In the middle of the 19th century, Norwegians from southeastern Wisconsin began moving into the sandy jackpine area of northwestern Wisconsin. Here, in the harsh and isolated indianhead country, the new imigrants broke the land and attempted to wrest a living from the poor soil. One family had just finished building a snug house and had moved in. Returning home one evening they discovered that a window curtain was burned black. The ashes lay on the floor, which strangely was not burned. There was no sign of fire anywhere else in the house although perplexed they soon put the event out of mind.
A year later the family returned and smelled smoke upon entering the house. They soon discovered that a chair cushion was smoldering. They were at loss to find a cause and a search of the house revealed no other fires.....everything was in order. The next year they returned home from a visit and found their house burned to the ground.....they rebuilt it. The following year a fire broke out in the middle of the night and the family members all sleeping upstairs were barely able to esacpe. Many years later a newcomer to the area bought the land and planned to build a summer cabin on it.
Construction was partway along when the carpenter arriving one morning to resume work found the charred remains of his apron on the floor exacty where he had left it the previous day. It was thought that the structure had not caught fire because it was of green lumber. About this time the stranger learned the history of the place, paid off the workman and fled. What started the mysterious fires? If they had been of incendiary origin, why didn't the house burn down the first time or the second time? If the occupants had been targeted for destruction, why did the fire break out many years later after the occupants had left the area?
Were the burnings only coincidence, or was a supernatural force at work? The history of ghost lore is filled with accounts of spontaneous fires........flames igniting clothing in closets, burning mattresses on unoccupied beds, and fires erupting in the center of bare floors........all are thought to be the work of poltergeist (an unseen ghost who smashes dishes, moves furniture, and in its most malevolent mood; starts fires.) Was this the case here? Or was it something else?
In the 19th century before the era of instant communication, the Gottlieb family farmed near Fremont. One evening after the children had gone to bed, Gottlieb and his wife heard thumping sounds upstairs, sounds that seemed to travel from room to room.
Before the parents could investigate, the children.....awake and frightened tumbled downstairs. Then the sounds ceased. Gottlieb however, was determined to find the cause. Taking a lamp in one hand and a stick in the other, he climbed the staircase searching all the rooms but found nothing that could have accounted for the mysterious noises, unless...back downstairs Gottlieb turned to his wife and said quietly "my brother is dead."
Twenty-four hours later a messenger brought the news of August Gottlieb's death. He had died in his home thirty miles away. His relatives had not known that he had been ill and dieing. At the funeral, Gottlieb learned that brother August died at the precise time that the thumpings were heard.
Mr. Jones, a black man was married to a white woman. In about 1880 the couple lived in a cottage in Merrill Park near the end of Milwaukee's Grand Avenue but Mrs. Jones's brothers who hated their brother-in-law, eventually murdered him. Thereafter his ghost on a large white horse rode up and down the avenue late at night, frightening everyone who saw it.
Mr. White was a Sunday School teacher at St. James Church in Milwaukee many years ago. He often told friends of a ghostly experince he had some time before. White was sitting in his home when he heard a knock at the door.
He opened it. On the threshold stood a vague human form he recognized as a wooman friend who lived many miles away. Before white could speak she faded away.
The gentle schoolteacher learned a few days later that the woman had died at nearly the precise moment he had seen her on his front porch.
In 1874 a black man was beaten to death in Milwaukee's Palmer's Addition. One evening shortly after his death, his ghost appeared on the street corner where the fatal brawl had occurred. Baleful eyes were fixed upon the faces of passers- by hurrying home from work-eyes that threatened revenge upon the murderers.
A few noticed the vaporous form loitering in the dim light. Caps were pulled low on foreheads, and coat collars were turned up against a raw wind blowing off the lake. Then two young fellows turned suddenly to cross the street. The ghost loomed large before them. One fellow swung a left hook that connected with empty air and sent him sprawling into the gutter.
The other spun around and ducked into a corner tavern. Risking ridicule, both men reported what they had seen, and soon people came from all over the city to see the murdered man's ghost. Some were fascinated, some were repelled, and others were only mildly curious. Night after night the apparition appeared on the street corner, its evil eyes staring from its pallid face. Gradually, from a sense of resignation and futility, perhaps the ghost's visits diminished until four years later, it appeared infrequently and then only to a handful of loyal spectators. Insofar as is known, the ghost never found its slayer.
In the early days of the 20th century, few persons in rural Wisconsin traveled by car or even by buggy. Those who owned horses rode them, those less fortunate walked. John Groat was among the latter. One hot summer evening he and his friend Ed who also lived in the vicinity of Menomonie, walked the mile and a half to town.
On the way back they decided to visit their girlfriends: Carrie and Anna. The girls were sisters and lived with their parents in a farmhouse not far from the road and a small stream. As the men reached the wooden bridge that carried the highway over this shallow stream, they stopped briefly to reconsider their plans. Was it too late to visit the girls? After all, they were expected.
Before they could decide, Ed shouted "look John, there's a girl all in white coming down the road" She came directly toward them, but turned at the bridge; walked down into the stream and vanished. Was it Carrie? Anna? How could anyone disappear in such a shallow body of water? Was there a deep hole some place? After John and Ed recovered from there astonishment, they dashed to the spot where they had last seen the girl.
They entered the water, walked back and forth......around and around but could not find hole nor any trace of the girl. Where had she gone? Why, in fact had she not crossed the bridge? Had the men's presence perhaps frightened her? Knowing that the occurence must be reported, John insisted that they stop at the farmhouse which was only about 80 feet from this part of the stream.
He feared that the girl in white must have been either Carrie or Anna, and without asking he knew that Ed shared that fear. At the farmhouse, the girls' parents were still out on the porch. The mother explained that the girls had company earlier and that the girls are now in the kitchen washing dishes. Carrie and Anna soon came out and listen ed to their boyfriends' story.
Both girls said they had waded the stream many times and that there were no deep holes in it. Who or what had the men seen? No one knows. Afterward John always said that he would never have told the story if Ed had not been with him to witness that summer night's walk of the mysterious girl in white.
Sixty odd years ago Ruth Baker and her family lived on the old Kopelkie farm, about ten miles west of Shawano. While eating dinner one evening, Ruth noticed a woman walking in the hallway beyond an open door. She jumped up and ran to the cellar where her mother was getting better from the crock. "Mommy" she cried, "I just saw a fairy! She was a nurse and she wore a gray and white striped dress.
Ruth, her mother, her younger brother and an uncle searched the hall and the upstairs rooms but found no sign of the mysterious lady. Later, Ruth's grandmother recalled that a previous occupant had also seen an apparition. It was thought that the ghost had some connection with a man who had been ill and died in the isolated farmhouse.
How did we learn of death? A relative's letter, yes. The newspaper obituary column of course. Other more bizarre messages from beyond the grave have been recorded by man from the earliest centuries. The ghastly routine of the angel of death has been the subject of many lively stories.
None is more bizarre than the legend of the Devil's Hitching Post. Years ago a large stone near the Wiisconsin Dells, now called Elephant Rock....had the eerie name of the Devil's Hitching Post and tether the animal. The stranger would then stride across the hills to the doorstep of the deceased. The dead man and his unearthly guide would then depart.
Did anyone ever actually see the black stallion and his rider? Yes, but the witness did not live long. The story is told of a traveler passing by the Post who noticed the horse tied nearby. He had never seen a more magnificent beast and decided to go up to the animal for a closer inspection.
As he drew near the horse's master suddenly appeared on a nearby bluff. The horse reared and his lethal hooves struck the traveler killing him instantly. Whether it is a vague feeling of doom, a ghostly visitor in the dark of night, or a phantom black stallion......we can be warned in a number of strange ways that the messenger of death is near.
Violent death is often the catalyst for the appearance of a ghost. Those who die at the hands of a murderer or take their own lives are said to frequently leave behind strong energy impressions that may be manifested in the activity of a ghost or poltergeist. Present-day Milwaukee residents passing the corner of 12th street and state are unaware that they are within a few feet of the location of one of that city's most famous haunted houses.
The brick house is gone now but its sinister reputation persisted for many years. It belonged to Major Hobart. He left earth too soon and his house was never the same. Hobart, a former army officer calmly hanged himself for unexplained reasons one afternoon. He was found swinging from a chandelier in the large two-story home. After Hobart's demise, many families lived in the house, but few remained for more than several months.
The terrified residents reported doors opening and closing without human assistance, footfalls clattering up the staircase when all were in bed, groans echoeing from various rooms, and chains being dragged across the floors. When the house was vacant and that was frequently, neighbors would notice lights through the dusty windows solidifying the house's reputation for evil. After several years no realtor could sell the brick mansion, so infamous its reputation had become. At last it was razed and with it were lost the last, unearthly traces of Major Hobart, late of the United States Army.
Only a few people alive today in Dane County's Burke Township recall the origin of the mysterious specter that haunted Ghost Hill. The protrusion of earth was on the former Messerschmidt farm in the northeast corner section 19 on the old road from Madison to Token Creek.
What gave rise to the hill's ghostly legend? Early residents claimed that at the stroke of midnight each evening, a human figure clad completely in white would appear astride a white horse. It would race across the top of the hill or sometimes across its base, going in the direction of Blooming Grove.
Regardless of the weather or darkness of night, the horseman could be seen plainly, its white cape stretched out in the breeze like some spectral streamer. Who or what was this phantom? There is no definite explanation of its origin. Some witnesses thought it was the angry spirit of an early pioneer who had been robbed and murdered near the hill.
The man's ghost was condemned to wander through the night, seeking revenge for the brutal death. At least one documented effort was made to identify the ghost or at least verify its existence. A Madison resident named George Armbrecht told a 'Wisconsin State Journal' reporter in September 1936 that he and several other brave companions camped on the hill one night to see the horseman. Midnight came but unfortunately no ghost appeared. The hill was partially demolished when a quarry was opened to supply stone for the Madison airport, and the legend of the horseman of Ghost Hill has nearly vanished from Burke Township.
To present-day Madison's residents, Seminole Highway is a quiet residential street of spacious lawns and stately trees where the only ghost ever seen is a small child in a halloween costume but in the late 1800's when the highway was known as Bryant Road, unearthly apparitions appeared to teamsters and foot travelers.
They described the ghost as a luminous white vapor that would appear suddenly from the brush on either side of the road, follow them for a short distance and then vanish. Others claimed that the vapor took the form of an indian on a pony that appeared from nowhere, walked behind them a little way then disappeared.
Sometimes late at night people fancied that they heard the clatter of a pony's hoof beats as the beast and its ghostly rider charged up and down the road in pursuit of someone or something remembered from a distant past. The phantom never harmed anyone nor was its identity ever learned.
Some said it was the spirit of an indian who had been killed by a white man or indian foe and was seeking revenge. Others thought it was the spirit of a white man who had been buried in the cemetary near the Bryant barn at the east end of the highway. No one knew the reason for his return. By the time the horse and wagon gave way to the automobile, the troublesome ghost had disappeared, leaving Madison's "ghost road" alive only in the archives of history.
About a hundred years ago farmer Albert J. Lamson lived near Lake Wingra in Madison. On a dark and starless spring night he stepped out to his front porch and heard the unmistakable sounds of an ax.....the clear, ringing, rhythmic sounds of an expert woodsman at work.
As Lamson listened he was certain that the sounds came from Bartlett Woods now known as Noe Woods on the southwest side of the University of Wisconsin Arboretum. Lamson was puzzled. Why would anyone be felling a tree in the middle of the night? Yet he knew he was not mistaken. He heard the blade bite into the trunk of a forest goliath, stop occasionally then resume.
The next day curious to learn what was going on, Lamson climbed the fence near the present Curtis Prairie and the Arboretum Administration Area. Entering the woods he searched the area thoroughly but found no ax marks on the trees, no wood chips anywhere on the ground. Several nights later hearing the woodchopper again at work, Lamson summoned his hired man who also claimed to hear the unmistakable strokes of the ax.
At dawn the two men went into the woods but found nothing. Lamson questioned his friends and neighbors. Several persons who had been driving their teams over the lonely road said they also heard the noises. Some, like Lamson.......also searched the woods but found no evidence of recent woodcutting.
Periodically during the summer and fall the sounds came from Bartlett Woods. Travelers hearing the story, avoided the "ghost road" at night. A search party with lanterns was finally organized to go into the woods at night to locate the woodchopper, but after several fainthearted volunteers dropped out, the hunt was canceled. Lamson although not superstitious did not choose to enter the dense woods alone after dark. Then suddenly the woodchopper abandoned his night work. His identity and the purpose of his work were never learned and to this day remain a mystery.
Back in the 1890's Oshkosh was a bustling frontier city that spilled across the plain. Sawmills on both banks of the Fox River hummed incessantly turning out pine lumber and shingles while factories produced finished wood products.
Lumberjacks roared into town on pay day and their heavy drinking in Main Street saloons often ended in brawls. One night a rural man who had been shopping in the city started homeward carrying a rocking chair. His young son accompanied him.
The sidewalks at that time were high boardwalks, and as the pair passed a large grove of gnarled oak trees, the father decided to rest for a moment. He put down the chair and elated over the splendid bargain he had struck with the shopkeeper sat down to rock.
Suddenly from out of the darkness beyond the trees, two drunks appeared. Resentful of the man's obvious delight in his new chair and spoiling for a fight, they taunted the stranger. The quarrel soon got out of hand so the drunks killed the man and ran off.
The boy meanwhile had dived under the boardwalk. When the assailants left, the child raced across the street for help. By the time the neighbors arrived the father was dead in his chair. For years afterwards, travelers claimed that they heard the creaks of the rocker and the groans of the dying man in the grove where he had been slain. Those who are keen of ear say that the eerie sounds can still be heard, carried by the wild wind of a stormy night.
The winter nights were long and lonely for the family of lumberjacks. They remained behind while the men labored in the great northern forests during the last century. The women and children lived in scores of small settlements scattered across the state, hardly more than clusters of log dwellings seperated by miles of wilderness and snowchoked trails.
The villages were as isolated as any spot on earth for months at a time. One such village was west Algoma, a pioneer village near Lake Winnebago and since incorporated into the city of Oshkosh, but nearly a century ago the isolation and barren tranquility of that isolated outpost was broken by the terrifying appearance of a mysterious man dressed all in black.
The figure came each night to West Algoma that winter, swathed in black cape and clothing from head to toe. He was of enomous height and walked slowly with the aid of a crooked wooden cane. The stranger's routine never varied. At the stroke of midnight he would emerge from the darkness at the edge of town, stride slowly down the wooden sidewalk and vanish into the night.
He never spoke or altered his gait. The walk lasted precisely ninety minutes, the route never changed and his arrival and departure times changed by only a few seconds. Townsfolk hid behind barred doors and curtained windows, afraid to interfere with or question the stalker. Few slept until the nocturnal visitor had gone. On one particular night however, a young boy reportedly approached the stranger.
The youth stole a glance at the figure in the bright moonlight. Beneath the dark hat was a pallid, expressionless face seemingly devoid of life. The boy fled in terror. Night after night; week after week of that long winter, the stranger would walk the streets of West Algoma, but the day in spring when the menfolk returned from the piney woods he vanished, never to return. Who was he? To this day no one knows.
He did no harm. Was he sent to protect the women and children? A ghostly town crier keeping watch over the sleeping families until the men returned? Then again, the night stalker may have been the product of some villagers fanciful imagination in an effort to keep the children amused and close to home on those cold; desolate night.
Before white men came to Wisconsin there was a land called "moningwunakaunig", (place of the golden-breasted woodpecker.) We call it Madeline, largest of the Apostle Islands scattered off Lake Superior's shore near Bayfield. Madeline Island is a 14,000 acre refuge with white sand beaches hugging impenetrable forests of fir; spruce; pine; and hardwoods and contrasting sharply with wind-sculpted red granite cliffs on the islands lake side.
It is an ancient place. For 3,000 years Madeline has known human footsteps. Primitive peoples camped in the forests, taking from the waters and forests their simple diet of fish; meat; and berries when Roman armies were conquering Europe. Later, the Ojibway (Chippewa) were forced from their ancestral home along the St. Lawrance River and settled on the Apostle Islands.
A great village was buit on Madeline with a population, archeologists say; of nearly 12,000, but the area became overpopulated and a terrible famine struck the Chippewa people. Farming was rudimentary, if practiced at all; the men of the tribe could not kill enough fish and game to feed a village the size of a small modern city. In desperation, tribal elders and the medicine men resorted to cannibalism.
Young maidens and children were chosen and offered as sacrifices on a primitive altar, their flesh used as food, but the population rebelled after time and the old leadership was executed. Today Madeline Island caters primarirly to tourists and several hundred residents. Few traces remain of the island's original inhabitants. A modern yacht harbor and marina occupy the lagoon near which the sacrificial alter was located.
Nearby is a lavish resort and a golf course created in 1967 by the world-famous designer Robert Trent Jones. A few old islanders say the lagoon used to harbor ghosts of those killed and devoured centuries ago. Although no one has reported any recent apparitions......on a cool; dark; foggy night if you sit near the shore of that lagoon; at the edge of the old indian burial ground; and listen intently you might hear the haunting; plaintive cries of the sacrificed.
Tales began to spread that the island was haunted by the vengeful spirits of the dead women and children. They would rise from the earth near the sacrificial alter and wander over the island. Legend says a great exodus took place and the entire village was evacuated to the mainland until not a Chippewa remained on Madeline.
Various families migrated to locations in northern Wisconsin and Minnesota. Some accounts insist it was several centries before the Chippewa would again camp on the large island. Now there are few indians on the island. Earlier in this century, it is said that some sacrificial tobacco was found at the ancient alter.
The Scots may not be the most superstiticious people in the world, but some beliefs they hold tenaciously. One is that the seventh son of a seventh son has precognitive powers, that is the ability to foretell events. So it was that when Robert Laurie was born in Scotland, news of his birth spread far and wide. As the seventh son of a seventh son, Robert was destined to grow up with the uncanny ability to predict the future.
In 1854, the Lauries emigrated to Wisconsin settling in Sturgeon Bay. Here young Robert grew into manhood, and his supernatural powers flourished. He told a neighboring family with seven daughters. that the eighth child would be a boy and it was. When Robert's brother Alex and another man in the settlement had set forth by boat for Green Bay to get supplies, Robert said they would never return.
The boat was never found nor were the men. On a third occasion, Robert assured a neighbor woman that her husband would survive the roiling lake waters after his boat had capsized in a storm He had seen the man clinging to a cabin door that had been torn loose from the craft. Some time later the door bearing its human cargo, was washed up on the shore. The seaman was barely conscious, yet alive.
One night when Robert Laurie was in his sixties he had a dream so vivid that in the morning he was impelled to tell it to his wife. He told her there would soon be a large funeral in Door County and that people would come great distances by land and by water to attend. He described the shining horses pulling magnificent carriages; he named the minister and number of mourners.
The only thing he did not know was the name of the deceased. A month later the funeral was held. People came from near and far, and all the details of the service were exactly as Robert had foreseen them. Among the mourners there was one whose heart was heaviest with sorrow------the dreamer's widow, Catherine.
In 1935, Esther Johnson and her husband of Manitowoc were renting the upstairs apartment in a private home, a small but quiet place that met their needs. The bedroom had two doors diagonally across from eachother, leaving just enough room for the bed in the corner. The door near the foot of the bed leading to a centrel hall was not used.
It was kept closed and locked; a wardrobe stood against it on one side and a china closet on the other. The second door near the head of the bed opened into a rear room that also had another door leading into the hall at the place where the stairway led to the first floor. One night after the couple had retired Esther saw the apparition of a tall woman wearing a long gray dress and matching sweater emerging from the wardrobe.
The ghost walked with folded arms and bowed head; she moved slowly around the bed and never looked at its occupants. Esther nudged her husband, who she recalls "couldn't have been more than 30 inches from her as she passed." He said "Can't Mrs. Anderson walk in her own house if she wants to?"
The apparition vanished through the door into the rear room, and the tenants not in the least frightened....fell promptly asleep. Not until morning did the Johnsons learn that their landlord Mr. Anderson had died in his first floor apartment. Only his wife had known the moment of death and had come for him. She had been dead for nineteen years.
In the early 1900's Mrs. Schwassman and other Milwaukee residents saw at twilight, a procession of veiled white women floating silently not far above the ground.
In the 1870's the village of Omro, west of oshkosh was the center of Spiritualist activity in the state. Here the first Spiritualiat's Society hosted eminent spiritualists and mediums from all over the United States.....the Davenport brothers, Moses Hull of Boston, Benjamin Todd of Michigan, Susan Johnson of California, and many others.
Seances multiplied and spirits materialized but with peculiar irony, the combined efforts of local and visiting mediums failed to solve the murder of a local citizen. It was about 1877 that John Sullivan a local farmer was mysteriously slain. Sometime between nine and ten o' clock at night, he left the village where he had spent the day trading. It had been a long weary day and his thoughts were on home and bed as he trudged over the bridge spanning the Fox River.
Suddenly a cry of alarm rang out, followed by the discharge of a gun. A short time later Sullivan was found dead at the side of the bridge. There were no witnesses, no known motives, no suspects. Law enforcement officials were baffled. Who killed John Sullivan? Seances buzzed with the question as candles flickered late into the night in the homes of the psychics but there was never an answer.
Then one night a Mr. Wilson was crossing the bridge where the farmer had met his death. Out of the darkness he noticed a man just ahead of him shouldering a gun. A voice whispered into Wilson's ear "that is the gun that killed John Sullivan." A terror-filled scream then a loud report rent the air and the apparition vanished.
Wilson fled to the village to relate his experience swearing that he would recognize the murder weapon if he ever saw it again. Later he claimed that he had seen it. Who owned it? Wilson would not say. The spirits weren't talking either, and to this day Sullivan's murder remains a mystery.
One night of November 29, 1873........Sheriff Van Wie with a kerosene lamp in hand he made his last rounds of the day. The nine prisoners in Madison's jail were resting quietly or were sound asleep. Satisfied that all was well, the sheriff returned to his own quarters and went to bed. Suddenly the silence was shattered by wild shrieking. Wie leaped out of bed in his nightshirt, grabbed his lantern and raced to the cells.
Two young prisoners by the names of Foster and Sheevy were gyrating wildly in their bunks, their eyes saucer-wide with fright. Wie opened the cell door went in and demanded an explanation. The inmates said that just as they had blown out their light and settled down, they heard a noise in the hallway beyond their door. The noise increased to a deafening crescendo and then seemed to come through the iron door grating to surround them.
Then they said a strong light filled the cell and a ghost wailed and brushed against their bedclothes. They had not been able to make out any well-known shape. Wie listened intently to their story and although he dismissed it as fanciful, he did concede that the young men were genuinely frightened. They begged the sheriff to move them out of that cell and into one occupied by a burly black man. Wie refused and left them to work out their own salvation.
The next night the same unearthly shrieks rent the stillness, but this time the jailer snug in bed did not bother to investigate. The inmates did get a chance however, to tell their tale to a reporter. They claimed that the light had again filled their cell and that to escape both it and the wild wailing they dived into their bunks and wrapped their heads with their blankets. Later Wie told the newsman that whatever the commotion was he thought Foster had a hand in it.
Young Foster had been accused of setting fire to the city's flour mills, and the sheriff was convinced that Foster spent all his time behind bars planning pranks to frighten the wits out of sheevy. Yet in this instance both men seemed deeply upset by an experience for which there seemed to be no logical explanation.
Had the prisoners fabricated the story to gain attention and stir up excitement? Had the specters of dark deeds returned to haunt them? Or was the wailing ghost the vestige of a long-forgotten prisoner sentenced to roam forever the cold, gray halls of Madison's jail?
The name of the book is
"Haunted Wisconsin"
Copyright 1980 © Beth Scott And Michael Norman
Photo? Yes
August 8, 1906 Ed Gein was born in LaCross, Wisconsin then shortly moved to Plainfield, Wisconsin....a small population of only 642. The people here thought Ed was just a shy, eccentric farmer, unfortunately; little did they know that he was a psychopathic murderer haunted by visions of his late mother. Ed became a prolific graverobber and amateur anatomist. Gein's father held jobs as a carpenter and a tanner when he was working on the farm. Gein's mother emerged as the dominant parent, and warned her sons of premarital sex. 1940 when Gein's father died, he and his brother Henry took over the farm. The two boys did the work while their mother ruled their lives.
In 1944 Henry was lost while fighting a marsh fire.....their mother suffered a stroke that same year and another one in 1945 that killed her. Aftwards Gein had sealed off every room in the house except the kitchen and his own bedroom. From childhood Gein had been ambiguous about his masculinity, considering amputation of his penis on several occasions. He considered transsexual surgery but that was both costly and frightening. Gein did odd jobs for Plainfield residents like baby-sitting in order to get extra money. Gein would often dress up in his mother's skin, wore her clothes and ran outside to dance in the moonlight. Between the years of 1950 and 1954 Gein haunted the cemetaries, digging up graves.......he would remove whole corpses or settle for bits and pieces.
At home.....skulls were mounted on the bedposts, several skullcaps used as bowls, hanging mobiles out of noses; lips; and labia, sporting a belt of nipples around the house, human skin was used for lamp shades; the construction for waste baskets; and the upholstery of chairs. The choicer bits were preserved for Gein to wear at home. He wore scalps and faces, human skin vest complete with breasts, and female genitalia strapped above his own......but eventually his resurrection raids failed to satisfy a deeper need. December 8, 1954 Mary Hogan disappeared from the tavern she managed in Pine Grove, Wisconsin. On the crime scene was a pool of blood, an overturned chair, and a spent cartridge from a 32-calibar pistol. Although Ed Gein was the suspect here, no charges were filed at that time.
November 16, 1957 Bernice Worden disappeared from her hardware store in Plainfeild, Wisconsin. On the crime scene was blood on the floor which a trail of it led out back where the victim's vehicle was last seen. The authorities finally went searching for their suspect. Behind Gein's house inside a shed they found the headless body of Bernice Worden hanging there from the rafters......she was gutted like a fish and her genitals carved out along with sundry bits of viscera. They began to search the house and found Bernice's heart in a saucepan on the stove; and her head had been turned into a macabre ornament with twine attached to nails inserted in both ears. Her other organs were shoved in a box and placed in the corner to moulder.
In custody, Gein confessed to the Hogan and Worden murders along with a series of grave robberies. January 16, 1958 a judge declared Gein as criminally insane and therefore was committed to the Central State Hospital in Wausun, Wisconsin. In November 1968 Gein went to trial where the judge found Gein innocent by reason of insanity, then was returned to Waupun, where he had passed away in 1984 due to natural causes.
Even today Authorities aren't sure just how many people Gein had murdered, but they still have suspicions and wonders if the other disappearances were related to Gein......including his own brother Henry. Also including Travis and his unnamed companion whom was last seen when they hired Gein as their hunting guide. The search of Gein's home turned up two fresh vagina's from young women that did not match up to any cemetary record.....one likely victim was Evelyn Hartley whom was abducted from LaCross on a night when Gein was visiting relatives two blocks from her home.......A pool of blood was found in her garage after she had vanished, the trail disappeared out by the curb. Mary Weckler disappeared a short time later from Jefferson, Wisconsin......she drove a white ford and when searchers found such a vehicle on Gein's property. If Gein did not dispose of Hartley and Wechler, then he must've killed two other women......their names are still unknown.
(The movies "Psycho" including its sequels "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" "Ed Gein" and "Silence Of The Lamb" were all based on the true Wisconsin story of Ed Gein, he may just be America's most famous murderer)
Photo? Yes
Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer was born May 21st 1960 at 4:34 pm at Evangelical Deaconess hospital in Milwuakee, Wisconsin. Jeffrey Dahmer had a decent childhood in Milwaukee with his parents. His father being a student at university studying chemistry while his mother was a teletype machine operator. When Dahmer was 4 years old he was subjected to a double hernia operation which was to have a catastrophic effect on developing personality. During his childhood he would act differently towards others of his age group because he discovered the world of death. He scoured roadsides for freshly killed animals to take home to dissect. Throughout the years he became very good with a scalpel dissecting his roadkills with immense precision.
During his teenage years he became a loner, experimenting in alcohol and drugs which effectively pushed away what few friends he had. Problems between his parents, which ended in them divorcing in 1978, caused him to hide deeper inside his shell, very rarely speaking to anyone. As times got unbearable he found himself out of food, drink and money which consequently made him sell what few possessions he had in order to buy more alcohol, when that money ran out he ended up selling his blood to thirst his need for booze. Dahmer then enlisted himself into the army to be posted for training in Alabama. His short term in the army was hounded by punishments from his superiors because of his inability to stay sober; he was therefore discharged and returned home to live with his grandmother in Bath Township.
One fatal day in June, Dahmer went to see his father in order to borrow his car so he could go to the movies, but instead of going to the movies, he just drove around the countryside. He then spotted a young hitchhiker bare chested and offered him a lift into town. The hitchhikers name was 19 year old Steven Hicks. Dahmer took him to his grandmother’s house for refreshments, it was here that his wrath began. It would last for 3yrs and 17 victims later.
During his killing spree Dahmer became more and more fascinated with death he obtained a sexual fetish for death. Each victim was stripped, placed in various positions, sleep with the bodies, take photographs of each stage of dismemberment he would also masturbate into the carcasses, he became a necrophilliac and a cannibal.
Dahmer was sentenced for a total of 1070 years in jail for killing, committing necrophillia and cannibalism of 17 people. Jeffrey Dahmer was ordered to clean the shower block by prison warders, he and a friend were attacked, by inmates carrying broom shanks. As the warders turned a blind eye they were beaten to death, the leader of the gang was Christopher Scarver, 25 who became hailed as a hero for his achievement.
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A steep bridge located in St. Francis, Wisconsin was a terror among those who drove over it. Today not many still speak of the tragedies but the haunting memories are still there. Many have dived off of the bridge and slammed into the railroad tracks on the bottom, hence the name "Suicide Bridge."
This began happening back in the 1950's or 1960's and it was until just a few years ago that the city finally did something about it.....they made the bridge flat to prevent future killings. My mother was a mere child when this was going on, and eventually when I lived with her in St. Francis she would use the bridge quite often with me in the car. It really is terrifying being on the bridge because it is really steep to a point where you can't see who is coming at you from the other side.
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