Edward Gingerich
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Edward Gingerich (August 18, 1963 – January 14, 2011) was an Amish man from Rockdale Township, Pennsylvania, who was convicted of manslaughter in the 1993 death of his wife, Katie.[1] He was the first Amish person to be convicted of homicide.[2]
He was said to have been rebellious toward the Amish way of life from an early age, and members of their community were apprehensive of the marriage between Ed and Katie. He spent a lot of time in the wood shop, becoming increasingly interested in the limited machinery the Amish allowed themselves to operate as well as interacting with non-Amish people (known as the English, regardless of ethnicity). The belief was that an unwaveringly faithful woman would be a good influence on the troubled young man and so the marriage went ahead.
After the wedding and the birth of a son, Gingerich became increasingly depressed. Through the wood shop he worked in, he befriended non-Amish man Dave Lindsey who told him that unless he renounced his Amish faith and became a born-again Christian like Lindsey, he would go to Hell.
Gingerich's mental state continued to deteriorate and eventually he began hallucinating and had a psychotic break that scared his Amish community to the point of contacting 911 for help. Gingerich was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and was given medication to ease his symptoms. His medication eased Gingerich's hallucinations but put him in a "zombie" state that he disliked and eventually he stopped taking his doses. His state of mind continued to deteriorate. Lindsey, among other evangelists who visited Gingerich at the wood shop, lectured him about renouncing his faith and led him to believe that he was being confined and almost held captive by his wife, Katie. There are reports that he began to associate her with the devil.