad it is sad by the fall of 1945 she
00:49:15
appeared to be making some pretty significant improvements actually and had even begun to walk around a little
00:49:19
bit that's good with Ed's help um and so he it seemed to boost his spirits he thought she was going to you know she
00:49:26
was coming but unfortunately those Spirits were crushed in late December when austa had
00:49:31
a second stroke and this time it was much more severe yeah so Ed got his mother rushed to the hospital but it was
00:49:37
too late augustae died December 29th 1945 at the age of 67 years old wow young I know a life full of hatred will
00:49:45
do that to you that'll do it and Ed boarded up Augusta's bedroom and kept it as a museum and shrin to
00:49:53
her got to do what you got to do Allah Norman now yeah now in the span of 5 years Ed
00:50:03
had lost the three people who were his entire world his entire world yeah that's it that's the farthest reach he
00:50:10
had but when his mom died it unored him that's a different way kind of solitude that's a different kind like he's been
00:50:20
alone his whole life in my opinion but but this is I can't like psychologically none of us can
00:50:29
understand what was happening here because the damage that had already been done to that that psyche there like
00:50:36
there's a vacancy within that psyche exctly yeah wow yeah and again like regard no matter what
00:50:45
happened for as long as he knew Augusta was the driving force in his life like he what what do you do like you relied
00:50:53
on she made sure you relied on her for every [ __ ] part of your being yeah and when she's gone that's the thing she
00:51:01
did I'm like did you think of that Augusta that when you're gone what the [ __ ] is he going to do well no I think
00:51:06
it was a very self-serving it is that's the thing it was a very a shortsighted way of doing things it's like because
00:51:12
when you're gone man I know he and I think that's it she's like not my problem when I'm gone so that's exactly
00:51:17
it that's whatever and it's like that's so [ __ ] up like cuz what the [ __ ] did
00:51:21
you leave the world here like I can tell you you left Ed [ __ ] Gan that's what you left like Jesus but now without her
00:51:30
there on the farm he was like you said a totally different kind of a loan and he
00:51:34
had none of the skills necessary to deal with the grief right because you need to
00:51:40
like children need to be taught how to process emotions properly because they don't [ __ ] know how or you you need
00:51:48
need to hold their hand through it so they can understand how to do it themselves and he was never taught that
00:51:54
neither was Henry neither one of them so now he's dealing with this like overwhelming grief and has no skills
00:52:01
whatsoever to deal with it this is this was such a recipe yeah it really was the
00:52:07
whole thing it's all bad but in the years before Henry and Augusta's deaths the G Farm had been it had become
00:52:13
unsightly and kind of in need of some repairs like you know it was weather beaten like it just regular wear and
00:52:20
tear but it was kind of becoming like a little little over the top I mean that's
00:52:24
a huge Farm to maintain on your own yeah like some of the windows needed to be replaced like roofs needed patching like
00:52:31
that kind of [ __ ] but he was good at that [ __ ] he was good at that [ __ ] but
00:52:34
they all required money to do that the Gans didn't really have any so they did the best they could while all of them
00:52:40
were together but after Henry and austa died Ed simply let it just fall to ruin like cuz he was also in grief the lawn
00:52:48
had become overgrown with weeds the pastures were you couldn't even tell they were pastures anymore and he sold
00:52:54
off all the animals oh wow um and the hulking farm equipment was just left to rust in the yard it's like you should
00:53:01
have sold that too bro yeah so it's no longer an operating working farm and so Ed had to look somewhere else to make
00:53:07
money um so he worked briefly for the town clearing brush from the roadside but eventually fall you know he kind of
00:53:15
fell into a routine of like odd jobs and then continued the babysitting and this is him in like his
00:53:21
early 40s huh which I was shocked by that like I could understand the younger ID like
00:53:28
you know the teenager just like babysitting your kids whatever especially in the 40s it's like sure
00:53:33
watch my kids yeah like whatever teenagers is available they're just like sure yeah but like what's going on here
00:53:40
I don't know I don't know I can't say that I'll necessarily make that choice in my life you won't have Ed babysitting
00:53:47
your children just like a 40-year-old man babysitting your children I yeah this was a strange one for me but
00:53:53
apparently by all accounts nothing came out of of those situations so this is so
00:53:58
uncomfy but again this is from the 40s so who knows you know so his experience on the farm in the past meant that you
00:54:06
know he had at least enough experience that when Harvest Time came he was able to find work on other Farms too so he
00:54:13
was able to do that you know the rest of the time he was like the handyman doing
00:54:18
all that stuff but other than that he could just be found sitting at home among piles and piles of trash
00:54:26
and Dusty old antique objects and debris that just cluttered every livable space
00:54:34
you look at pictures of that place it's so sad it's horrifying it's like hoarding uping such a psychological such
00:54:42
illness yeah and while she like I said while Augusta was alive she kept it meticulous it was very clean obviously
00:54:50
he's going through something with the fact that like he wasn't able to keep it up like you would think that she
00:54:55
ingrained that so much him that he would want to do it for her but but I think he
00:54:59
just he couldn't it sounds like and without the tether to her yeah his real illnesses and his real like sick mind
00:55:08
just broke loose very much so the like the the term UNM is really yeah perfect for what he was at this point it's sad
00:55:17
too because this could have been like such a beautiful home oh yeah at pictures of it I'm like wow it's
00:55:24
gorgeous now I'm going to give a quick trigger warning for what I'm going to talk about next because I am going to
00:55:30
talk about like because he got into Nazi stuff so I just want to give that quick
00:55:35
little trigger warning that it's going to be brief I'm not going to go into anything graphic or anything like that
00:55:40
but just the mere mention I just want you to know that it's I'm going to be talking about it for a minute I know
00:55:44
that's that's hard um now he's alone in the house you know and I want you to pay
00:55:49
this is the 40s he's got no money he's this place is just lit by a lantern oh my God you know like just he's sitting
00:55:56
there alone I'm just looking at pictures of the inside of this while you're talking he entertained himself with
00:56:02
crime and Pulp magazines that had I'm literally looking at a photo where there is a detective magazine laying top a
00:56:10
pile of garbage yeah and the thing is like these we've talked about these before in some of the cases where like
00:56:18
perpetrators became obsessed with these kind of magazines so I think when the your mind is already in a bad place
00:56:24
these are not the greatest places to go no um but since the war these pulp and crime magazines had become preoccupied
00:56:33
with horror stories about the real life Horrors perpetrated by the Nazis during the war and among the stories that
00:56:39
fascinated him most were those about Elsa Koke the so-called [ __ ] of booken Wald oh no the wife of Nazi Commander
00:56:49
Carl oke who was in charge of the concentration camps at booken Wald um he held no official position within the
00:56:56
third or she held no POS official position within the Third Reich but um she was known because remember she was
00:57:02
called the [ __ ] of buen Wald yeah she was known for her enthusiasm for cruelty
00:57:08
and Terror oh um and it honestly made her one of the most notorious figures in the Nazi party that's how bad she was um
00:57:15
she was known to have collected the bones and skin of those killed during the Holocaust and she would later have
00:57:21
them made into ornaments decorations lampshades among other things that is beyond um as one of the most monstrous
00:57:28
figures to emerge during what is already a [ __ ] dark period yeah Koch's actions were literally the stuff of
00:57:36
nightmares it sounds like it like literally the stuff like you can't conjure the kind of Cruelty and Terror
00:57:43
that she inflicted but that made her real life exploits perfect fod for the pulp and horror magazines of the day oh
00:57:50
wow so he's he's just taking this in this is his for this is his only Touchstone to reality is just taking all
00:58:01
this in all the time you wish that he had just read like better home in gardens right just like get on a
00:58:07
handyman trip you know like on your own property like get it learn how to have an herb garden DIY yeah just like that
00:58:15
would have been so nice different DIYs different DIYs wi exactly it's like just you know just I never I'm like just to
00:58:23
anything else yeah I think it's just like when you think about it you're like how does your mind and I I guess you
00:58:28
have to be like broken in so many ways and that's why none of us can understand it yeah is like why do you want to go
00:58:35
that route you know like why that can't make you feel good but I guess it does make some people like Twisted people
00:58:42
think they're feeling good you know the human mind is so scary instead of doing something productive or that makes you
00:58:49
feel like you're doing something or creating something of use like but again just
00:58:56
broken in so many ways we can't even fa um and again to Ed whose grasp on reality had always been somewhat tenuous
00:59:05
uh the stories about Koke and the other evil figures from the SS were fascinating um particularly those that
00:59:12
sexualized figures like Coke because that was a thing what and um Irma Greece who was another female figure in the
00:59:19
Nazi party oh yeah they were like their horrible behaviors would become like fetishized and like sexualized oh that's
00:59:25
heinous um to him they were interesting because to him they seemed fictitious they didn't seem like real people um
00:59:32
kind of like his like pirate stories that he would read because remember he was very much into fantasy um and his
00:59:39
favorites that he liked to read about in fantasy like fiction was those involving
00:59:44
fictional head hunting tribes and other you know brutal cultures that were again
00:59:49
fictitious yeah that would keep trophies from their victims like shrunken heads or drums made with human skin and bones
00:59:57
oh so these are like fantasy stories that but they're [ __ ] up someone who is like of you know like functioning
01:00:04
mind and body can read and say wow what a tale right like that was CRA he's reading it and being like this is real
01:00:11
and this is what needs to happen in my life oh yeah so this guy who's like sitting here and he's and he's just
01:00:19
consuming things about Nazism and like the fetishizing of these horrible women in the Nazi party and then he's also
01:00:28
reading these detective magazines so it's like he's getting on one hand these awful stories about these [ __ ]
01:00:34
monstrous women that are being sexualized for doing monstrous deeds and then on the other hand he's reading
01:00:40
these detective magazines where women are usually like the like sex you know like femal not even that like they're
01:00:48
usually just like the sex object that's like the bad guys tied up the sex object
01:00:53
and like you know I mean you get the pictures of yeah oh I didn't even know that's what you were talking about those
01:01:01
mag okay so you're getting two very conflicting very extreme very horrifying portrayals of women right and
01:01:09
you're getting like I don't know what I couldn't imagine what is happening in this what a storm of awful happening in
01:01:17
this Farmhouse like I can't even and then he's sitting there like trying to reconcile all the [ __ ] that has been
01:01:22
twisted up inside of him since he was born it goes without without saying that the profoundly rigid and very archaic
01:01:29
worldview that augustae put inside of her son the ugliest of which was reserved for women and sexuality like
01:01:36
really hammered those two things in had a very deep Twisted influence on Ed and in the absence of literally any other
01:01:44
meaningful social connections or even casually contradicting opinions to hers he only heard her opinion and view on
01:01:51
everything that was it her views became his views even if he mostly kept them to
01:01:58
himself those were what he knew that's all he knew so sitting there alone in this dark empty like completely
01:02:07
cluttered and dirty Farmhouse with only gruesome stories and his even more gruesome imagination to keep him
01:02:15
company that [ __ ] started to warp big time Big Time and you add in like the grief and confusion and anger this is
01:02:24
just a a recipe for disaster so it was blending Augusta's hateful rhetoric with violent often like really [ __ ] up
01:02:33
sexual fantasies born out of that Pulp Fiction that he was consuming and it was only a matter of time before he was
01:02:39
going to snap and he was going to bring these fantasies into his reality right it's hard to pinpoint exactly where the
01:02:45
lines between reality and delusion started to blur blur with Ed because it was all kind of [ __ ] up yeah but by
01:02:51
most accounts that triggering event was the death of his mother in 1945 that's where people point to uh not long after
01:02:57
she was buried in fact Ed began to feel as though he were living in a complete Haze and sometimes he would move around
01:03:05
just thinking he saw her thinking he heard her he would smell things that he suspected weren't there like he was
01:03:11
losing it losing a GP on reality cuz again he's so [ __ ] isolated so isolated and sometimes he would just
01:03:18
have these like feelings he said that people were watching him in other times he said he could hear his mother's voice
01:03:24
or he would catch her scent in the house oh my but there were other voices he said too he could hear other voices and
01:03:31
he said these voices were laughing at him and mocking him oh that's really sad and so he said he learned to cope with
01:03:38
this by laying still and picturing his mother's face that was the only way he knew how to
01:03:45
cope oh man but after a while even that wasn't enough to control his urges oh my
01:03:51
God Ed had been religiously visiting his mother's grave obviously daily yeah and
01:03:57
a little more than a year after Augusta's death he began toying with the idea of having her back I forgot about
01:04:03
this part of the story so he dug her up one night yeah he took her head off yep and he kept it and he was intending to
01:04:10
quote unquote shrink it like he had read about in those fiction stories he ended
01:04:14
up using a book he had to preserve it somehow interesting so that's happening which
01:04:22
we're going to get a little more into his uh grave robbing Adventures don't worry but first let's talk about The
01:04:27
Disappearance of Mary Hogan okay so following Augusta's death Ed probably would have lik to have just shut himself
01:04:35
in the darkness of The Farmhouse pretending his mother was still alive and just reading his horrible stuff he
01:04:39
was reading but he needed income so he had to go into town to work a little and buy supplies essentially babysit and he
01:04:47
was weird he had strange habits he had like peculiar ways but a lot of the residents of planing field field were
01:04:54
like we just felt bad for him yeah like he wasn't mean he wasn't like a dick he wasn't bothering people we just felt bad
01:05:02
so if they had the time they would kind of indulge him as he talked about like that [ __ ] he was reading in like crime
01:05:08
magazines and stuff they just like yeah totally wow um and it never really occurred to anyone that Ed seemed to
01:05:14
have an inordinate fascination with stories about lust killings and other violent crime only later they were like
01:05:21
that was a little weird um that's interesting to me that like he was just like shooting the [ __ ] with people
01:05:27
talking about this and nobody in the moment was like it's a little concerning that that man lives all alone and talks
01:05:32
about nothing except for Less killing that's strange a little weird yeah uh they they kind of viewed his fascination
01:05:40
with this stuff as they viewed his awkwardness with women you know he was odd he was probably emotionally stunted
01:05:47
he had progressed really emotionally not much Beyond adolescence thanks to his domineering mother they all knew Augusta
01:05:54
so they were like you know he just you know he's just weirdo he and it's not his fault so you know people just
01:06:01
tolerated Ed and were nice to him like everybody was nice to him nobody was a dick um but no one really went out of
01:06:06
their way to check in with him on the farm after his mother's death like they would check in on like with him when he
01:06:13
was out and about they'd be like how you doing right what's going on like how's the farm but nobody was going out of
01:06:17
their way at yeah and since no one paid him a lot of attention when he was around or they just didn't care really
01:06:24
few if any people noticed when Ed stopped coming into town very often he stopped those um he retreated very
01:06:32
deeply even more deeply into that Farmhouse isolating increasingly indulging that
01:06:38
dark imagination he had and again the one place he would only go was like what ended up being Mary's Tavern it was in
01:06:47
town when you would go into town he would just stop at this place it was really the only place you would go okay
01:06:52
outside of like you know a little store to buy supplies and um this was kind of a CD bar located in
01:06:58
Pine Grove and given his father's alcoholism he wasn't a drinker okay um and but his interest in the bar wasn't
01:07:06
really that it was really who was serving the stuff at the bar he first noticed the proprietor of Mary's Tavern
01:07:14
Mary Hogan when she opened the bar in 1949 and he was fascinated by her immediately which is sad because you
01:07:21
wonder if it's like did he know what to do with that yeah yeah or did he accept it or was he how was he fascinated by
01:07:30
her like like did he think she was pretty did he want to strike up a conver like if he had known how would he have
01:07:36
wanted to strike up a conversation but then what he does you end up being like well [ __ ] you're a
01:07:43
monster that's the thing like these different like M again like he didn't have a chance but he's a [ __ ] monster
01:07:49
of course like of course I know I don't know why I said it like that I'm just really shook right now it's as you
01:07:55
should be um but yeah he was fascinated with Mary Hogan uh throughout his early life he
01:08:00
had you know he had expressed like I said at least a passing attraction to women in the general sense he expressed
01:08:07
it out until his mom was like you should die for that but Mary Hogan was the first woman that Ed seemed to be very
01:08:14
taken with uh born in 1901 in dusenberg Germany Mary came Germany like his mother yeah just like Mama Mary came to
01:08:22
plan Field's area from Chicago in 19 49 where she had at least one husband in a very murky past few facts are really
01:08:32
note about her life and there are plenty of wild unsavory rumors floating around
01:08:36
planfield including speculation that she had mob ties oh okay uh it was just like
01:08:41
the rumor mill with her yeah but to Ed she was an amazing figure that reminded him in many ways of his mother awesome
01:08:48
physically and in her commanding presence he's looking to to replace his mom very much so
01:08:56
uh but if augustae was a paragon of all things good and right in the world according to Ed Mary Hogan was the exact
01:09:01
opposite oh no according to Harold Sher quote Hogan was a foulmouthed Tavern keeper with a shady even Sinister past
01:09:09
oh man Mary sounds hilarious she kind of does now on the afternoon of December 8th 1954 planfield resident Seymour
01:09:16
Lester headed down to Mary's Tavern to get some ice cream for his daughter He Came Upon a terrible scene oh no he
01:09:23
entered the tavern and he quote found found the tavern empty in blood stains leading from the barroom through the
01:09:29
door to a spot where a car or truck had been parked not knowing what happened only that there was clearly violence he
01:09:35
reported the discovery um and the man who came was VIIs Waterman he took his time getting
01:09:42
to the scene and then took even longer reporting The Disappearance to the sheriff so nobody was moving fantastic
01:09:48
moving and grooving here that's always what we're looking for yeah it's really great now during their search of the bar
01:09:52
in the living quarters out back Sheriff's deput confirmed that Mary Hogan was definitely nowhere to be found
01:09:58
and it looked like someone had been shot inside the bar oh wow um there was a large amount of Blood on the floor and
01:10:04
they discovered a 32 caliber cartridge on the ground o the area behind the bar had been rifled through like the cash
01:10:10
box um where the neighbors believe she kept all the money was like pulled out uh and they believe she kept large
01:10:16
amounts of cash there uh but the only money they found with some crumpled up $1 bills and a roll of nickels uhoh
01:10:23
according to those who knew her Mary was very fearful of strangers and kept the door locked during the day she would
01:10:28
only open that door to people she knew which meant her attacker was likely someone she knew right aside from the
01:10:34
large amount of blood and really small amount of evidence there was really nothing else to show what happened to
01:10:40
her and during their canvas of the house houses around the tavern deputies learned that the neighbors had seen
01:10:46
quote a dark green 1950 or 51 Dodge pickup truck with wooden racks parked outside the tavern on several occasions
01:10:54
in the weeks leading up to her Disappearance in fact one neighbor claimed to have seen that truck driving
01:10:59
nearby that same evening that she went missing in quote there was something covered with a tarp in the rear oh but
01:11:06
they were unable to get a look at what it was according to neighbors the truck was memorable because it was missing a
01:11:11
license plate mm now based on the evidence collected at the scene Sheriff Harold Thompson put out an alert for the
01:11:17
truck and notified surrounding counties that Mary Hogan was nowhere to be found but they weren't really hopeful that she
01:11:24
was going to be found alive at this point because according to Crime Scene technicians who had processed the scene
01:11:29
quote the amount of blood loss by the shooting victim assumed to be Miss Hogan precludes the possibility of her being
01:11:35
alive wow now investigators theorized Hogan had been at the bar drinking a cup of coffee when the Intruder arrived and
01:11:42
based on the state of the register in cash boox they figured it was likely the motive was robbery at the time her
01:11:49
disappearance was just one of many Mysteries that was baffling local and Regional investigators in 19 47
01:11:55
8-year-old Georgia weckler disappeared after a neighbor gave her a ride home from school and dropped her about a half
01:12:02
mile from her house before driving away oh man hundreds of locals aided in the search for Georgia and there was a big
01:12:09
reward offered for information leading to her her return but other than a few reports of like a black sedan near her
01:12:15
house at one point they never found her wow she's disappeared oh that's awful and then that happened again a few years
01:12:22
later in October 1953 a 15 18-year-old Evelyn Harley disappeared while babysitting for a family friend in
01:12:29
Lacrosse so the father of Evelyn was unable to reach her by phone so he went to the house where she was babysitting
01:12:36
and he knocked on the door but no one answered oh wow so he spotted Evelyn's glasses and one shoe on the floor
01:12:43
through the living room window and so he made his way inside through an open basement window and he found his
01:12:48
daughter's belongings but she was nowhere to be found outside he found footsteps and a trail of blood leading
01:12:55
away from the house and later during their investigation of the scene investigators found additional blood
01:13:01
trails and evidence that Evelyn had been forced into a car nearby the house oh God they never found her what yeah and
01:13:09
there were others there were men women children all who disappeared under mysterious like abductions but they were
01:13:15
never followed up like there was no Ransom no attempt to contact the families their bodies were never found
01:13:22
just disappeared and this wasn't Ed and this wasn't Ed huh not that they could not that they could prove and in the
01:13:29
months and years that followed Mary's disappearance it seemed that it was just another one in line of those
01:13:35
disappearances I'll get the [ __ ] out of there and a year later on her the anniversary of her disappearance one
01:13:41
local paper paper published a follow-up article saying quote authorities investigated all possible leads but
01:13:48
nothing more appears known today than when the situation was first discovered on December 8th
01:13:53
1954 unlike the others though investigators would eventually learn what happened to Mary Hogan yeah and it
01:14:02
was going to be a lot worse than any of them could have ever imagined yeah and I'm going to leave you there I had a
01:14:10
feeling that's a lot to process for everyone involved there's a lot there's a lot coming in part two sad that's
01:14:16
really sad that she was just operating a Tavern like doing her best yeah she's just doing she's running a business
01:14:22
keeping everyone happy and this man's comes and this man becomes fixated on her because he's a
01:14:28
creep oh wow all right yeah well we're going to go do something that's good for our brains after this yeah and uh with
01:14:37
that being said we hope you keep listening and we hope you keep hit weird but not as weird as Augusta cuz she kept
01:14:44
it the weirdest up until Ed and not as weird as Ed never as weird as said I was going to give you that warning next time
01:14:51
or maybe never cuz I feel like you don't even need it you should know that you should definitely know that yeah
01:14:56
[Music] wow