Ed was found later that night at a neighbor’s house and promptly arrested, while investigators continued to search his property.
Authorities then found the head of Mary Hogan, a 54-year-old manager of a roadhouse tavern who’d been missing since 1954, in a paper bag. There had been bullet casings, blood stains and signs of a struggle at the tavern the night she disappeared. And, per The Lost Tapes, Ed had joked to fellow townspeople that he had her “down at his place,” but no one suspected he was deadly serious.
In the tapes, from an interview with authorities after he was arrested, Ed confessed to murdering the two women—and to digging up corpses and keeping body parts in his house (though he denied digging up his mother). He said he knew where to find fresh graves by reading death notices in the newspaper.
But he spoke in a roundabout way, noting that he didn’t remember much but, for instance, he “must have used a knife” to cut Bernice.
Asked what he did with women’s private parts that were found stashed in his house, Ed replied, “I wouldn’t enjoy it or anything.”
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