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[Assistant] Now upon his arrest the suspect was taken to a nearby hospital to be treated for a traumatic brain injury. There it is. Uh, where he was eventually identified as William Hirons. Okay. William Hirons at this time was 17 years old.


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[Assistant] And he was a University of Chicago sophomore and the son of a police sergeant.


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[Assistant] His dad must have been fucking biased. His son was like, his dad was like, really dude? Now despite his young age, cause 17, that's young.


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[Assistant] Hirons had arrests for burglary dating back years. He was a little thief. He was a little shit and a little thief.


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[Assistant] His first arrest in 1942 when he was just 13 years old. Jesus.


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[Assistant] Someone was rebelling against that. I think so. Now at the time, Hirons was arrested for burglarizing a neighbor's home and then accidentally causing a fire.


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[Assistant] Now another arrest followed a year later when Hirons was caught sneaking out of a building after burglarizing several of the apartments inside. And officers discovered, quote, several of the keys in the boy's possession were traced to the apartments which had been looted in other north side buildings. So he was just like a


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[Assistant] He kind of hasn't so far. He seems like a bumbling teenager who's an asshole. Yes, correct. Like I'm not taking that away from him. He's a shithead. He goes into people's homes and steals their shit. That's fucked up. He's a shithead. And it's like, but so far, I'm not seeing much that leads up to abducting a six year old, taking her from her home.


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[Assistant] Strangling her and then dismembering her. I'm not seeing that. None of that. And then anything that happened in the other two murders. In the Brown or Ross case? No. I'm not seeing this whole like,


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[Assistant] You know, a bread knife through a neck and stabbing somebody in the neck several times and in the face. I'm not seeing it here. Again, people have to start somewhere. Absolutely. But these burglaries aren't even violent. It doesn't sound like at least. No, I'm not here. These ones in particular were not like armed robberies and stuff. I mean, they're fucked up. Of course. But just a weird.


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[Assistant] With a criminal record of like burglary, being responsible for this. Anything.


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[Assistant] Uhm, but detectives and some physicians believed that at one point he was either faking or at least exaggerating his symptoms. I'm sure. Uh, which he kind of admits he was later. Like at first he was genuinely hurt. But he keeps it going for a little while and you'll see why.


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[Assistant] Uhm, it's never been made clear why Hirons became a suspect in the Degnan murder. What? Much less the murders of Ross and Brown.


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[Assistant] Which obviously were submitted to the FBI for analysis and compare, in comparison to the Brown and Degnan case, because those are the only ones that had even slight fingerprint things to compare to, which they didn't even really have.


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[Assistant] Let me make sure you guys understand this, the Degnan case and the Brown case, Francis Brown and Suzanne Degnan.


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[Assistant] And they had not received analysis of these fingerprints. The comparison between the two. And he said, I'm convinced they are from the same people. I'm not talking about


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[Assistant] Josephine Ross and Francis Brown. I'm talking about Francis Brown and six year old Suzanne Degnan. This man is saying that he is sure this is the same person that committed those two crimes.


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[Assistant] Related to Francis Brown and Josephine Ross.


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[Assistant] I do not think on any realm or plane of reality that they are connected to the Suzanne Degnan case.


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[Assistant] There's some kind of pathology here that you should be taking a closer look at as an investigator. And I realize it's the 40s, but like, come on, people. This is just human. Like this is just me with eyes.


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[Assistant] Yeah, they were just like, oh cool, uh, we already have someone though. We have this 17 year old that burgled the house. We have this 17 year old that we literally have no evidence to claim that he has anything to do with any of these murders, but we're just gonna pin it on him, I think. And we're never gonna tell you why. No, we're never going to.


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[Assistant] Even though this guy just confessed and was actually in Chicago and has a record that is


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[Assistant] I don't know. I don't fucking know, dude. So this Captain Emmett Evans told reporters, I'm convinced that the two prints brought out, brought out in the case were made by the same person. And we're like, cool. Stop talking to reporters. But curiously, it wasn't police who even thought to check William Hirons prints.


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[Assistant] It was James Gavin, a reporter for the Chicago Tribune, who suggested


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[Assistant] Hey, why don't you check the prints against those found in the Degnan case? Okay. Let me be clear once again about that.


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[Assistant] They arrested William Hirons for prowling.


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[Assistant] They were like, cool, you have a record, you're like a little shit. You burglarize. That was what, he was gonna be charged with burglary. That was it. Rightfully so.


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[Assistant] And the police are like, oh my god, brilliant. Let's go check his face. And he was like, and the police are like, how could we ever connect him to that though? And James Gavin, a reporter for the Chicago Tribune says, maybe you should compare the fingerprints. Like what? And they were like, holy shit. That's great.


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[Assistant] This gets even better. No, you kept saying that last time and it actually did not. This gets even better. Because, so, James Gavin.


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[Assistant] Says, hey yo, you should check those fingerprints against the ones found in the Degnan case. And they were like, holy shit, that's such a cool idea. And Captain Evans was like, wow, awesome. And he grabs another police sergeant in real time after this reporter was like, you should check that. They were like,


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[Assistant] Good call. Nailed it. Good call. Solid idea. And then he grabs a police sergeant. They go into an exam room.


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[Assistant] That a reporter is like, do you want to know how to do your job? And the police are like, that sounds so awesome, let's give it a shot. And then they just go into a room together and come out and we're like, yeah, everybody, we found them. And it's like, what?


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[Assistant] There was nothing leading you to this. Nothing. And like, again, you're- you- you-


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[Assistant] Yeah, that checks. Hopefully I'll shock you because it's wild. Oh god. No, well, detectives continued their attempts to get Hirons to talk at this point because Hirons was like, uh, no.


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[Assistant] Other officers searched his dorm room, cause remember he's a sophomore in college, where they found two medical kits containing a surgical saw and a scalpel set.


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[Assistant] Was he in medical school? He was not. Okay, that's a little weird. It was absolutely weird.


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[Assistant] As well as other items recently stolen from nearby homes. So they were also like, was this just stolen?


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[Assistant] Yeah, like were you trying to like sell this baby? Yeah, like including war bonds amounting to $2,100, jewelry.


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[Assistant] Other items found in his room were several knives and guns recently reported missing around Chicago.


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[Assistant] Uhm, and there was also, and this is interesting, it also shows, like, who knows what this is about.


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[Assistant] They found a photo album of Nazi soldiers and guards.


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[Assistant] Which they didn't know was if it was stolen or if that was something he had or why he would have that. What it was like, but that's fucking disturbing. Like I said.


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[Assistant] But just as they had done with Hector, Verburg.


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[Assistant] Lassa, our grandfather. They beat the shit out of him. The local press made no attempt at objective reporting and seemed to go out of their way to associate William Hirons right away with the brutal murders, despite a literal total lack of evidence.


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[Assistant] Not a shred. Not shocked. Reporters described him as being, quote, built like a good football end.


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[Assistant] Having quote, a hint of a sneer and claimed that quote, it took four policemen to bring him in and quoted one officer as saying they needed quote, two straps to subdue him.


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[Assistant] This also directly contradicts their claims that he was unconscious when they brought him in. Yep. But.


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[Assistant] Okay, I guess. But okey dokey are the tricky. Yeah, why not?


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[Assistant] Yeaah, to be honest. Now when Hirons came into the hospital, he was very confused and believed that he had been arrested for burglary.


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[Assistant] So he was stunned when he realized that they suspected him of being a killer.


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[Assistant] Yeah. And especially when they said that they were suspecting him of being the killer of Suzanne Degnan.


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[Assistant] And William Hirons had followed the story in the papers, and he remembered how Hector


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[Assistant] Had claimed he was tortured by police for days in an effort to get him to confess. Terrified.


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[Assistant] Unfortunately, Hirons knew he couldn't keep pretending for much longer, so that's...


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[Assistant] That's why the police and the investi- and the doctors were like I think he was like exaggerating because he did keep it going for longer because he just didn't want to talk. I mean...


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[Assistant] And so, you know, he knew he couldn't keep it going forever though.


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[Assistant] Especially with each new doctor who was being like, you're fucking faking it. Like I know that you are awake. And so he finally asked a nurse for a drink of water and that's when they alerted everyone to him being awake.


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[Assistant] Now, locked in an exam room, one wave of detectives after another took their run at him.


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[Assistant] That's a quote. And that they'd arrested his girlfriend Joanne and would keep grilling her until he confessed and not let her go home.


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[Assistant] And hour after hour, he just sat silently waiting for his parents to arrive because he's 17.


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[Assistant] In fact, tyrants welcomed his parents arrival because he thought naively that they would come to his rescue and make the whole thing go away. He was like, I just want to go home. But a long time had passed and they still hadn't arrived.


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[Assistant] And he grew more anxious and like hours are going by and they're getting more and more aggressive. And finally, when one of the detectives started telling him they'd matched his fingerprints to those found at the Degnan case.


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[Assistant] The seriousness of the situation started to sink in and he realized that they truly believed or


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[Assistant] They were going to intend to stick it on him. They truly believe that he killed Suzanne Degman.


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[Assistant] Now, the more Hirons resisted and longer he remained silent, the more aggressive and impatient the interrogators got. Until Hirons heard one of them say something about ether. That's like an old, like, torture technique, essentially. And they said, I can make this guy talk.


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[Assistant] What, what is it? Should I Google it? Google it. It's like, it's, it was used in like, uhm,


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[Assistant] It's like, it's almost part of like the, uh, like the truth serum series of drugs, but it's not truth serum.


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[Assistant] But the way they would use it was to elicit confessions. Uhm, and he remembers one of the men say, ain't none of them can keep still with this.


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[Assistant] He had no idea what was happening and then he felt several drops of the ether hit his scrotum.


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[Assistant] Causing a feeling of intense cold followed by excruciating pain that shot through his entire body. It's literally described as a volatile liquid. Yeah.


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[Assistant] Now despite the physical and psychological torment, he remained silent.


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[Assistant] He did not confess. Holy shit. He still was thinking too that his parents were gonna come get him.


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[Assistant] Or at the very least, he thought the police would realize they made a mistake with the fingerprints. That was what he alleged later. Yeaah.


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[Assistant] His parents were busy at home trying to deal with the horde of reporters who had descended upon their house as soon as his identity was announced to the press when


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[Assistant] Hyron's mother Margaret first heard the announcement on the radio, her heart sank, and she immediately was like,


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[Assistant] I don't even know what we're going to be able to do to fix this. So she said after all his burglaries, they would naturally suspect Bill.


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[Assistant] It did not take too much imagination to suggest the kinds of pressures the police could bring to bear on a 17 year old boy. Well, and they've already heard what they're doing to an elderly man. The public, the press, and the police wanted the case cleared up so anyone would do, would do so long as the police could make their charges stick.


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[Assistant] Under such circumstances, I felt Bill wouldn't have much of a chance.


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[Assistant] My god. Now while detectives continued their relentless attempts to coerce a confession, cause remember, he has not confessed anything. And also aka torture.


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[Assistant] Officers tore apart the Hirons home looking for evidence. Chicago detectives had finally gotten around to talking to Richard Thomas, the guy in Arizona who literally confessed.


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[Assistant] And we're quick to report that Thomas had actually changed his story and recanted the whole confession.


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[Assistant] Now, Thomas was claiming he had nothing to do with the kidnapping or murder and then he goes, Oh, you know what? I actually only wrote the ransom note for the actual killer. What?


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[Assistant] He said, this man asked a few days before the kidnapping if I wanted to go in on a snatch with him, which is a kidnapping. Sure.


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[Assistant] When he refused, cause he was like, I have a long criminal record, I probably shouldn't snatch a kid, you know, not for moral reasons, just, you know, I don't want to get in trouble.


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[Assistant] He said the man asked if Thomas would at least write the ransom note.


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[Assistant] Who knows at the end of the day. He's at least a terrible human being. Exactly. And should be put away forever anyway.


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[Assistant] Now Chief Storms' resistance to Richard Thomas' confession seemed odd to Arizona detectives, because they were like, Arizona's like, what the


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[Assistant] But that's because they didn't know investigators in Chicago had already arrested William Hirons and declared him the killer in the Degnan case.


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[Assistant] Under those circumstances, Thomas's confession would have been a very serious complication to their theory, and one that could have undone their entire, quote unquote, case.


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[Assistant] It would have been easy for Chicago authorities to reject Thomas' confession as inaccurate when compared to the facts of the case which they did claim.


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[Assistant] But what they couldn't explain away so easily was that the handwriting analysis in Phoenix had examined the ransom note in the Degnan case and compared it to Thomas's handwriting.


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[Assistant] Thus, Thomas' recanting and telling of a news story very conveniently solved the problem and removed him as a suspect, leaving only William Hirons.


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[Assistant] Now, and this kid, this 17 year old kid's like, I don't know, I think I wanna like kidnap a kid and murder her. Do you wanna, do you wanna do it with me?


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[Assistant] Never done that before, but I was just thinking of doing this today. Like, no.


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[Assistant] Now in the days after his arrest, Tyrons remained almost completely silent and refused to cooperate with investigators, believing that if he didn't say anything, he couldn't get in trouble.


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[Assistant] So nevertheless, detectives continued building their case against him, routinely releasing information to the press.


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[Assistant] Of the information that would eventually be touted as irrefutable proof of his guilt.


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[Assistant] I feel like there's so much refute here. I feel, I feel refute in my bones. I do, I'm like, ugh, someone's name is refute here. Now, when the Dagnan scene was processed, the original Suzanne Dagnan scene was processed, FBI agents discovered two fingerprints on the front of the hastily written ransom note.


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[Assistant] Because remember there was like that substance, which they photographed and returned to the Chicago police. After Hirons's arrest, the handwriting analyst for the Chicago police department, Sergeant Thomas Laffey, reviewed the prints and declared them incomplete and quote impossible to classify.


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[Assistant] Uh huh, much like we suspected. Incomplete and impossible to classify. You cannot use these prints to classify anything.


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[Assistant] Also, Laffey compared the prints to those collected from, like, cause he was like, what I have here.


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[Assistant] Just to shoot my shot and to like make sure I've crossed my t's and dotted my eyes. He...


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[Assistant] Compared those prints to those collected from all persons arrested between January and June of that year, but found no matches among them.


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[Assistant] Despite Hirans having been arrested in May. Mhm. So he's, he would have already had his fingerprints compared to those. Yup.


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[Assistant] But three days after Hirons arrest, Laffey told the press and his superiors that a print found on the back of the ransom note was actually a match for William Hirons.


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[Assistant] How convenient. Wait, Thomas Laffey, I thought that you just said that it's impossible.


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[Assistant] But now no, it's like a full match, like what a great print that you guys just happened to miss the first time around, that's so cool.


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[Assistant] That's so cool. That's so great for you guys. Like I love that you just keep falling into these like awesome things. You guys should play the lotto. Yea. It would later be made public that there was in fact no fingerprints on the back of the ransom note. That was a fucking lie. That was just a bold faced lie.


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[Assistant] Is it something you would think we could all agree on? Still, it was the supposed fingerprint evidence that served as the basis for Hirons being the prime suspect and the evidence on which his conviction would stand. This fake fingerprint that doesn't exist.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And since the Ross and Brown murders were believed to have been committed by the same person, investigators linked all three and tied them all to William Hirons.


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[Assistant] Isn't that so convenient how that all lined up for them?


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[Assistant] Not just like money. So he can sell them. Like that's, he's...


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[Assistant] His shit, his stick, is stealing shit from people's houses. Like, come on. And one of the main things, especially in the Brown and Ross case, was it didn't appear anything was really missing. The fact. Right.


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[Assistant] There was jewelry, there was all kinds of stuff. You didn't steal any of it? And I'm sorry, but like, Suzanne's case is not connected.


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[Assistant] So while the district attorney's office and higher ups at the Chicago Police Department continued feeding information about supposedly irrefutable evidence to the press. Which is very much refutable. Detectives continued their assault on a still completely silent Hirons. He was still not confessing to it. It's not like he was giving them information. I can't believe how long he held out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When you wouldn't talk or refuse to give them the answers they wanted, detectives resorted to physical torture. Including?


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[Assistant] Having a nurse perform a spinal tap without anesthesia.


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[Assistant] Whose idea was that? Which they claimed was being done to rule out brain damage.


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[Assistant] But they had them do a spinal tap without anesthesia. Just as physical torture.


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[Assistant] Physiological responses to certain questions.


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[Assistant] There's something to be taken from them, I would think. And obviously some people can beat them, that's the thing. I don't think this 17 year old is beating a polygraph.


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[Assistant] A 17 year old kid who probably has a traumatic brain injury and is up for murder that I don't think he committed.


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[Assistant] I don't think he's gonna be able to control his shit that much. I don't think so.


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[Assistant] To skew these results, wow. Now when the polygraph exam failed to produce the results they were hoping for,


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[Assistant] The state's attorney, William Toohey, agreed to play, to pay psychiatrist, Dr. Roy Grinker, a fee of $1,000 to administer sodium pentothal against Hiran's wishes and without consent of his parents. Illegal, illegal. That is truth serum. Illegal.


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[Assistant] Now in the news about the so-called truth serum leaked to the press, state's attorney Toohey denied.


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[Assistant] Knowing anything about the drug or its use in the Hirons case. Yea, cause he'd lose his fucking job otherwise. He told reporters, I don't know anything about what those psychiatrists did. I will neither confirm nor deny use of the drug because I do not know.


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[Assistant] When he testified under oath in a 1952 post-conviction review of the case


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[Assistant] Tooie admitted that not only was he fully aware, so he lied out of his fucking face like most of these assholes, he was fully aware that they used the drug, but he was in fact the one who'd ordered it.


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[Assistant] If this man did this, this 17 year old kid did this, you did not prove he did. No way. In any way, shape or form. No way. And that's what's so frustrating is you didn't even have the fucking gall, or the, you couldn't even


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You don't even have the skill set to prove that he did it. If you really thought he did it, you could prove it. Absolutely. And you didn't even try. You just...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You rigged the game. Yes. Instead of winning it, you rigged it. Like a fucking champion and coming out of there and saying, hey everybody, we caught the fucker who did this. You can sleep soundly tonight. You rigged the fucking game because you're a little bitch. It's like that's such a cheap fucking game.


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[Assistant] It's like, if you have pressure on you, like I said, I think in part one. Let it be a motivator. Do it like the Delphi murder case. Those investigators. Yes.


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[Assistant] At the very least, they held shit close to the chest and figured it out. Everyone wanted to know details about that case. We all did. And they were like, I'm sorry, you're not getting them.


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[Assistant] Because we don't want to give you details that are going to compromise this investigation because we're going to do this shit right whether you're putting pressure on us or not because we want to do it and we want to close it.


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[Assistant] Not just close it, quote unquote. And it's, that's, it's so frustrating.


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[Assistant] So this asshole's remarkably evasive statement to the press about the use of the truth theorem? Yes, yes.


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[Assistant] It represents one of the most important aspects of the case against William Hirons. The case was incredibly


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[Assistant] Suspiciously thin, obviously. But the best piece of evidence that they had was fingerprint evidence.


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[Assistant] And this fingerprint evidence was apparently a nine point match for William Hirons.


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[Assistant] Now, the FBI and fingerprint experts consider a 12 point match the bare minimum for compelling fingerprint evidence.


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[Assistant] In fact, the 9-point loop pattern that matched with William Hirons would have also matched 65% of the population. 65% of the population? 65% of the population that have a loop pattern on their fingerprints.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They only become unique when it comes to the finer details, which is why a 12 point match is considered the bare minimum.


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[Assistant] Otherwise, the evidence against Hirons was circumstantial at best, and at worst, purely speculative or completely manufactured.


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[Assistant] So this sensational fingerprint evidence is literal garbage. Garbage. Had they taken the case to a jury on its merits?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The state would have likely lost and the murders of Ross Brown and Degnan would remain unsolved today.


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[Assistant] Thus, if Toohey and the district attorney's office wanted to close the books on those cases, they needed to build a case for the public that convincingly portrayed Hirons as a vicious criminal.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which he wasn't. Now in the case against him, the use and willing participation of the press cannot be understated here. No way. They have fucking blood on their hands and they should know it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] From the moment he was arrested, the police and other law enforcement officials leaked and explicitly gave information to the press that while not claiming it to be irrefutable fact,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was, were nonetheless stated with confidence and authority so that reporters could infer that it was the truth. That's why it was given to them with a lot of authority.


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[Assistant] Tooey's statement on the use of truth serum is characteristic of all the types of statements that are being given to the press on a regular basis here, where some nefarious or sensational detail or clue is very heavily implied to be true.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But it's also vague enough to be denied, should it be proven false.


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[Assistant] And when they weren't publishing vague statements from law enforcement, the press were publishing their own stories about Hirons that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Emphasized his criminal record, his size and uncooperative disposition and anything else that would distract from the fact that he was a 17 year old boy being held on suspicion of three crimes for which there was very little if no evidence for him committing. Literally none. And for which doesn't make sense were even connected in the first place.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So at one point, a reporter for the Chicago Tribune even manufactured a story about Hirons confessing. What? He had never confessed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They just made it up and printed it. Just printed it. Like it was fact.


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[Assistant] The end result was that regardless of how questionable the physical evidence was, any jury picked for a trial would enter that courtroom with a seriously negative impression because this guy supposedly confessed. But he never did. He never confessed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He never confessed to this point. He had not confessed. That was an outright manufactured bullshit story.


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[Assistant] Now on July 2nd, William Hirons was transferred from the hospital to the infirmary wing of the Cook County Jail.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, during which time investigators continued questioning him relentlessly. After one week, a defense attorney was finally assigned to him, though they wouldn't end up being much help for him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] While he was in the infirmary, Hirons' attorney John Coughlin was summoned to the DA's office, where they were offered a deal. This was the deal. If William Hirons confessed publicly to all three murders,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The state would assure that there would be no death penalty and that the penalty would be one life term, all sentences running concurrently.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Under this plea agreement, Hirons would have gone to prison for life, but on just one count of burglary, because that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because he would confess to the three murders, but only be charged for the crime that they initially brought him in for. Which was burglary. They wouldn't charge him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For burglary would be incredibly beneficial for him for purposes of parole later.


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[Assistant] Yes. So that was the deal. You're not going to get the death penalty.


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[Assistant] Admit to killing these three people so we can close our books and look good.


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[Assistant] Coughlin agreed to get William to accept the deal and confess, reasoning that they stood no chance with a jury, and the result would definitely be him getting a death sentence.


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[Assistant] So a few weeks later, in a statement to the press, Coughlin, his attorney, addressed the plea deal, essentially claiming it was Williams' idea to accept the plea. It was not. He was never informed.


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[Assistant] There's no ethics in the press here, and there's no ethics in the law enforcement here. And there's no ethics in the law here. None of you are ethical. None. No one in this fucking case. Ultimately, it wasn't the torture.


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[Assistant] It wasn't the constant questioning from the police or even the defense attorneys agreeing to the plea deal without his consent that ended up breaking William Hirons. It was the Chicago Tribune article falsely claiming he had already confessed.


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[Assistant] When the article ran on July 16th claiming that he had killed all three and robberies gone wrong.


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[Assistant] No. Remember, those first two, they were fucking adamant that those were not robberies. But now it worked for the stories. And robberies gone wrong?


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[Assistant] He washed the bodies. Robbery's gone wrong. Come on.


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[Assistant] Robberies gone wrong are fucking messy. Yup. You leave shit ton behind cause it's a robbery gone wrong. Cause you're trying to get the fuck out of there. That's not what these are and they knew it.


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[Assistant] So the other papers followed suit. They heard this false confession.


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[Assistant] That it was a robbery gone wrong, the other papers just went, sounds good, we'll just run that, whether it was true or not, and by the end of the day, all of Chicago believed that he was the confessed killer.


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[Assistant] Wow. And his lawyer wrote in a 2002 clemency appeal, quote, the concocted Chicago Tribune story broke Hirons' will and spirit. Of course it did. So they were like, this is what made him just go fuck it. Like I'm never gonna win any, I'm already, even if I leave here, the entirety of Chicago thinks I confessed to it. What the fuck. I can't just stop saying what the fuck.


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[Assistant] Now certain that he was truly, completely out of options.


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[Assistant] He agreed to a plea deal and per their agreement prepared to go before the state's attorney and the chief of police and confess to all three murders.


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[Assistant] What Hirons didn't know, and certainly never expected, was that in an effort to celebrate their having caught the killer,


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[Assistant] And was asked by TUI to quote, tell the truth about the murders.


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[Assistant] Wow. Because he was like, fuck you dude. Like I'm not doing this. Outraged. So he didn't get his deal then. So outraged that they'd been made to look bad in front of their precious press.


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[Assistant] The district attorney's office rescinded their initial offer, but offered to one more chance to confess.


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[Assistant] This time, they took the concurrent sentences off the table, and instead he would be guilty to the murder and receive three sentences to be served consecutively. If he accepted the new deal,


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[Assistant] William could expect to spend the rest of his life in prison, but at the very least, he would avoid the death penalty.


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[Assistant] Okay. So they were like, those are your options. You go to prison for life, three consecutive life sentences, and just say that you murdered all three of them and whatever, you'll go for burglary? This is like- Or you get the death penalty because you know you're gonna get it.


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[Assistant] Exactly. Now after much discussion with his parents and his attorney, who assured him a jury trial was a bad idea.


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[Assistant] Which I think it was because everybody was tainted as fuck. They had already said that he confessed. Right. No, even, he didn't, but they said he confessed, so any jury walking in there had in their mind he confessed. No matter what.


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[Assistant] So on August 6th, 1946, he publicly confessed to murdering Josephine Ross, Frances Brown, and Suzanne Degnan.


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[Assistant] Because of his desire to make certain, not only in his own mind, but also to the satisfaction of the public, that in Hirons the state had had the slayer of Suzanne Degnan, Miss Brown, and Mrs. Ross.


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[Assistant] Without the confession, the state's case, he said this, I would like to point out.


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[Assistant] He, they told William Hirons, you go to court for trial, you're convicted and gonna die. Because our case is air fucking tight. We got fingerprints, we got all this shit, so you can do that and you're gonna die.


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[Assistant] Or you can take this plea deal and you can just go to prison for three consecutive life sentences, but you won't die.


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[Assistant] Psych. If we went to trial, we never would have got him convicted because we had shit. Literally just said that.


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[Assistant] That kid was duped and duped and duped again. They had, Chicago detectives had spent months touting the fingerprint and handwriting evidence. They insisted.


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[Assistant] And his own fucking dumb defense attorney railroaded him right along with everybody else. Oh my god.


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[Assistant] So as part of his plea deal, Hirons agreed to describe in detail and even reenact the murders. They made him do that.


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[Assistant] On August 7th, he spent more than eight hours describing how and why he killed Degnan Brown and Ross, as well as several burglaries and other assaults.


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[Assistant] As they traveled from one crime scene to another, hirons and representatives from the district and state attorney's offices were followed by a huge audience of onlookers, all hoping to hear some piece of the shocking story.


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[Assistant] Throughout the course of the reenactment, state's attorney William Crowley asked one leading question after another, like quote, you did get the knife in a burglary, didn't you? And isn't this the one you took out of the Roderick home? Like just here's all the information.


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[Assistant] Each time, hirons would just respond in whatever way was expected of them and move on.


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[Assistant] On September 4th, 1946, Hirons appeared in Circuit Court, where three psychiatrists told Chief Justice Harold Ward that he was, quote, legally sane but emotionally abnormal. So it ruled out an insanity claim and cleared the way for sentencing.


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[Assistant] The following day, Hirons was back in court for sentencing and the state's attorney called a long list of experts, including investigators, fingerprint experts, handwriting experts, psychiatrists. They all testified on the state's behalf.


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[Assistant] Unfortunately, there's no documentary evidence of their testimony.


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[Assistant] Huh, because the court reporter died before he was able to type up his notes.


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[Assistant] Regardless of what was said in court, the outcome was as expected, um, Hirons pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three life sentences with a minimum of 61 years served before he would even be considered for parole.


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[Assistant] Now in the case of William Hirons, the facts and evidence have never really supported the theory. Not ever.


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[Assistant] Most familiar with the case agree now that given the similarities between the two murders, between the two of the murders, it's likely Josephine Ross and Frances Brown were killed by the same person.


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[Assistant] Those were the ones everyone was mad about, let's shove them together and close them all at once. I just can't believe people bought that. Yeah. As for the evidence?


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[Assistant] So, Hirons doesn't even remotely match the description of the suspicious individuals that people would see in all three cases. Nope. Nor did he possess the knowledge or experience believed to be held by someone who dismembered Suzanne Degnan. Uh huh. In fact, none of the evidence collected in any of the cases could be conclusively traced back to him at all.


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[Assistant] Years later during his many appeals, a team of experts reviewed the evidence and came to the following significant conclusions.


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[Assistant] Also, the handwriting on the wall at the Brown crime scene didn't match Hirons, nor was it a match for the handwriting on the Degnan ransom note. So those are two different people.


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[Assistant] Several members of the review team believe that that message on the wall


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[Assistant] Was likely written by one of the reporters at the scene.


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[Assistant] Going back to the fingerprint found on the ransom note was only a 9 point match for Hirans, meaning it also matched 65% of the population with a looped pattern. Which again is...


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[Assistant] Genuinely the most insane thing I've ever heard. Then the fingerprint found at the Brown crime scene that was supposedly a match for Hirons was determined to actually be a rolled fingerprint. Like those taken for a police fingerprint card.


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[Assistant] Someone was sent back to that crime scene to plant the fingerprint to connect the cases because otherwise they would have never been connected. There was no way without that fingerprint that they were able to connect those cases. They needed that fingerprint.


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[Assistant] Otherwise, there was no conceivable way to connect these cases in any


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[Assistant] The murders were definitely by the same person, so if there was a fingerprint at the Brown case that's also at the Degnan case, well then that person must have killed Josephine Ross too. Oh my god, we just found the killer of all three of these people.


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[Assistant] Like the, like, I guess, I guess that child murderer.


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[Assistant] There are two, well not anymore, but there were two murderers in this case that got away with it. Right. Two.


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[Assistant] Oh yea. Richard Thomas. Richard Thomas. It does feel like he's, regardless of what was going on there, like he should be in jail anyways. I mean, again, forties, but.


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[Assistant] And finally, analysis of Hiram's confessions, quote, revealed numerous inconsistencies between the confessions and the known.


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[Assistant] Facts of the crimes. And he was frequently wrong about basic facts of the cases, including locations, times, related events, like same exact thing. And no one gave a shit. And it was just fine.


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[Assistant] And despite all this question, a wild amount of questionable evidence in Hirons' case, the official position of the state of Illinois was and remains that William Hirons murdered Josephine Ross, Frances Brown, and Suzanne Degman.


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[Assistant] In 1954, Hirons appealed his sentence on numerous grounds, ranging from illegal search and seizure,


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[Assistant] Other appeals were filed in the years that followed, but none were successful.


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[Assistant] After serving 61 years of his sentence, Hirons came up for parole in July 2007.


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[Assistant] He told the Chicago Tribune, I figure I'll be getting out this year.


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[Assistant] It's a bad thing on the reputation of Illinois that they lock people up forever. Yeah, it is. In his previous bids for parole, Hirons had been denied in large part because he wouldn't admit to what he didn't do. Because he didn't do it. And unfortunately, this time would be no different.


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[Assistant] He said one parole board member said the words I still haven't heard from Bill Hirons are I ask for forgiveness for my crimes.


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[Assistant] So they wouldn't parole him because he wouldn't admit to doing it. A second time, or a third time really? It turned out that that would be William Hirons' last attempt at parole.


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[Assistant] Because on March 5th, 2012, Hugh was found unresponsive in his cell at the Dixon Correctional Center and was transported to the University of Illinois Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead from complications from diabetes. He was 83 years old. And justice was not served.


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[Assistant] And it makes me angry that it's like, you didn't catch the person who snatched a baby out of her bed and dismembered her or brutalized that person away. You didn't catch the person who broke into two women's apartments.


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[Assistant] And brutalize them and left them in strange, unsettling, awful, brutal positions for their family members and like the cleaning woman to find. Those people.


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[Assistant] That's the thing, I'm like, okay, and honestly, I kinda want to, I wanna go back in the records and see after this, were there anything else that was even slightly like these? Right.


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[Assistant] Or like, did he see that somebody else got it pinned on him and so he changed his MO? Or maybe moved somewhere? Moved somewhere else and started doing it? Like, I wanna look into that. And just, like, there was no other suspects ever?


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[Assistant] And they brought William Hirons in with nothing connected to these cases.


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[Assistant] Cause that was wrong, wrong, wrong lifestyle choice at the, at the right time for the police. Exactly. Is what it was. Like it was, they saw their chance and they took it.


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[Assistant] I'm so shook right now. I wanna, I'm gonna go donate money to the Innocence Project by... It was wild. It really is a wild, wild case. I thought forever that William Hirons was lipstick killer, cause I never really looked into the case that far. And it's just...


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[Assistant] I can't believe there's not more information out there about- I just don't think he is. If you start googling, like look through, you'll see a lot of people suddenly realized a lot of things about the case and were like, oh fuck. Like it was just like, holy shit.


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[Assistant] And like you look and it's like the detectives are all wearing like the detective hats and you know, like they're all like, it's the classic like very corrupt, very different way of doing things back then that like everything just gets swept into the rug.


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[Assistant] Holy, this one moved me to like a place I feel like I've never been moved. It's a wild one. It is.


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[Assistant] And again, not saying William Hirons was like, you know, this bastion of like, you know, moral superiority or something like that. Like he was not, you know, he was also 17, so you hope he would.


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[Assistant] Be able to turn shit around if you was given the chance to, who knows. His fucking brain wasn't even developed yet. But it's like...


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[Assistant] I don't think he was a murderer. No. I really don't. No. And I think that's really where it lies. I don't think he was a murderer. I don't think he did this. No. Wow. And that's unfortunate. Wow.


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[Assistant] And I got on a drive just past my house and I took off the gloves and I was just about to get out and he's like, hey, can you 100% make sure you're like, these are the gloves you want? I was like, I just tried them on. He said, well, just work them in a little bit more. Make sure those are the gloves you like.


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[Assistant] So I was like, okay, whatever, I'll do it one last time, done, go home and sleep. So...


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[Assistant] Yeah, I felt like he kinda came off like he was trying to hit on me, and at the same time really trying to get me to either, you know, work in these gloves to the point where I'm gonna rip them, or he just really wants me to buy these gloves and work them in, like. Okay.


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[Assistant] So I gotta pull, uh, about four or five houses past mine, cause I don't like strangers knowing where I live.


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[Assistant] So when you got pulled, I'm making sure you try on the glove. Sorry, I got the glove again. I put it on. And I'm working it on. I'm stretching the glove. And I was doing this for about...


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[Assistant] Ten, maybe fifteen minutes before I finally looked over and I was really trying to focus in on what he was doing and I just remember him leaning back and I remember seeing his penis was out and he was jerking it.


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[Assistant] As soon as I seen that, I took off the glove, I opened up the door, I shut it and I ran through my neighbors yard and I cut back to my house.


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[Assistant] We're hitting a biggie today. Whoa! We're hitting a biggie and it's gonna be real morbid. And it's gonna be real morbid for about three episodes. Fantastic.


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[Assistant] Well, we're doing Ed Gein. Yeah, we're doing Ed Gein, guys. As you know from clicking on this episode, I've only ever really heard this covered, probably on like, maybe like two other shows. Really? Yeah. Cause it's covered on every podcast. Well, I don't listen to like a lot of True Crime, just cause we do it a lot. Yeah. No, cause I don't, you know. Appreciate. Yeah, exactly. Appreciate.


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[Assistant] But yeah, I'm hesitantly excited to hear your coverage. Yeah, I mean, this is, this is definitely one of those that, like I said, has been covered everywhere.


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[Assistant] Like that's, I think that's why we just like waited a little while, and also because it's like a... It's gnarly. It's a heavy story.


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[Assistant] It's a sad story. It's an awful story. It's a gruesome story. It's all those things. And I knew it was gonna be a multi-parter, so you gotta like, you know, you gotta place those in the right spots. But you know what? The time has come. And you guys have asked for this episode for a long time, so it's time to cover.


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[Assistant] The man who, you know, is the inspiration behind some of the most iconic horror characters.


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[Assistant] There is. Psycho is based after him. Ohhhh. Norman Bates. That's Ed Gein. Shit, I forgot that also. Confession. I still haven't seen it.


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[Assistant] We gotta make you watch Psycho. Oh no, I want to actually. Yeah, we're gonna have, we're gonna do that on screen. Yeah, we'll do it.


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[Assistant] Uhm, you know, Silence of the Lambs, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, all of those things were at least in part.


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[Assistant] Inspired a little bit by this case. Okay, I forgot the silence of the lamp was. At least little bits and pieces are taken, you know, for characters or for the stories, for sure. And I mean, I see why. It's a very strange and unsettling case. Like, this guy isn't prolific when it comes to murdering people.


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[Assistant] And prolific by standards of like how many people he murdered. Yeah. Uh, but he's prolific.


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[Assistant] In many other ways. Many other not good ways. Depraved ways. Yea, and he also is a murderer. He committed horrible murders. Yea. Maybe. Of his own family. Who knows? Shoot. And we will get into it.


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[Assistant] But yeaah. So, let's start off with just talking about who Ed Gein is. Okie doke. Let's go right into his pretty horrific childhood. Oh good. Love that. Uh, so Edward Theodore Gein was born August 27th, 1906 in La Crosse, Wisconsin.


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[Assistant] Uh, but he was the second of two boys born to George and the pretty infamous Augusta Gein.


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[Assistant] That name also pops off. Augusta Gein. Augusta Gein. I would not fuck with her. Mostly because I know a lot about her at this point, like just like the little tidbits. Cause I've just been like leaking out this stuff every now and then. I need to say something. Let me tell you about Augusta. But Augusta Gein. Well, you know, I say she's infamous only because she seems to...


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[Assistant] Have definitely played a role in twisting Ed Gein's mind into something that was kind of beyond repair, for sure.


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[Assistant] Horrific how she treated her children. I feel like this is very much a nurture versus nature. Yeah, I mean he flipped a bit.


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[Assistant] So, who's to say, you know, like, cause I, it's so hard to like. That's a hard debate. I feel like you can never pinpoint for sure, but.


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[Assistant] We always say, and like it's pretty clear in studies and such, that like, nurture has, plays a role.


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[Assistant] It just plays a role. Like it's not always the, that's, that's the cause. And nature is not always that's the cause. It's the combo of both I feel like is always the one that's the.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I feel like in every case it's probably like some combo of both and it's just a matter of how much of each. Yeah, which one is way more than the other one. You're right, exactly. And here I would say Nurture was definitely the higher one on the scale. Yeah, it was. The way it's, cause we have to remember like kids.


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[Assistant] Uhm, and obviously, something's wrong. Something's wrong with Ed Gein. Something's big wrong. Something's wrong with Ed Gein on a...


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[Assistant] Cellular level there, because the things he did are just far beyond the scope of any imagination, and like we say,


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[Assistant] A lot of people have shitty childhoods. And a lot of people have shitty parents. And a lot of people have caregivers that put shit into their mind and somehow they are able to break out of it someday. Or at least be able to manage enough to not murder people and, you know, decorate their house with remains.


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[Assistant] So for real, good job. Good job! If you're like, cause if you, you know, like, trauma is trauma. Trauma is trauma. Especially childhood trauma, like...


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[Assistant] I can't imagine having to come out of that and become a functioning adult. Girl, I'm 27 and I'm still working on it. So you know, well done if you're working through it right now. Well done if you have plans to work through it and well done if you have worked through it. Good job on all those friends. Go everyone. Good job guys.


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[Assistant] Uhm, but George and Augusta had wed in December 1899 and according to crime writer Harold Schrecker, Schrechter, excuse me, that's hard to say. That is hard to say. It's Schrechter. Schrechter. There it is. It's kind of fun to say. Harold Schrechter.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He said quote, their marriage had the quality of a particularly lacerating nightmare.


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[Assistant] Yup. That'd be a really good band-aid. Had the quality of a particularly lacerating nightmare.


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[Assistant] What a description. You gave me everything I needed. It's so elegant. It is, and it gave me everything I needed to know about that marriage. I know, like a particularly lacerating nightmare. Got it. Got it. That's not a marriage I'd like to be a part of. No, definitely not. So it's sad. Already you're like, oh fuck.


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[Assistant] So even by early 20th century standards for marriage, which was definitely not like, let's get married cause we love each other, romance, romance, romance. It was really like.


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[Assistant] You gotta be practical with your marriage basically. It's like for the best of the family kind of thing. Right. George and Augusta's marriage made little sense even by those standards. Like to those around them, people were like, you sure?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You really wanna do this? George had suffered a lifetime of hardship, and as a result, he had.


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[Assistant] I'll give it to her. She was a hard worker. Like if she-


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[Assistant] Augusta Dean is a hard worker. She's just, she's gonna be a hard worker. She was industrious and she was also, she had a strong work ethic.


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[Assistant] Very rigid sense of morality and that came from her being a deeply religious woman.


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[Assistant] She was also a stern disciplinarian, she was self-righteous, domineering, and inflexible.


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[Assistant] Oh fun, great qualities in a human. And she is also someone who quote, never doubted for a moment the absolute correctness of her beliefs or her right to impose them by whatever means on the other people around her. By whatever means, that's the part that really got me.


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[Assistant] She sounds like a fucking nightmare, to be honest. Like if you're, like you believe what you believe, if you think you have a right to impose those beliefs by whatever means necessary on people who don't want that,


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[Assistant] That's fucked up. Also, what does that mean by whatever means necessary? Isn't it very ominous? It's got a very ominous tone to it. It truly does.


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[Assistant] I'll give it to her. She was a hard worker and she probably could have thrived as a business owner if she had just become a business owner and not decided to delve into the realm of being a mother.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She doesn't sound very motherly to me. Yea, there's not a lot of nurturing happening here by, you know, conventional standards.


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[Assistant] Uh, again, open a business, she would've killed it. Yeah. But she did not. Uh, there wasn't really a honeymoon phase for the Geens.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't think. No, I didn't, I didn't really see that coming down the pike for them. Yeah, it's not like, oh the honeymoon phase is over and now she shows who she is. No. Like, it's, you know.


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[Assistant] Again, a marriage of practicality, and I don't even really know how practical it was. Nobody's really sure why this happened, to be quite honest. That's sad, that's like really sad. Cause I feel like we say this so much, but you think about like walking down the aisle taking vows, the whole nine.


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[Assistant] And just for, for what? For a lacerating nightmare? That sucks. Yeah, for a particularly lacerating nightmare. Yeah, so.


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[Assistant] Her, I mean, she had already kind of shown George who she was, that she was, you know, very religious, very strict, very all this, but her true personality really revealed itself pretty quickly after they got married. She was like, well, here it goes.


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[Assistant] That's so rough that like it was already pretty rough before they got married and then he's like all in and it's like, hm, but wait there's more. Yea. And George, like I said, he had crippling low self-esteem. He had zero self-worth. I mean he...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was already kind of a shadow of a guy at that point, and he became even more of a shadow. Yea, like this is not gonna help. Yea. He just withdrew into himself. Unfortunately, he began drinking very heavily.


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[Assistant] Alcoholism shortly followed. Things got so bad at one point because it was a constant


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[Assistant] House of like according to all the sources we could find that it was a constant house of the two of even before kids them just being miserable with each other and like George just kind of retreating into himself drinking.


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[Assistant] And kind of isolating and herberating him. So it's just that kind of awful environment of just neither one of them are doing.


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[Assistant] Well with each other, you know. And not something you would ever want to bring kids into. No. But back then obviously I know it was like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not as easy to not have kids kind of thing. Of course, but if you could have a perfect world here, if you could choose, like just black and white, probably don't.


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[Assistant] But at one point, George snapped and hit Augusta. Oh, that's not the answer, bud. That silence is not the answer. And Schechter wrote at that afterwards, quote, she would draw herself to her knees and pray fervently for her husband's death. What? Like outwardly.


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[Assistant] I don't think God is like down with that. Like I don't think God is down with you hitting people either. No. I think this is, none of this is really- This is awful. Yeah, it's not great.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not surprisingly, I would say, Augusta's views on sex as a whole, uh, were extreme. Uuuh. Even for those among us who consider themselves the most pious, I would say that her views are


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Little scary. Sex before marriage was just out of the fucking question. I mean unquestionably a sin you will die for and burn in the pits of hell. Like don't, do not pass go, do not collect $500, like you, death, bye. Wow. Uhm, but even within marriage?


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[Assistant] Sex between husband and wife, and only husband and wife? Of course, always.


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[Assistant] Unpleasant. And just a responsibility necessary to procreate. Like something, fuck, we just have to do it.


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[Assistant] And it's only to have kids. That's it. It reminds me in Gilmore Girls of Lane Kim.


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[Assistant] And her mom, Mrs. Kim, when Layne's getting married and she's trying to like explain to Layne, you know, the wedding night and Layne's like, no, no, no, I got it. And she's like, no, let me explain it to you. And she says, if you're lucky, you only have to do it once, like me. And Layne's just like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh my god. And I was like, oh my, that's, that's stuck with me. Which I go, Ms. Kim, ugh. But like. Just one. Just one time and then never again. Never again. Fuck that, sorry. And that was Augusta's view on it. Just like when I. You do it to have kids. That's it. And out of religious obligation, have kids.


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[Assistant] Wow. So this is all like not great. This is wild. This is so dark.


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[Assistant] You know, Augusta seems like she's a little intolerant of anything, and is certainly anything less than perfection. She also kept an immaculate home.


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[Assistant] Well, and there's that whole phrase, I'm sure she lived by cleanliness is next to godliness. I think you had it right, yeah. I think we said the same thing. I think you said next to godliness, which I think is right. I think it's next to. I said like down the block or something from it.


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[Assistant] It's in the- it's in a nearby county, to godliness, I think. Uh, but-


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[Assistant] But like, given that, given her obsession with perfection, her intolerance for essentially anything, her attitudes towards sex,


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[Assistant] It's pretty unclear, besides religious obligation, why she would have thought children was her path in life, I think. Just cause you're supposed to, quote unquote.


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[Assistant] Uhm, and I think it was like social expectation, it was also 1906, not a lot of ways to prevent that from happening I suppose, except that they were having sex only to have kids. Right. So.


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[Assistant] That was the agenda here, so I think it was a religious and social obligation for sure.


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[Assistant] But it certainly wasn't out of love for the need to nurture another living thing. Doesn't sound like it. But whatever the case, Henry Gein was born in January 1902. This is Ed's older brother. Okay. And was followed four years later by Ed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now in the early years of Ed and Henry's lives, George struggled to keep the family afloat.


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[Assistant] He was working, you know, just whatever jobs he could find to provide, even the most essential of needs. It was tough times.


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[Assistant] After a few years, he went into business for himself and he opened a small meat and grocery shop in 1909, which is like, okay, George. Nice. Uhm, but George had no business sense, no experience whatsoever.


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[Assistant] But I think if she could have opened her mind a little bit, she would have been a great business woman. And then do that way. Demote him to go take care of the kid. Exactly. Like hopefully he's got his drinking under wraps. Yeah, because again, she, that's the other thing. It's like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We also have George falling into the shadows here and, you know, his alcoholism is kind of taking things over and ends up fucking with his health later. Like, you know, it's, and obviously, you know, he did hit her.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So it's like, this is just not a great situation for anybody. It's just like, damn. Man oh man. It's all bad. It's all bad. And uhm, again, just become a business owner and then the world would have been one less Ed Gein.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's always something to strive for. But although things in the business were doing well, you know, finally, at home, things were definitely not, not great.


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[Assistant] Following Henry's birth, Augusta struggled to bond with him when he was little, and that's, and seemed almost resentful of his presence and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I do wonder if that played a role in here, but when you read a little more into it, it doesn't feel like it has the hallmarks of that kind of situation. It feels like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's just who she is. This wasn't the path she was planning to take, like out of.


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[Assistant] I want to take it. It was more out of expectation. And then it's also


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[Assistant] I think what happened, I think if she had had, she really wanted a girl. Yeah. And I'll explain why in a second, but I think if she had had a girl, she would have been a little more bonded.


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[Assistant] I just don't know if she was capable of that kind of thing, to be honest. But because it was a boy.


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[Assistant] I mean, bottom of the barrel opinion of men, like, they're all bad, they're all horrible.


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[Assistant] And again, she wanted a girl, so she was very disappointed when she had a boy. I'm wondering about like what her upbringing was like. Yeah, she grew up in, she was raised in Germany.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh wow. Yeah, so there's not a lot known about her upbringing, but, you know, who knows. But she saw, so when she got pregnant for a second time, she saw that as an opportunity to get what she wanted.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That could have the whisper of a promise, you know? Sounds pretty alright. Like, it's a little okay. Like, you're just like, oh, okay, are you, like, love him? Into being a good man? Into goodness? You know? Like, is that, that, no.


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[Assistant] I don't understand. Because Henry was like neglected and abandoned by her. Like just totally. Yeah. I don't want anything to do with you.


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[Assistant] And then I think, so I think she looked at Henry as like, that's the mistake. I didn't want that.


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[Assistant] Then she has another child, she's like, well, that's also a mistake, but she's like, I guess I should try to fix this one. Like, make it what I want. Fix both, girl.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And Ed became something like a pet to Augusta. And again, this is not to say that she treated him with kindness and compassion and love and nurturing. Because unfortunately some people don't do that to their pets. No, she just focused a lot of time on him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Mostly bad attention, and the way that she saw it was, if I can't have a girl, I can't have the, or even the child I want in any way, because she just did not see these children as the ones she wanted. She figured, you know what, at least Ed, I can shape him into being at least something resembling what I want. If not physically, at least in character.


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[Assistant] Oh no. So for years, Augusta would berate Ed at every opportunity.


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[Assistant] And cause her main plan here, and this is what makes me think this is more just like Augusta is an asshole.


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[Assistant] Because it's like she had a plan here and her plan was to break Ed completely so that she could, he would literally just worship her.


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[Assistant] And she would tell him that he was stupid, tell him you pointed out every mistake he made, would humiliate him, any slip up he made was a big deal and she would just make him feel the lowest of the low. That's really sad. And would always remind him, only a mother could love you.


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[Assistant] Respect her. And worship her. And worship her. Yea, big time. And that is so diabolical. It is. That's exactly it. It's so fucked up.


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[Assistant] So while she would never be capable of recognizing it, her very abrasive personality and


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[Assistant] I mean, self-righteousness had left her feeling isolated from everyone around her. Like she wasn't going to admit that, but she was. She was isolated. I mean, who would want to hang out with a woman like that? She sucked to be around. And George loathed being around her.


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[Assistant] Un-fucking-conditionally, with no matter what, and would...


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[Assistant] That was the other part of the equation was she needed him to desperately need her praise and approval. Cause nobody else really did it sounds like.


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[Assistant] And in all of that together would mean he would never leave her.


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[Assistant] And that was her whole idea, is you will never leave me. And that's not why you have children. No. You want to send them off into the world. Yea, you want to hope that they come back out of their own volition. Right. To be with you. Right.


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[Assistant] So this is unhealthy and with few other influences to contradict any of this abuse, it didn't take long for Ed to become totally reliant on her for all social, emotional,


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[Assistant] Any of his needs. He relied on her for everything. Every move he made.


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[Assistant] And years later, whenever anyone would ask about his mother, he would literally become tearfully sentimental and would say, she was like nobody else in the world.


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[Assistant] Wow. Like he was, when she died even, he was like, she was everything.


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[Assistant] Because he had, she had just ingrained that, she had beaten it into him. It's literally like, uh, it's wild. Also, what a way to word that. Yeah.


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[Assistant] Because I think she might have not been like anyone else in the world. She was unique. When Ed was seven years old, Augusta decided the family could make more money farming than they would operating the store. So she sold off the business and relocated the family to a small farm outside Camp Douglas, which is about 40 minutes outside La Crosse.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, while it was true that she did believe there was going to be a good future in farming, it was like, you know, it was that time. It felt like it was a good move. She did have another motive for this. It was to get her family, particularly her youngest, her young and impressionable baby Ed,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, so in 1914, they ended up settling on a 195 acre farm. Bitch, I wish. And it was in Plainfield. God. Which is a pretty small, really rural community on the other side of the state.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And to be honest, their farmstead, when compared to everyone else's, was very sprawling. It was a two story, it was huge. And like there was a two story home, there was like a bunch of outbuildings, a large barn, there was like all kinds of stuff.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, and the property was actually purchased and owned by Augusta. Interesting. Not George. And back then that's like. Virtually unheard of. Exactly. Unheard of. Real estate and business, anything, would, like this is why, it was strictly in the domain of men at that time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And again, Augusta really had the chops to be a thriving businesswoman if she had just changed her fucking tune. But if fleeing urban moral decay truly was her intention, she couldn't have picked a more appropriate location to be honest, like it was the right move. Their nearest neighbors were like a quarter mile away.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Damn. And the house was surrounded on all sides by metal land, trees, fields, like, it was total isolation, and Augusta liked it.


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[Assistant] That's a lot to bring a child, like kids into though. Like kids don't need to be isolated. Isolation is tough. That is a tough thing.


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[Assistant] And she was isolating because she said the religious and moral standards of Plainfields were scandalously low. She had determined. Right after getting there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] According to Augusta, I'm sure they were probably like some of the most religious people ever and she's like, not enough. Literally in reality, Plainfield, the people there were as hardworking and God fearing as most of the other rural Midwestern communities. So there you go. I had a feeling. But looking down on them allowed Augusta to feel morally superior, which is what she lived for. Right.


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[Assistant] Uh, in fact, she not only deemed the town to be of low moral character, but also concluded that the churches, there were a lot in Plainfield, were insufficient to provide moral and religious guidance for Ed in particular.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And she said, nope, I'm going to take the responsibility on of providing religious instruction to him. Oh goody. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, in their new home, she continued to dominate Ed's life. I mean, occupying every moment of his time, nitpicking at everything he did. In fact, the only time Ed had any break was the hours that he was at school.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But there he kind of faced a different set of problems. So he was living in constant stress and abuse and manipulation, all kinds of things, obviously at home. So nobody can really tell what kind of student he would have been if he wasn't going through all that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He did, like, I guess, so, I mean, things were what they were, so he did struggle in the classroom, but he was an avid reader. Okay. And he was a very good reader.


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[Assistant] Uhm, living an isolated life on the farm, like you were pointing at, and being completely cut off from peers and potential friends by his mother.


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[Assistant] Ed was incredibly lonely and like had, and like socially inept. You feel weird being like, that's so sad. As the kid. That Ed Gein was lonely, but it's like we always say, the kid. Feel bad for the kid, not the adult. Cause that's really fucked. Yeah. And on the off chance that he did make any kind of like,


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[Assistant] They're a demon in a child's body. You are not to talk to them. What the fuck? So terrify that kid to be like, oh fuck, like I can't tell where these demons are in kid bodies.


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[Assistant] Oh my god. To go that far. I can't imagine not wanting my child to make friends. To have any friends. Like what? Yeah.


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[Assistant] And the isolation and loneliness made him seem odd to other kids at school, obviously, and even when he tried to like imitate their normal social behaviors, he would come off as like really robotic and like sometimes inappropriate, like he just didn't know how to do it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he had a congenital lazy eye, and he also had a growth on his tongue that impeded his speech sometimes, so he would often get picked on. Decades later, when he underwent a series of psychological testing for his crimes,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] His IQ was determined to be very average. Wow. So he was not like below, he was not high above, he was just average. So he was struggling strictly from a social standpoint. Yea, from social and just yea.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And like an emotional kind of situation, but uhm, he only made it as far as 8th grade and he graduated 8th grade at 16 and then he stopped school. Oh wow. To work on the farm. 16? 8th grade? Yea.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Exactly. So things at school might have been bad for Ed, but they were definitely no better at home at this point. Um, while the idea of owning a farm made sense to Augusta at the time, uh, she and her husband had no farming experience. I was, I was wondering. Yeah. And they didn't have the money to hire someone who did or pay for the machinery.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But their father's heavy drinking had finally caught up to him. And in addition to being


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, to him having significantly decreased productivity because of this, he was getting sicker.


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[Assistant] There was really nothing they could do except take all of George's slack on the three of them. So Augusta, Henry and Ed are just working to the bone.


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[Assistant] Now, not in school and completely cut off from the outside world at this point, Ed was isolated on the farm with only his brother and his mother. And his brother is like kind of ambivalent to him right now, like they're, they're like


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They're fine, like they're not mean to each other, they're not, but like, I think Henry was struggling in his own- I'm sure. Way, and Henry had a much different view of Augusta than Ed had.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we find out later that Ed had no idea.


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[Assistant] Ed did not know how Henry felt about Augusta. He thought that this, just, we all love mom. We all worship mom.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] See, and that leads you to believe too, because I know we were having like the nature versus nurture discussion, that like, something in that nature is off. Because for Henry to see that like this is, and also having like the exact same experience as Ed, like, mostly,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I know she kinda like picked on it more. Well I think that's, that's where the thing bends a little. That's the fork in the road. Right. She kinda just...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Abandoned Henry. Right. Like she didn't want anything to do with him. But he saw her for what she was. But he, so he saw that and he was angry because he was being treated as nothing and probably berated and abused and whatever like. Right. But Ed was the, he certainly got abused, he certainly got berated, but it was an obsessive kind of like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm molding him to be what I want him to be, but Henry was just isolated completely from her. And so I think the way that he saw it was like, like I hate her.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't like her, I obey her because I'm scared of her, and he will eventually tell Ed this and we'll see where that leads.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] With him, like Henry undergoing all those same circumstances, like that we were just saying, like you could see him turning out fucked up too. Like the fact that he was abandoned and she treated him so shitty. Exactly. So there's something off. So interesting. Yeah. There's something off in both ways for sure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But yeah, he just, we'll find out when he, but, but in this, in these moments, Ed was thinking that Henry is in the same boat. Right. Because he's not seeing, he's not understanding that like this is a different scenario. Right. So it's interesting what happens when he finds that out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh good. Now, and also his parents are just completely unstable in every way.


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[Assistant] Imaginable, so he doesn't have a lot to go to. So to cope, he would retreat into books and fantasy. Okay. And as he grew older, those fantasies increasingly included included women.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He was being told constantly that women are evil. Women are morally bankrupt.


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[Assistant] And giving her, given her feelings about sex in general and the wickedness and immorality of the locals, Augusta swiftly and strongly addressed her son's growing interest in women. He was like, oh, this is not gonna, this is not gonna work.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So he, she focused nearly all of her ire on the corrupting influence of modern women. She just started hammering this shit in. That was like the main thing of all her religious teachings to him now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cause she saw that he started just like, liking girls. Yea, like having a crush or something. Or just being like, wow, she's pretty. Right. Like, and she was like, nope, can't have that, I'm the only woman for you. It's like, oh wow, okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now despite having literally no experience with, basically no experience with modern women, whatever she believed modern women to be,


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[Assistant] They were morally bankrupt and no son of hers was ever going to sink as low as to associate with women.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh my. Not going to associate. Whenever the subject came up, mostly because she would bring it up because she was obsessed about it, she would immediately reach for her Bible and begin quoting scripture.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And according to Schechter, she would take both of her boys by the hand and make them swear to her that they would keep themselves uncontaminated by women.


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[Assistant] If their lusts became too pressing to resist, she would say even the sin of Onan, Onan I think, was preferable to the vileness of fornication.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Dave looked it up, and it's a passage from Genesis where it basically says that Onan, or Onan, I don't know, he pissed off God because he, quote, spilled his seed on the ground.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And she told Ed in order to show he loved her, he had to stay a virgin. Or he didn't love his mother.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh god. That she's sitting there saying, you have to stay a virgin or you do not love me. That is putrid. That is, that's rancid. That is rancid. Oh my god. Yeah. So not great. Uh, and it should go without saying that, you know, given the dire circumstances on the farm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, this is just like depressing. It's like after a lifetime of misery, abuse, heavy alcoholism, and just seeing a shadow of yourself, George Gein's health had declined to the point where he was barely able to get out of bed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Much to the relief of his wife and children who were sick of picking up, you know, the slack of the farm while also taking care of him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, I hope his next life was better. I hope something, like damn, that's rough.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So for the last several years of his life, George's family had basically viewed him as a burden at that point, which is, I know it's all depressing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Um, but now that they were free of that burden, all it kind of did was free them up to work more. And at the same time, the American military entered World War II the following year and still eligible for the draft. Ed was called to nearby Milwaukee for the exams that would see if he was eligible for military service.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Um, had he been deemed eligible and sent to Europe, the Gein farm and Augusta's life probably would have crumbled into ruins, to be honest. Yeah. Uh, but fortunately for her, the army rejected Ed because of a growth on his left eyelid.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which caused the lid to droop and slightly impaired his vision a little bit. Oh, okay. His mother was very relieved so he was not eligible for military service.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Although like he had only gone to school until 8th grade and had struggled, Ed Gein was very adept at like manual labor. Because obviously he had done a ton at the farm. Like his whole life.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, so he had no trouble finding work around town, like installing windows, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What a thought. Uhm, and surprisingly, oh, there's another thought here. So surprisingly, he also had no trouble finding work as a babysitter.


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[Assistant] What a fucking thought. Yep, many of the families in and around Plainfield hired him as a babysitter. Can you imagine?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That sh- that is rightfully shocking to think of him as a babysitter. Uh, yeaah. But!


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When you really think about this, it makes a little bit of sense. Because... Perqual?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ed Gein is stunted. I don't know where he's stunted, but he's stunted. Of course. That boy has no social skills to even consider. He feels very weird around his peers. He doesn't know how to act. He feels judged. He's terrified. He's always feeling the eyes of everybody else on him, but with kids, he feels like


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I can just hang with them. Like he's literally, I think these, and these kids, all they care about is that you're being nice. And you're playing with them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, and I think these kids probably helped him have fun. And it's like, all these kids care about is that you're nice and you're playing with me. They don't care that you're weird. And he was nice to them? And he was nice. And he played with them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] From everything I could find, nobody had problems with their kids with him when he was like of that age. Right, that's fucking crazy. Like a teenager kind of thing. Like there was no


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He probably related better. They had the social skills that he had, which is none to see. That's really sad. Like you don't need to act a certain way around kids, they just care that you're funny and you hang out. Right. You know?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like maybe I can see, cause it was shocking to me that like people kept hiring him. I was like, is everyone all right in Plainville, Plainfield? But I get it. I mean, he seems by all reports that, and how would they ever fucking know? Well, that's a thing. How are you supposed to know?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And at this point, it doesn't seem like he's showing any quote unquote signs of what he's going to become. It seems like at this point, he's a weird kid. He's just a weird, odd, shy, like painfully shy kid. Yeah. Which is probably endearing to people that he was shy, you know? Like he wasn't like this scary thing. Right. So it's like, again,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If he's being good with the kids, how would these people have any other idea that he could become this monster, you know?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now the time working outside of the home and away from Augusta.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Proved to be positive for Ed and Henry. Uhm, but it was Henry who like really benefited from the whole thing. Ed had always been a little defiant when it came to his mother's strict rules, cause again, different situation between the two of them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he always had a very tumultuous relationship with her. So Ed kind of reluctantly left his mother's side to go do these jobs, like he was not happy to be away from her.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the brothers really, it was the only thing they never saw eye to eye on. They were always pretty, pretty decent with each other. Wow.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because again, while Ed held their mother in the highest esteem, it came as a shock to him when he learned that Henry fucking loathed her and obeyed her out of pure fear. Wow.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So they disagreed vehemently on their opinions about their mother, and this was the first time they'd ever, like, come to this at one point. But Ed loved his brother very deeply according to him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And after the passing of their father, he was kind of the only other person that Ed had in his life, and he was the only one in his life who didn't dominate and consume him. Right.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now despite Ed's explanation, there's always been a little confusion about how this fire started, whether it was intentional or not, and how it got so far out of control. But whatever the cause,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When the firefighters got there pretty quickly and were able to get the fire extinguished. But when the smoke cleared, Henry was nowhere. What?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so they gathered a search party to look for Henry, and Ed seemed to lead the search. He first told them, I don't know where Henry is, like I have no idea. Then he led the search team directly to Henry.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay. Who was found laying face down, dead. From what later was going to be determined to be a heart attack.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A heart attack. There's also reports that it's asphyxiation that he died of. Okay. But I saw more heart attack than asphyxiation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What members of the search team and volunteer firefighters couldn't understand was how Henry had seemed to have died as a result of the fire.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yet, neither his body nor his clothes showed any signs of smoke or fire damage.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Also, there were bruises on his head that could not be explained. What?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And when the fire investigators mentioned all this to Ed, Ed's reply was, and I quote, funny how that works.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Funny how what works, it doesn't work actually.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ed, I think Henry is Ed's first murder. You think so? And I think he killed him because he could not handle.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, I really hate that a lot. I think it's a little mixture of all of those things. And how do you think he did it? That he ended up with bruises and a heart attack. I think he probably beat him over the head with something or hit him in the head with something. Didn't do like a typical autopsy back then. They didn't do any autopsy. Oh, there was no autopsy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I think that his brother, Henry, is his first murder, personally. Yeah, that's strange. And just the response of like, funny how that works. Funny how that works. And led them right to him. Yeah. Like, too weird.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, what the fuck, right? And he was far away from the fire? Yeah. What? Exactly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't even think so, I think they were just, it's the forties. They were just like, ehh.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They put on their, they put on their fedora and walked away. Oh no, not the fedora.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think when Henry, after Henry died, Ed's last tie to reality was severed, essentially. And he was now left alone on the farm with Augusta. With Big Mama. Which, uh, to be honest is probably likely how she would have preferred it all along. So she was probably fine with that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Unfortunately, it wasn't long before Ed's life was upended again, because just a few months later, his mother...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Who he had always saw as indestructible, began complaining that she was feeling sick and faint.