Ed Gein

Edward Gein, the mild mannered, Midwestern psychopath from Plainfield, Wisconsin who, in the nineteen fifties, would shock the nation with his gruesome crimes. He would become the basis for the best selling book by Robert Bloch, "Psycho", as well as for the Hitchcock film of the same name. Accounts of Edward Gein's heinous crimes would also enter the consciousness of a young Tobe Hooper who, as an adult, would write and direct the classic cult film, "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre".

In November 1957 the world would learn about a seemingly innocuous man from America's heartland who ended up being so deviant from the norm, Ed Gein. He would shock the nation with his last grisly crime, that of hardware store owner Bernice Worden, and with his secret hobby so depraved that it would shock the entire nation when it came to light. News anchors from around the world and journalists would come to the small town of Plainfield Wisconsin to give the public a brief, visual glimpse into the life of Edward Gein.

Edward's mother, Augusta would move him and his older brother, Henry, from La Crosse Wisconsin to Plainfield when they were still children. His mother moved to this location to prevent outsiders from influencing her sons. They were only allowed to leave the premises to go to school and spent most of the time doing chores on the family's farm. Augusta, a fervent Lutheran, believed in and preached to her boys the innate immorality of the world which in her eyes was the evil of drinking, and the belief that all women (herself excluded) were prostitutes and instruments of the devil. She reserved time every afternoon to read to them from the Bible, usually selecting graphic verses from the Old Testament dealing with death, murder, and divine retribution. Gein tried to make his mother happy, but she was rarely pleased with her boys; she often abused them. During their teens and throughout their early adulthood, the boys remained detached from people outside of their farmstead, and so had only each other for company. To make matters worse, his mother punished him whenever he tried to make friends, which was difficult for him to do in school since he had a very shy and effeminate nature which made him a target for bullies.

When His father died the two boys took up random jobs around town to help pay expenses and Ed would start to babysit for families in the community. He enjoyed babysitting, seeming to relate more easily to children than adults. As his older brother matured, Henry began to reject his mother's view of the world and worried about his brother Ed's attachment to her. He spoke ill of her around his brother and it wasn't long after this behavior that he would wind up dead. According to statements by Ed Gein, on May 16, 1944 his brother Henry decided to burn off a marsh on the property. Reportedly, the brothers were separated, and as night fell, Ed Gein lost sight of his brother. When the fire was extinguished, he reported to the police that his brother was missing. When a search party was organized, Gein led them directly to his missing brother, who lay dead on the ground. The police had concerns about the circumstances under which the body was discovered. The ground on which Henry Gein lay was untouched by fire, and he had bruises on his head. Despite this, the police dismissed the possibility of foul play and the county coroner listed asphyxiation as the cause of death. Although some investigators suspected that Ed Gein killed his brother, no charges were filed against him.

Shorlty fallowing the mysterious death of his brother, Gein lived alone with his mother, who died on December 29, 1945. Gein was devastated by her death; in the words of author Harold Schechter, he had "lost his only friend and one true love. And he was absolutely alone in the world." Gein remained on the farm, supporting himself with earnings from odd jobs. He boarded up rooms used by his mother, including the upstairs, downstairs parlor, and living room, leaving them untouched. He lived in a small room next to the kitchen. Gein became interested in reading death-cult magazines and adventure stories to pass the time as he lived alone on the farm house. It is clear the Edward Gein had an abnormal attachment to his deceased mother. It was an attachment that would manifest itself in unimaginable ways. It is almost hard to believe that such a diminutive, seemingly inoffensive man could be such a madman, but who but a madman would do what he did? Edward Gein, it was discovered, had turned his small farmhouse into a gruesome charnel house, replete with furnishings adorned with human flesh and bones.


On November 16, 1957, Plainfield hardware store owner Bernice Worden disappeared and police had reason to suspect Gein. Worden's son had told investigators that Gein had been in the store the evening before the disappearance, saying he would return the following morning for a gallon of anti-freeze. A sales slip for a gallon of anti-freeze was the last receipt written by Worden on the morning she disappeared. Upon searching Gein's property, investigators discovered Worden's decapitated body in a shed, hung upside down by ropes at her wrists, with a crossbar at her ankles. The torso was "dressed out" like that of a deer. She had been shot with a .22-caliber rifle, and the mutilations were made after death.

Searching the house, authorities found:

* Four noses
* Whole human bones and fragments
* Nine masks of human skin
* Bowls made from human skulls
* Ten female heads with the tops sawn off
* Human skin covering several chair seats
* Mary Hogan's head in a paper bag
* Bernice Worden's head in a burlap sack
* Nine vulvas in a shoe box
* A belt made from human female nipples
* Skulls on his bedposts
* Organs in the refrigerator
* A pair of lips on a draw string for a windowshade
* A lampshade made from the skin from a human face

When questioned, Gein told investigators that between 1947 and 1952, he made as many as 40 nocturnal visits to three local graveyards to exhume recently buried bodies while he was in a "daze-like" state. On about 30 of those visits, he said he had come out of the daze while in the cemetery, left the grave in good order, and returned home empty handed. On the other occasions, he dug up the graves of recently buried middle-aged women he thought resembled his mother and took the bodies home, where he tanned their skins to make his paraphernalia. Gein admitted robbing nine graves, leading investigators to their locations. Because authorities were uncertain as to whether the slight Gein was capable of single-handedly digging up a grave in a single evening, they exhumed two of the graves and found them empty, thus corroborating Gein's confession.

Shortly after his mother's death, Gein had decided he wanted a sex change and began to create a "woman suit" so he could pretend to be a female. Gein's practice of donning the tanned skins of women was described as an "insane transvestite ritual". Gein denied having sex with the bodies he exhumed, explaining, "They smelled too bad." During interrogation, Gein also admitted to the shooting death of Mary Hogan, a tavern operator missing since 1954.

A 16-year-old youth whose parents were friends of Gein and who attended ball games and movies with Gein reported that he was aware of the shrunken heads, which Gein had described as relics from the Philippines sent by a cousin who had served in World War II. Upon investigation by the police, these were determined to be human facial skins, carefully peeled from cadavers and used as masks by Gein.

At his trial, some hair-raising testimony on what was found at Gein's home, as well as on some of the ghoulish practices in which Gein engaged, took nearly a year from start to finish, and resulted in Gein being sent to the hospital for the insane in Waupun Wisconsin.

The case of the century was drawing to a close and for many years, it would still be a topic discussed in newspapers, books, in movies, on television and in comics. Even today we see new films and even *musicals about the notorious Ed Gein who had exhumed corpses from local graveyards and fashioned trophies and keepsakes from their bones and skin. Who confessed to killing two women: tavern owner Mary Hogan in 1954 and a Plainfield hardware store owner, Bernice Worden, in 1957. Not just the murders would be horrific to many, but the way in which they were treated after death make's Ed Gein one of Americas most bizarre murderers, long before other deviants such as Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy.

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Here are the photos I took in Plainfield of the cemetery where the Gein family is buried. Ed Gein was placed between his older brother and mother and due to his tombstone being vandalized and even stolen on 3 ocassions, it is no longer placed there. This is also spot for many of Ed's visits to exhume bodies that he would then use to make his many furnishings in his home. One of the bodies he stole was only one row in front of him. Bernice, his last victim, is also buried at this cemetery only about 20 feet away.












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These are the photo's taken of Ed Gein's property. The home was burned to the ground by the locals in 1958 after he was convicted of the crimes and sent to the mental institution. When he was told about it, he shrugged and said, "Just as well." Now the property is vacant.





*Ed Gein, The Musical:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mt9dFlDiC6k&feature=player_embedded#!

Here is a link to a biography on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrqzkd_0sEI

*Side note* You can see many photos on Life Magazine's website from the Ed Gein case and trial as well as his home and locals who knew him. Most of the original photos are available for purchase. Here is the link:
http://www.life.com/gallery/39992/inside-a-serial-killers-house#index/22

The Slithery dee... did not eat me

Sorry for the delay in my updates boils and ghouls. I can assure you that there have been many spooky adventures and twisted tales I have uncovered this summer! I am currently writing journal entry's for all of them, including a special entry, long overdue, about my phantom stranger and I's Halloween wedding last year.

I have taken a trip back in time to visit the St. Valentines Day Massacre as well as the legendary Mob boss Al Capone. Shortly fallowed with a journey to the very haunted and historical Grand Jerome Hotel in the most haunted town in the US, Jerome Arizona. Later I went to see America's most bizarre murder and the man who inspired such chilling horror classics such as Alfred Hitchock's Psycho and Tobe Hopper's Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Ed Gein. I also stopped by a local haunted park here in Milwaukee that many do not know of its dark history, Lake Park. Feeling hungry, I stopped at a very haunted local restaurant called Heaven City to dine amongst the dead mobsters and Indians that enjoy making themselves still known to the living. I look forward to sharing all these scary tales with you very soon in the hopes to keep you up at night in fear of the supernatural and mad men that lurk outside your bedroom door!

I am pleased to announce that I will be apart of Haunted Wisconsin.com this year again, and look forward to attending many local haunts that I will review for you so that you can be sure to chose the best haunted attraction to visit!
http://www.hauntedwisconsin.com/

Also, outside of local haunts, I will be traveling to Atlanta to visit America's #1 Haunted House, *NETHERWORLD and from there, to Orlando Florida to explore America's #1 Haunted Attraction, *Halloween Horror Nights! I will come back with plenty of pics and spooky stories from each I am sure!

So, stay tuned... there is plenty for me to share with you all.. and it is coming VERY soon!

Yours ghouly,
C.


*Please visit side bar for links

Pioneer Cemetery, Lost and found

There is a lot of history about Pioneer Cemetery and Church located in my home town of New Berlin WI, but the history of this cemetery was only recovered about 6 years ago when a development crew stepped on the property and started to dig in order to build a community of new homes. Upon development, they started to find wooden caskets, small human bones, as well as wood and stone that they could tell was part of some sort of foundation at one point. With a little research, they were able to identify the area as a small, forgotten cemetery and church, officially the first cemetery of New Berlin, called Pioneer Cemetery and second church after Prospect Hill Church.

The cemetery is the resting place of 93 settlers, mostly very young children as well as babies, and prominently German, the first German settlers to arrive in New Berlin. The Cemetery’s first burial was a 13 day old boy who suffered from convulsions on October 10th 1842. This was a very common death of newborns in those days as well as fever. I did notice looking at the death records that most of the newborns had died of this and what I found to be very sad was that one of the stillborn child’s name matched another older gentleman’s name (most likely the father) who died 5 months after of “Unnatural causes followed by depression,” a polite way to say suicide those days.

Here is a link to the full burial records: http://newberlinhistoricalsociety.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=97%3Aburial-record&catid=45%3Acemeterys&Itemid=118

The following information was taken from: German Evangelical Protestant Cemetary and
Pioneer History by Laurie DeMoss and Sue Hemman of the New Berlin Landmark Commission on the New Berlin Historical Society’s website:

The first German church in New Berlin was Lutheran and this cemetery is the only evidence still remaiing. Many of New Berlin's early pioneers were industrious, thrifty German settlers, educated in German and bilingual in English, with the ability to pay in cash for land and stock.
When Frederick William III, ruler of Prussia, issued a decree to unite the Lutherans and the Reformed into one evangelical congregation, the forced Prussian Union caused many Lutherans to immigrate to America to seek freedom of worship. The first group of Protestant Germans arrived from Rhenish-Bavaria in 1840 led by Christian Damm, his wife Margaret (Wagner) Korn Damm and her sons Jacob and Henry Korn, along with Jacob's wife Katherine (Eiler) Korn. Christian Damm's family built a log cabin on the west side of Racine Ave. JacobKorn's family settled at the comer of Racine Ave. and Observatory Rd. Henry Korn's family later settled on Observatory Rd., near Woelfel Rd. In 1841, Henry Luke and Philip Strieder (Streeter) arrived. Henry Luke married Margaret, a daughter of Christian and Margaret Damm and settled along Racine Ave. east of and including the Little Grove School area at Swartz Rd. In 1842 the Kerns arrived from Hesse-Darmstadt and in 1843 the Swartzes and Grasers came from Bavaria and Alsace. George Sittel and his wife Anna arrived in New Berlin from New York in 1851, settling along Coffee Rd. Their headstones are among the very few still left standing in the cemetery.
It was in 1842 that those first Germans gathered in Christian Damm's log house to organize their church congregation led by a Lutheran pastor, the Rev. Friedrich Schmidt of Daldorf, Wuerrtemberg, Germany, who was a circuit-riding preacher. The first burial was that same year - Barbara Luke, 13 days old who died of convulsions. A few years after Pastor Schmidt moved to Michigan in 1844, Pastor Johannes Weinmann of Bemhagen, Wuerrtemberg, Germany was called to minister to the German settlers in New Berlin. It appears that Christian Damm, who had an original land grant along Racine Ave., donated the land for the cemetery and the first frame church that was built in 1848 and dedicated in 1849. In 1852 Christian Damm sold additional land to the congregation for $25. The first child baptized was George Wagner, born April 29,1850, son of Peter and Mary (Sittel) Wagner. The parsonage was erected by 1852 and a parochial school taught by the pastor was established. Johan K. Meidenbauer was the first secretary and historian of the church. Initially he listed 26 contributing families as members. Within three years this list had grown to 42 families.
Subsequent pastors were Pastor Daniel Huber, 1860-1863, Pastor John Zwolanek, 1864-1865 and Pastor Bartelt-1866. Doctrinal differences led to the breakup of the church in the late 1860s. A majority of the congregation wished to leave the Lutherans and form a German Reformed church, echoing the issues that had originally caused the Germans to seek religious freedom in America many years before. The founders of the new church were Jacob Wagner, Daniel Schley, Philip Streeter and Abraham Kem. Initially the new German Reformed group met in the Little Grove School.In 1865 Jacob Korn deeded land to the trustees about a half-mile north of their former church near Racine and Swartz Rd. A brick church was built there in 1865 at a cost of $800. A cemetery was dedicated at the new site and as the old Lutheran church was abandoned after 1867, the original Lutheran cemetery became nearly forgotten, overgrown and neglected.
Pioneer life was difficult and filled with hardships. Disease, illness and accidents were daily occurrences. Of the 93 interments in this cemetery, 65 were infants or children. As was mentioned, the first burial was a baby of Henry and Barbara Luke. Sadly, they buried a second newborn daughter in 1846, a 13 day old son in 1847, an 18 day old son in 1849, an 11 day old son in 1850, a 13 week old daughter in 1851 and a 10 week old son in 1858. Just as sad are the losses of Christoph and Margareth Krainer. They buried a 9 month old son in 1859, then between July 4 and July 14, 1863 they lost a 17 month old, a 6 year old and a 4 year old to throat angina. In 1865 another 13 month old son died. J.K. Meidenbauer and his wife Catherine had only one child. It was stillborn and is listed on the cemetery record, but they chose to bury the infant near a pine tree on their farm. [End]

Information for this history has been gathered from these sources: "German Pioneers of New Berlin" by J.H.A. Lacker; "History of St. John's Oakwood Evangelical Lutheran Church"; "Not as German as You'd Think" by Mary Ella Milham; collection of New Berlin Almanacks; NewBerlin Citizen, 4/87, and Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod records.


I often drive this direction and have past this cemetery many times, though it was kept hidden behind all the tress and growth so I had never seen it. It was not till a few years ago that I noticed that they had stopped the development and the area had been cleared out. With having moved last month very close to this location, I drive by this area even more now, and this time I noticed there was a “historical” sign in that area, so I went to check it out and came across this cemetery and its history.

While I was there I did not experience any strange feelings and nothing out of the ordinary happened thankfully because ghost children terrify me, but when I researched this area further I did come across old photographs of the town on one of the websites;
http://www.stjohnsoakwood.org/site/cpage.asp?cpage_id=180006766&sec_id=180002983

I noticed that in one of them, an old log cabin that now resides at the New Berlin Historical society had been photographed with a young boy standing in front of it. Instantly I got goose bumps because years ago I had seen the apparition of a young boy running around to the other side of that cabin while being at the historical society. Another time, my mom was photographing the old lighthouse that stands near that same cabin and in the photograph, looking through the window was the foggy image of a boys face looking out at us! If you go to the website I have provided with further information regarding the cemetery which is on The New Berlin Historical Society’s website, you will see that cabin on the right hand side at the top of the page, the lighthouse is hidden behind it, but I do plan to post photographs of the historical society in a later blog with info regarding the haunting there.

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These are the images I took while there:








*I have added more links to further information about this location under "Local Haunts" in the sidebar.

Haunted Wisconsin Reviews

Just wanted to update you on the status of my reviews. Thus far I have only gone to 2 haunts and have written a review on both which you can view here:

http://www.hauntedwisconsin.com/events/review_crew/spookshow%20babe/

I will be attending 2 or more haunts every weekend and the reviews are posted that following Wednesday. :)

~Spookshow

Historical & Haunted Kenosha Theatre

It would be September 1st 1927 that The Kenosha Theatre would open its doors to guests for its first vaudeville performance and a silent motion picture set to music by the Mighty Wurlitzer organ. The theatre was built by Universal Studios Chicago for Universal Studios and was commissioned by Carl Laemmle who had a reputation in the 1930’s to have produced some of the most iconic monsters and horror classics of all time with his son Carl Laemmle Jr. Horror films such as Dracula staring Bela Lugosi, Frankenstein staring Boris Karloff, The Mummy, The Invisible Man and Bride of Frankenstein.

The theatre had some memorable headliners such as Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, and Harry James to name a few. It served its community for 36 years before closing in 1963. Since then the theatre has stood a vacant and silent reminder of days gone by. The owner however will tell you about the lingering feeling and some strange occurrences that have happened inside the theatre which lead me to believe that though the theatre has been abandoned for 47 years, past guests have come to revisit a place they once shared a timeless memory at.

After sitting down with Jeff Baas one afternoon to discuss the history of the theatre we had also talked about it possibly being haunted by previous movie goers. He said that though for the most part he has only experienced a few minor things here and there he has been told stories by other people who have worked inside the theatre of possible unexplained phenomenon. He told me about how someone had said that they felt a sudden strong chill once inside the theatre. Another person claimed to have felt a breath on the back of there neck. Some have said they have heard strange noises that they could not clearly describe, and that did not sound like the building structure.


I have gone to the theatre a handful of times myself and I can say that being inside the building alone can feel a bit spooky. Though the fine craftsmanship that went into building this theatre has allowed it to remain in great structural condition after all these years of neglect, a broken roof and leaks have caused a lot of deterioration on the inside. The walls are cracked and the paint is chipping and has faded over the years. An old screen that once showed films, still hangs tattered and spoiled over the years of leaking rain just above the stage. The original chandlers once a beautiful plated gold has completely rusted and hangs from a broken ceiling. The bathrooms still have toilets and sinks, but are defunct. The building overall almost feels as though you have entered the Titanic. A once beautiful and living structure that held many wonderful memories of couples first dates, and anniversaries. Birthdays and Holidays and rumors of possible gangsters of that time catching a flick while passing through the city. Now it stands quiet, cold, forgotten, and left to waste and yet you can feel a definite energy within the theatre.

The first time I went I had experienced a couple strange noises in the upstairs area and a sudden feeling came over me at one point when I started to make my way up to the projector room that I should not. It was not an evil or very aggressive feeling, just a feeling of like I do not belong there or should not be there, like if you walked into the back room of a retail store where you do not belong. The second time I had gone I felt a sense of joy, but mixed with a feeling of being watched which is always a little unnerving. Again, it was not a negative feeling, just the awareness of me being there.

The theatre will be where Jeffery and I get married this year on Halloween and host a reception/costume party with a vampire ball theme. We are very excited to be able to use this historical and haunted building for such a memorable day. We hope that it will breath life back into the theatre once again and keep with it an energy of love and joy like its past patrons.

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Here are some of the photo's I took inside the theatre. I have set these photos up so that you can compare the photos I have taken to the ones taken by Life Magazine in 1938 when it was still a functioning theatre. [The Kenosha Theatre was the second theatre in the United States to play it's first audio film and Life Magazine was there to document the occasion.]























More of Life Magazine's images of The Kenosha Theatre can be found at this link:
http://images.google.com/images?um=1&hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&tbs=isch%3A1&sa=1&q=Kenosha+theatre+source%3Alife&btnG=Search&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=&start=0&biw=1280&bih=588

The Kenosha Theatre official website: http://www.kenoshatheatre.org/

~Crystal

Haunted Wisconsin

I am VERY excited to be apart of Haunted Wisconsin this year as an official member of the Review Crew for all the local haunts. I have been assigned 4 haunts, but I plan to attend A LOT more than that! Anyone who knows me well knows that Haunted Houses have ALWAYS been a huge passion of mine. I have been going to them since I was a young kid and am always excited to see what new scare tactics are added every year and who can outsmart the bravest of souls.

I have been loyal to many haunts in the area for some time, Splatter Haus has always been a personal favorite of mine since I first went in 2004. They are considered the SCARIEST haunted house in the Midwest, and though I will admit that one year they did have me so frightened at one point I ran directly into a wall and had a bloody nose the rest of the way, The Wisconsin Feargrounds is creeping its way to the top of that list. They first opened as The Darkness more than a few years ago and already had a very solid grasp on atmosphere and not using practical scares, but rather getting you when you last expected it. By the time they re-opend as Morgan Manor they had really improved there sets and actors to add to there already great atmosphere and scare tactics. This was undoubtedly put together by a team of people who really had a strong love for putting together a GREAT haunted house! I myself intend to open a haunted attraction of my own in the future and I can only hope that it is as well designed and as frightening as these ghouls have put together! Some other ones that I love to go to every year is the Hartford Haunted Jaycees, The Meadowbrook Haunted Cornfield and Mars Haunted House which is actually truly haunted as well.


Another fun and exciting thing to do around Halloween is go to a pumpkin patch! Now, I probably should NOT admit this, but my fiance and I have been actually stealing pumpkins since we met 10 years ago. It has become a strong tradition of ours to steal as many pumpkins as we can every year and we have even gone as far as to call ourselves the "Pumpkin Thieves" and sport matching skull printed ski masks when we do it. However, we also do buy pumpkins and one of my favorite places to go to buy a pumpkin or two is Basses Pumpkin Fest. They have everything from fresh hot cider, to pumpkin pie, a spooky corn maze and the best thing ever to do is the PUMPKIN BLASTER! Its basically a rocket launcher that launches mini pumpkins! :D


I love to go to all the Halloween stores in the area and decorate the place with old and new finds. I love how every year my fiance and I just keep adding to the already 10 huge boxes of Halloween decor and if we're lucky after Halloween, we will grab what we can at 50% off! One year we walked away with a TON of things including a life size Hannibal Lector & Zombie Bride that I fully intend to have out for our wedding this Halloween.

This Halloween will be extra special since my fiance and I are getting married inside the haunted and abandoned Kenosha Theater and hosting a costume party/reception after. Being such Halloween enthusiast's and just how special this time of the year has always been for us, we could not have imagined having it on any other day! We are putting A LOT of work into the planning and hope to have one hell of an awesome Halloween wedding and Vampire ball!

With only 5 more days till October, and 36 days till Halloween I can not wait to go to all the haunted houses, corn mazes, and pumpkin patches I enjoy. I look forward to frequently stopping into Halloween Express and Spirit store, and I can't wait to have horror movie marathons and carving pumpkins!!!

If you are interested in reading my reviews on local haunted houses, here is a link to Haunted Wisconsin: http://www.hauntedwisconsin.com/

And this is a link directly to my review page: http://www.hauntedwisconsin.com/events/review_crew/spookshow%20babe/

Also, if your interested in seeing the wedding progress, here is a link to our wedsite: www.jefferyandcrystal.blogspot.com

~Spookshow

Milwaukee's Monster: Jeffrey Dahmer

"I couldn’t find any meaning in my life when I was out there. I'm sure as hell not going to find it in here. This is the grand finale of a life poorly spent and the end result is just overwhelmingly depressing … it's just a sick, pathetic, wretched, miserable life story, that's all it is. How it can help anyone, I've no idea."

Milwaukee has a long history of murders, but none are as gruesome or as unforgettable as the 16 murders that happened between 1978 and 1991. America was about to learn of “Milwaukee’s Monster”- Jeffrey Dahmer- the notorious serial killer who’s murders were particularly gruesome, involving rape, torture, dismemberment, necrophilia and cannibalism. Milwaukee would be forever changed by his horrific crimes and the trial would be one of the most followed up stories across America of that time.

"When I was a little kid I was just like anybody else."

Jeffrey Dahmer was born in Milwaukee Wisconsin On May 21st 1960. It is said by Dahmer himself that his interest in the macabre started at a very young age when his father swept the remains of a small animal out from underneath the house. Dahmer would have been the age of 4 at this time and he was thrilled by the sounds they made. His father noticed his excitement over these clacking of animal bones as well he told a reporter in an interview with his son.
Later at the age of 8, Dahmer received a chemistry set which he used to experiment with animals. He would preserve insects in jars and later impaled cats and frogs on sticks.
Then 2 years later a young Dahmer, at the age of 10, started to collect road kill and would bleach the bones of chickens. He then started to decapitate small rodents and learned how to use acid to strip meat off the bones of the dead animals.
He was starting to experiment and find ways to take part in his dark desires. At the age of 14, Dahmer confessed that he began to regularly fantasize about having sex with a corpse and it was also around this time he began to drink more heavily.
At the age of 15 up until he was 18 he would drive around with plastic garbage bags collecting the remains of animals, he would ritualistically then strip the flesh from the bodies and at one point he mounted a dogs head on a stake.

"I was in college that day, thinking about Hicks. I was drinking and in a weepy sort of mood, and I cried about that."

It was on June 18th 1978, shortly after his 18th birthday, that Dahmer committed his first murder. Steven Hicks, 18, was hitchhiking when Dahmer drove by and picked the boy up. He took him back home where the boys got drunk and had sex. After Hicks tried to leave, Dahmer got upset and hit Hicks in the back of the head with a barbell that killed him. He dragged the body underneath the house where he dismembered it with a kitchen knife. The parts were placed in plastic bags and buried behind the house.

A year after the Hicks murder he enrolled in the army and it would be January 12th 1979when the US Army discharged Dahmer. Coincidently, 5 unsolved murders involving mutilation of the victims occurred during Dahmer’s stay there. One year later in January 1982, Jeffrey would move in with his grandmother in West Allis Wisconsin. Another year had passed before he got a job with the Ambrosia Chocolate Co.
At the age of 26 Dahmer was living with his grandmother and had a decent job in Milwaukee. He told his parents that he had been saving his money and planned to find an apartment soon. Everything seemed normal to the outside parties, but inside he was losing his fight against continuing his depraved acts. On September 6th 1986 he would get arrested for masturbating in front of two 12 year old boys on the banks of the Kinnickinnic River on Milwaukee’s east side. He was sentence to only one year probation.

"One thing I know for sure. It was a definite compulsion because I couldn't quit. I tried, but after the Ambassador, I couldn't quit. It would be nice if someone could give the answer on a silver platter as to why I did all this and what caused it, because I can't come up with an answer."

On September 15th 1987 Dahmer would murder his first Milwaukee victim at The Ambassador Hotel, though he claims that he has no memory of doing so. This would be his second murder, Steven Hicks being his first, from what we know however.
Dahmer picked up 25 year old Steven Tourmi at a gay bar called Club 219. This would be one of 4 victims that he would pick up from the Club 219. According to Dahmer, the two of them went to the Ambassador Hotel, got drunk and passed out. The next morning when Dahmer awoke, he said that Tourmi was dead and blood was coming out of is mouth. He claims he can not remember the previous nights events. Later that morning he brought a suitcase and put the corpse in it to then returned to his grandmothers house where he brought it down into the basement and had sex with the corpse, masturbated on it and sliced the flesh off if it. He then proceeded to dismember the remains, put them in plastic bags and throw them away. The remains have never been found.
In January 1988 a 27 year old Dahmer picks up James Doxtator at the Club 219. He invited him back to his grandmothers house where they have sex and he drugs the boy with sleeping pills and strangles him when he is asleep. He then dismembers the corpse with a knife. Brakes the bones with a sludge hammer and threw the remains in the trash.
Another victim would be picked up at Club 219 later that year, Richard Guerrero, 25. He also invited him to his grandmothers house and after sex, he drugs him and strangles him to death. He has sex with the corpse, dismembers it and throws it away.
On September 30th 1988, he approaches a 13 year old boy and offers him $50 to take photos of him. He gives the boy Irish Crème Liqueur laced with crushed tablets of Halcion. The boy did not fall asleep, so he returned home and his family took him to the hospital. The family presses charges on Dahmer and he is arrested at the Ambrosia Chocolate Co. He is charged with exploitation of a child and second degree assault. He is freed on $2500 cash bail and the trial is set to take place in May of 1989.

"I took the knife and the scalp part off and peeled the flesh off the bone and kept the skull and the scalp… If I could have kept him longer, all of him, I would have"

Three months later he picks up a 24 year old black male at another Milwaukee gay club called La Cage, Anthony Sears. Again he offers him money to come back home with him to take some photos. They go back to his grandmothers house where his ritual of sex, drugging and strangulation continues. He has sex with the corpse and dismembers the body. After decapitating the corpse he boiled the head, removed the skin and painted the skull gray. Not wanting to part with the skull the next morning he places it in a brown paper lunch bag and brings it to work with him. He leaves the skull in his locker and frequently takes breaks to go and look at it.
After being found guilty for the 2nd degree assault of the boy back in September, Dahmer writes a letter pleading for leniency and only served 10 months.

"I knew my grandma would be waking up and I still wanted him to stay with me so I strangled him… I brought him up to the bedroom and pretended he was still alive."

After he is released from prison his grandmother does not welcome him back into her home. She does not like the noises that come from the basement, his late night guests and his strange behavior. Dahmer finds an apartment in Milwaukee called The Oxford Apartments on 25th street. His freedom from prison and being out of his grandmothers house fuels his desire immensely and he goes on a killing spree from June 1990, till July 1991, killing 11 men at The Oxford Apartments with only one mishap that could have lead to his conviction in May of 1991, and would have saved 4 men.
His killing started in June of 1990, only a month after he moved into The Oxford Apartments, Edward Smith, 28. Just weeks later, Dahmer meets Raymond Smith at his common hang out, Club 219. He would become his seventh victim and Dahmer keeps his skull.

"I separated the joints, the arm joints, the leg joints, and had to do two boilings. I think I used four boxes of Soilex for each one, put in the upper portion of the body and boiled that for about two hours and then the lower portion for another two hours. The Soilex removes all the flesh, turns it into a jelly like-like substance and it just rinses off. Then I laid the clean bones in a light bleach solution, left them there for a day and spread them out on either newspaper or cloth and let them dry for about a week in the bedroom."

In September Dahmer murders his eighth victim, 24 year old Earnest Miller. This time he keeps the entire skeleton as a souvenir. He also keeps Miller’s Biceps and later eats them. He attempts to drink his blood, but never does again.
In many interviews Dahmer has explained that he wanted to keep apart of his victims with him always, and that by keeping parts of his victims and even eating them he felt he had succeed in doing so.
Later, that same month, he murders and dismembers David Thomas, Dahmer takes photographs while the murder & dismemberment is in progress.
5 months after Thomas he murders 19 year old Curtis Strughter and keeps his skull. He then murders and once again dismembers 19 year old Errol Lindsy and keeps his skull as a souvenir also. He takes the skull with him to work that next day like he had with Anthony Sears, only this time he leaves it there for a week. On May 24th 1991, 4 days after his 31st birthday, he meets Tony Hughs a deaf and mute man outside a club. Routinely he invites Hughs back to his apartment for drinks and pornography. He murders him, dismembers him and keeps the skull.
Shortly after Hughs on May 26th he offers money to 14 year old Konerak Sinthasomphone. He drugs the child as he did almost all his victims and performs oral sex while he is unconscious. The child stumbles naked out of Dahmer’s Apartment bleeding from the anus and is spotted by two girls who call the police. The police investigate, as a calm Dahmer explains that Konerak is his 19 year old lover. The police leave, and Konerak is later murdered and dismembered, his skull another kept souvenir for Dahmer. This will be the closest Dahmer would have been to being found out for his grotesque crimes until his last attempt at another murder in May 1991.

"He was exceptionally affectionate. He was nice to be with."

It only takes less than a week for Dahmer to seek out his next victim, 23 year old Jeremiah Weinberger. Dahmer meets him at La Cage Nightclub and stays the night with Dahmer at his apartment. When Jeremiah requests to leave the next morning an angry Dahmer murders him and places his head in the freezer. It is within this week Dahmer starts to plan another method of disposing of the bodies. He purchases a fifty-seven gallon barrel of hydrochloric acid which he plans to use as a method for disposing of his victims.

"If I'd been thinking rationally I would have stopped. I wasn't thinking rationally because it just increased and increased. It was almost like I wanted to get to a point where it was out of my control and there was no return. I mean, I was very careful for years and years, you know. Very careful, very careful about making sure that nothing incriminating remained, but these last few months, they just went nuts… It just seemed like it went into a frenzy this last month. Everything really came crashing down. The whole thing started falling down around my head… That was the last week I was going to be in that apartment building. I was going to have to move out and find somewhere to put all my possessions. Should I get a chest and put what I wanted to keep in that, and get rid of the rest? Or should I put an end to this, try to stop this and find a better direction for my life? That's what was going through my mind that last week."

On July 19th 1991 Dahmer murders 23 year old Oliver Lacy. He keeps the heart and head in the refrigerator. Joeseph Bradehoft is Dahmer’s last victim. He picks him up on may 24th outside La Cage Nightclub. After he is drugged, Dahmer, murders him and dismembers him. His head is placed in his freezer while the other remains are stuffed in the barrel of acid.

"I think in some way I wanted it to end, even if it meant my own destruction."

Tracy Edwards will be the end of these horrors. Dahmer meets him and they go back to his apartment to have drinks. Dahmer slaps a handcuff around Edwards wrist and the victim quickly escapes. Edwards notifies the police, who visit an angry and resisting Dahmer. Further investigation leads to the frozen organs and the barrel of dissolved human remains. Dahmer is finally arrested.

" … If I was killed in prison. That would be a blessing right now."

Jeffrey Dahmer, now 32, is charged with four counts of homicide as a result of the police search through his apartment. Dahmer admits to the crimes and his bail is set to one million dollars. On September 15th 1992, in court, he is charged and guilty of 15 murders. He is sentenced to 941 days in jail. On November 28th 1994, 34 year old Dahmer is sexually assaulted and murdered in jail while cleaning a restroom by convicted African-American murderer Christopher Scarver.

"I should have gone to college and gone into real estate and got myself an aquarium, that's what I should have done."

-------------------------------------------------------
These are the photos I took:

The apartment building formally known as The Oxford Apartments, which Jeffrey Dahmer brutally took the lives of 11 young men in 1990 and 1991 was razed in 1992 and remains a vacant lot. "I've heard that people still walk across the street to avoid walking next to the lot," Now it is nothing more than a wasteland behind an old chain link fence, the memory will always haunt us however of the horror's that happened here.



Jeffrey Dahmer claimed his first victim in Milwaukee, Steven Tourmi, at the Ambassador Hotel on the night of September 15th, 1987.





Club 219, that once was Jeffrey Dahmer's frequent hang out and where he claimed several of his victims now stands empty and abandoned.



Milwaukee's Nightclub, LaCage was another popular spot of Jeffrey Dahmer and where he claimed some of his last few victims.





For more information on Jeffrey Dahmer, please visit the links in the side bar.

~Crystal

Need something spooky to do tonight? I have just the thing!

Are you getting anxious to do a little ghost hunting? Are you craving the excitement of being afraid and yet intrigued with the possibility of seeing a ghost? Or, do you just need something to do tonight that is a little out of the norm? Well, here is a great story I found a while back about a ghost that haunts Mukwonago's Phantom Lake and as legend has it, if you were to go to Phantom Lake tonight, at half past eleven, you would witness this spirit first hand and the tragedy that happened there about 100 years ago.



The Phantom of Phantom Lake

A long time ago, about 100 years, this country was inhabited by Native Americans. There was a tribe of Winnebagoes living on the shore of Miniwaukan (Water Spirit) Lake. As Spring advanced into Summer, the surrounding country became dry and unyielding. Thus it came about about that a stray band of Sacs that had been starved out of their territory came to camp across the lake from the native tribe.

The Winnebagoes would have nothing to do with the new invaders, except for a young brave named Zicahota (The Squirrel) and a maiden named Iwoso (Pouting Lips) of the latter tribe. Zicahota thought Iwoso was a beautiful girl, but his infatuation was ruffled by a rival, Homaba, a Sac warrior. Zicahota was discouraged and went to the father of the maiden, Chief Matacincala, and avoided the beauty. He told the chief of his wealth and his aspiration for the place of his father, the chief of the Winnebagoes. This won the respect and favor of the sachem. Homaba, meanwhile, shunned the father and wooed the girl. He easily won her love by his tales of adventure in war and hunting.

Iwoso never told anyone of her preference, and Homaba was seldom seen at her wigwam. However, Zicahota was warmly welcomed by his friend, the chief, and was treated well by Iwoso. Suddenly, Homaba mysteriously disappeared.

Some of the wise ones accused the young Winnebago of killing their warrior. After a week of anxious waiting and no sign of Homaba's return, the chief told Zicahota that unless he produced the young Sac within four days, he would be punished. This seemed a hopeless case, but the young brave set out to find his rival. He was gone three days without any luck. On the fourth day, while an old man was telling the people of the Miniwaukan, or Water Spirit who lived in the lake, that claimed for his bride the fairest maiden of the tribes, Zicahota came into camp. He had not found Homaba, but said that the people would see him before the moon was an hour high if they would go to the shore and wait quietly. They remained there the allotted time. When it was almost gone, a canoe suddenly darted out from the dark of the Sac shore and started down the lake.

Zicahota waited in his canoe until the other was almost opposite him. Then, paddling with all his might, the brave intercepted it. By the light of the moon, the watchers on the shore could see two people in the strange canoe. Then they saw Zicahota, with a cry of exultation, leap from his canoe into the other, and with his 'mila,' or hunting knife, grapple with the foremost figure.

A shrill death cry pierced the silence and the two figures fell over the side and disappeared. During this whole terrible scene, the third figure had not moved. The people had hardly realized what an awful sight they had witnessed when a dark form rose from the water and dragged a shrieking girl under the surface. The ripples died away, and all that could be seen was the two empty canoes.

The spellbound watchers gazed in wonderment for a long time and then went back to camp muttering, "The Miniwaukan has received his bride." Those who had been skeptics became believers.

At half past eleven, on the second night of September, of every year, a faint, ghostly light comes over Phantom Lake, and this same tragedy is re-enacted. One may see for himself the fatal duel, hear the splash and witness the disappearance of the rival lovers; see the Miniwaukan claim his bride and hear the shriek of the Princess Iwoso. Then who will not judge that the little lake is not rightly called Nagi, or PHANTOM LAKE.



-Story taken from "True Ghost Stories"[http://ghostsite1.webs.com/phantomlake.htm]


~Crystal