Speaker 1: What makes a murderer's mind tick. Killer Psyche is a
Speaker 1: new weekly true crime podcast from Wondery that explores these
Speaker 1: types of questions about the crimes that killers and criminals commit.
Speaker 1: Killer Psyche covers high profile cases that have shocked the world,
Speaker 1: and host Candace DeLong uses her five decades of experience
Speaker 1: as a clinical psychiatric nurse and FBI criminal profiler to
Speaker 1: dissect the motivations and behaviors of the most terrifying felons
Speaker 1: in history. And you'll definitely want to listen to their
Speaker 1: recent episode where Candace examines the mind of Ed gain
Speaker 1: the notorious murderer who inspired the movies The Texas Chainsaw
Speaker 1: Massacre and Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. You won't believe what gruesome
Speaker 1: details from those movies were inspired by Gaines's real life atrocities.
Speaker 1: Candace dives deep into Gaines's mind his mental illnesses led
Speaker 1: to his obsession with grave robbing and murder. Listening to
Speaker 1: Killer Psyche, We'll give you a whole new insight into
Speaker 1: the twisted mind of gain Hollywood's favorite killer. You're about
Speaker 1: to hear a preview of Killer Psyche while you're listening.
Speaker 1: Follow Killer Psyche on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: I wonder. When I was fourteen years old, my brother
Speaker 2: Keith took me to see the movie Psycho at the
Speaker 2: Marina Theater on Chestnut Street in San Francisco. It was
Speaker 2: the first time I'd seen a horror movie in a theater,
Speaker 2: and what a movie to start with. I was so
Speaker 2: terrified I didn't take a shower for weeks. This was
Speaker 2: really the first time I'd ever seen a movie in
Speaker 2: which the bad guy was not overtly evil looking, where
Speaker 2: they were not constantly telegraphing the fact that the character
Speaker 2: was a murderer or a killer. Norman Bates, and I'm
Speaker 2: assuming all true crime fans have seen this movie, and
Speaker 2: if not, you need to. Norman was slightly odd, but
Speaker 2: he looked like a shy, normal guy. I really did
Speaker 2: not expect the reveal that happens at the end. I
Speaker 2: told myself, Oh, come on, this is Make Believes, just
Speaker 2: a movie right out of Hollywood. No one would ever
Speaker 2: be that disturbed to keep the dead with them in
Speaker 2: their house. But Psycho was based on a real story,
Speaker 2: on a real man. His name was ed Geen, and
Speaker 2: the town he lived in in Wisconsin considered him a
Speaker 2: nice guy, if not slightly odd. He had lived there
Speaker 2: most of his life and worked odd jobs as a handyman.
Speaker 2: Most of the families felt sorry for him and invited
Speaker 2: him over to eat dinner. Some of them even let
Speaker 2: him baby set their children. What they would later learn
Speaker 2: about Ed Gean is what the audience learns about Norman Bates.
Speaker 2: That looks can be deceiving, and that their nice, quiet
Speaker 2: neighbor committed crimes far more shocking than any movie from
Speaker 2: Wondering and Treefort. I'm Candice DeLong and this is Killer Psyche.
Speaker 2: I've spent five decades studying people's minds through my work
Speaker 2: as an FBI profiler and psychiatric nurse. I've interviewed many murderers,
Speaker 2: serial killers included, and the question I get asked time
Speaker 2: and time again is why they did what they did.
Speaker 2: It's difficult to get a satisfying answer without diving deep
Speaker 2: into the killer's mindsets. So in this series, I will
Speaker 2: do just that and give you my best analysis of
Speaker 2: what made them do what they did. This episode is
Speaker 2: about Ed Dean, Hollywood's favorite killer. A good friend of mine, Gail,
Speaker 2: was a counselor at a summer camp in Hayward, Wisconsin,
Speaker 2: in the late seventies. The psychiatric hospital where Gean was
Speaker 2: committed was right across the lake. Around the campfire. At night,
Speaker 2: the councilors would tell the kids that the swamp man,
Speaker 2: whose skinned people alive, was right across the lake, and
Speaker 2: that he frequently escaped. They would claim that you could
Speaker 2: hear him scratching on the screen windows at night, and
Speaker 2: then the counselors would go around scratching the windows and
Speaker 2: terrifying the campers. The swampman was supposed to be ed Gean. Now,
Speaker 2: of course this was full of hyperbole and misinformation, but
Speaker 2: most ghost stories are. Over the last several decades, the
Speaker 2: story of ed Gean has become twisted by the terrible
Speaker 2: parts of our imagination. But I have to tell you
Speaker 2: it's really not necessary, since the truth was horrible enough.
Speaker 2: After his crimes came to light, the press dubbed him
Speaker 2: a ghoul and a boogeyman. His murders and his penchant
Speaker 2: for using human body parts for decoration and furniture horrified
Speaker 2: the public. In nineteen fifty seven, the idea that someone
Speaker 2: would do these things seemed unfathomable and frankly more like
Speaker 2: movie imagination, and even now he can. She used to
Speaker 2: be the inspiration for many of Hollywood's scariest killers, including
Speaker 2: Norman Bates, Buffalo Bill, and Leatherface. November is the beginning
Speaker 2: of hunting season in Plainfield, Wisconsin in the late nineteen fifties.
Speaker 2: The town would clear out because most of the men
Speaker 2: were heading into the woods to hunt, which is why
Speaker 2: no one heard the shotgun blast that took the life
Speaker 2: of one of its most beloved residents. On November sixteenth,
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty seven, Ed Dean, a local handyman, entered Warden's
Speaker 2: hardware store on the corner of North and Main Streets.
Speaker 2: The night before he had been there, and he mentioned
Speaker 2: that he needed to get Annie freeze and that he'd
Speaker 2: be back the next day. Ed had been hanging around
Speaker 2: the store a lot in the previous weeks. Some of
Speaker 2: the locals thought he paid a lot of attention to
Speaker 2: missus Warden Bernice, and some said he seemed even a
Speaker 2: little obsessed with her, but this was all written off
Speaker 2: as typical Ed behavior. He was considered by most in
Speaker 2: town to be odd but a nice guy, So that
Speaker 2: day he came in for half a gallon of anafreeze,
Speaker 2: and after Bernice poured it for him, he took it
Speaker 2: out to his truck. He returned just as she was
Speaker 2: writing the receipt and asked to see a rifle that
Speaker 2: was in the window. When she went to retrieve it,
Speaker 2: Ed came up behind her and shot her in the
Speaker 2: back of the head, and then he slit her throat.
Speaker 2: He then loaded her in the back of his truck
Speaker 2: and drove off. It was not until hours later that
Speaker 2: someone reported Bernice was not in her store. Her son, Frank,
Speaker 2: was also the local deputy sheriff. He went there to
Speaker 2: check on her. When he entered, he found the store empty,
Speaker 2: the cash register opened, and a pool of bloe ud
Speaker 2: on the floor. Frank immediately suspected Ed Dean because of
Speaker 2: his recent preoccupation with his mother. When investigators arrived, they
Speaker 2: discovered the last receipt written for the day was for
Speaker 2: Ed's enafries, and that confirmed Frank's suspicions.