Fiend

augusta · Post by **augusta** » Fri Sep 02, 2005 1:21 pm

I found a book on Amazon called "Fiend" by Harold Schechter. It's about a 17 year old serial killer in Victorian Boston. He was America's youngest serial killer. I guess his victims were children. It's $14.95, copyright 2000, Pocket Books. Someone may have mentioned this before on the Forum but I can't find a post on it. Ennyway, taking place in Boston in the 1870's appeals to me.

The guy who wrote this wrote "Deviant" - a book on Ed Gein, the 'real' Norman Bates (tho his story was not very much like Norman Bates', Alfred Hitchcock used it as a slight basis for "Psycho").

Angel · Post by **Angel** » Fri Sep 02, 2005 2:44 pm

I was a small child being raised in Wisconsin when Ed Gein did his dastardly deeds, and I remember the uproar it caused. I was terrified out of my wits. It wasn't far from where I lived.

Haulover · Post by **Haulover** » Fri Sep 02, 2005 7:28 pm

have you seen the film, "deranged?" i would estimate the year as '73. i'll bet bob G is familiar with it. it's closer to fact than other movies "inspired" by it. anyway, the movie is intended to be literally about him.

augusta · Post by **augusta** » Sat Sep 03, 2005 5:06 pm

God, Angel. That's so creepy! Did anyone you know know him?

Haulover - Are you referring to the movie that stars Steve Railsback as Ed Gein? I stumbled across a video of that at K-Mart a few weeks ago. I had never heard of it before, but since I read the book I couldn't resist it.

It was good - mainly because it's the only movie I ever saw about Gein. It didn't let us in on the fact of how many women he killed, and what he did with them.

He used to take their skin and sew it together and made like a body costume once he got enough 'material'. He'd put that ON and go around in the woods out there in the dark. They did show him briefly just outside his house with that on, but it wasn't explained at all.

doug65oh · Post by **doug65oh** » Sat Sep 03, 2005 5:41 pm

Remember Silence of the Lambs? The "Buffalo Bill Killer" was supposedly modeled after Eddie Gein.
http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_kill ... ill_1.html

Angel · Post by **Angel** » Tue Sep 06, 2005 8:25 am

No, Augusta, we didn't know anyone who knew him.
Around that time there was a teenaged girl named Evelyn Hartley who was babysitting one night for a couple in LaCrosse, Wisconsin. When they came home they found a small bit of blood in the house, the girl's glasses, and nothing else. The girl had completely disappeared. The baby was in her crib, unharmed. They never found Evelyn. Ed Gein was staying in that area at the time and they eventually thought that he was responsible for the girl's disappearance because of various clues that made sense after they captured him for the other stuff. It was unbelievably creepy. I always had that in the back of my mind when I started to babysit and had to be alone in someone's house.

twinsrwe · Post by **twinsrwe** » Sun Sep 11, 2005 8:59 pm

Angel - I too was a child being raised in Wisconsin when Ed Gein did his deeds. There were many Sunday afternoon drives with my family when I was growing up. I recall one Sunday afternoon shortly after Ed Gein was arrested, when we were driving past a wooded area on a country Hwy, my father said, "I wonder if Eddie Gein has a body buried in there somewhere".

The part of Wisconsin where I was raised, is no where near Ed Gein's home town, but to this day, everytime I drive by that wooded area my father's comment comes to mind. It was because of his comment that I became interested in the case of Ed Gein.

It is my understanding that Ed Gein died in Madison, WI. while he was at the Mendota State Hospital. There was a rumor going around at the time of his death, that he was a very mild, meek, grandfatherly type man.

weber · Post by **weber** » Mon Sep 12, 2005 9:57 am

My first cousin was an RN at the state hospital when EG was a patient. A couple years ago, I asked her about him. She also described him as a small, retiring man who had "strange" eyes- they were light blue with what looked like ice crystals in them. She said that sometimes he would stare and stare at the staff women there. She also said that he always wore a red cardigan sweater- summer, winter, all year 'round.

Kat · Post by **Kat** » Tue Sep 13, 2005 1:55 am

That's creepy.

We should compare his eyes with Lizzie's.

Angel · Post by **Angel** » Wed Sep 21, 2005 11:49 am

I guess I will never learn. Years ago when my (first) husband was on a business trip I was at home at three in the morning with my newborn. I had been ignorant enough to be reading "Helter Skelter" in a big house in the middle of the woods that evening before I went to bed. The house looked alot like the one Sharon Tate lived in when the murders took place. I got up at three to nurse my son and was sitting in the nursery in a rocking chair by a window. I am as blind as a bat and I didn't have my contacts in at that hour. I looked up at the window and saw a skeleton like face poking through the bushes at me. If you can remember cartoons of Garfield hanging on the ceiling rafters when he was scared out of his wits, that was me. The skeleton face turned out to belong to one of the cattle that had gotten out of her fence from the next door neighbor's field. I never read that book again until I knew someone was in the house with me.
I did it again last night. My (present) husband was out of town and I turned on the biography channel just before I went to bed. The biography was of Ed Gein. (If it's on again, watch it, because it was good.) Seeing him brought up all the old memories of his case and it gave me the heebie-jeebies all over again. Afterwards, I went to bed, fell asleep, and then woke up at midnight with my two big dogs barking and making such a ruckus that I just knew Ed had resurrected himself in my living room. I ran in there and found that a stray cat had come into the house through the kitty cat door and was hanging on this huge wall tapestry, with the dogs lunging and jumping at him. He literally flew across the room, knocking over some beautiful liquor bottles and candlesticks, and grabbed another wall hanging which fell and crashed to the floor, with him under it. By the time I had managed to throw the dogs out back so they wouldn't kill the poor thing and open the front doors so he could escape, I was an emotional wreck. I sat down to calm myself and turn on the tv to distract myself. And, what was on the tube? "Psycho". This could only happen to me.

Kat · Post by **Kat** » Wed Sep 21, 2005 11:50 pm

I have to admit- that's a pretty funny story!
It sounds like one of those scary movies where the person wakes up after a creepy dream which seems real, only to find razor fingers gripping at the side of their bed, only to wake up to find a shadow looming over them, only to wake up to find....