Ed Gein was one of the worst serial killers the United States and the world had ever seen. While he had just two confirmed victims, Mary Hogan and Bernice Worden, he desecrated a number of graves and used the bones, flesh and organs of the deceased to fashion everyday items, meaning the police came across a real-life house of horrors upon entering his residence in 1957. Gein stood trial in 1968 and was found guilty of Worden’s murder. He was found legally insane and sent to a psychiatric institution.
Recently, interrogation tapes were discovered in the belongings of the late judge in the case, in which we hear Gein discuss his crimes. Director James Buddy Day took these recordings and had experts examine them, resulting in the new MGM+ miniseries, Psycho: The Lost Tapes of Ed Gein (2023).
Stories of the Unsolved was able to speak with Day about the series and what he learned about the infamous serial killer.
What did you know about Ed Gein going into the series?
I was pretty familiar with him going in. I spend my days reading about True Crime and murderers and serial killers and talking to serial killers, so I was definitely familiar with him. I had read Harold Schechter’s book years ago. I’d come across Ed Gein – we did a series before this with MGM+ called Blumhouse’s Compendium of Horror (2022), and we’d come across the connection between Gein and Psycho (1960) and Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) in that a little bit. So I was familiar with [his] name, but to hear his voice was on another level.
What struck me was how emotionless Ed Gein was in his answers to the investigators. Was there anything that struck you when listening to the tapes?
Yeah, I think people, when you say you’re [going to] hear the confession of a serial killer, people are expecting the common myth or character of a serial killer, which is this malicious sociopath super villain like Hannibal Lecter and Red Dragon (2002) or American Psycho (2000) or Nightcrawler (2014) – any of those movies. But what’s really scary about Ed Gein is that he is meek and mild. He is a guy you would not give a second look to. When he wasn’t committing these atrocities in his kitchen, he was babysitting and having pie and coffee with his neighbours and just walking into town and going to the local hardware store.
I mean, he was a day labourer. He was so unassuming, and what’s truly scary about him for me is that he could be living these two completely different realities. When you listen to the tapes, he really is meek and mild, and he’s talking about the the worst parts of the things he did. He’s almost so nonchalant about it. He’s like, “Yeah, I think that and I did that,” and that’s really scary to me.
How did you come across the tapes? How did you go about getting access to them?
The tapes were recorded by the judge you hear in the series, Judge Boyd Clark, and he had passed a number of years ago. The tapes were in his safety deposit box and his family was like, “We should do something with these,” so they reached out to producers that I know, Josh Kuneau and Jill Howerton, through a mutual friend, and they knew the tapes [were] great.
When I heard them, I was like, “Oh, my God, this is incredible,” and then the three of us really just worked together to do something special with [them]. Then we kind of developed the whole series based on that.
You got to speak to a bunch of really interesting experts, including the hosts of The Last Podcast on the Left. How did you go about connecting with these people to get them involved in the series?
We really wanted to find experts. Our idea was, let’s take these tapes [and] take them around the country to various experts. Let’s have the experts really listen to them and give us insights that we’re not seeing.
We picked experts in different fields. We picked a serial killer expert in Toronto who looks at it from a sociological perspective. We picked a forensic psychiatrist in New York and we picked a necrophilia expert. We really wanted them to give us insights that we otherwise wouldn’t have gotten if we hadn’t talked to them. So that was just a matter of connecting with them, talking it through with them, getting them the tapes – things like that. Going and meeting them in person was, like, a highlight of my life. I am so fascinated with this stuff and getting to sit down with a necrophilia expert for a whole day was amazing.
The Last Podcast on the Left, I’ve been a big fan for years. The executive producer on the series, her name is Paige Boudreau, she said we should call them and see if they would be interested in this. We did and they were so interested in it. They know the story incredibly well, so we went to LA and met up with them and the rest is history.
Was there anything the experts had to say that really surprised you?
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there’s so many insights. I’m trying to think of one specific example.
I mean, I really found it fascinating. The idea that Ed Gein was trying to literally become his mother through the use of these bodies. I was really interested in the psychology behind that – like, how does that get into someone’s mind? Where’s that coming from? Is this kind of like a Freudian oedipus complex-type thing, or is this more of like a Carl Jung archetype situation where he’s trying to embody the idea of something?
I was really intrigued to explore that, so to hear the experts talk about that, especially in the second episode, I just loved that and found it so fascinating.
What’s one thing you would like the readers of Stories of the Unsolved to know about the series? Is there anything you would like them to know going into watching it?
We approached this from a horror perspective, and we did that deliberately because I’m just such a fan of subversive storytelling. What we really tried to do with the structure of it, what I really want people to take away from it, is be engaged and learn about this, the story of it, but then stick around as we really unpack it on a level that you don’t commonly see in these series.
This is more than a deep dive. This is incredible insight into who this guy was.
All four episodes of Psycho: The Lost Tapes of Ed Gein are currently available to stream via MGM+.
Featured Image Credit: MGM+
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