Friday's Dispatch

• There's a movie being released in June- Dead Snow. Basically some Norwegian snowboarders somehow awaken an army of Nazi Zombies.


• A movie could be great if it had zombies or Nazis.


• But, Nazi Zombies?


• Epic.


• My family is in one of those places- haven't had a lot of deaths until fairly recently, the old folks are well, getting older and of the younger ones we haven't had a lot of untimely deaths. Until recently, it was years since the last funeral I attended.


• That has changed and for a while I believe I better keep a fresh suit ready.


• It's interesting to see people at another persons funeral you had no idea we knew in common.


• Two folks mentioned my sister in law who was recently killed in a car wreck.


• Seven years after her heart transplant.


• She was still in her 30s.


• Independently, they had looked at the contacts on their phones at some point and saw her name- yes, there were tears.


• If you lose someone have a video made set to music with pictures from their life and make a bunch of copies to hand out. They are really easy to make and make all the difference in the world. Most computers will be preloaded with software to make them, you won't even have to buy anything. Also, every funeral home these days is set up to play them- if not use a laptop.

Fact Is Often Stranger Than Fiction

Ed Gein was a serial killer in the 1950s who was the model for others, subject of many documentaries, served as the basis for untold numbers of horror movies (Silence Of The Lambs is one), the inspiration for musical group and band member names and was just all around good old fashioned nightmare fuel. As a kid I worked myself into many nights of lost sleep by reading true crime books about him and other American monsters. Here's a list of items found in and around his house the night he was arrested.

Human skulls mounted upon the cornerposts of his bed;
Human skin fashioned into a lampshade and used to upholster chair seats;
Human skullcaps, apparently in use as soup bowls;
A human heart (it is disputed where the heart was found; the deputies' reports all claim that the heart was in a saucepan on the stove, with some crime scene photographers claiming it was in a paper bag);
The head of Mary Hogan, a local tavern owner, found in a paper bag;
A ceiling light pull consisting of human lips;
A "mammary vest" crafted from the skin of a woman's torso;
A belt made from several human nipples, among many other such grisly objects;
Socks made from human flesh. .


The following is an account related to his case I had never heard before today.


"Harold Schechter, an author of several true crime books, wrote a best-selling book about the Gein case called Devian. In this book, Schechter mentions that Plainfield police officer Art Schley physically assaulted Gein during questioning by banging Gein's head and face into a brick wall; because of this, Gein's initial confession was ruled inadmissible. Schley died of a heart attack at the age of 43 shortly before Gein's trial. Many who knew him said he was so traumatized by the horror of Gein's crimes and the fear of having to testify (notably about assaulting Gein) that it led to his early death. One of his friends said, "He was a victim of Ed Gein as surely as if he had butchered him."

Gein died July 26, 1984 in a mental hospital.

Picture and adapted text from Wikipedia