Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Speaker A: Hey, everybody, it's Lacey.
And I'm Lauren, and welcome to another episode of the Llamas podcast.
[00:00:13] Speaker B: And today we're both struggling. I'm just exhausted. And Lacey can, if she wants to tell you what happened to her.
[00:00:20] Speaker A: I fell down the stairs. And, you know, that's really awkward. As a married woman, you know, you grow up here and like, when women are abused and it is domestic violence, aware smoke. And I'm not making light of that at all. I'm a child of domestic violence, but it is awkward. And as a criminal defense attorney, it's something I thought about because, like, I'm like, I felt I legitimately fell down the stairs. I'm in a lot of pain. I broke a bone in my foot.
But as I was, like, sitting there crying and knowing I had to go to urgent care, I was like, oh, my gosh, I'm gonna have to tell my felt on the stairs. And I know this is something women have said when trying to hide their abuse.
[00:00:59] Speaker B: And.
[00:01:00] Speaker A: And so I was, like, really worried about it because I've had a friend who got injured and she was questioned about domestic violence urging here. It truly wasn't. I am glad that they questioned and offer to help women, but it just makes things a little awkward.
[00:01:14] Speaker B: We all know your husband did not push you down the steps or anything like that, so I think we're good. But definitely it is awkward, especially anytime you're injured and knowing the line of work you do that, how people are.
[00:01:27] Speaker A: Going to think, yeah, yeah, I mean, I'll say. The same similar thing happened when my son fell down the stairs. When we first moved into this house, Matt fell completely downstairs, top to bottom. I made it halfway and caught myself, and I immediately called my pediatrician cell phone, freaking out, and she was like, he's okay. You know, it's all right. And show me, like, what to do and when to take him in if I needed to. Thankfully, I didn't. But, you know, that worried me too. And a prosecutor, her son fell down the stairs. She fell with him. And she was worried coming and questioning her because her son broke a bone.
And so it's just things that enter our heads because of our line of work. And it doesn't matter if you're on the defense side or the prosecutor side, just in the criminal, in the criminal law world, it just makes you hyper aware of these things. But, you know, I got there and they're like, what happened? I said, I fell down the stairs. My husband is at work. This is a friend of mine's husband, he is on his way.
Just because I was like, I appreciate everything that people do. I do not that approach because my husband wasn't even home.
And I'm very grateful and proud of my macaboo. My four year old, he was able to find my phone so that way I could call for help from the stairs.
Like for a split second, Lauren, though, I was really worried I was gonna fall all the way down and go unconscious. And I was like, in that split second I was like, the kids can't call for help.
Like my kids, there's no house phone. So I was telling a friend of mine about that. Like, my kids don't know how to call 91 1. Like Mac immediately said, Momm there until daddy gets home from work. Well, it was 2 o'. Clock. Mark gets home from work at like 6.
But he doesn't know those things. But he did know, like I needed his dad. And so I think what I'm gonna do is like, when I'm done with like my cell phone and get a new one, I'm gonna wipe this one clean, not put a passcode on it and teach my kids how to open it and like put certain numbers and faces for like their dad, for me, like their grandmothers and teach them how to call for help. So that way, if anything were to happen, they do it. Because honestly, it's just not something. I mean, I was aware of people doing that before, but I think in this day and age, because we don't have house phones, it's not something we really think too much about. But if I can just in my experience share with any parent, like that's something I plan on doing. So really think about, like, if an emergency happened, what would your kid do to get emergency care?
Because without House, I don't think we are taking those precautions to teach it and giving them avenues to actually reach out for help in those situations.
[00:04:18] Speaker B: Kylie does know how to do that. She knows how to open my phone. She knows how to call 911. It was something our pediatrician actually suggested. And they both know their street address, they both know where they live, and they both know mommy and daddy's real names.
[00:04:35] Speaker A: Because that something at the last appointment to do for Max. So we are now teaching them.
[00:04:44] Speaker B: So they know actually Maddie knows everybody's real name because my dad was being slow getting in the car and she said, chop chop, John.
I think that's something. And it's gonna depend on your child's age, what they're capable of. I will say Kylie is 5. I mean, she's in 5K and so she can do it. Could Maddie open my phone? I don't know. Kylie'. Motivation for learning this was to get on my phone and go to YouTube, though. So, I mean, like, yeah, it's a trade off.
[00:05:14] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:05:15] Speaker B: Yep. Absolutely.
[00:05:16] Speaker A: But, you know, no matter your family dynamic, you know, I definitely would suggest to anybody listening, any kind of parent or anybody with kids definitely have an emergency plan in place because that was. That was pretty scary and I'm really sore and. Yeah. But moving. Moving on. To continue our topic from last week, back to Ed Gein. Do you want to start with the Netflix series and similarities and differences to the True account, or do you want to dig into the competency stuff first?
[00:05:50] Speaker B: I guess real quick we'll talk about the Netflix series because I think that is what inspired us to actually do this, was saying that he was coming back out with more popularity and how much his influence has had.
I will say the Netflix series was awesome. I really enjoyed watching it. It is gruesome. So, like, it does show stuff. So don't watch with your kids in the room. It's gruesome. And if you have a, you know, queasy stomach for bodies being dismembered and decapitated and skin and stuff, it is graphic. But I will say there's a lot in that that is not accurate. And while I know we did it for, you know, kind of trying to get into his mindset and everything and all the possible rumors, but there's a lot of stuff that is not accurate in it. And I just kind of want to point out a few of those because I definitely think, you know, it was a great show, but there was a lot of liberties taken.
And I don't know if that's fair to do to Ed Gein to have taken all these liberties with it. One of the biggest things is Ed Gein only admitted to killing two people in the documentary. They make it seem like he's killed more people. Ed Gein took a polygraph test and passed it, saying he only killed these two people.
[00:07:15] Speaker A: And that's extremely hard to do. I've had several clients take polygraphs. Some the examiner said, your client is telling the truth, but this is why it came back inconclusive. It didn't come back alive and inconclusive. No, because it's so easy for that to happen. So, so hard to pass.
[00:07:30] Speaker B: So that's.
[00:07:30] Speaker A: That's wild.
[00:07:32] Speaker B: He passed it san. He only killed. And the reason he killed these people were because they were similar to his mom, because this was after his mom died, was when he killed the people he killed that we talked about. So in the Netflix documentary, it acts like he killed his brother, that he killed him and then faked the fire.
There was a lot of research into this.
And the brother's actual cause of death was asphyxia or what his lungs, like got in with a bunch of smoke in a legit fire. There were bruises on his body.
But okay, I know this was back in the 40s, so we don't know the same. But as far as the medical examiner at the time, he did not think Ed did it.
He didn't. The cause of death. Maybe Ed did like, hurt him, maybe, but we don't even know that. But he did not kill him. He killed because of smoke, cool inhalation, and his heart going out for that. There also is this story about this girl who really did die during this time period that was a babysitter and she went missing. The Netflix documentary tries to make it like he killed her because she took his job as a babysitter. Ed Gein actually did babysit children. And he actually was very good with children, which has been said in different things. And in the documentary it makes him like he was terrible weird with children. And he wasn't and he did not. The girl that was killed was like 120 miles from where he actually lived. Not saying he couldn't get in a car and drive, but he never admitted to doing it. He said he didn't know her, her body was never found and his stuff. And I guess, like, yes, there is issues because in that day and time, they didn't, you know, have DNA to match up everything. But he said he didn't do it past a polygraph test to it. She wasn't his type. This was before his mom had passed away, I believe.
So I truly don't think he killed this girl. I think it's just sad. Another random girl died at during the time near his similar time frame in a town in Wisconsin, but it was about two hours away. And in that day and time, cars weren't speeding down the interstate going 100 miles an hour.
And one of the other big things the Netflix documentary got wrong. He was not a necrophiliac. He did not have sex with the corpses. He said they smelled really bad. It was really gross. He never did that. But in the documentary it really acts like the reason he was doing it was for sexual reasons, when in all reality he wanted to please his mother. And his whole issue was he was making his mom. He was creating a bodysuit to get his mom because of the voices in his head was his mom. So he was making his mom. So kind of like how he did Inspire Psycho, he kept his mom's body and everything. That's what Ed Gein was trying to do. And so I think that was a big misunderstand. Like, I don't know, I felt like that changed who he was, like made him some sex maniac. And he wasn't. That wasn't why he was getting these bodies. It was for his mom. And his voice is completely different. If you go listen to his voice on a police recording, it is a regular male voice. It's not high pitched.
I will say the guy that played him said he heard additional tapes from him that have never been released to the public.
And that is why he picked that voice. So there could be something out there. And his thought process on how he picked the voice was. It was the voice he was doing about his mom.
So.
And there could be a voice that's different, but to the normal world, he didn't have a childish, high pitched, girly voice.
His voice was just a regular man's voice that you hear on the recordings. And those. There are minutes of those recordings out where you can listen to him. And his relationship with Adeline was very different. And that is one thing. We're never gonna know what actually happened with Adeline, because in the real story, well, in the Netflix special, they make it like him and Adeline had this long love story. And Adeline was very much into gruesome stuff too.
So right after he was arrested, Adeline did come out and say they had a relationship. All the stuff that they were close. He was a really good person. She didn't think he would hurt anybody. Her mom actually said the same stuff, that he was very respectful and all this. Then a few days later, she recanted all of this in real life and said, oh, they just went to the roller rink, like skating and like the, you know, out to eat or something a time or two. They really didn't have a relationship, so I don't really think we'll ever know. She was never heard of after this. She kind of disappeared. Did she change her name? Because in that day and time, it would have been a lot easier to disappear from people. So did she do that? But we don't know. But as far as their relationship goes, it really made it a lot more. She was not at the house dismembering bodies with him, she may have possibly been a girlfriend, but he, I believe. And they really both like to read.
But I think as far as, like, their life, maybe they were a girlfriend, boyfriend. But I don't think she knew about his dark, twisted ways and nor was she a part of it because I think he probably put on a kind of normal front when he wasn't around his mom. And so she probably saw a lot of good sides of him. So there were a lot. It's a really good series. It was great. I haven't watched his other ones. I can't watch the Jeffrey Dahmer one because I don't deal with cannibalism. Ed Gein was not a cannibal. He did not eat the people. He did have mugs and stuff of body parts, but he did not eat people. So I can't watch one on Dahmer because I don't know cannibalism. I do want to go back and watch the one he did on the Menendez brothers, because I haven't watched that. And I am looking forward to Lizzie Borden being done next year.
But if you watched it, tell me your thoughts. Let me know. Were you shocked at some of the stuff he put in there? Did you think he just was trying to get that thrill factor for tv?
[00:13:47] Speaker A: Luke is at the door. I don't know if you can hear him.
[00:13:49] Speaker B: Mommy.
[00:13:50] Speaker A: Mommy.
Luke, go away. I'll be done a minute, okay?
The joys of recording at home.
I wonder if she went away, too, because of public perception and she just didn't want to be a part of that and just was like, leave me out of this.
[00:14:16] Speaker B: I don't think he had anything to do with her disappearance or anything like that, because she was out and alive after he was arrested.
I think just in that day and age, she was associate, which I think in this day and age you'd feel the same way. Like you're associated with somebody that has done heinous, awful things.
Maybe you don't want that notoriety and you see how bad it follows you around. So if you can just disappear.
I mean, because, look, even though it's been 30 years since Monica Linsky and Bill Clinton had an affair, she's just now starting to be able to go out without that being who she is.
So, I mean, I definitely think she probably just disappeared, changed her name, and it wasn't as hard to do back then because people didn't ask for a lot of those. People didn't have birth certificates. They were born in, like, the early 1900s.
[00:15:05] Speaker A: Yeah.
So switching gears to what I wanted to talk about with Ed Gein was the competency part.
So Ed Gein was found not competent, and he was not competent for, like, 10 years. So he did not go to trial for his crimes for about a decade. And then they came back and said he was competent and at that time put him on trial. So in South Carolina, we have what's called the McNaughton hearing and the Blair hearing. So the first one that they do is for competency to find if someone is competent. And then sometimes you can also ask for criminal responsibility. Is someone. Can they be held criminally responsible? Because our statutes, our laws are designed to punish the reasonable person, right? Somebody choosing to do wrong in their right state of mind.
So some people are not going to fit into that category and can't be held criminally responsible. That's when you sometimes seem not guilty by reason of insanity and somebody put into, like, a mental hospital for their crimes instead of jail. But before you even get there, you have to be competent. So what competency means is a person has to understand their case. They have to be able to contribute to their defense. So, for example, if I file a motion to see if my client's competent, when they have that evaluation, they're going to say, what's a prosecutor? You know, who is your lawyer? What is your lawyer's job? What is the prosecutor's job? What is the judge's job? What is a jury?
You know, do you understand the charges against you? Are they felonies or misdemeanors?
So very basic questions. And even if a client doesn't know the right answer, the person asking the questions will tell them what the answer is and then circle back to it to say, hey, I asked you this early to see if they're capable of learning. Because sometimes you may not understand the intricacies of a criminal trial and a criminal process. Right. Because some people have never been through it before, but the examiner wants to make sure that if they are taught what they do, that they understand and comprehend it. So that's what goes on so throughout those questions, essentially.
And Gein would not have been able to understand what all that meant and be able to comprehend it and contribute to his defense, though, with clients that are not competent, you know, for example, I'll say, hey, I, you know, watched a video of Body Cam and this is what happened.
And I've had a client say, go off on a complete tangent, unrelated to what I'm trying to talk about. Like, I'm trying to Talk about the evidence.
And a client will just completely just talk about something unrelated to me, the case, anything. And so it's really hard in those cases to strategize, to go over the evidence, whether it's a strong case or a weak case, because they're just really not comprehending and being able to follow what I'm discussing with them.
So that's when I've seen it come back. Not competent too. It's just you ask them a question.
And I've seen it with judges, too. A judge asking somebody's like, hey, we need to do X, Y and Z. And then they just go off on a tangent. In one case, I was in court watching, and this, this person just went into a tangent about war.
And, you know, the war, it had nothing to do with what we were there. This is criminal court.
And the judge could kind of see that they needed a competency evaluation. So that's what. I don't know the extent of the evaluations back then in Wisconsin. I imagine that we probably have a more complex evaluation today than back then as we have developed our justice system more.
[00:19:08] Speaker B: But essentially, and we know a lot more about mental health. Mental. I mean, at that point, there weren't tests they could do. But I do think it's important to note during this, it doesn't mean it's a get out of jail free card. He was sitting in a mental institution. He was not just out and about, he was being held in a mental institution.
[00:19:27] Speaker A: So there's two things that competency can come back as competency and likely to restore and competency and unlikely to restore. They probably didn't have that back then, I would guess. But essentially, at the end of the evaluation, for example, if a defendant is schizophrenic. Right. Let's take that as an example.
They can come in and out of competency, which means at one point they can be answering questions, medication, but all of a sudden lose, like not understand what's going on and just completely not well. And some of those situations they have deemed, you know, likely to restore. And they try different medications, different treatment plans, redo the evaluation.
But if they feel that they can't be restored, then that's the end.
[00:20:19] Speaker B: Right?
[00:20:20] Speaker A: Like there's no treatment plan we've tried to stuff, or there's nothing we can try.
This person is just not likely to be able to comprehend a criminal trial.
And then you go to the next step of what needs to be done.
But that's what essentially they're saying. By Ed Gein not being competent is that basic understanding, ability to speak to his lawyer and understand the charges and contribute to his defense and talk about things. He would not have been in that state of mind.
And I GUESS they said 10 years later he was. So maybe he was restored, but I find that questionable. I wonder if maybe he truly was still not competent, but at that point they just didn't care and put him on trial anyway.
I wonder about that, but I don't know what he.
[00:21:09] Speaker B: Well, then the jury even found him guilty. But like he was insane. So like they didn't even. Even a jury found. Yes, he did these acts, but he didn't have the, I guess, mens rea. Like the mental thing of it. So he still went back to a mental institution. He never actually went to jail. And all this time he did say in a mental institution where he died of natural causes in 1984.
[00:21:36] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:36] Speaker B: So he wasn't out living life, he was in a mental institution probably on a ton of medics and I don't know in that day and age what all they did, but I imagine they were probably drugged him out and he. They did say though he was. I did go back and find like stuff about him. I tried to look for articles where other like the nurses and that type stuff. And they all said he was a very ideal patient, very respectful. They didn't have any issues with him. He did not get in trouble. So I mean, maybe with medications he didn't hear those voices and help, but he did spend the rest of his life in a mental institution.
[00:22:15] Speaker A: I mean, my law partner was just saying it yesterday. Just. We really have seen dramatic changes in people with medication. Like so dramatic. I mean, I, I can't go into a lot of details because of attorney client privilege, but just it, it can help so much. And you know, I know they shut down all the state hospitals for, for people who are mentally unwell. And I understand why they did it. Right. Because they weren't being cared for. People are treated improperly.
People with down syndrome and intellectual disabilities were put in these places and not loved and cared after. So, like, I get why these facilities shut down, but you can also see the benefit in them if they were.
If they were running like they should have to care for people.
You know, maybe a loved one needs to be there because they can't stay on top of their treatment plan with their mental health because there are parents who, you know, their adult children need help. They can't stay on a treatment plan by themselves. But they're adults and they need somewhere to go. And a lot of times, I don't say a lot of times, but, you know, that's what we see in our homeless community is people who really are mentally ill that just are not on top of their treatment plans and really need a structure system to help them.
So it's unfortunate. I'm glad. It sounds like he might have had a good facility that stayed on top of his medication. He was able to live, I hope, okay, you know, with his medication and everything. But I do wish we had more resources for people that needed that daily medication, treatment and structure today, in today's world once.
[00:23:58] Speaker B: I also like taking this out of serial killers and into my line of work. I do a lot of work with people like for parents getting guardianships and conservatorship for people with disabilities. And one of their biggest fears is when I'm no longer here, who's gonna take care of my child?
Because people with disabilities live a very long lifespan and parents are probably going to pass away before them.
And I mean, there are some great institutions, but that is a fear of a lot of people because we don't have resources. Who is going to take care, especially if they're an only child or their siblings can't handle it. And even I do have clients sometimes that their children are on such a diagnosis they can't live in the home with them anymore because they're a threat. And what's going to happen when this parent isn't here anymore to watch out over this facility to know if they're treating their son or daughter fairly because they're too violent to be in the home with the parent? So that is a big area that I think overall needs help is dealing with people with disabilities, especially people who can have a tendency towards violence. And those type things are people who are pretty much adults but orphans because they can't care for themselves.
[00:25:20] Speaker A: I mean, and edging story also brings up a parent with mental illness. Like we both agree that his mom was very unwell and mentally ill. And you know, it brings up social services and things like that. When someone, you know, what do you do in a case where like, I mean, I. I guess you would take the kids. But if a parent's not mentally well but also unwilling to get treatment, you know, I mean, clearly things were drastically different with Ed Gein. But if you think about in today's time, if something like that, that could very well happen. I'm sure it's happening today.
Parents needing treatment, daily treatment to be able to properly care for their Loved ones and just not, not doing it and refusing treatment. And you know, how does the family court process that. I don't know if a family court can say if you don't get on your. I mean maybe. But you know, I think his story just brings up so many different parts of law. Honestly it does.
[00:26:21] Speaker B: Well also thinking I swear with the overbearing mother who like because of his diagnosis and who he was and this mother and maybe I do think she's mentally ill but maybe she was just flat out crazy and like a religious zealot. And we go look at like the documentary like I don't know if you've watched it. It's on Amazon if you haven't watched it. Shiny happy people. It's the Duggar story.
And you see how intense like these kids went through because of their parents not letting them live life in the real world and secluding them. And then it was different than Ed Gein's obviously. But they're covering up their child being raping their younger children, molesting. I don't know what all happened but all this was covered up and those poor girls went through all this trauma.
I mean it still happens today in different forms but it's just something that.
[00:27:14] Speaker A: Still very much organizing.
And their leader was Warren Jeffs who married 12 year olds. I mean recorded sex audio, you know, from, from a 12 year old. So that cult is still, I mean even though he's in prison and has been for quite some some time and has a life sentence, they simply tease the profit. You can't tell me there's not men doing the same thing he did in that, in that cult. So we do see it. You're right. Like we do see people who are of that reasonable standard just choosing these wrong things.
So I mean we'll probably never know really what state his or which category his mom fell in. But you know, his story just brings up so many different concepts that we could just talk about on tangents all day probably.
So let us know your.
[00:28:07] Speaker B: Yeah, I was just gonna say let us know your thoughts. Do you think he truly is a serial killer? Do you think he was the same as everybody else or do you kind of have this mixed bag of like yes, he was a bad person for what he did, but do you have like a lot of mixed emotions with it because of his upbringing in life? So we'd love to hear your thoughts. And then next week we're going to tell you about just some random paranorma from around the US just to kind of bring in some more spooky stuff.
[00:28:36] Speaker A: Yep. And we're still trying to get a medium for our last episode. So we have a couple leads we're looking into. But if, you know, somebody hit us up and let us know because we'd love to wrap up our spooky series with a medium. So let us know.
[00:28:52] Speaker B: Shaman, spiritual healer, like any of those things?
[00:28:57] Speaker A: Yes, anything.
And we will see you next week.
[00:29:02] Speaker B: Bye.
