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Speaker 1: True Crime Conversations acknowledges the traditional owners of land and

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Speaker 1: waters that this podcast was recorded on. When moviegoers headed

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Speaker 1: into cinemas across America on September eight, nineteen sixty, they

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Speaker 1: had no idea what was about to happen to them.

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Speaker 1: The movie Psycho, one of Alfred Hitchcock's all time greatest creations,

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Speaker 1: was new to cinemas. It was a story of Norman Bates,

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Speaker 1: the man with a split personality and an unhealthy relationship

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Speaker 1: with his mother, whose type of depravity had never been

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Speaker 1: explored on the big screen before, a true American monster,

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Speaker 1: his violence culminating in the stabbing murder of Marion Crane,

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Speaker 1: played to screaming brilliance by Janet Lee as she was

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Speaker 1: confronted by the knife wielding maniac while showering.

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Speaker 2: Now.

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Speaker 1: That scene reportedly led to trauma so deep that many

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Speaker 1: who'd seen it became terrified of entering their bathrooms unaccompanied.

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Speaker 1: The soundtrack to that moment is still used to depict

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Speaker 1: violence and horror. But Psycho wasn't all fiction. It was

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Speaker 1: actually based on the very true story of a simple

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Speaker 1: Wisconsin man, a man whose mother's love was all he

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Speaker 1: ever wanted, and when he could no longer get it,

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Speaker 1: would go to extreme and horrifying lengths to recreate it,

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Speaker 1: events that would lead to that man ed Gean, being

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Speaker 1: tagged as the Butcher of Plainfield. I'm Claire Murphy and

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Speaker 1: this is True Crime Conversations, a podcast exploring the world's

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Speaker 1: most notorious crimes by speaking to the people who know

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Speaker 1: the most about them. When police rated ed Gean's property

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Speaker 1: in November nineteen fifty seven, they would have to spend

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Speaker 1: days sorting through the trophies he'd collected.

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Speaker 3: Body parts were everywhere, but I'm closer.

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Speaker 1: Inspection investigators realized that that waste basket in the corner

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Speaker 1: it was made out of human skin. In fact, several

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Speaker 1: chairs had also been upholstered in human skin. The lampshade

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Speaker 1: that was a human face. The horror of what ed

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Speaker 1: Dean had left behind in his family farmhouse led police

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Speaker 1: to believe that he'd maybe murdered a dozen people to

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Speaker 1: create this twisted set of homewares, But the reality was

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Speaker 1: much much darker. Ed Dean and his influence on pop

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Speaker 1: culture remains to this day, with the recent release on

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Speaker 1: Netflix of Ryan Murphy's third series of Monsters. The ed

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Speaker 1: Gen Story when allther Harold Schechter saw it was being made,

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Speaker 1: he wanted to find no one in Ryan Murphy's camp

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Speaker 1: had reached out to him. After all, his book is

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Speaker 1: the leading source of information about the Gan family and

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Speaker 1: the events leading up to Ed Dean's arrest and subsequent conviction,

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Speaker 1: where the court found him not guilty by reason of insanity.

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Speaker 1: But when we sat down with him to discuss Gan's crimes,

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Speaker 1: he says, as soon as he saw the opening scenes

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Speaker 1: of Monsters, he knew they hadn't based the story on

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Speaker 1: any of his work. Harold joins us. Now, Harold, thank

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Speaker 1: you so much for joining us today. Your name has

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Speaker 1: come up pretty much in every conversation around ed Gain

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Speaker 1: seeing as he's back in the headlines from Ryan Murphy's

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Speaker 1: Monster's version on Netflix.

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Speaker 3: Have you seen it yet?

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Speaker 2: Yes, I have. I saw it as soon as it dropped.

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Speaker 3: What are your thoughts?

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Speaker 2: Well, you know, initially, when I first heard Ryan Murphy

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Speaker 2: was going to be making an Ed Gaan documentary and

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Speaker 2: no one had reached out to me because I don't

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Speaker 2: want to sound its modest, but you know, my book,

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Speaker 2: Deviant really told the Gaen story for the first time,

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Speaker 2: and yeah, I felt that no one could really make

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Speaker 2: a series about Gain without referring to or using my book. Then,

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Speaker 2: as soon as I started watching the series, I was

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Speaker 2: upset because so little of it had to do with

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Speaker 2: my book, and I dropped the whole idea of any

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Speaker 2: kind of legal action because the series deviates, if I

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Speaker 2: can use that word, so far from the historical tree truth. Now,

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Speaker 2: I've been upset because millions of people are going to

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Speaker 2: think that they've seen the actual story of ed Gean

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Speaker 2: when what they've seen is I would estimate ninety percent fabrication,

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Speaker 2: possibly more so. Yes, So that's my response to it.

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Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about the real story of ed Gain then,

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Speaker 1: and we'll keep referencing back to monsters just to see

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Speaker 1: where it does. Dbaight, But I think to best understand

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Speaker 1: ed Gain, you have to understand his family background first.

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Speaker 1: Can you give us a little understanding on who his parents,

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Speaker 1: George and Augusta were.

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Speaker 2: Well, one thing I discovered The Deviant was my first

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Speaker 2: true crime book, and I've encountered the same thing in

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Speaker 2: many books I've done since is that there were such

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Speaker 2: obscure people that there's almost no record of what was

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Speaker 2: going on really in the household. I mean, we know

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Speaker 2: that the father, George, was apparently an abuse of alcoholic.

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Speaker 2: We know that Augusta was a dominant figure in the

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Speaker 2: household in terms of running a business. They originally had

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Speaker 2: a lacrosse before they moved to Plainfield. We know that

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Speaker 2: she totally dominated Ed's life, That she was a religious

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Speaker 2: fanatic who drilled into him the sens that the world

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Speaker 2: outside their little farmstead was kind of a sodom and gomorrah,

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Speaker 2: that women were evil, that Ed had to protect himself

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Speaker 2: from the dangers of strange women. You know that she

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Speaker 2: would hector him constantly and read to him biblical passages

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Speaker 2: about the evils of womanhood. Pretty much. That's really all

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Speaker 2: we know about his parents and his relationship to his parents.

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Speaker 1: We see amongst his Augusta kicking George out of the

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Speaker 1: family home, which obviously isn't true. I mean, for many

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Speaker 1: reasons we can fill in the blanks. Because Augusta was

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Speaker 1: such a devout Lutheran, divorce or separation wouldn't have been

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Speaker 1: on the cards for her. Yeah, so what do we

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Speaker 1: know of George's fate? Did he was he kicked out

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Speaker 1: of the home?

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Speaker 2: No, No, absolutely not. I think he became increasingly a

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Speaker 2: burden to Augusta because again his problem with drink made

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Speaker 2: him increasingly unreliable and unable to perform a lot of

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Speaker 2: the chores around the farm. But he died at home

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Speaker 2: and read his obituary in the local newspapers. So that

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Speaker 2: is just one of I would have to say, almost

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Speaker 2: countless fabrications that the Ryan Murphy series presents.

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Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about Augusta, because she does play a

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Speaker 1: pivotal role in both monsters. But in ed Gane's life,

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Speaker 1: we know that, as you mentioned, she was quite domineering,

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Speaker 1: and you in your book step out how you've seen

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Speaker 1: her role increase over time, in that she becomes the

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Speaker 1: named proprietor of the business that they run, that she

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Speaker 1: is the name on the deed of the farm first

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Speaker 1: and second farm that they.

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Speaker 3: End up purchasing.

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Speaker 1: Why do they end up in such an isolated place

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Speaker 1: because Plainfield itself is a very small community. There's only

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Speaker 1: several hundred people who live there. But the farm on

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Speaker 1: which they lived was outside of that too, and in

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Speaker 1: the early nineteen hundreds there wasn't a lot of you know,

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Speaker 1: road traffic outside these farms. It would have been weeks

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Speaker 1: for people to head out and visit them, and then

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Speaker 1: you know, they would then have to head into town

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Speaker 1: for supplies. But why isolate her family from everybody?

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Speaker 2: Well, again, as you Sam, and it's a very part

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Speaker 2: of Wisconsin, everybody's pretty isolated from each other. I think

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Speaker 2: they moved there because there was this available farm with

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Speaker 2: a you know, a very de sensive piece of property.

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Speaker 2: They thought they could make a go of it. After

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Speaker 2: living in the city Lacrosse, she wanted to get away

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Speaker 2: from the city because again she felt cities were hell

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Speaker 2: holes of corruption and depravity. You know. The isolation I

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Speaker 2: think suited Augusta because again she was very, very wary

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Speaker 2: of all the people around her. Possibly she felt she

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Speaker 2: could exert a more domineering influence over the lives of

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Speaker 2: her family members if they lived farther apart from the community.

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Speaker 2: But in general, people lived isolated lives. I mean, the

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Speaker 2: Games were an extreme case, but that part of Wisconsin

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Speaker 2: is very sparsely populated. Even when I went up there

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Speaker 2: in the nineteen eighties, you could drive through very long

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Speaker 2: stretches of that part of the state and never, you know,

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Speaker 2: pass another car on the road.

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Speaker 1: So they're out there on this isolated. Augusta is in

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Speaker 1: charge of educating her two young boys, Henry and Ed.

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Speaker 1: We understand, as you've mentioned that she's very strict on

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Speaker 1: them as far as her religion is concerned, but she's

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Speaker 1: also instilling in them, as you've also mentioned this fear

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Speaker 1: and distaste of women in general. It does seem that

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Speaker 1: at some stage Henry does try to kind of move

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Speaker 1: away from that. But Ed is a little bit different,

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Speaker 1: he seems, and this is also mentioned in your book

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Speaker 1: where her school friends are concerned that he seems like

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Speaker 1: a sweet enough boy, but he struggles to make connections

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Speaker 1: with people. And it turns out that his mother is

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Speaker 1: also playing a role in that, in that every friend

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Speaker 1: that he makes, she tells him that something wrong with

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Speaker 1: that child's parents or the father.

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Speaker 3: Is immoral or whatever it might be.

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Speaker 1: So what kind of mental state do you think ed

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Speaker 1: Geen is in as he's growing up under the influence

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Speaker 1: of his domineering mother.

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Speaker 2: Well, again, from what we know, for whatever reason, Augusta

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Speaker 2: apparently wanted to have a daughter and there was something

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Speaker 2: and when Ed came along, you know, she was very

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Speaker 2: disappointed that she hadn't given birth to a girl. Her

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Speaker 2: first child was a son, Henry, and I think she

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Speaker 2: part of the stranglehold she kept on him involved his

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Speaker 2: turning her into a more feminine kind of person. You know,

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Speaker 2: there's always something from what I understand from having interviewed

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Speaker 2: people who had known him, which I did when I

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Speaker 2: did my research in Plainfield, a little bit of feminine

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Speaker 2: about Ed. You know, that made him a bit of

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Speaker 2: a not a laughing stock, but you know, sometimes a

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Speaker 2: butt of cruel teasing. So yeah, I mean, she she kept,

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Speaker 2: you know, this emotional stranglehold on him. You know, the

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Speaker 2: expression tied being tied to her apron strings. I mean,

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Speaker 2: he was really bound to her. That expression doesn't really

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Speaker 2: capture the extent of her of her hold on him.

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Speaker 2: I mean, she just kept him kind of attached to

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Speaker 2: her own by his umbilical court to her and Henry.

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Speaker 2: You know, there is evidence that Henry was trying to

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Speaker 2: pull away. Henry had, you know, saw the kinds of

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Speaker 2: conditions that his Brotherred was living under, did urge him

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Speaker 2: somehow to try to achieve some kind of independence from

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Speaker 2: from Augusta. Again, we don't really know all the details

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Speaker 2: of some indication that it created a certain amount of

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Speaker 2: tension between them, which then after Gan's crimes were exposed,

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Speaker 2: led people to believe he murdered Henry, which I'm quite

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Speaker 2: sure he did not. But the interesting thing is, until

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Speaker 2: these sensational murderers become known to the public anonymous, obscure figures,

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Speaker 2: they're complete non entities. So there's no reason there would

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Speaker 2: be any real biographical information about their past lives other

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Speaker 2: than what they themselves, you know, as zed Gain did

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Speaker 2: later tell psychiatrists or law enforcement officials. And the accounts

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Speaker 2: of neighbors are very unreliable. Once it is revealed to

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Speaker 2: be this monstrous kind of figure, everybody suddenly, you know,

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Speaker 2: is recalling and I put that in air quote dealings

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Speaker 2: with the family. They always knew something was really weird

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Speaker 2: going on in that household. But you know, you can't

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Speaker 2: take a lot of those accounts face value.

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Speaker 1: I guess we can attribute that to Adeline as well,

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Speaker 1: who is also featured in Monsters. Adeline initially when she's

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Speaker 1: spoken to about and if you haven't seen Monsters, she's

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Speaker 1: essentially Edgain's girlfriend in Monsters, who's seems almost complicit to

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Speaker 1: a point in the crimes that he's committing. She's interviewed

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Speaker 1: back after he is arrested in the fifties, and she says, yes,

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Speaker 1: they had a twenty year long relationship and he seemed

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Speaker 1: like a sweet, nice man. But then he's interviewed not

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Speaker 1: long after that and says completely the opposite and that

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Speaker 1: she never had a long relationship with him, and on

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Speaker 1: he dated him for a short period in the fifties.

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Speaker 1: So those recollections, they contradict themselves even at the time

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Speaker 1: of his arrest.

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Speaker 2: Well again, as relationship with Adeline, as is portrayed in

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Speaker 2: the TV show, is one of its more egregious features.

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Speaker 2: I don't mean to seem cruel about this, but if

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Speaker 2: you look at photographs of the actual Adeline Watkins, she

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Speaker 2: bears a striking resemblance to the actress Margaret Hamilton as

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Speaker 2: the Wicked Witch of the West and the Wizard of

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Speaker 2: os She was apparently a little bit of a publicity

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Speaker 2: hound when the media descended on Plainfield the discovery of

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Speaker 2: Ed's atrocities. I think she enjoyed the attention she was

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Speaker 2: getting by claiming she had been Ed's girlfriend, which, as

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Speaker 2: you say, she later attracted. There's no evidence they had

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Speaker 2: much of any kind of relationship at all. I mean,

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Speaker 2: he might have one time asked her to go up

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Speaker 2: roller skating, which was a favorite pastime of his. But

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Speaker 2: that's what all it amounted to. You know, she was

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Speaker 2: not this twenty something blonde hottie who is portrayed as

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Speaker 2: means accomplice and conspirator and so on and so forth.

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Speaker 1: That just didn't happen. Well, another thing I'm guessing that

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Speaker 1: didn't happen is Monsters tries to explain the motivation for

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Speaker 1: Ed Dean doing what he did through Adeline, in that

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Speaker 1: she gives him a box with photographs from Nazi concentration

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Speaker 1: camps of the bodies of Jewish people and a comic

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Speaker 1: book that is basically a fictionalized dialog somewhat fictionalized tale

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Speaker 1: of ilsa cook who was a German war criminal who

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Speaker 1: worked in the concentration camps and committed atrocities against Jewish people.

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Speaker 1: Was any of that even vaguely true? Was he all

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Speaker 1: influenced by what was happening during the Second World War?

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Speaker 2: Well he might have. I mean, Gan was a voracious reader,

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Speaker 2: not of comic books, but of these sensational, lurid men's

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Speaker 2: magazines at the time, and many of them did in

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Speaker 2: fact feature stories about hot Nazi bebes torturing, not even

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Speaker 2: so much committing, you know, committing those kinds of death

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Speaker 2: camp atrocities. There are stories where they're whipping prisoners of war.

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Speaker 2: So there is evidence that Ed was fascinated by some

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Speaker 2: of those accounts that he came across the magazines. We

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Speaker 2: don't know specifically that he really know anything about Ilsa

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Speaker 2: Koch per se. There were a number of those female

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Speaker 2: Nazis who very notorious for having made lambshades out of

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Speaker 2: human skin. You know. Again, the whole notion that he

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Speaker 2: was introduced to this by Adeline Watkins, you know, is

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Speaker 2: just made up, but it is true. You even can

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Speaker 2: see there are some photographs that were published in Life

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Speaker 2: magazine back in nineteen fifty seven when the Gaenes story broke,

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Speaker 2: and there were photographs of the inside of his house

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Speaker 2: and you know, the incredible chaos and squalor, and there's

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Speaker 2: one shot actually of a cardboard cartan filled with these

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Speaker 2: men's magazines. So yes, he might have read about it

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Speaker 2: and probably did read about him there. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Listening to True Crime Conversations with me clam Eurphy, I'm

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Speaker 1: speaking with true crime writer Harold check about the life

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Speaker 1: and crimes of ed Gan up. Next, I asked Harold,

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Speaker 1: if Edgin had succeeded in digging up his mother Augusta's body,

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Speaker 1: would he still have gone on to commit his horrific crimes.

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Speaker 3: Well, his initial foray into.

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Speaker 1: Utilizing dead bodies for his crimes was after the death

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Speaker 1: of his mother Augusta, which he seemed to take pretty hard.

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Speaker 1: And if she was as dominant a force in his

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Speaker 1: life as we believe she was, then that would have

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Speaker 1: been a terrible blow for him because at that stage,

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Speaker 1: his father has died, Henry has died, and now his

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Speaker 1: mother has died, so he's left on his own, and

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Speaker 1: he does try to dig up her body, but he

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Speaker 1: can't access her because due to the soil conditions in

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Speaker 1: that part of Wisconsin, they sometimes will put concrete over

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Speaker 1: the top to stop them from sinking down. So do

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Speaker 1: you think had he been able to access Augusta's body

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Speaker 1: and dig her up at that time, do you think

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Speaker 1: he would have gone any further? Because he does then

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Speaker 1: start digging up other people around her.

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Speaker 3: Do you think he.

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Speaker 1: Would have gone further had he been able to access

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Speaker 1: his mother's body Initially.

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Speaker 2: I've never thought of that. Well, very possibly, no one

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Speaker 2: of the major problems I have with the TV series

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Speaker 2: is it portrays Ed Green as a serial killer, and

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Speaker 2: Ed Gan was not a serial killer. The term serial killer,

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Speaker 2: so I'm sure you know, was coined specifically to apply

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Speaker 2: to people like John Wayne Gacy and Ted Bundy. You

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Speaker 2: know what used to be called lost murderers in the

296
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Speaker 2: old days, extreme sexual sadus who derived their perverse ecstatic

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Speaker 2: pleasure from abducting and torturing and then murdering victims. That

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Speaker 2: was not Ed's m Ed was essentially a necrophile. The

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Speaker 2: two women he killed, Mary the tavern keeper Mary Hogan,

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Speaker 2: and the hardware store owner Bernice Warden, he executed very swiftly.

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Speaker 2: You know, there's no kid and torturing them. He just

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Speaker 2: wanted their bodies to bring back home. So his major

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00:19:12,192 --> 00:19:16,151
Speaker 2: motivation seemed to have been this effort to resuscitate his mother. Well,

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Speaker 2: there's a dual motivation. He's acting out this again to

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Speaker 2: play armchair for adian psychoaalysty. You know, this deep ambivalence

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Speaker 2: towards this woman, towards his mother. The one hand, he

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Speaker 2: consciously sees her as his saint, his only friend, and

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Speaker 2: he wants to bring her back to live with her.

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Speaker 2: At the same time, he's obviously acting out these homicidal

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Speaker 2: impulses towards the body in terms of the mutilations he performs.

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Speaker 2: So all his efforts, as you know, had to do

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Speaker 2: with getting his mother's body back, and since he couldn't

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Speaker 2: access it, trying to somehow reconstitute it from the body

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Speaker 2: parts of these other women. So whether or not he

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Speaker 2: would have been satisfied if he had been able to

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Speaker 2: bring Augusta back again, I thought of that, it's an

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Speaker 2: interesting question. Again we can always speculate, well.

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Speaker 1: Can we talk a little bit about the things he

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Speaker 1: was doing with the bodies. You say it was to

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Speaker 1: reconstitute his mother essentially, But in amongst all of that,

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Speaker 1: in the Monsters series, there is a big connection with femininity.

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Speaker 1: And as he mentioned, he was a more effeminate young

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Speaker 1: man and potentially his mother had almost groomed him into

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Speaker 1: being the daughter that she actually wanted. And there's this

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Speaker 1: exploration of his gender and his obsession with women's underguments

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Speaker 1: and women's bodies, and the fact that he does essentially

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Speaker 1: make a skin suit out of women's body parts that

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Speaker 1: he has allegedly worn at some stage. There is also

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Speaker 1: a conversation in Monsters that he has a fictional conversation

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Speaker 1: with a transactivist who explains he's not trans, but he's

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Speaker 1: actually just obsessed with femininity and women's bodies.

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Speaker 3: But do you think that was true in that he

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Speaker 3: was very.

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Speaker 1: Concerned about what gender he was supposed to be and

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Speaker 1: that kind of navigation of who he really was, and

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Speaker 1: that's what he was doing with those bodies too, Well.

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Speaker 2: It's probably part of it, you know, when you're say

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Speaker 2: Gene made a skin suit. Of course, that's where Thomas

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00:21:23,071 --> 00:21:25,792
Speaker 2: Harris got the idea for his Buffalo Bill character and

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Speaker 2: signs of Lambs. There wasn't a whole suit. The investigators

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Speaker 2: who first were digging up all these horrible body parts

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00:21:38,911 --> 00:21:42,591
Speaker 2: and so on in his farmhouse came upon what they

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Speaker 2: called a mammary vest. So he had apparently flayed the

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Speaker 2: top part of a woman's torso with the breast and

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Speaker 2: strung it with some kind of cords that he could

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Speaker 2: put on his own body, which definitely suggests that. Obviously

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Speaker 2: in my book they say that he was somebody who

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Speaker 2: dressed up in women's skin and steff to women's clothing, So,

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Speaker 2: you know, Freud uses the term over determined, which means

350
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Speaker 2: that there's no one simple cause of behavior. You can

351
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Speaker 2: see in that again, both his evidence to recreate his

352
00:22:23,752 --> 00:22:27,351
Speaker 2: mother as well as to be you know, the girl

353
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Speaker 2: that his mother always wanted to have, the thing about

354
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Speaker 2: ed Geen. I was talking about this actually to somebody

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Speaker 2: the other day. It's impossible to explain his behavior. Ultimately,

356
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Speaker 2: we all want to, in a way reduce this unimaginable

357
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Speaker 2: kind of human behavior to something we can grasp with

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Speaker 2: our rational minds because it gives us a sense of

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Speaker 2: control over But I'll often say this is hard to

360
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Speaker 2: understand ed Geen, as it is to understand Mozart. That

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Speaker 2: there are certain human beings whose minds and motivation are

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Speaker 2: just beyond the ability to understand. So all those factors

363
00:23:14,552 --> 00:23:18,552
Speaker 2: obviously played into creating the creature we know is ed Game.

364
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Speaker 2: Trying to reduce it to some kind of simple explanation

365
00:23:21,792 --> 00:23:25,871
Speaker 2: is just not possible. That the conditions of his life

366
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Speaker 2: caused something to crack in his psyche, and all this

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Speaker 2: archaic stuff having to do with flaying victims and wearing

368
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Speaker 2: their skins and making trophies out of body parts, you know,

369
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Speaker 2: things you see in archaic religions somehow flooded out in

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Speaker 2: that little Wisconsin farmhouse. It's one of the things that

371
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Speaker 2: makes the case so endlessly fascinating is that in the

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Speaker 2: nineteen fifties, in the midst of this bland bomby America

373
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Speaker 2: that's been mythologized as happy days, everybody living in nice

374
00:24:04,712 --> 00:24:09,071
Speaker 2: suburban houses around it with white picket fences and sitting

375
00:24:09,111 --> 00:24:12,792
Speaker 2: around on Sunday nights and watching I Love Lucy, the

376
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Speaker 2: American Heartland. There was this person who the squalor and

377
00:24:18,512 --> 00:24:25,671
Speaker 2: darkness of his little hovel was enacting you know, these

378
00:24:25,792 --> 00:24:30,071
Speaker 2: archaic rituals like an Aztec priest dressing up in human skin,

379
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Speaker 2: well like going back to our prehistoric ancestors dissecting the

380
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Speaker 2: bodies of their victims, shrinking their heads, you know, keeping

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Speaker 2: body parts as trophies.

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Speaker 1: So can we talk about the things that were found

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Speaker 1: in ed Gain's house. When he is finally arrested, he's

384
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Speaker 1: arrested at a neighbor's house having dinner, and it's after

385
00:24:52,111 --> 00:24:56,391
Speaker 1: he murders Bernie's which she's the local hardware store owner

386
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Speaker 1: in the movie. It suggested that they had a relationship,

387
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Speaker 1: a sexual relationship, and then he in his schizophrenic state

388
00:25:06,752 --> 00:25:09,111
Speaker 1: believes that she's given him a venereal disease and that's

389
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Speaker 1: why he goes and murders her.

390
00:25:11,272 --> 00:25:13,552
Speaker 3: Which none of that is true, right.

391
00:25:13,391 --> 00:25:15,392
Speaker 1: Well, as far as we know, because we're not insided

392
00:25:15,431 --> 00:25:18,752
Speaker 1: Gane's head at any stage, none of that is true.

393
00:25:19,111 --> 00:25:24,792
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, none of it True's complete, complete, outrageous lie.

394
00:25:25,272 --> 00:25:32,192
Speaker 2: And somebody said apparently Bernice Warden's relations to sentence very

395
00:25:32,272 --> 00:25:36,511
Speaker 2: upset about that. I mean, Gene had no contact with

396
00:25:36,552 --> 00:25:39,271
Speaker 2: her at all. I mean apparently the day before he

397
00:25:39,391 --> 00:25:42,711
Speaker 2: killed her, he had come into the hardware store and

398
00:25:43,512 --> 00:25:46,591
Speaker 2: sort of joshingly asked her she wanted to go out

399
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Speaker 2: roller skating. But the portrait, it's really kind of unconscionable

400
00:25:53,351 --> 00:25:59,512
Speaker 2: what Ryan Murphy and his collaborator Ian Brennan did something

401
00:25:59,591 --> 00:26:03,871
Speaker 2: like that where there still are family members. I'm not

402
00:26:03,911 --> 00:26:06,111
Speaker 2: even sure how they could get away with that with

403
00:26:06,351 --> 00:26:08,192
Speaker 2: out being sued in sometain way.

404
00:26:08,272 --> 00:26:11,912
Speaker 1: But there's even a suggestion that Bernice's son is absent

405
00:26:11,952 --> 00:26:14,311
Speaker 1: in her life and is not you know, and she's

406
00:26:14,431 --> 00:26:16,671
Speaker 1: very sad and lonely. But he wasn't He the local

407
00:26:16,712 --> 00:26:19,631
Speaker 1: deputy and raised the alarm after she went missing, Like

408
00:26:19,792 --> 00:26:21,472
Speaker 1: none of her story seems to be true.

409
00:26:21,871 --> 00:26:24,351
Speaker 2: No, none of it's true. I mean literally none of them.

410
00:26:24,391 --> 00:26:26,631
Speaker 1: I mean, other than working in the hardware store. That

411
00:26:26,671 --> 00:26:31,631
Speaker 1: seems to be the only true thing. Yeah. So, after

412
00:26:31,871 --> 00:26:34,671
Speaker 1: Ed kills her and takes her back to the property

413
00:26:34,752 --> 00:26:39,511
Speaker 1: at the farm, police quickly find out that he is

414
00:26:39,512 --> 00:26:42,112
Speaker 1: a suspect because the son does mention that he's come

415
00:26:42,151 --> 00:26:44,112
Speaker 1: into the store and has kind of said a few

416
00:26:44,151 --> 00:26:46,311
Speaker 1: things to her. And they find him having dinner at

417
00:26:46,311 --> 00:26:48,551
Speaker 1: a neighbor's house, and they arrest him. And then they

418
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Speaker 1: go and they raid his home. What do they find

419
00:26:53,151 --> 00:26:54,192
Speaker 1: inside the GameHouse?

420
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Speaker 2: Well, first of all, they find Bernice Swarden's body in

421
00:27:02,552 --> 00:27:07,431
Speaker 2: the summer kitchen adjacent to the house, strung up, beheaded,

422
00:27:08,151 --> 00:27:11,952
Speaker 2: strung up, dressed out like a deer, the body hollowed

423
00:27:11,992 --> 00:27:16,191
Speaker 2: out of all its internal organs. They find her head,

424
00:27:17,552 --> 00:27:20,631
Speaker 2: which Geen had inserted. He had taken a couple of

425
00:27:20,752 --> 00:27:23,912
Speaker 2: nails and bent them to make them into hooks and

426
00:27:23,952 --> 00:27:27,992
Speaker 2: inserted one in each ear with a rope between them.

427
00:27:27,992 --> 00:27:30,552
Speaker 2: He was apparently intending to hang that up as a

428
00:27:30,591 --> 00:27:37,912
Speaker 2: trophy on his wall. Inside the house proper, they found

429
00:27:38,151 --> 00:27:41,351
Speaker 2: bowls made out of the caps of human skulls. They

430
00:27:41,431 --> 00:27:45,552
Speaker 2: found a box full of vulvas which had been painted silver.

431
00:27:46,351 --> 00:27:52,191
Speaker 2: They found a belt made of nipples, a shade pull

432
00:27:52,391 --> 00:27:56,071
Speaker 2: made of human lips. They found that mammary vests that

433
00:27:56,071 --> 00:28:01,191
Speaker 2: we spoke about before. They found a number of flayed faces,

434
00:28:01,992 --> 00:28:04,232
Speaker 2: and had flayed the faces off of some of these

435
00:28:04,232 --> 00:28:08,992
Speaker 2: corpses and tried them out and hung them on his

436
00:28:09,071 --> 00:28:16,472
Speaker 2: bedroom wall. Again, these incomprehensible, incomprehensible horrors. They also at

437
00:28:16,472 --> 00:28:20,272
Speaker 2: some point found Mary Hogan ed would sometimes choke around.

438
00:28:20,272 --> 00:28:22,751
Speaker 2: Oh she said, I got her at home. You know,

439
00:28:22,831 --> 00:28:26,192
Speaker 2: nobody took them seriously, but you know, they found her

440
00:28:26,232 --> 00:28:27,751
Speaker 2: head in a paper bag.

441
00:28:28,232 --> 00:28:29,951
Speaker 1: I kind of imagine what they must have been like

442
00:28:30,631 --> 00:28:33,311
Speaker 1: for the police who are investigating this. Do they ever

443
00:28:33,351 --> 00:28:36,032
Speaker 1: speak about the impact that finding all of these had

444
00:28:36,071 --> 00:28:37,152
Speaker 1: on them mentally?

445
00:28:37,831 --> 00:28:40,352
Speaker 2: Well, I know that they spoke about the long term effect,

446
00:28:40,392 --> 00:28:44,471
Speaker 2: but yeah, one can only imagine. I think the horrors

447
00:28:44,632 --> 00:28:50,392
Speaker 2: were so again incomprehensible, that they couldn't even really process

448
00:28:50,431 --> 00:28:55,472
Speaker 2: what they were finding. Gean is really unique as far

449
00:28:55,512 --> 00:29:00,431
Speaker 2: as I know, not only in the annals of American crime,

450
00:29:00,952 --> 00:29:04,231
Speaker 2: but in the annals of world crime. You know, people

451
00:29:04,232 --> 00:29:08,472
Speaker 2: have kept body parts is killers have kept body parts

452
00:29:08,472 --> 00:29:11,992
Speaker 2: as souvenirs and so on and so forth, but nobody

453
00:29:12,032 --> 00:29:14,511
Speaker 2: did what gain did I mean? Gain? Again? He was

454
00:29:14,671 --> 00:29:17,872
Speaker 2: essentially a necro file, but he was less a necro

455
00:29:17,911 --> 00:29:21,312
Speaker 2: file who is interested in having sex with the corpses,

456
00:29:21,792 --> 00:29:26,432
Speaker 2: although again Ryan Murphy's show does portray him as having

457
00:29:26,472 --> 00:29:28,872
Speaker 2: sex with the corpses, which as far as we know,

458
00:29:28,952 --> 00:29:34,991
Speaker 2: he never did, as somehow using their body parts as

459
00:29:35,152 --> 00:29:40,671
Speaker 2: raw material for the home improvement project. It makes a

460
00:29:40,832 --> 00:29:42,711
Speaker 2: very American kind of necro file.

461
00:29:44,671 --> 00:29:47,072
Speaker 1: Next, Harold tells us what it says to police when

462
00:29:47,072 --> 00:29:50,312
Speaker 1: he's finally arrested, and exactly how much detail he went

463
00:29:50,312 --> 00:29:57,751
Speaker 1: into about his crimes When he's arrested. What does he

464
00:29:57,832 --> 00:30:02,472
Speaker 1: say to police? How does he tell them what he's done?

465
00:30:02,552 --> 00:30:04,112
Speaker 1: Does he admit to it initially?

466
00:30:05,072 --> 00:30:09,431
Speaker 2: Well, no, not initially. When you read gains confessions, his

467
00:30:09,592 --> 00:30:14,032
Speaker 2: interrogators ask him all these leading questions, which he admits to.

468
00:30:14,752 --> 00:30:18,072
Speaker 2: You know, So let's say, so Edd you we found this,

469
00:30:18,632 --> 00:30:22,511
Speaker 2: we found this weird vest, you know, made out of

470
00:30:22,512 --> 00:30:25,951
Speaker 2: the top part of a woman's body, and did you

471
00:30:26,072 --> 00:30:29,072
Speaker 2: put it on and pretend you were your mother? And

472
00:30:29,112 --> 00:30:33,552
Speaker 2: he'd say, yeah, that sounds about right. Late later on,

473
00:30:34,552 --> 00:30:37,671
Speaker 2: when he was institutionalized and people would interviewed him, he

474
00:30:37,952 --> 00:30:44,991
Speaker 2: would deny almost everything, without ever really explaining how all

475
00:30:45,032 --> 00:30:49,751
Speaker 2: those artifacts ended up in his farmhouse. He did admit,

476
00:30:50,272 --> 00:30:53,432
Speaker 2: or at least he did not deny, that he had

477
00:30:53,792 --> 00:30:54,952
Speaker 2: done all these things.

478
00:30:55,192 --> 00:30:57,112
Speaker 1: Well, Coman talk about a lot of the other things

479
00:30:57,112 --> 00:31:02,272
Speaker 1: that Monsters claims he did. There's a disappearance of fifteen

480
00:31:02,312 --> 00:31:07,592
Speaker 1: year old Evelyn, who in the story was recovering from polio,

481
00:31:07,752 --> 00:31:10,431
Speaker 1: and so ed Dean had stepped into babysit the children

482
00:31:10,472 --> 00:31:12,632
Speaker 1: she normally babysit, but then she recovered and returned, and

483
00:31:12,671 --> 00:31:16,872
Speaker 1: he resented that, and the Monster show suggests that he

484
00:31:16,952 --> 00:31:20,912
Speaker 1: kidnapped and murdered her. The only truth I can find

485
00:31:20,952 --> 00:31:23,112
Speaker 1: to that is that he yes, at some stage babysat

486
00:31:23,192 --> 00:31:26,112
Speaker 1: children to supplement income from for the farm, and that

487
00:31:26,232 --> 00:31:26,792
Speaker 1: was about it.

488
00:31:27,152 --> 00:31:31,072
Speaker 2: Well. Evan Hartley was a young girl who disappeared while babysitting.

489
00:31:31,592 --> 00:31:36,671
Speaker 2: After Gan's horrors were discovered. As is often the case

490
00:31:37,752 --> 00:31:43,711
Speaker 2: when some sensational murderers have been uncovered, police officers with

491
00:31:43,872 --> 00:31:47,632
Speaker 2: unsolved cases flocked to Plainfield hoping to be able to

492
00:31:47,632 --> 00:31:50,392
Speaker 2: close out these cold cases. One of them was the

493
00:31:50,392 --> 00:31:54,712
Speaker 2: avalent Hartley case. But ye Gan evidently had nothing at

494
00:31:54,712 --> 00:31:57,792
Speaker 2: all to do with the disappearance of Evelyn Hartley abducting

495
00:31:57,992 --> 00:32:02,312
Speaker 2: teenage girls and torturing them and killing them. Again, Gan

496
00:32:02,472 --> 00:32:05,551
Speaker 2: was all about it was not his emma. He was

497
00:32:05,632 --> 00:32:09,112
Speaker 2: not a serial sex killer, which is what the show

498
00:32:09,552 --> 00:32:11,592
Speaker 2: makes them out to be, and at the end of

499
00:32:11,592 --> 00:32:14,272
Speaker 2: the show, it makes them out to be sort of

500
00:32:14,312 --> 00:32:19,352
Speaker 2: the forefather of all these notorious serial killers who appeared

501
00:32:19,472 --> 00:32:22,472
Speaker 2: back in the seventies and supposedly were inspired by Gain,

502
00:32:22,792 --> 00:32:27,112
Speaker 2: which is again what can I say, you know, just

503
00:32:27,232 --> 00:32:30,272
Speaker 2: get another complete fabrication?

504
00:32:31,152 --> 00:32:34,552
Speaker 1: Is that why we see that scene when he's confronted

505
00:32:34,592 --> 00:32:37,352
Speaker 1: by two hunters in that little outhouse where you talked

506
00:32:37,352 --> 00:32:39,312
Speaker 1: about Benice being strung up like a deer, and then

507
00:32:39,352 --> 00:32:41,191
Speaker 1: he chases them into the woods with a chainsaw and

508
00:32:41,272 --> 00:32:45,431
Speaker 1: murders them, which essentially tries to explain the influence on

509
00:32:45,512 --> 00:32:47,592
Speaker 1: the Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie.

510
00:32:47,752 --> 00:32:50,152
Speaker 3: But there's no evidence that that ever happened.

511
00:32:50,232 --> 00:32:55,751
Speaker 2: Right. No, again, the two hunters, you know, hunters who

512
00:32:55,752 --> 00:32:59,511
Speaker 2: are always getting killed during deer hunting season for one

513
00:32:59,592 --> 00:33:03,951
Speaker 2: reason or another. Yes, that's complete. I guess I have

514
00:33:03,992 --> 00:33:08,832
Speaker 2: to use the word lie there's no evidence Gan ever

515
00:33:09,232 --> 00:33:14,431
Speaker 2: owned a chainsaw after the Gaen crime. The Gaen crimes

516
00:33:14,512 --> 00:33:19,392
Speaker 2: became known to most of America because shortly after they

517
00:33:19,392 --> 00:33:24,471
Speaker 2: came to light Life magazine, which was essentially this photo

518
00:33:24,832 --> 00:33:29,272
Speaker 2: journalistic magazine that at the time could be found in

519
00:33:29,312 --> 00:33:33,471
Speaker 2: almost every middle class American household, did a big, big

520
00:33:34,192 --> 00:33:38,512
Speaker 2: spread on the Green crimes, and supposedly Toby Hooper, who

521
00:33:38,592 --> 00:33:40,392
Speaker 2: was young at the time, he would have been about

522
00:33:40,752 --> 00:33:42,432
Speaker 2: he was sort of my age, would have been about

523
00:33:42,512 --> 00:33:45,271
Speaker 2: nine or ten, you know, read about it and was

524
00:33:45,792 --> 00:33:49,751
Speaker 2: kind of permanently traumatized by it and recollected the story

525
00:33:49,792 --> 00:33:52,951
Speaker 2: when he went to make Texas Chainsaw the massacre. But

526
00:33:53,032 --> 00:33:58,432
Speaker 2: the chainsaw thing, yeah, that Gaan did not dismember any

527
00:33:58,552 --> 00:34:01,712
Speaker 2: victims were chainsaws, and he didn't kill those two hunters.

528
00:34:02,832 --> 00:34:07,511
Speaker 2: So yes, that's another thing. Yeah, most of it, you know,

529
00:34:07,552 --> 00:34:11,632
Speaker 2: if they did, was what Murphy and Brennan did was

530
00:34:11,672 --> 00:34:16,151
Speaker 2: take the broad outlines of the game story and then

531
00:34:16,232 --> 00:34:18,832
Speaker 2: just fill it in with whatever they thought was going

532
00:34:18,872 --> 00:34:21,952
Speaker 2: to t the late An audience for a few hours.

533
00:34:22,712 --> 00:34:25,192
Speaker 2: I sometimes think of it as a throwback to the

534
00:34:25,272 --> 00:34:29,152
Speaker 2: kinds of biopics that were made of Hollywood back in

535
00:34:29,152 --> 00:34:32,071
Speaker 2: the nineteen thirties and forties. You know the story of

536
00:34:32,152 --> 00:34:36,752
Speaker 2: Louis Pasteur, or you know the story of Thomas Edison

537
00:34:37,431 --> 00:34:39,832
Speaker 2: or the story of whoever. You know. They take the

538
00:34:39,951 --> 00:34:44,951
Speaker 2: very broad outlines and just make stuff up to keep

539
00:34:44,991 --> 00:34:48,832
Speaker 2: the audience entertained. So I mean monsters, I said, it's

540
00:34:48,832 --> 00:34:53,031
Speaker 2: a particularly particularly egregious example of that kind of thing.

541
00:34:54,511 --> 00:34:57,752
Speaker 2: So little of it is based on historical fact. You know,

542
00:34:57,792 --> 00:35:00,472
Speaker 2: really you could name the few things that were based

543
00:35:00,511 --> 00:35:03,471
Speaker 2: on historical fact, Like there wasn't Ed Gain he did,

544
00:35:04,232 --> 00:35:07,832
Speaker 2: you know Rob Graves, he did have this weird relationship

545
00:35:07,832 --> 00:35:10,551
Speaker 2: with his mother. Actually, as soon as I turned it

546
00:35:10,632 --> 00:35:15,232
Speaker 2: on the first scene which shows him engaging in autoerotic asphyxiation,

547
00:35:16,712 --> 00:35:18,712
Speaker 2: as soon as I saw that, I thought, okay, I

548
00:35:18,752 --> 00:35:20,232
Speaker 2: don't have a legal case anymore.

549
00:35:22,352 --> 00:35:25,872
Speaker 1: So that a lot of that what happened behind closed

550
00:35:25,872 --> 00:35:29,151
Speaker 1: doors in that farmhouse, yeah, essentially has to be made

551
00:35:29,232 --> 00:35:31,591
Speaker 1: up because we don't really know what life was like

552
00:35:31,632 --> 00:35:32,911
Speaker 1: for them behind closed doors, right.

553
00:35:33,031 --> 00:35:35,552
Speaker 2: Well, the fact that he helped solve the Ted Bundy case,

554
00:35:36,471 --> 00:35:38,152
Speaker 2: I mean, you name it, it didn't happen.

555
00:35:38,752 --> 00:35:40,752
Speaker 1: What was life like for ed Geen after he was

556
00:35:40,832 --> 00:35:44,392
Speaker 1: arrested and institutionalized because they did find him insane, and

557
00:35:44,431 --> 00:35:48,272
Speaker 1: I know they did try to bring him to court

558
00:35:48,352 --> 00:35:51,911
Speaker 1: to trial, but again he was found insane. So what

559
00:35:52,031 --> 00:35:55,312
Speaker 1: was life like for him? Did his mental health decline?

560
00:35:55,352 --> 00:35:57,312
Speaker 1: Did it stabilize? What was it like for him when

561
00:35:57,312 --> 00:35:58,832
Speaker 1: he was actually.

562
00:35:58,832 --> 00:36:01,711
Speaker 2: From what I know and they actually know at least

563
00:36:01,712 --> 00:36:05,152
Speaker 2: one person who visited him in the institution and spoke

564
00:36:05,192 --> 00:36:08,631
Speaker 2: to him. Yeah, life was much better for him once

565
00:36:08,672 --> 00:36:11,951
Speaker 2: he was locked up in an institution before you know,

566
00:36:12,031 --> 00:36:14,352
Speaker 2: the expression of three hots and a cop. You know,

567
00:36:14,431 --> 00:36:18,911
Speaker 2: he had, you know, meals that were much better. You know,

568
00:36:18,911 --> 00:36:21,192
Speaker 2: when he was living alone, he might open a I

569
00:36:21,232 --> 00:36:25,951
Speaker 2: mean the series sort of got this part right, you know,

570
00:36:26,031 --> 00:36:29,312
Speaker 2: open account of big beings, put it on the stove,

571
00:36:29,431 --> 00:36:31,792
Speaker 2: the dump it into you know, the top part of

572
00:36:31,792 --> 00:36:34,992
Speaker 2: a human skull, and need it. So he was being fed,

573
00:36:35,752 --> 00:36:39,111
Speaker 2: He had surrounded by people for the first time in

574
00:36:39,112 --> 00:36:43,591
Speaker 2: his life. He was given books to read, He had

575
00:36:43,991 --> 00:36:47,991
Speaker 2: a correspondence with people who were very sympathetic towards him.

576
00:36:48,312 --> 00:36:52,071
Speaker 2: So his life was a good deal more pleasant than

577
00:36:52,072 --> 00:36:53,512
Speaker 2: it had been up to that point.

578
00:36:53,832 --> 00:36:56,352
Speaker 1: What was life like at the end for ed Gina?

579
00:36:56,511 --> 00:36:59,392
Speaker 1: Did he pass away peacefully? Was there I mean, unsolved

580
00:36:59,392 --> 00:37:01,312
Speaker 1: things they were still trying to work out with him.

581
00:37:02,112 --> 00:37:02,991
Speaker 3: Was his life like at the.

582
00:37:02,991 --> 00:37:08,791
Speaker 2: End, Well, he had died of cancer. I'd never really

583
00:37:08,792 --> 00:37:12,872
Speaker 2: come across specific information about his last days. I don't

584
00:37:12,872 --> 00:37:21,632
Speaker 2: think he was apparently unaware of his influence on American culture.

585
00:37:21,712 --> 00:37:25,951
Speaker 2: The thing about Monster is they make it seem as

586
00:37:26,031 --> 00:37:32,191
Speaker 2: though his major legacy was, as I said, the forefather

587
00:37:33,031 --> 00:37:39,951
Speaker 2: of the serial killers who suddenly appeared back, which is

588
00:37:39,991 --> 00:37:43,511
Speaker 2: totally false. But he did have a major impact on

589
00:37:43,551 --> 00:37:49,632
Speaker 2: American culture because Robert Block, who was a pulp horror writer,

590
00:37:50,352 --> 00:37:54,672
Speaker 2: was living very close to Plainfield at the time the

591
00:37:54,712 --> 00:38:00,671
Speaker 2: Gaen story broke. Block was a protege of HP Lovecraft.

592
00:38:01,072 --> 00:38:04,511
Speaker 2: He had become known for these pop power stories. When

593
00:38:04,511 --> 00:38:08,471
Speaker 2: he read about the game case, he realized this would

594
00:38:08,511 --> 00:38:13,511
Speaker 2: be great premise for a horror novel, he felt because

595
00:38:13,551 --> 00:38:16,192
Speaker 2: I was I corresponded with Block when I was writing

596
00:38:16,192 --> 00:38:19,712
Speaker 2: my book. You know, his problem was knowing how isolated

597
00:38:19,752 --> 00:38:22,272
Speaker 2: gen was. Gan never traveled anywhere. Where was he going

598
00:38:22,312 --> 00:38:25,111
Speaker 2: to find all his victims? So he thought, well, I'll

599
00:38:25,112 --> 00:38:27,672
Speaker 2: have the victims come to him, And that's so he

600
00:38:27,752 --> 00:38:30,151
Speaker 2: came up with the idea of the Bates Motel if

601
00:38:30,192 --> 00:38:34,352
Speaker 2: you read the novel, when Norman Bates is finally arrested,

602
00:38:34,752 --> 00:38:37,872
Speaker 2: he compares himself to Ed Green. So there's a very

603
00:38:37,951 --> 00:38:41,551
Speaker 2: very explicit connection. And what I tell people, I grew

604
00:38:41,632 --> 00:38:43,712
Speaker 2: up on the I'm a baby boomer. I grew up

605
00:38:43,712 --> 00:38:47,591
Speaker 2: in the nineteen fifties culture filled with All I did

606
00:38:47,672 --> 00:38:50,032
Speaker 2: was go to horror movies and watch horror movies on TV,

607
00:38:50,152 --> 00:38:53,232
Speaker 2: and read horror comic books. And you know, the culture

608
00:38:53,312 --> 00:38:57,631
Speaker 2: was full of monsters pop culture, but all the monsters

609
00:38:57,672 --> 00:39:01,272
Speaker 2: were from other places, you know, Dracula from Transylvania, or

610
00:39:01,312 --> 00:39:04,551
Speaker 2: the Werewolf of London, or Creature from Black Lagoon from

611
00:39:04,592 --> 00:39:08,511
Speaker 2: deep in the Amazon, or Marsian Vaders. Norman Bates was

612
00:39:08,551 --> 00:39:12,551
Speaker 2: the first all American monster. And insofar as Ed Dean

613
00:39:12,752 --> 00:39:15,951
Speaker 2: stood behind Norman Bates, you could say that Gan kind

614
00:39:15,951 --> 00:39:20,312
Speaker 2: of americanized the genre of horror. And that's a major

615
00:39:20,431 --> 00:39:25,392
Speaker 2: major impact. And he also again through Psycho stands as

616
00:39:25,872 --> 00:39:28,272
Speaker 2: you know, at some time people call the godfather of core.

617
00:39:28,632 --> 00:39:32,551
Speaker 2: You know, the psycho is the prototypical what came to

618
00:39:32,592 --> 00:39:36,071
Speaker 2: be called slash or splatter movie. So Gan did have

619
00:39:36,272 --> 00:39:38,992
Speaker 2: a major cultural impact, but it was on pop culture,

620
00:39:39,192 --> 00:39:43,632
Speaker 2: wasn't on you know, inspiring Richard Speck and Ted Bundy

621
00:39:43,672 --> 00:39:45,551
Speaker 2: and Edmund Kemper and so on.

622
00:39:46,392 --> 00:39:48,352
Speaker 1: So I guess the legacy that ed Gan has left

623
00:39:48,392 --> 00:39:52,431
Speaker 1: behind continues then in pop culture, as much as it

624
00:39:52,471 --> 00:39:56,431
Speaker 1: may have been fictionalized for this instance in Monsters. Do

625
00:39:56,471 --> 00:39:59,511
Speaker 1: you think we'll ever stop being fascinated by ed Gan

626
00:39:59,592 --> 00:40:00,232
Speaker 1: in his story?

627
00:40:00,872 --> 00:40:03,792
Speaker 2: Well, one of the reasons I was interested in the

628
00:40:03,832 --> 00:40:08,832
Speaker 2: game story when I first discovered it is that I

629
00:40:08,872 --> 00:40:12,792
Speaker 2: was a professor college professor for forty two years, and

630
00:40:12,832 --> 00:40:16,512
Speaker 2: I taught across called myth and archetype. You know about

631
00:40:16,511 --> 00:40:21,511
Speaker 2: these narrative patterns and archetypal figures that populate the folklore

632
00:40:21,632 --> 00:40:24,951
Speaker 2: and literature of the world. And I've always been very

633
00:40:24,951 --> 00:40:29,911
Speaker 2: interested in why we need stories about monsters in our

634
00:40:29,951 --> 00:40:35,471
Speaker 2: lives from our earliest years. And Gean has become a

635
00:40:35,551 --> 00:40:38,071
Speaker 2: kind of mythic monster at this point. I mean in

636
00:40:38,072 --> 00:40:42,511
Speaker 2: that sense again, you could say Ryan Murphy and his

637
00:40:42,672 --> 00:40:48,672
Speaker 2: collaborator did what people have always done with mythic monsters.

638
00:40:48,951 --> 00:40:51,431
Speaker 2: If you look back at the history of American the

639
00:40:51,471 --> 00:40:56,192
Speaker 2: American Frontier, there were these psychotic killers like Jesse James

640
00:40:56,232 --> 00:40:59,232
Speaker 2: and Billy the Kid, and their stories have been incredibly

641
00:40:59,352 --> 00:41:04,031
Speaker 2: mythologized by Hollywood. So there's a sense in which, yeah,

642
00:41:04,112 --> 00:41:07,312
Speaker 2: I mean, Green is such a myth monster at this

643
00:41:07,431 --> 00:41:12,232
Speaker 2: point that any creator, you could say, is free to

644
00:41:12,272 --> 00:41:14,471
Speaker 2: tell whatever kind of story about him they want to.

645
00:41:14,991 --> 00:41:17,511
Speaker 2: My main problem with the Ryan Murphy Show is that

646
00:41:17,592 --> 00:41:21,711
Speaker 2: it presents it as true crime. So I think, yeah,

647
00:41:21,752 --> 00:41:27,911
Speaker 2: Gan will you know? Gan will definitely remain an undying

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Speaker 2: part of America's cultural mythology.

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Speaker 1: Thank you to Harold for helping us tell this story.

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Speaker 1: You can read more about his book Deviant, The Shocking

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Speaker 1: True Story of Ed Gan, the Original Psycho at the

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Speaker 1: link in our show notes. If you want to see

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Speaker 1: images from this story, head to our Instagram page at

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Speaker 1: True Crime Conversations and give us a follow and have

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Speaker 1: a look at our case explainers as well while you're there.

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Speaker 1: If you enjoyed this episode, please review our show on

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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts.

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Speaker 3: We'll eve a comment on Spotify.

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Speaker 1: True Chrime Conversations is hosted by me Claire Murphy and

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Speaker 1: produced by Tarlie Blackman. Thanks so much for listening. I'll

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Speaker 1: be back next week with another True Chrime Conversation