This refers to Ed Gein, one of your heroes. As you wrote a couple of times
when describing him:
his name rhymes with fiend,
not fine.
He was whacked out serial killer and was the person the movie "psycho"
was based on.
-----
From: Hoodoo <hoodoo@spamcop.net>
Newsgroups: alt.obituaries
Subject: Man selling former Gein property says he's received one
offer before eBay yanked his ad off its online auction site
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 01:36:55 -0500
Apr. 10, 2006
Man selling former Gein property says he's received one offer
Associated Press
http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthsuperior/14309338.htm
WAUSAU, Wis. - The man trying to sell the land where Ed Gein -- the
grave robber and murderer whose story inspired the movie "Psycho" -
was arrested said Monday he received one offer before eBay yanked his
ad off its online auction site.
Mike Fisher said the offer was far lower than his $250,000 asking
price. Fisher said eBay pulled his real estate advertisement on
Saturday, five days after it was first listed, calling it a violation
of the site's murder memorabilia policy.
"It was bound to be controversial," Fisher said.
The 40-acre property near Plainfield about 70 miles south of Wausau
once contained Gein's ramshackle home and part of his farm, where Gein
was arrested and body parts and clothing made from human skin were
found in 1957.
Fisher, who inherited the land from his grandfather, listed the
property on eBay on April 4 under the heading, "Ed Gein's Farm ... The
REAL deal!"
Fisher's sales pitch drew the attention of a man leading a national
campaign against sales of serial killer memorabilia. Andy Kahan of
Houston said Fisher was wrong for trying to use a horrible crime and
the notoriety of it to "hook a higher price" for his land.
Kahan said Monday he purposely didn't contact eBay about the ad to see
whether the company was enforcing its policy.
"It finally got pointed out to them," he said. "Obviously, they passed
with flying colors. We applaud eBay for being a consistent watchdog
and not allowing the sale of murderabilia."
In a telephone interview from his home in southern Wisconsin, Fisher
said his eBay ad received more than 10,000 hits before it was pulled.
He refused to disclose details about the lone offer, which he did not
immediately accept.
The property remains for sale, he said. "I have a number of interested
parties. We have yet to exchange information. They want to take a look
at the place, that type of thing."
Fisher said he doesn't plan to list the property with a real estate
company.
"The word is out. If someone is truly interested, they can track me
down," he said. "Public records will show where I am at. As with any
real estate deal, price is always negotiable."
Kahan said he was not surprised Fisher's ad attracted 10,000 hits.
"It's human curiosity. People are always fascinated with the morbid
and the macabre," he said.
Gein was arrested for murder when the headless body of a hardware
store owner was found hanging at his farm home. The woman's body was
dressed out like a deer carcass. Investigators also found parts of
other bodies. They concluded Gein had robbed graves and may have
murdered other people.
Gein, eventually ruled guilty but criminally insane, died in a mental
hospital in 1984 at the age of 77.
Fisher's grandfather, Emden Schey, bid $3,883 for Gein's farm plus
another $775 for the homestead site, outbuildings and 40 acres in
1958. The farmhouse on the property burned down before the auction.
Schey later sold off some of the land, and the 40-acre homestead site
was passed down to Fisher and his brother. Fisher, 40, said he bought
out his brother's interest.
The 40 acres is covered with trees, planted by his grandfather to try
in some way to redeem it from its ugly past, the grandson said. Fisher
and friends have hunted deer on it for more than two decades.
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[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thank you for passing this on to me. I
dunno what it is about the Chicago/Milwaukee/northern Indiana
geography which seems to bring such creatures out of hiding from time
to time. Maybe the atmosphere? From the 1920's onward to the
present, they pop up every decade or so with regularity: Consider
1924, and the two University of Chicago students, Nathan Leopold and
his partner Mr. Loeb. Both brilliant geniuses -- quite literally --
they molested and murdered fourteen year old Bobbie Franks, and
stuffed the boy's nude body in a storm sewer in the far south side
Hegewisch neighborhood, then had the audacity to demand a million
dollar ransom from the boy's grandfather, who was the Vice President
of Sears, Roebuck at the time. They were caught when Mr. Leopold
accidentally left behind a pair of eye-glasses at the crime
scene. Richard Loeb died in Joliet Penitentiary in 1935 as the result
of a homosexual affair with another prisoner in the hoosegow. The
Chicago Daily News (a long, out of business newspaper) reported it the
next day by noting that 'brilliant linquist, honors student at
University of Chicago yesterday made one fatal mistake: he ended his
sentence with a proposition'. Leopold on the other hand, completed his
'life sentence' in 1956 when he was paroled, much to the dismay of the
surviving Franks' family members. You see, both guys had the services
of well known attorney Clarence Darrow who managed to get them spared
from being hung by their necks in the alley on Hubbard Street behind
the old courthouse by assuring the judge that they would never again
see the light of day outside prison. And Loeb didn't, since another
inmate took great umbrage at his suggestions, but Leopold made it out
thirty-plus years later, when most people had long since forgotten
about their naughty activity.
Another University of Chicago student was not so fortunate with his
parole plans: (I'll think of his name in a minute) ... like the
earlier two lads, this fellow had an insatiable urge to rape and
murder and in 1946 one of his (estimated five or six) victims, a child
five years old was kidnapped from her bedroom on North Kenmore Street,
(around Kenmore and Foster Avenue somewhere) and her nude, dismembered
body was found in street sewers up and down Kenmore Avenue a couple
weeks later. Very cooperative, he showed police where he had taken the
child to do her in (a basement in one of the apartment buildings
around Broadway and Lawrence Avenue somewhere.) Police appreciated his
cooperation so much they agreed to give him life without parole. To
insure he kept his part of the bargain -- life without parole -- the
family members of the victim went religiously to his parole hearings
beginning after about 25 years when he became 'eligible' to protest
his possible release. The family members and the original arresting
police officer all kept going to the parole meetings, and kept right
on protesting. Then the little girl's parents died, her older brother
died, the arresting police officer died; and the only person left to
protest parole was her older sister; now a woman in her eighties. And
she said "well the deal he made with Governor Kerner (1940's Illinois
governor) was _life without parole_ and he still is alive." So this
old gentleman, himself now in his eighties but originally a college
freshman in 1946 when the crime was committed remains in prison. An
old, frail man, believe it or not, the _oldest_ (both in terms of age
and in terms of time in prison -- fifty some years) prisoner in the
Illinois system remains incarcerated. The state has more or less
committed to 'when the old lady (victim's sister) finally dies, we
will let you out of prison also; while she remains alive, we do not
intend to hurt her feelings or cause her any more anquish.'
Then there were the Schussler-Peterson murders, a 1954 hideous crime
(three school boys, ages 11, 12 and 13) who were left denuded, their
carcasses scattered on a bright fall Sunday afternoon in October that
year through the Robinson Woods Forest Preserve. It took police _39
years_ to solve those murders; for many years it had been in the 'cold
case files'. There was _no one_ left on the Chicago Police force who
had been employed by police when those dastardly crimes were
committed; no one at all; no DNA, no forensics, they had none of that
stuff; their only 'evidence' were a few faded, curled up poloroid
pictures of the crime scene and some old Chicago Tribune newspaper
clips. The perpetrator who had been a 21-year old stable hand at a
farm in the area (yes, there used to be farms around Chicago!) was
now a 60-year old successful real estate guy from one of the wealthier
suburbs. When the case was solved, in 1993, the Chicago Tribune
headline the next morning proclaimed '39-year old murder cases solved'
and the story told us "now you can see what homophobia can get for you
if you work it well enough". A few newer, less homophobic police
officers had decided to take it on and try to solve it and after four
or five years of effort had managed to do so.
And that merely brings us up to more 'modern times' and the sex
and otherwise kinky crimes of the last half of the twentieth century
from around Chicago, i.e. John Wayne Gacy (now itself a quarter
century ago; he was executed); Larry Eyler, (bodies scattered up and
down the highway between Chicago and Terre Haute, IN) and of course,
the cannibal from Milwaukee, and others. The cycle around Chicago
seems to be every eight to ten, or maybe twenty years one or two come
out of the woodwork. PAT]
Regular Reader (reader@nothur.biz)