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After a brief nap, Ed stumbled back into the kitchen. “I
have to go to the wedding,” he yelled. “It’s the only way
I can save my soul.” Katie had heard about all she could take
from Ed and stood firm.
“No,” she shouted back at Ed. “You’re too sick.
You won’t even take your medicine.”
“Because you’re trying to poison me…I have the devil in me
and you’re trying to kill the devil!” Ed screamed.
“We’re trying to help you,” Danny replied.
Realizing he was fighting a losing battle, Ed walked over to his
cot and lay down. Danny had to finish his chores and promised
Katie he would return as soon as they were finished.
As the children played on the floor, Katie stood in front of the
sink and began to wash the dishes. She was startled suddenly
when she turned around and Ed was right there towering over her.
“What’s wrong?” she said. Ed ignored Katie’s question,
took two steps back, and slammed his fist directly into the middle of
her face. Katie was instantly knocked to the floor, and her face
began bleeding profusely. Still conscious, Katie asked, “Why
did you do this?”
“I am the devil!” Ed shrieked.
Ed and Katie’s young daughter, Mary, began crying, and their son,
Danny, stood motionless.
“Danny,” Katie said, “go get Uncle Dan; tell him Daddy is
sick. Hurry!”
Danny quickly ran out the front door, leaving his mother bleeding
on the floor at his father’s feet. Mary and Enos, too scared
to run, were left behind to witness what was still to come.
Danny ran as fast as he could through the snow to his Uncle
Danny’s house. He burst in the front door and gasped, “Daddy
isn’t feeing good.” The boy’s uncle did not even bother to
question the seriousness of the situation. The fact that his
little nephew had run a half-mile through the snow barefoot was enough
to suggest that something was terribly wrong. He quickly ran out
of the house, grabbed a mare from the barn and, riding her bareback style,
was soon galloping down the rode.
When Danny went inside his brother’s house, he was nearly
overwhelmed with terror. Katie was lying stretched out and
motionless on the floor. Ed had her pinned down with his knees, and
was madly pounding her face with his fists.
“What are you doing?” Dan screamed. “Get off of her!”
Ed stood up and coolly replied, “This is what she deserves.”
He then lifted up his right foot and stomped it down on Katie’s
face as hard as he could. Blood splattered all over the room and
Ed only paused momentarily before dropping back down and resuming the
blows to her face. Danny lunged at Ed and knocked him off of
Katie. The two men wrestled on the floor briefly before they
both jumped up. The look on Ed’s face told Danny that he would
be next if he did not get out of the house. Leaving behind the
children, Danny ran out of the house and mounted his mare once again.
He quickly rode her to the closest English farm, just minutes away.
As the English man opened his door, he could tell that Dan was in a
desperate state of shock. “There’s been an accident at my
brother’s,” Dan managed to say. “Can I use your
telephone?” Sensing the seriousness of the situation, the
English man led Dan to his phone. Dan dialed 911, and within
seconds an operator was on the other end of the line.
“What is your emergency?” the operator asked.
“A murder is being occurred…my brother is killing his wife!”
Dan replied.
“Where is the emergency taking place?”
“Rockdale Township, the home of Edward D. Gingerich, an Amish
house next to the sawmill at the Frisbeetown and Sturgis Road
intersection.”
Before ending the call, Dan told the operator that he would meet
the police at the Sturgis and Frisbeetown intersection.
Following his brief scuffle with Danny, Ed pulled on his work
boots, walked back over to Katie, and began crushing his foot down on
her head. His two young children looked on in horror. The right
side of Katie’s face had caved in and her brains began to spill out
onto the floor. After a few minutes, Ed dropped to his knees and
undressed Katie’s body. Once all of her clothes were removed,
he took a steak knife from the kitchen drawer and used it to make a
seven-inch incision in her lower abdomen. Through the incision,
Ed reached his hand up inside Katie’s body cavity, and removed her
lungs, kidneys, stomach, liver, spleen, bladder, uterus and heart.
He stacked all of her organs in a pile next to her body, and stuck the
knife into the top of them. Satisfied with his work, Ed washed
himself up in the sink, threw his Bible into the fireplace, and told
the children to put on their coats on. “I’m taking you to
Granddad’s,” he said, “then I’m coming back to burn down the
house.”
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| Murder weapon (POLICE) |
Following Dan Gingerich’s 911 call, officers of the Pennsylvania
State Police’s Meadville barracks (some 20 minutes away), and
members of the Mill Village Volunteer Fire Department were dispatched.
Paramedics were told to wait at the intersection and not to enter
Ed’s house until the state police arrived.
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