290 - Amish Killer Edward Gingerich

Long before he brutally murdered his wife Katie - crushing her head and disemboweling her on March 18th, 1993 - Ed was really struggling with his mental health. He'd been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia a year earlier. He'd been really sick long before that. He's been battling powerful hallucinations and delusions for over a year. He'd been tormented by visions of things like a giant rabbit. He was convinced the devil was using his wife to keep him from salvation. He thought he could read messages from god by studying his spit. Despite all this, instead of getting proper treatment, he was encouraged to not take his antipsychotic medication. He was told his ills could be prayed away. He was told he was cured by a quack chiropractor who thought he could ease Ed's troubled mind by pulling on his toes and making him drink blackstrap molasses. Seriously. Today's episode is a fascinating, ridiculous, darkly funny at times, so sad in others, cautionary tale to remind us all to take our mental health very seriously.

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