he's the inspiration behind countless books and horror movies Ed Gan The Butcher of planfield admitted to two murders but his house of horrors hinted at far greater crimes but what was going on in the mind of this monster was he born evil or did he become evil along the way my name is Dr aric kii I'm a criminal psychologist I work in the areas of sex crimes homicide criminal paraphilia Psychopathology anything else the dark side and uh doing it for a long time let's start at the beginning Ed Gan was born on August 27th 1906 in planfield Wisconsin growing up on a farm as the youngest of two children Ed G reportedly had a difficult childhood between his alcoholic father and abusive mother gan's mother Augusta was said to be especially intimidating and even bullied her husband so edin is not alone when we talk about childhood trauma and what he went through with his mother she was very controlling she didn't like men per se she certainly didn't like sex all that tells you that he did not Bond well with her we don't see serial killers being raised in normal families we don't know much about the mother other than how controlling she was but I believe that Ed G's mother suffered terribly when she was a child and I think that was passed on to her son Augusta abored all sex and con constantly warned her two sons about the dangers of women she even said sex for procreation was horrendous but tolerated in order to establish a family she also encouraged edin to remain a virgin in order to stay loyal to her which confused him because it went against the grain of being a normal sexual being I think when we look at at the Ed gain case we can't ignore the very likelihood that the mother was involved with her son sexually specifically with Ed I think that that helped traumatize him she has her own sexual Hang-Ups uh from her own sexual abuse and then her own attitudes about men and sex and she probably wanted to teach him about sex she had a lot of I think sexual control over him and of course he felt a lot of Shame for by masturbating and he couldn't think about women he had to think about his mother so he probably masturbated about his mother and that was probably traumatic for him as well in his youth Gan would witness his mother gutting a pig on a farm when Augusta carved up the pig to remove its intestines Gan felt sexual arousal this would be a marker of things to come Ed G admitted that he was sexually aroused by that experience edin had a lot of Shame he had a shame because his mother made him feel shameful I know if you understand if we understand the word shame the concept of Shame it's far worse than guilt no one feels guilt they either are guilty or they're not guilty but it's not a feeling it's it's a fact yes I killed them do I feel badly about it no that's where the shame can come in I'm sure that was like acid to Ed in the early days growing up uh how he felt shame about masturbation about women about men about about sex at all it just was all dirty so that really would be traumatizing to him never had a healthy discussion about sex in his life yeah he'd never been with a with a woman other than his mom all that was be very very disturbing for him growing up I mean horrific childhood edgin's father would dive a heart attack in 1940 4 years later gan's brother Henry would die in a mysterious manner leaving Gan alone with his mom Ed told police that he' lost sight of his brother while trying to put out a brush fire that was approaching their property he called them to ask for their assistance in finding him however when they arrived Gan was able to lead them straight to where his body was even stranger his body was not burnt by Flames despite it resting on scorched ground there were also bruises on the back of his neck it has been said that Henry was concerned about gan's idolization of their mother there were a lot of strange things about that death it's very possible that he killed his own brother because because of his own maybe attraction and his own interest in in his mother sexually very likely that his brother was just in hindrance to that he didn't want him around in 1945 Augusta gin died which devastated the 39-year-old G afterwards he became virtually a Hermit he also showed interest in maob literature in particular tales about Nazi war criminals that just added to his fantasies about death and dying I mean all he would hear about all these people were dying in the war he was isolated out Wisconsin and he didn't have friends all he had was his own little world of you know getting his newspaper and fantasizing and masturbating and I'm sure and and he probably got some very strange Notions about women I think led him into the The Killing phase to cope with his mother's absence edgein eventually dug up her grave and decapitated his mother edin identified with his mother and didn't have any nection with it with his father so she was his role model and she's the one that traumatized him about sex sexuality being terrorized being traumatized by by her he had such a fixation for her she had such control of his life I think even in death that edin feared his mother even in the grave he felt controlled by her that having her be in the grave was not enough he had he had to have her with him and so he took her head and of course he had access to the body he also started digging up other Graves and fashioning a skin suit in order to look like his mother or at least appear more feminine I think he developed what we call a Madonna horror complex where he really loved his mom I think he wanted to love her but he also hated her off the top of my head when when we talk about those who relate to Adin I mean in terms of their MO I would say that Jerry brutos had severe mother issues and he liked to relive his experiences with her by dressing his victims up in her clothing I think Ed keer by his own words said I have you know had this sort of Madonna horror conflix with her I loved her and I hated her on one of the days I hated her I went over and say goodbye to her and I killed her I cut off her head I used it for a dartboard CU I hated her but then there were days when I really loved her in 19 1954 almost 10 years after his mother died Ed G killed 55-year-old Tavern owner Mary Hogan he got away with this crime but then in 1957 hardware store owner Bernie Warden also vanished Gan was seen in the store purchasing antifreeze the night before he was arrested that evening where police discovered warden's decapitated body hanging upside down in a shed gutted like a pig both women resembled gan's mother Ed gin chose to kill women who resembled his mother uh because of the huge impact that she had on his life the psychological trauma the sexual trauma I think all that really played into his need to kill other women and to sort of emulate her and become like her and I think in the end his fantasy was to become his mother thus the skin the skin refers to the trova of nightmares police discovered when they entered gan's home there was a bowl made from a human skull a chair lamp shade and belts made from human skin noses bones and other remains were strewn about heads were discovered in various bags and boxes on the stove a heart sitting inside a pot the home was also trashed it was littered with crime magazines newspapers and clippings about disappearances and unsolved murders serial killers some keep trophies some keep souvenirs some do both for me in my work I identify trophies as like body parts like an eyeball fingers a vagina a penis Edan had compulsion to make belts and jackets and bowls and things this is a way that he could always have his mother in his fantasy world it was also his bizarre trauma about sex and sexuality but the whole sex part I think that was important to him think about this he lives by himself there's no one to hold him accountable he's able to explore sex by digging up dead people about killing women taking body parts I mean he lived in this whole dark dark world you could imagine walking into his house and and seeing what he was how he was living his house was a house of hores after gan's arrest there were rumors that he engaged in cannibalism and necrophilia I believe edkin did engage in sexual activity with the corpse in his fantasy world this is his mom and he can do what he wants to her and the next one and the next one so I think he was sexually involved with all of his victims sure I think that he would explore whatever he could could explore he had nothing to stop him why wouldn't he then try the blood I mean I'd be surprised if he if he didn't do that he had some very very strange ideas about sex and sexuality I would say he probably did have um some cannibalistic acts with his with his victims yeah though the sheer amount of bodies indicated many more victims Gan insisted that he had only murdered Mary Hogan and Bernice Warden and that the rest were found by grave robbing polygraphs were even administered for other potential crimes he committed but he passed them all Gan was arrested but pleaded Not Guilty by reason of insanity with a diagnosis of schizophrenia G was deemed not fit to stand trial and was sent to Central State Hospital for the criminally insane G remained in a hospital until his death in 1984 I believe that Ed gin was deeply traumatized as a child we know that schizophrenia develops earlier on like in your late teens early 20s it manifests itself then it's possible that he had moments because of his trauma from his mother he could have experienced schizophrenia so when we talk about Ed G was he born a killer or made one he really had no way of developing normal social skills because of the family he was raised in there was nothing there that was conducive to becoming a human being being socialized as a human being every child needs to bond and have attachments healthy attachments children who do not have healthy attachments often end up going down a different pathway where because they don't have a stake in Conformity they don't develop a need to be part of the community they they don't have empathy they they lack empathy I mean empathy really distinguishes us as being human but we can identify the suffering of other people but if you don't care about the suffering about somebody else then you can be very dangerous so was Ed g a psychopath may go a tant for a second so being a psychopath you Dev a certain set of social skills how to manipulate people anded didn't do that because he was a Hermit he he didn't go in public Edan shot his victims first before he decapitated them which tells me he wasn't sadistic at all he wanted them to die quickly so they could have access to the bodies otherwise he could have tortured them but he didn't do that because that was not of interest to him at all I think Ed Gan was a sociopath absolutely I think he was driven by his fantasies about his mother someone like at Gan who didn't understand empathy he didn't have normal relationship with people I think Ed gain's Foundation to become a serial killer was well laid out in the beginning um as he was shamed by his mother he probably did some sex things with her he probably masturbated and he felt shame about that all of that stuff that you wouldn't normally see in a family was going on with him uh with his mom his brother died mysteriously he's he lives like as a Hermit he fantasized about bizarre things he has no way to socialized it's not surprising that I mean Not only was he a strange man but he became a very prolific serial killer as well [Music]