Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Rural

[Ed Gein] was happy at the hospital -- happier, perhaps, than he'd ever been in his life. He got along well enough with the other patients, though for the most part he kept to himself. He was eating three square meals a day (the newsmen were struck by how much heavier Eddie looked since his arrest five years before). He continued to be an avid reader. He like his regular chats with the staff psychologists and enjoyed the handicraft work he was assigned -- stone polishing, rug making, and other forms of occupational therapy. He had even developed an interest in ham radios and had been permitted to use the money he had earned to order an inexpensive receiver.

All in all, he was a perfectly amiable, even docile patient, one of the few in the hospital who never required tranquilizing medications to keep his craziness under control. Indeed, apart from certain peculiarities -- the disconcerting way he would stare fixedly at nurses or any other female staff members who wandered into his line of vision -- it was hard to tell that he was particularly crazy at all.

Superintendent Schubert told reporters that Gein was a model patient. 'If all our patients were like him, we'd have no trouble at all.'







4 comments:

Damian Michael AKA HalloweeNut said...

Ed Gein was a curious example of a serial killer in my book. Unlike a lot of them, who I pretty much regard as evil, I think Gein was just VERY disturbed, and needed help. While my heart still goes out to the families of his victims, I still wish Gein got help sooner, because there would have have been a little less bloodshed in the world. Enough Said.

Rot said...

Yeah. It's really tragic when you read about these guys. They always come from disgusting abusive families. All the signs are there. All the warnings.

Not an excuse. Just a sad reality.

Sara said...

You know how I feel about Blair Witch and that second photo just creeped me the hell out.

Rot said...

excellent ; )