Ed Gein - The Godfather of Gore

The host of Serial Slayers talks about the infamous killer Ed Gein. He mentions that Gein was not a serial killer, but he was known for the desecration of over 40 bodies found in his farmhouse. The host discusses some of the gruesome items and acts associated with Gein, such as masks made from faces, chairs made of human skin, and a belt made of nipples. He also questions the legality of body snatching and mentions the popularity of murder-abilia, collectible items related to famous killers. The host suggests discussing Ted Kaczynski or true crime in future episodes. Hello and welcome to Serial Slayers. I'm your host Brandon. As always, real quick I want to talk about I did just do this content, but the streaming service I'm on decided to break it up into three videos because it would disconnect from the server so you guys couldn't get the full understanding of what it was I was talking about. Thus so, I am redoing it right now, hopefully in one continual stream, because it cut out pertinent information which was not okay. So that being said, we are going to dive back into this, which is fine. There's nothing wrong with that. It's just a little refresher course, if you will. Today we are talking about the godfather of gore. The butcher of playing fields. Give it up for Mr. Ed Gein! Nah, I'm just kidding. You probably shouldn't cheer for him because he's kind of a demented person who did some bad things. But anyways, we are talking about Ed Gein. This gentleman up above me that you can see. And again, if you're on audio file and you're listening, not viewing, I will go over the pictures that are streaming, such as the ones over my left shoulder. Those are various pictures of items taken within the location where he was apprehended, also known as the farmhouse. So some things about Mr. Gein. First of all, Mr. Gein was not a serial killer. Mr. Gein only had two victims that he confessed to. Suspected of seven. But what makes him such an iconic focal point when it comes to killers was the desecration of the 40 plus bodies that they found in his house. Also again, known as the farmhouse. So Mr. Gein was born August 27, 1906. He's a Leo like me. What's up? What's up? How's it going? What's up? He died July 26, 1984. He died in a mental health institution. It should be noted that for his crimes, he was not remanded to prison. He was remanded to a mental health institution. And we'll get into that here in a second because there's something that I find interesting where I had a debate with somebody. They found a person in California who was, they tried to charge him with decimation of a corpse. And I'm like, what rights do you as a corpse have? Once you die, aside from emotional distress on the family, like what rights does your lifeless vessel have? It's rather intriguing if you actually get into the thicket of that. So some of the things talk about, as I said, two murders, seven suspected, 40 bodies were found. The thing that makes him so interesting is that Mr. Ed Gein is the basis for the huge hit movies that you know, Psycho, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre series, and the Silence of the Lambs. So when they apprehended him in his farmhouse, first of all, they were looking for a store clerk who had gone missing. And she was last seen with Mr. Gein as her last customer. So they went to try and find her to ask him if he had seen her or anything like that. And that is when I get her exact name for you. Sorry about that. I had it and then I closed it out because like I said, I thought I was done. Then I realized it butchered my feed. And that's not cool. So we're back to do this. So I need to pull this up really quick. What was her name? It's Oh, um, Bernice Worden. So Bernice Worden was a store clerk and they did find her body decapitated, naked, hung from the rafters by her ankles. Sounds gruesome, was not the most gruesome thing that they found in his location though. I'm going to read you off the list here. Some of the things that they found. And these are the things that are scrolling through the pictures over my left shoulder. Some of the different various things that we're going to talk about. So they found chairs and wastebaskets made of human skin, leggings made from leg skin, masks made from faces. Ed Game is most notable for one thing at least. I always remember him for the face chair and the belt of nipples, an entire belt made of nipples sewn together. As you can see there, if you're looking real quick, that is one of the corset of a female torso that they found. Picture hangings of the nipples strung together. Lips from women were used as window drawstrings. So the next time you go to raise your blinds, think about that. Think about that. They found skulls, noses, and fingers, genitals of at least nine women. And that right there was an actual face that they found that he used as a face mask. So when you look him up, there's also a picture and it actually streams through up here probably in a little bit. It's an entire body suit. And what he did is he made an entire skin suit so he could wear it so he could be his mom. Because he had, you ever heard of Oedipus Rex? Yeah. He had such a mental issue and like his mom was the only person he knew. Because it's suspected that his first murder was actually his older brother Henry when they were clearing vegetation in the field one night doing it by fire. He said he didn't know what happened to him when the firefighters showed up. They found his body. The cause of death was asphyxiation. Jury, well jury has been out because it's been a while. It's been a while. But it's suggested that he was his first murder. But that was never confirmed. But after that, he just lived with his mom Augusta and him in the farmhouse until she passed away in 1945. After she passed away, he boarded up all of her rooms everywhere that she would stay. He boarded it up to keep it in as pristine condition as possible and he moved into a room off of the kitchen. Now if you remember the movie Psycho, there's actually a part where they go into the rooms and stuff and that's exactly what it's from. He is like I said most notable for the faces of Psycho, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Silence of the Lambs. But it should also be known that, and I mentioned this before and I'll always mention this as we go forward, largely due to the popularity that Dahmer got for his 8 movie series set. Spoiler, they all end the same, he dies. Ed Gein has two movies about him. One from 2000 called In the Light of the Moon and one from 2007 called Ed Gein the Butcher of Pinefield. And I haven't watched those actually, I think I might because it's always nice to see what kind of perspective you get I guess. But so he had the 40 bodies closest they found. Now here's the thing, and I argued this before, well I discussed it, some people would say I argue, it's not an argument it's just a discussion with facts that I know I'm right about. Come on now. Anyways, once you're dead, you have no rights. And somebody's like no that's not true blah blah blah. Now I get what grave robbing is, they're taking inanimate objects off of the person that have monetary value, you know, that's actual robbery, theft, etc. But, body snatching. So I looked into it, because he was in Wisconsin, that's where he was born, that's where he lived, that's where he died, so that's where he was charged. Wisconsin State Legislature, okay? Chapter 940.11 is mutilating or hiding a corpse. Now I'm going to read these to you real quick, and I want you to think, did him, well let me backtrack, he said that after his mom passed away he started visiting three different grave sites, grave yards, excuse me, not just locations, but grave yards. And that's where he extracted these various bodies from, and the purpose was he was trying to recreate, he would extract bodies that reminded him or resembled his mother, because he wanted to create that suit so mommy dearest was always there. So knowing that now, he didn't do it for gold, he didn't do it for monetary value, knowing that, I want you to think on that as I read you the actual statute from Wisconsin, did he do something illegal? And I know it's grotesque and morbid, I understand that, but you need to look past that. You can't think with emotions, you have to think basis of the law, did what he do correlate to what this is speaking about? And here we go. So 940.11, mutilating or hiding a corpse. It has three subsections. So section one, whoever mutilates, disfigures, or dismembers a corpse with intent to conceal a crime or avoid apprehension, prosecution, or conviction of a crime is guilty of a class F felony. Number two, whoever hides or buries a corpse with intent to conceal a crime or avoid apprehension, prosecution, or conviction of a crime, or notwithstanding section 946.92 or 3, 946.91 to 946.92 or 946.93, 2 or 3, with intent to collect benefits under the assistance program for families with dependent children administered under subsection 49.141 to 49.161, the medical assistance program administered under such 5 of chapter 49 or the food stamps program as defined in section 49.79.1 subclass C is a felony of a class F caliber. Number three, a person may not be subject to prosecution under both this section and section 946.47 or under this both this section and section 948.23.2 for his or her acts regarding the same corpse. That being said, and so you know, 946.90 is government. It's depriving the government of their just due, essentially. Now that I've told you that, I've read you the section, I've read you the statute, the law, did he, by snatching these bodies, which had been in the ground for a little while, did he actually do anything illegal? And as far as I can tell, no. And I say that because he was remanded to a mental health institution, okay? If they could have put him in prison, don't you think that they would have? 40 counts of defamation of a human corpse, defilement, whatever. Don't you think that if that was actually something you could go to prison for, that for 40 counts, he would have? I mean, they had nine confirmed, you know, genitals, fingers, noses, skulls of different women. I understand grave robbing can be a crime, but is body snatching a crime? Because if you think about it, back in the days of, back in the waterfronts and all that, that's how a lot of medical research was done. People would steal fresh corpses and then go sell them to medical students, you know, so they could do autopsies and learn about this and that. What's the legality of it? At what point do legal rights stop when you're officially dust? I mean, even then, if you cremate somebody and you take their ashes, well, that's theft. Who? What? Theft of an emotional attachment item? That's like taking a six-year-old stuffed animal and going to prison for it because she's emotionally attached to it. That don't make no sense. Maybe it's just me. I don't know. I don't know. Excuse me. They actually found, like I said, they found other parts of another lady who had gone missing in 54, I believe, and her name was, again, I'm sorry about this. I had this all good to go and then it crapped out on me. Mary Hogan. The courts did not try him for Mary Hogan's murder because the state, quotes, allegedly saw it as a waste of money. Ed was insane and he would spend the rest of his life in a hospital either way. So he killed two women, mutilated the corpses of 40 to create this grandiose bodysuit so he could walk around essentially with his wiener tucked between his legs to be his mama, and all he got was sentenced to a mental health institution where he passed away at the age of 77. This kind of, if you look, if you're viewing, cool, if you're just listening, again, the things going through the stream up there like the nipple belt, that one has some hair on it. That's weird. Nipple belt, leggings, the masks made from human faces, the lampshades, the chair. The chair, when you look at it, isn't as eccentric as media makes it out to be. There's one that, when people say an Ed Gein chair, if you know Ed Gein, you'll probably think of this one, and it's like a lazy boy sofa recliner almost, and it's just got skin from everywhere, there's like four or five faces in it. That's an FX Hollywood movie set chair that they made for something. The actual chair, you've got to think about the time frame, was back in the 50s, so it wasn't that kind of chair, so it was just four legs, a cushion, the cushion was made of human skin. But, still, like I said before, I mean, Rutherford Gein was just into fashion, you know, he had a fall line, he had a summer line, he had leggings, he had a bodysuit for when it rained, I don't know, maybe he was the Calvin Klein before his time, who knows, I don't know. But, this leads me into something else, that anyone who knows, or has ever actually paid attention to serial killers, murderers, anything like that, knows what murderabilia is. Murderabilia is a booming industry, that some would say you'd have to be kind of macabre and sick to invest in, but at the same time, really, you're only as sick as what society says that you are, right? So, perfect example of murderabilia, dirt from Ed Gein's grave site, 50 bucks for a vial of it, like seriously? But, people will collect things, you know, if they can, if it hasn't been destroyed, people will collect things, people who are into occult things, items, stuff like that. But, I mean, look at John Langeese, right? The killer clown. The most horrendous, ugly paintings I've ever seen go for thousands of dollars, for what? To say that you have something that was physically possessed by a famous killer, or a famous, you know, arsonist, a famous anybody. The fact that they had hands on with that item, somehow makes it this magical thing worth, you know, admiring. I have no qualms with anybody who likes that kind of stuff. I wanted to do some, a while ago, but then I was like, that'd be kind of weird, especially, you know, back when I was single, bring a lady friend home, be like, hey, you wanna see my murder room? It's totally cool. I don't think that would have gone over so well. I don't know, maybe, just me. But then you find the one who's like, oh yeah, I'm totally into that, and then you're like, I think I should be a little scared. I'm not 100% sure. Anyways, that is Mr. Ed Gein, the godfather of gore, and now you understand why he calls himself, well, they call him that. Like I said, he had two movies done about him. He was the basis of the other three franchise movies. Which, yeah, they all became franchises, now that I think about it. I wonder if he saw any kickbacks. No, he was already dead and gone when those came out. Yeah, so next, on Monday, we are going to talk about, and if anyone is commenting, hey, hi, how you doing, I'm sorry, I'm not seeing those comments, but believe me, the love is felt and it's reciprocated. That being said, drop in the comments, either on the YouTube channel when I post this video, if you're listening audibly, you can go to my TikTok, I'm Serial Slayers, it's on TikTok, I'm also on Instagram. Or if you're a friend of mine that's just streaming on my current Facebook, drop in the comments, I was thinking about doing some true crime, alright, the four students who were just murdered, was it Illinois? I believe it was Illinois. There's those four, true crime, cool, big, great, grand, or stick with the theme of, let's talk about the players that built what is the knowledge of serial killers, but again, we don't just talk serial killers, we talk serial slayers, you can see my pen, I'm going to point to it. These serial slayers, and of that, I think Monday, I might, and let me know, I was thinking about talking about Ted Kaczynski. Now, is he a killer? Yes, but not like, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, you know, it was boom, bomb, but about a year ago, I actually did read his dossier, well, it's not a dossier, his dissertation, and I'll give you a couple tidbits about him right now that you might not know. Ted Kaczynski had a higher IQ than Stephen Hawking. Ted Kaczynski was a very intelligent person, and in his dissertation, he actually wrote, and this was decades ago when he wrote this, he actually wrote about the left wing and the right wing politically, and what he wrote is what is going on right now. So it kind of blew my mind when I read that, I was like, holy crap. So we can talk about him, I have a wealth of stuff that I can bring to the table on him, maybe Ed Gein, or we can do some true crime. So you guys let me know in the comments, I'd greatly appreciate that, otherwise I'm just like, hey, what should we talk about today, Pinky? I'm like, I don't know, Brain, what should we talk about? But any comments are greatly appreciated, because without your guys' comments and participation, I'm just talking to myself on a camera here, and while I am a rather strikingly good-looking person, it gets a little boring, so, you know, let me know, help me out, help me help you broaden your horizon on your knowledge of serial slayers. And on that note, from Serial Slayers, I am your host, Brandon, and I want to thank you for stopping in again, and I can't wait to talk to you guys on Monday. Until then, keep your head on a swivel, and remember, everyone's a murderer.