Welcome back to MACABRE: Dark History, where today we descend into the farmhouse from hell and meet the man who didn’t just haunt Wisconsin—he rewired horror forever.

In this episode, we unravel the deeply disturbing life of Ed Gein, the quiet loner from Plainfield, Wisconsin whose crimes blurred the line between reality and nightmare. From a suffocatingly religious upbringing and obsessive attachment to his mother, to grave robbing, body snatching, and the unspeakable creations found inside his home—this is the true story behind the inspiration for some of horror’s most iconic monsters.

We explore what was actually proven, what became exaggerated by the press, and how Gein’s crimes shaped pop culture, influencing everything from slasher films to psychological horror tropes still used today. Along the way, we dig into the investigation, the trial, the mental health questions, and why Gein remains one of the most unsettling figures in American history—despite having a relatively low confirmed body count.

It’s grotesque. It’s grim. It’s deeply uncomfortable.
And it’s another reminder that sometimes the scariest monsters are painfully real.

Listener discretion is very advised.

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SOURCES:

1. Encyclopaedia Britannica – Ed Gein
   https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ed-Gein

2. Wisconsin Historical Society – Edward Gein (1906–1984)
   https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Article/CS2454

3. FBI – Behavioral Science Unit case references (used in criminal profiling education; Gein frequently cited in training materials)

4. Radford University – Serial Killer Information Center: Edward Theodore Gein (PDF)
   https://maamodt.asp.radford.edu/psyc%20405/serial%20killers/gein%2C%20ed.pdf

5. History.com – The Real-Life Psycho: Ed Gein
   https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/july-26/real-life-psycho-ed-gein-dies

6. Biography.com – Ed Gein Biography
   https://www.biography.com/crime/ed-gein

7. Deviant by Harold Schechter
   (One of the most cited and detailed biographies of Gein)

8. CrimeReads – Behind the Masks of Ed Gein
   https://crimereads.com/behind-the-masks-of-ed-gein/

9. A&E – Ed Gein: The Real Story
   https://www.aetv.com/articles/ed-gein

10. Associated Press – Archival reporting on Gein’s arrest, trial, and death (1957–1984)

On this episode, join the Ladies of Macabre for a blast from the past for a hilarious look at the Worst Ways people died during the Baroque Period.

From flaming wigs, to molten medicine, this installment of MACABRE EXHUMED digs up a PATREON exclusive episode for your listening pleasure.

Hold on to your powdered wig and tighten your corsets for this unhinged episode of MACABRE.

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The Ladies of MACABRE have given a lot of thought to what their last meals would be if they were on death row? Join Blaire and Halley as they discuss last meals chosen by some of the most famous serial killers. Who had the biggest meal? Who's was the most expensive? Who refused to eat?

Find out more on this unhinged, EXHUMED Patreon episode.

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Join our exclusive Spotify feed for ad free and early listening. Or join us over on Patreon for even more content, bonus episodes, and after dark shenanigans.

Listener discretion is very advised.

🖤New episodes every Monday.Follow, rate, and review MACABRE: Dark History—and sleep with the lights on.

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On this episode of MACABRE Exhumed, we've dug up an episode of the spooky kind. This episode is all about our beloved first responders who are trained to face chaos, tragedy, and death—but some experiences fall far outside the boundaries of logic and reason. In this episode, we explore chilling accounts of the paranormal from first responders and healthcare workers .

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Join the ladies of MACABRE for this VERY Uncomfortable Patreon episode from season's past. We're digging up one of our favorites for your cringey listening pleasure.

Dating a mortician? What could go possibly go wrong?

Meet a stranger on vacation and hit it off? What could go wrong?

5 star all inclusive resort in Mexico hanging with friends? What could go wrong?

Buckle up, because THIS CAN'T BE HAPPENING.

Jerzy Tabeau was only a teenager when he was imprisoned in Auschwitz. He was not a soldier, not a spy—just a young man swallowed by the machinery of extermination. What he witnessed inside the camp would haunt him for the rest of his life: starvation, brutality, medical experiments, and the systematic murder of thousands.

But Jerzy did something almost impossible.

In 1943, he escaped Auschwitz.

This episode follows Jerzy’s harrowing flight through occupied Poland, his narrow survival outside the camp, and the written report he helped deliver to the world—one of the earliest, most detailed eyewitness accounts of Auschwitz’s horrors. A warning that was almost too horrific to believe… and largely ignored.

This is a story about terror, courage, and the unbearable weight of truth.

Content warning: This episode contains descriptions of concentration camp violence, starvation, and death.

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Sources:

• Polish Major’s Report (Jerzy Tabeau) – Auschwitz eyewitness account
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Major%27s_Report

• Jerzy Tabeau biography & role in early Auschwitz reports
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerzy_Tabeau

• Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial & Museum – Prisoner escapes and resistance
  https://www.auschwitz.org/en/history/prisoners/escapes/

• Auschwitz escape reports and underground resistance
  https://www.auschwitz.org/en/history/resistance/

• Holocaust Research Project – Auschwitz escape testimonies
  http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/holoprelude/auschwitzescape.html

• Jewish Virtual Library – Auschwitz escape attempts
  https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/auschwitz-escapes

This Christmas, Macabre: Dark History steps away from jingling bells and into the shadows of World War II to tell one of the most haunting—and hopeful—stories of the Holocaust.

Before he was the world’s most famous mime, Marcel Marceau was a teenage Jewish boy using silence as a weapon against death. While Nazi forces closed in, Marceau helped smuggle Jewish children to safety, entertaining them into calm, masking fear, and quite literally saving lives without ever speaking a word.

This is a Christmas story not about miracles from above—but about quiet bravery, resistance, and humanity whispered through the power of silence.

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Think Christmas has always been wholesome and holy? Think again.
In A Very Pagan Christmas, we rip the halo off the holiday and dive headfirst into its messier origins — from the boozy chaos of Saturnalia, to bonfires, goat symbolism, and the general “let’s survive winter” vibes of Yule. We even take a detour into the nightmare fuel that is Perchtenlauf — because nothing says seasonal cheer like demon masks and public terror.

We unpack how Christianity quietly rebranded all of this into Christmas, why the joy-killing Puritans literally banned the holiday, and how the Victorian era dragged it back from the dead, added mistletoe, and told us all to behave.

It’s festive. It’s forbidden. It’s historically unhinged — and it’ll make you question everything you were taught about Christmas.

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SOURCES:

🎄 Pagan & Pre-Christian Traditions

Saturnalia

• https://www.britannica.com/topic/Saturnalia-Roman-festival

• https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-rome/saturnalia

• https://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/calendar/saturnalia.html

Yule

• https://www.britannica.com/topic/Yule

• https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/why-winter-solstice-was-feared-by-ancient-cultures

• https://www.history.com/topics/christmas/history-of-christmas

Perchtenlauf

• https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/perchtenlauf

• https://www.britannica.com/topic/Perchta

• https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/perchtenlauf-alpine-winter-festival-180979394/

• https://www.history.com/topics/christmas/history-of-christmas

• https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/holydays/christmas.shtml

• https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/christmas-history-pagan-origins

• https://www.history.com/news/when-christmas-was-banned

• https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/when-christmas-was-banned-boston-180973403/

• https://www.massmoments.org/moment-details/christmas-is-banned-in-boston.html

• https://www.bl.uk/victorian-britain/articles/christmas-in-victorian-britain

• https://www.history.com/topics/christmas/history-of-christmas-trees

• https://www.britannica.com/topic/Christmas/Victorian-revival

• https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/victorians/christmas_01.shtml

In this chaotic Drunken History episode, Halley and Blaire stumble through the electrifying feud between Thomas Edison, the greedy showman who stole ideas as easily as he shocked animals for PR and Nikola Tesla—the eccentric genius with wild experiments and an unsettling devotion to pigeons . Together, we drunkenly unravel their inventions, their pettiness, and how their rivalry changed the course of history forever.

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⚡ Edison vs. Nikola Tesla — Source List

Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World – Jill Jonnes

• https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/59877/empires-of-light-by-jill-jonnes/

• Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age – W. Bernard Carlson
  https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691164543/tesla

• Edison: A Life of Invention – Paul Israel
  https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Edison%3A+A+Life+of+Invention-p-9780471362706

• The Executioner’s Current – Mark Essig
  https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/121694/the-executioners-current-by-mark-essig/

• Tesla: Man Out of Time – Margaret Cheney
  https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Tesla/Margaret-Cheney/9780743215367

• Prodigal Genius: The Life of Nikola Tesla – John J. O’Neill
  https://archive.org/details/prodigalgeniusli00onei

• War of the Currents (Overview)
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_currents

• Edison vs. Tesla – U.S. Department of Energy
  https://www.energy.gov/articles/edison-vs-tesla

• How Edison, Tesla, and Westinghouse Battled to Electrify America – History.com
  https://www.history.com/articles/what-was-the-war-of-the-currents

• Thomas Edison & Nikola Tesla Feud – Biography.com
  https://www.biography.com/inventors/thomas-edison-nikola-tesla-feud

• Edison Papers Project – Rutgers University
  https://edison.rutgers.edu/

Ash fell like snow.
The sky went black at noon.
And an entire city took its final breath… frozen in time.

In this Part 2 MACABRE Feature, The Fall of Pompeii series, "And Gods Turned Their Gaze" , Blaire takes you deep into the last hours of Pompeii—a city that lived fast, loved boldly, and died in an instant under the fury of Mount Vesuvius. Immerse yourself in this tragic tale of humanity and the wrath of nature.

This is one of our most atmospheric features yet—packed with cinematic scoring, immersive sound design, and Blaire’s dark, poetic narration that brings ancient tragedy straight into your headphones.Want More MACABRE? Spotify subscribers get ad free content, early access and exclusive bonus episodes .

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Resources: Vesuvius | Facts, Location, & Eruptions | Britannica

Home - Pompeii Online

Pompeii: Bodies, Mount Vesuvius & Herculaneum | HISTORY

Pompeii: A Snapshot of Ancient Roman Life | History Hit

What Was Life Like in Pompeii Before Mount Vesuvius Erupted Nearly 2,000 Years Ago?

Archaeologists find records of Pompeii survivors that reveal how they rebuilt their lives | PBS News

Timeline: Pompeii

A Guide to the Pompeii Excavations

A minute-by-minute account of the Pompeii eruption, revealed in agonizing detail | Science | AAAS

Pompeii casts: where they are found and what they are

The two letters written by Pliny the Younger describing the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD

Lupanar of Pompeii: Secrets, Erotic Frescoes & Visitor Guide

Gladiatorial games in Pompeii - Pompeii Online

History of archaeological excavations of Pompeii (Italy)