In this episode of Anatomy of Murder, we delve into the background and crime of Edward Gingerich, the first-ever convicted Amish murderer.

On March 18, 1993, Gingerich had been severely depressed and threatening suicide. That day he entered his kitchen where Katie was working and punched her in the face, knocking her to the ground. He shouted at her, “I am the devil.” Katie yelled to her six-year-old son Dannie and told him to fetch Dan Gingerich, Edward’s brother. When the young boy arrived at his uncle’s house, he said that “Daddy isn’t well.” Knowing of his brother’s illness, Dan raced to Edward and Katie’s home and was met with a gruesome scene.

When he arrived, Edward was on top of Katie and punching her in the face. He stood up and smashed his right foot into her mouth and nose. Dan tried to stop his brother but then fled to the nearest house to seek more help. Meanwhile, Edward put on his work boots and again smashed his wife in the face, crushing her head until her brains began oozing out. He then undressed his wife’s corpse, grabbed a steak knife, and slashed open her stomach. Edward reached inside her and removed her heart, lungs, spleen, liver, kidneys, ovaries, and intestines, then stacked these in a neat pile beside her corpse. He then washed himself in the sink, threw his Bible into the fireplace, and told the children to put on their coats. He told them he was taking them to their grandfather’s home and then returning to burn down the house. Fortunately, for his children’s sake, Edward did not make it that far...

In the case of the first convicted Amish homicide, it is difficult to say if the murder may have been avoided had Edward been given the help he needed. While he had been briefly hospitalized, the reliance on drug-free natural treatment did nothing to help Edward with his inner demons.   A man who often begged his family for help would imagine them as the worst things possible in his hallucinations. Whether religious or not, Edward could be described as possessed, though perhaps not by literal demons, but by the delusions of a deranged mind.

This episode is from The First AMISH Murder | ANATOMY of MURDER #25.

The soundtrack at the end is "The Cold Dark Somewhere" by Dated (Ill-Advised Records).

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