INTRODUCING CRIMES OF... | Our New Podcast ! | Full Episode on @crimehousestudios

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Hey everyone, Sabrina and Krin here and we've got some really exciting news to share. We launched a new true crime show with Crime House Studios called Crimes of. It's a weekly true crime anthology series that explores a new theme each season from Crimes of the Paranormal, unsolved murders, mysterious disappearances, and more. Season 1 is Crimes of Infamy, an exploration of the real life killers and true crime events that inspired some of Hollywood's most iconic villains. From Ed Gene, the inspiration for Psycho and Silence of the Lambs to the Gainesville Ripper Scream and Lake Bodm Murders Friday the 13th, each episode reveals the disturbing true stories behind the horror. We're so excited to share an episode of Crimes of Infamy with you. Here it is. Now, enjoy.

Ed Gein: Two truths and a lie

Let's play a quick little game, Sabrina. I want to play two truths and a lie. Your favorite. I know. So, I will give

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you three facts about today's subject. A 1950s real life killer named Ed Gene, and you're going to guess which one is the lie.

Okay.

Ready?

Mhm.

Okay. Number one, when police entered Edge Gan's house, they found furniture made of human body parts.

Okay. Number two, Ed was a trusted babysitter around town who was loved by the kids for his magic tricks. And number three, Ed was found guilty of his crimes right away and he spent the rest of his life in prison.

I really want it to be number two because how could a serial killer be the town beloved babysitter,

right? It's so weird.

It Yeah, it's so creepy and unsettling for all those kids to, you know, later in life realize that that there was their babysitter. Um, but because it's so outlandish, I feel like that has to be true. Correct. So, I'm going to go with number three. Shockingly, number three is the lie. Ed did not spend the rest of his days behind bars, but instead he did spend it in a hospital

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because he was found mentally incompetent to stand trial and then he was later ruled not guilty by reason of insanity. So today, we'll tell you all about Ed's victims, his life, and the twisted crimes he committed, and how Ed's warped mental state became the inspiration for not one, but several of the world's most iconic horror films.

Exploring crimes and cinema

Welcome to Crimes of the show that takes you into different corners of the true crime universe to explore the biggest cases that changed the course of history. Each 8 to 12 episode season, we will dive deeper into the themes from movies to music to scandals to crimes of passion and heartbreaking disappearances. Every Tuesday, we will be here to share these stories in a whole new light. But here, we're not just dishing out the facts. We're pulling you into the heat of the moment. Through immersive storytelling, we will take you beyond the headlines, into the turning points

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that changed everything. The characters, cornerstone memories, detectives explosive interrogations and the creepy crime scenes packed with hidden clues. Get ready to feel every twist and turn, hear every whisper in secret, and uncover the shocking truths that no one saw coming. We are your hosts, Karen Bien and Sabrina Deanna Roga. I will be the one walking you through the chilling facts of every story and I will be zooming in on the moments and showing you how the very real scenes in these stories played out. We are calling this season Crimes of Infamy because we are going to be exploring one of our own personal obsessions, horror movies. Yeah. So, for the next eight episodes, we're ripping off the masks of some of Hollywood's most prolific villains and meeting the real killers who inspired them. From Psycho to Scream to It and Friday the 13th, we are going to examine the true crime

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killers who were so demonic they became muses for the biggest horror films to date. So, you may know Penny Wise, Norman Bates, and Ghost Face, but you might not know the full stories behind the real slashers that inspired the men like John Wayne Gasey, Ed Gene, or Danny Rowling. Which is why Karen and I are

The legacy of Ed Gein

here to take you behind the scenes and into the very real worlds, walking you through these true crime stories and the blockbuster horrors that they inspired. As you're watching and listening, go ahead and comment on all the similarities you see between today's subjects and your favorite horror films because we're curious to know which are your favorite and why. Plus, also give us your recommendations.

Oh, yeah. Give us your Rex. And now, I'm sure you've never wondered what a lampshade made out of real human flesh would look like. No.

Or what a pair of pants made from real human legs would be like to wear. But Ed Gene did. And as horrifying and sadistic as that sounds, it is not

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fiction. It is disturbingly real.

It's very real.

If you've even dipped a single toe into the true crime universe before, you probably have heard Ed's name mentioned because he might be one of the most iconic and disturbed killers in American history. He's also the real life monster who inspired the iconic films like Psycho, Silence of the Lambs, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and so many more. I was shocked at how many movies he inspired that I didn't even think of until we were doing this episode and prepping for it.

And movies that we watched in our childhood inappropriately as children, but in our

watched inappropriately. I was such a scaredy-cat. I didn't watch any horror films until my like adulthood.

Really?

Yeah.

But now we're here because

Now we're here and we'll talk more about these films right after this.

Sensitivity and historical context

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A warning, this episode contains descriptions of murder and dismemberment, so please listen with care. Before we tell you about Edge Gene's story and talk about the movies that he inspired, it is important for us to point out that there are two women who lost their lives at his hands. Bernice Warden and Mary Hogan, not to mention their families, their friends, an entire community who experienced their loss and the devastation firsthand. And beyond that, the amount of body parts that were found inside of his home has led investigators to believe that there were many other victims as well. So, in telling Ed's story, we are painfully aware that these are not just tales from the past, they are rooted in real devastating loss. And for anyone who's been personally affected by a tragedy, stories like this can really hit close to home. And so, our hearts go out to you. We carry that weight with us as we tell this story. And all of these stories, and you're always on our minds. I think there's

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something to be learned about Ed Gene as a person, and I'm sure a lot of great storytellers would agree because Ed had a way of burrowing himself deep into people's psyches, ours included.

Yes.

Yes. I feel like I've just been consumed by Edge Gene for the last couple of weeks and I I've definitely been on edge because of it.

Right. And I feel like his name is a name that I will never forget after first hearing about him. There are a lot of true crime stories and there's a lot of horror out there and people consume it often. You know, we are two of those people that tend to gravitate towards that genre, but his name is the one that I will never ever forget.

Yeah, because before Ed, monsters like him seem to only exist in nightmares. And K and I both have terrifying nightmares, so we can tell you all about those another time. But once people learned that men like Ed really did walk the earth, he became the muse for some of the most impactful horror films to date.

Think Norman Bates from Psycho,

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Leatherface from Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs, which I rewatched Silence of the Lambs yesterday in preparation for this.

Hello, Clarice.

It there's so much about that movie. My favorite scene from that movie is when Buffalo Bill is dancing to Goodbye Horses and he's like in the mirror and he tucks his penis underneath and he's like would you me I me it's so disturbing.

I don't really know if that part of Buffalo Bill was inspired by Edge Gene. We'll get into that. Uh, but there was a lot taken from Edge Gene's life. And we will get into Edge Gene's life, which was also filled with terrifying jump scares and skin crawling scenes that will make you want to hide under the covers. And if you do not believe us, Sabrina will show you.

The discovery of the house

Snow blankets the small town of Planefield, Wisconsin. The headlights of a cop car cut through the mist, lighting

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up a quaint little farmhouse on the outskirts of town. The officers turn off their car, plunging everything into darkness. They get out, click on their flashlights, and ever so slowly venture closer to the darkened home. Frost nips at their fingers, and the only sound is their footsteps crunching in the snow and their hearts beating in their chest. They're looking for a local woman who went missing earlier that day. But these small town beat cops have no idea what they're in for. Up until now, they've been lucky enough to avoid any real danger. And nothing has prepared them for the horrors they will face tonight. Inside, a woman hanging from her ankles in the middle of the room. Lampshades and chairs upholstered with real human flesh. Women's lips fastened into a window-shaped drawstring.

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Belts made out of female breasts and masks crafted from real human faces. Absolutely sick. Yeah. So, you're probably starting to see how moments from Edin's life inspired the movies that we mentioned earlier. Yes. But before we talk more about that, let us start from the beginning so you can get full picture of how Ed came to be Ed.

The early life of Ed Gein

Yeah,

it's 1914. We are now in a small town of Planefield, Wisconsin, a village of only about 720 residents at the time, and this was a really sleepy community. It had a handful of businesses. There was a general store, a wagon shop. It was surrounded by plenty of farmland. And this is where the Gene family had planted their roots. It sounds peaceful.

It does sound peaceful. It kind of sounds like our dream,

right? Just going to the local farm, picking up some produce. Sigines were part of like the local CSA. They're at the farmers market with their little pickled fruits and vegetables.

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But I have a feeling it's not that's not exactly how it was.

Actually, thank God that Ed is no longer taking inspiration because I feel like he would have been into pickling now knowing what we know.

Okay. But they didn't do this. They were a part of this sleepy little community. and George Gene and his wife, a daughter of German immigrants named Augusta. They find this two-story farmhouse on the outskirts of town about 6 milesi from the main street of Planefield. And the Gins are sort of private, which we respect, of course. They want to live somewhere kind of far from any prying eyes. They're not super involved in the community. And so, this location is perfect for this couple and for their two sons, 8-year-old Ed and his older brother, 12-year-old Henry. The Gens are far from that perfect little Norman Rockwell family. Ed's father, George, has a drinking problem. He has a really hard time holding down a job. He spends a lot of the family's money at a local tavern. And he's also not really

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religious at all, which is starkly different from Ed's mother, Augusta, who is really strict. She's ultra religious. She's just got the hammer on the family while her partner is just like dissolving as a puddle on the floor. And it's basically the family almost viewed him as like a burden and useless for most of his life, which is pretty sad. It is very sad. And I feel like this theme of religion plays such a big role in Ed's life and his upbringing.

And in talking about horror movies, it does remind me of the mom and Carrie in Stephen King's film and book. So Augusta is super super religious and extreme even for the 1910s in the middle of nowhere Wisconsin to the point where Augusta forces her two sons to read the Old Testament over and over again. Genesis 50:20. But as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring it about as it is this day to save many people alive. And Augusta also

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plants the idea in Ed and Henry's minds that all women are basically sex workers sent to Earth to tempt men, except her, of course, which one, how inappropriate. And two, I can't even begin to understand the psyche of Augusta herself because she really wanted daughters. And so she was super upset when Henry, her firstborn, was her son. So she basically neglected him, almost abandoned him. And then when she had Ed, she decided she was going to do everything in her power to like control him and basically make him into the child that she so wanted, which to me it just it still doesn't make sense that she's like, "Women are evil. Women are horrible." It's like, "You wanted a girl."

Well, I'm also curious what she thinks about herself. And I know that this episode is about Ed,

but it does make it starts with Augusta.

Wonder about her upbringing and like the narrative her family kind of

Yeah.

put into her mind.

Yeah. Yeah, I read a story about how Augusta once caught Ed with like a girl

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and the way that she punished him afterwards and then also like one time she caught him masturbating and she completely destroyed him like psychologically telling him how dirty it was. So you can imagine that growing up with all of this

just impacted him,

right? Yeah. And I had also read somewhere that she told her sons that if they did anything sexual that basically meant that they did not love her. So it was like your mother's love or growing up as a human being going through puberty and doing things that are natural.

As if sex and like going through puberty weren't tough enough.

Right. Very tough in Augusta's house.

Yes.

When it comes to her marriage, Augusta definitely wore the pants of this family. She was always ordering George around the house. She was yelling at him for his failures. At one point, they owned a shop, which she ended up kicking George out of his position and taking over the shop. And then when they ended up with having farmland, she purchased

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the farmland in her own name.

So, she was definitely running the house.

A boss move.

It is if you take it out of the context of this story because like it is a controlling move when it comes to Augusta. As for Ed, he seemed to always have this almost like obsession with his mother. Think Norman Bates.

He hung on her every word. He worshiped the ground she walked on. And whether that was maybe out of pure fear uh or maybe just because of how much she sheltered him, it's anyone's guess because we can never really know what was going on behind closed doors there. But one thing we do know is that Augusta kept Ed so close that he didn't actually start school until he was 8 years old. which is wild,

right? He has no social skills at that point. Follow Crimes of a Crime House original now. New episodes released every Tuesday. And again, that's Crimes of Follow now wherever you get your podcast or check us out on YouTube. And for early adree access, subscribe to

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Crime House Plus on Apple Podcasts.