EP44: Ed Gein • The Butcher of Plainfield

In 1957, police in a quiet Wisconsin town entered a farmhouse and uncovered one of the most disturbing crimes in American history. What they found inside revealed a life consumed by grief, isolation, and madness. This episode explores the true story of Ed Gein - the man whose obsession with his mother and the dead blurred the line between devotion and horror, and whose crimes still cast a shadow over modern culture and film today.

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RESOURCES: 

• Ed Gein (overview, trial, myth-vs-fact anchor): https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ed-Gein
• “How Many People Did Ed Gein Kill?” (victim count context): https://www.britannica.com/topic/How-Many-People-Did-Ed-Gein-Kill
• “Body of Ed Gein’s final victim, Bernice Worden, is found” (Nov. 16, 1957): https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/november-16/ed-gein-kills-final-victim-bernice-worden
• “Ed Gein dies” (1984 death at Mendota): https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/july-26/real-life-psycho-ed-gein-dies
• Ed Gein Farm Auction notice (IM2022): https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Image/IM2022
• Ed Gein at State Crime Lab (photo, Nov. 17, 1957): https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Image/IM41777
• Milwaukee Journal Sentinel photo gallery (includes the shed photo; graphic): https://www.jsonline.com/picture-gallery/news/2023/09/15/images-from-the-strange-highly-disturbing-case-of-ed-gein

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