Ed Gein

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Edward Theodore Gein (Template:IPAc-en Template:Respell; August 27, 1906<ref name="birthrecord">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> – July 26, 1984), also known as "the Butcher of Plainfield" or "the Plainfield Ghoul", was an American murderer, suspected serial killer and body snatcher. Gein's crimes, committed around his hometown of Plainfield, Wisconsin, gathered widespread notoriety in 1957 after authorities discovered that he had exhumed corpses from local graveyards and fashioned keepsakes from their bones and skin. He also confessed to killing two women: tavern owner Mary Hogan in 1954, and hardware store owner Bernice Worden in 1957.

Gein was initially found unfit to stand trial and confined to a mental health facility. By 1968 he was judged competent to stand trial; he was found guilty of the murder of Worden,<ref name="guilty"/> but was found legally insane and thus was remanded to a psychiatric institution. Gein died at Mendota Mental Health Institute from respiratory failure resulting from lung cancer on July 26, 1984, aged 77. He is buried next to his family in the Plainfield Cemetery, in a now-unmarked grave.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Early lifeEdit

ChildhoodEdit

Edward Theodore Gein was born in La Crosse, Wisconsin, on August 27, 1906,<ref name="birthrecord"/> the second of two sons to George Philip Gein (1873–1940)<ref name="Schechter2010">Template:Cite book</ref> and Augusta Wilhelmine Gein (née Lehrke; 1878–1945).Template:Sfn Gein had an older brother named Henry.Template:Sfn Augusta, who was fervently religious and nominally Lutheran,<ref name="autogenerated2007">Template:Cite book</ref> frequently preached to her sons about the innate immorality of the world, the evil of drinking and her belief that all women were naturally promiscuous and instruments of the devil. She reserved time every afternoon to read to them from the Bible, usually selecting verses from the Old Testament and the Book of Revelation concerning death, murder and divine retribution.<ref name="autogenerated2007"/> Gein idolized and became obsessed with his mother.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

George Gein worked as a carpenter, tanner and in the city fire department. He also owned a local grocery shop but soon sold the business and left the city with his family to live on a Template:Convert farm in the town of Plainfield, Wisconsin,<ref name=":1">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> which became their permanent residence.<ref name="biography">Template:Cite AV media</ref> Augusta took advantage of the farm's isolation by turning away outsiders who could have influenced her sons.<ref name="biography"/>

File:1930 census Gein.jpg
1930 US Census with Gein (13th name from the top) in Plainfield, Wisconsin.

Gein left the farm only to attend school. Outside of school, he spent most of his time doing chores on the farm. Gein was shy; classmates and teachers remembered him as having strange mannerisms, such as seemingly random laughter, as if he were laughing at his own personal jokes. Augusta punished Gein whenever he tried to make friends, according to family acquaintances. Despite his poor social development, Gein did fairly well in school, particularly in reading.<ref name="biography"/>

Deaths in immediate familyEdit

On April 1, 1940, Gein's father died of heart failure at age 66. Gein and his brother Henry began doing odd jobs around town to help cover living expenses. The brothers were generally considered reliable and honest by the rest of the community. While both worked as handymen, Gein also frequently babysat for neighbors. He enjoyed babysitting, seeming to relate more easily to children than adults. Henry began dating a divorced mother of two and planned to move in with her. He worried about his brother's attachment to their mother and often spoke ill of her around Gein, who responded with shock and hurt.<ref name="biography"/>

On May 16, 1944, Gein was burning away marsh vegetation on the property;Template:Sfn the fire got out of control, drawing the attention of the local fire department. By the end of the day—the fire having been extinguished and the firefighters gone—Gein reported Henry missing. With lanterns and flashlights, a search party searched for 43-year-old Henry, whose dead body was found lying face down.<ref name="Wisconsin Rapids Page 1">Template:Cite news</ref> Apparently, Henry had been dead for some time, and it appeared that the cause of death was heart failure since he had not been burned or injured otherwise.<ref name="Wisconsin Rapids Page 1"/>

It was later reported by biographer Harold Schechter that Henry had bruises on his head.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Police dismissed the possibility of foul play and the county coroner later officially listed asphyxiation as the cause of death.<ref name="biography"/>Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The authorities accepted the accident theory, but no official investigation was conducted and an autopsy was not performed.Template:Sfn Questioning Gein about the death of Bernice Worden in 1957, state investigator Joe Wilimovsky brought up questions about Henry's death.Template:Sfn George Arndt, who studied the case, wrote that, in retrospect, it was "possible and likely" that Henry's death was "the 'Cain and Abel' aspect of this case."Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

With Henry deceased, Ed and Augusta were now alone. Augusta had a paralyzing stroke shortly after Henry's death, and Ed devoted himself to taking care of her. Sometime in 1945, he later recounted, he and his mother visited a man named Smith, who lived nearby, to purchase straw. According to Ed, Augusta witnessed Smith beating a dog. A woman inside the Smith residence came outside and yelled for him to stop, but Smith beat the dog to death. Augusta was extremely upset by this scene; however, what bothered her did not appear to be the brutality toward the dog but, rather, the presence of the woman. Augusta told Ed that the woman was not married to Smith and so had no business being there, and angrily called her "Smith's harlot". She had a second stroke soon after, and her health deteriorated rapidly.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Augusta died on December 29, 1945, at the age of 67. Ed was devastated by her death; in the words of Schechter, he had "lost his only friend and one true love. And he was absolutely alone in the world."Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

WorkEdit

Gein held on to the farm and earned money from odd jobs. He boarded up rooms used by his mother, including the upstairs, downstairs parlor and living room, leaving them untouched. While the rest of the house became increasingly squalid, these rooms remained pristine. Gein lived thereafter in a small room next to the kitchen. Around this time, he became interested in reading pulp magazines and adventure stories, particularly those involving cannibals or Nazi atrocities,<ref name="biography"/> specifically concerning Ilse Koch, who selected tattooed prisoners for death in order to fashion lampshades and other items from their skins.<ref>The Psycho Records, p.2, by Laurence A. Rickels, 2016</ref> Gein received a farm subsidy from the federal government starting in 1951. He occasionally worked for the local municipal road crew and crop-threshing crews in the Plainfield area. Sometime between 1946 and 1956, he also sold an Template:Cvt parcel of land that Henry had owned.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

CrimesEdit

ConfirmedEdit

On the morning of November 16, 1957, 58-year-old Plainfield hardware store owner Bernice Worden disappeared. The hardware store's truck was seen driving out from the rear of the building at around 9:30Template:Nbspa.m. The hardware store saw few customers the entire day; some area residents believed that this was because of deer hunting season.<ref name="Schechter2010"/> Worden's son, Deputy Sheriff Frank Worden, entered the store around 5:00Template:Nbspp.m. to find the cash register open and blood stains on the floor.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite news</ref>

Frank Worden told investigators that on the evening before his mother's disappearance, Gein had been in the store and was expected to return the next morning for a gallon of antifreeze. A sales slip for the antifreeze was the last receipt written by Worden on the morning that she disappeared.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> That evening, Gein was arrested at a West PlainfieldTemplate:Efn grocery store,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and the Waushara County Sheriff's Department searched the Gein farm.<ref name=":0"/>

A sheriff's deputy<ref name=":0"/> discovered Worden's decapitated body in a shed on Gein's property, hung upside down by her legs with a crossbar at her ankles and ropes at her wrists. The torso was "dressed out like a deer".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> She had been shot with a .22-caliber rifle, and the mutilations were made after her death. Searching the house, authorities found:<ref name="necrophile">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

These artifacts were photographed at the state crime laboratory and then "decently disposed of".Template:Sfn When questioned, Gein told investigators that between 1947 and 1952,Template:Sfn he had made as many as forty nocturnal visits to three local graveyards to exhume recently buried bodies while he was in a "daze-like" state. On about thirty of those visits, he said that he came out of the daze while in the cemetery, left the grave in good order and returned home emptyhanded.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> On the other occasions, he dug up the graves of recently buried middle-aged women he thought resembled his mother<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and took the bodies home, where he tanned their skins to make his paraphernalia.Template:Sfn

Gein admitted to stealing from nine graves<ref name="auto">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and led investigators to their locations. Allan Wilimovsky of the state crime laboratory participated in opening three test graves identified by Gein. The caskets were inside wooden boxes; the top boards ran crossways (not lengthwise). The tops of the boxes were about Template:Convert below the surface in sandy soil. Gein had robbed the graves soon after the funerals while the graves were not completed. The test graves were exhumed because authorities were uncertain as to whether the slight Gein was capable of single-handedly digging up a grave during a single evening. They were found as Gein described: one casket was empty; another casket was empty but contained a few bones and Gein's crowbar; <ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>and the final casket saw most of the body missing, yet Gein had returned rings and some body parts.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn Thus, Gein's confession was largely corroborated.<ref name="auto"/><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Soon after his mother's death, Gein began to create a "woman suit" so that "he could become his mother—to literally crawl into her skin."<ref name="necrophile"/> He denied having sex with the bodies he exhumed, explaining: "They smelled too bad."<ref name="psycho">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> During state crime laboratory interrogation, Gein also admitted to shooting 51-year-old Mary Hogan, a tavern owner missing since December 8, 1954, whose head was found in his house, but he later denied memory of details of her death.Template:Sfn

A 16-year-old youth, whose parents were friends of Gein and who attended baseball games and movies with him, reported that Gein kept shrunken heads in his house, which he had described as relics sent by a cousin who had served in the Philippines during World War II.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Upon investigation by the police, these were determined to be human facial skins, carefully peeled from corpses and used by Gein as masks.Template:Sfn

During questioning, Sheriff Art Schley reportedly assaulted Gein by banging his head and face into a brick wall. As a result, Gein's initial confession was ruled inadmissible.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn Schley died of heart failure in 1968 at age 43, before Gein's trial.Template:Sfn Many who knew Schley said he was traumatized by the horror of Gein's crimes and this, along with the fear of having to testify (especially about assaulting Gein), caused his death.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

SuspectedEdit

In addition to the murders of Hogan and Worden, Gein was also considered regarding several other unsolved cases in Wisconsin.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn In November 1957, authorities confronted Gein with a list of missing persons cases that had occurred between the death of his mother and Worden. Their suspicions were further aroused after the discovery of Hogan's remains. However, lie detector tests exonerated Gein of any other murders, and his psychiatrists concluded that his violence was only directed to women who physically resembled his mother.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

  • Georgia Jean Weckler, 8, disappeared near her farm home in Fort Atkinson at approximately 3:30 p.m. on May 1, 1947.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> She was given a lift home from grade school in Jefferson by a neighbor who dropped Weckler off at the lane that led from U.S. Highway 12 to the Weckler farm. Weckler was last seen pausing to open the family mailbox and removing a stack of mail.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Witnesses reported seeing a dark-colored, possibly black, 1936 Ford sedan with a gray plastic spotlight in the vicinity that afternoon; Gein owned a black 1937 Ford.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

  • Evelyn Grace Hartley, 14, went missing while babysitting a 20-month-old girl at the home of La Crosse State College professor Viggo Rasmusen on the evening of October 24, 1953, in La Crosse.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> That evening, her father Richard called the Rasmussen house several times after she failed to check in as planned at 8:30 p.m.; he received no answer.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Concerned, he drove to the Rasmussen house to find the doors were locked, the lights and radio on and items scattered all over the house. The living room furniture had been moved around to different places, as were Evelyn's school books.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Richard found her shoes in different rooms, one shoe upstairs and one downstairs. He also found his daughter's broken glasses upstairs. Richard did not find Evelyn in the house.<ref name=Charley>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> After his arrest, Gein was questioned regarding Evelyn's disappearance, however, he denied involvement in the disappearance and passed two lie detector tests; police found no trace of Evelyn's remains during a search of Gein's property.<ref>Schechter, p. 177.</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

  • Victor Harold Travis, 42, a resident of Adams County, went off to hunt deer in the company of acquaintance Raymond Burgess on November 1, 1952. In the late afternoon, the pair stopped for refreshments at Mac's Bar in Plainfield for several hours. At around 7 p.m., they both left the bar, got into Burgess’ car and drove away. The hunters, along with the car Burgess was driving, were never seen again and no trace of them was ever found. Travis and Burgess had been hunting on the farm next to Gein's despite his objections on the day of their disappearance.<ref name=Sarasota>Template:Cite news</ref>
  • In addition, Gein has also been tentatively linked to the June 1954 disappearance of neighbor James Walsh, 32; Walsh and his wife lived near Gein, who performed chores for her after her husband went missing.<ref name=Sarasota/> Gein was also investigated for potential involvement in the August 1956 disappearance of Irene Keating, 30, who was last seen in Plainfield, and in the attempted abduction of Judy Rodencal, 16, from Auroraville.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

AftermathEdit

TrialEdit

On November 21, 1957, Gein was arraigned on one count of first degree murder in Waushara County Court, where he pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> He was diagnosed with schizophrenia and found mentally incompetent, thus unfit for trial. He was sent to the Central State Hospital for the Criminally Insane (now the Dodge Correctional Institution), a maximum-security facility in Waupun, and later transferred to the Mendota State Hospital in Madison.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

In 1968, doctors determined Gein was "mentally able to confer with counsel and participate in his defense".Template:Sfn The trial began on November 7, 1968,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and lasted one week. A psychiatrist testified that Gein had told him that he did not know whether the killing of Worden was intentional or accidental. Gein had told him that while he examined a gun in Worden's store, the weapon discharged and killed Worden.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> He said he had not aimed the rifle at Worden, and did not remember anything else that happened that morning.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

At the request of the defense, Gein's trial was held without a jury,Template:Sfn with Judge Robert H. Gollmar presiding. Gein was found guilty by Gollmar on November 14.<ref name="guilty"/> A second trial dealt with Gein's sanity;<ref name="guilty"/> after testimony by doctors for the prosecution and defense, Gollmar ruled Gein "not guilty by reason of insanity" and ordered him committed to Central State Hospital for the Criminally Insane.Template:Sfn Gein spent the rest of his life in a mental hospital.<ref name="guilty">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Judge Gollmar wrote, "Due to prohibitive costs, Gein was tried for only one murder—that of Mrs. Worden. He also admitted to killing Mary Hogan."Template:Sfn

Fate of Gein's propertyEdit

Gein's house, the outbuildings and his Template:Cvt property were appraised at $4,700 (Template:Inflation).<ref name=":2">Template:Cite news</ref> His possessions were scheduled to be auctioned on March 30, 1958, amidst rumors that the house and the land it stood on might become a tourist attraction. Early on the morning of March 20, the house was destroyed by fire. A deputy fire marshal reported that a garbage fire had been set Template:Convert from the house by a cleaning crew who was given the task of disposing refuse; that hot coals were recovered from the spot of the bonfire, but that the fire did not spread along the ground from that location to the house.<ref name=":2"/>

Arson was suspected, but the cause of the fire was never officially determined.<ref>Gollmar, Edward Gein, 1989, p. 80.</ref> It is possible that the fire was not considered a matter of urgency to Fire Chief Frank Worden, son of Gein's victim, Bernice Worden.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> When Gein learned of the incident while in detention, he shrugged and said, "Just as well."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Gein's Ford sedan, which he used to haul the bodies of his victims, was sold at public auction for $760 (Template:Inflation) to carnival sideshow operator, Bunny Gibbons.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Gibbons charged carnival-goers 25¢ admission to see it.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

DeathEdit

File:Ed Gein Headstone.jpg
Gein's vandalized grave marker as it appeared in 1999 before thieves stole it.

Gein died at the Mendota Mental Health Institute due to respiratory failure, secondary to lung cancer, on July 26, 1984, at the age of 77.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Over the years, souvenir seekers chipped away pieces from his gravestone, until the stone itself was stolen in 2000. It was recovered in June 2001, near Seattle, Washington, and was placed in storage at the Waushara County Sheriff's Department. Gein is interred between his parents and brother in Plainfield Cemetery; his gravesite now unmarked, but not unknown.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

In popular cultureEdit

Gein's story has had a lasting effect on American popular culture as evidenced by its numerous appearances in film, music and literature. The tale first came to widespread public attention in the fictionalized version presented by Robert Bloch in his 1959 suspense novel, Psycho. In addition to Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 film of Bloch's novel, Psycho,<ref name="PM">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Gein's story was loosely adapted into numerous films, including Deranged (1974),<ref name=PM/> In the Light of the Moon (2000) (released in the United States and Australia as Ed Gein (2001)), Ed Gein: The Butcher of Plainfield (2007), Ed Gein, the Musical (2010), and the Rob Zombie film, House of 1000 Corpses, and its sequel, The Devil's Rejects. Gein served as the inspiration for a myriad of fictional serial killers, most notably, Norman Bates (Psycho), Leatherface (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre),<ref name=PM/> Buffalo Bill (The Silence of the Lambs),<ref name=PM/> Garland Greene (Con Air), and the character of Dr. Oliver Thredson in the TV series American Horror Story: Asylum.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

American filmmaker, Errol Morris, and German filmmaker, Werner Herzog, attempted unsuccessfully to collaborate on a film project about Gein from 1975 to 1976. Morris claimed to have interviewed Gein several times and ended up spending almost a year in Plainfield interviewing dozens of locals. The pair planned secretly to exhume Gein's mother from her grave to test a theory, but never followed through on the scheme, and eventually ended their collaboration. The aborted project was described in a 1989 New Yorker profile of Morris.<ref name="singer1">Template:Cite magazine</ref>

Gein's story inspired American grunge band Tad to write the song "Nipple Belt" for their 1989 album, God's Balls.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Gein also inspired American thrash metal band Slayer to write the song "Dead Skin Mask" for their 1990 album, Seasons in the Abyss.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Additionally, Gein was the inspiration and namesake for the song "Nothing to Gein," by American heavy metal band Mudvayne; released in 2000 on their album, L.D. 50.

The character, Patrick Bateman, in the 1991 novel American Psycho, and its 2000 film adaptation, mistakenly attributes a quote by Edmund Kemper to Gein saying, "You know what Ed Gein said about women? ... He said, 'When I see a pretty girl walking down the street, I think two things. One part of me wants to take her out, talk to her, be real nice and sweet and treat her right ... [the other part wonders] what her head would look like on a stick'."<ref name="nypost">Template:Cite news</ref>

In 2012, German director, Jörg Buttgereit, wrote and directed a stage play about Gein's case titled Kannibale und Liebe, at Theater Dortmund in Germany. The part of Gein was played by actor Uwe Rohbeck.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> According to George W. Arndt, news reports at the time of Gein's crimes spawned a subgenre of black humor called "Geiners."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

In 2022, Gein, portrayed by Shane Kerwin, appears in the first season of Netflix's anthology series Monster as a possible inspiration for serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer's crimes. However, a direct connection between the two is seen as speculation.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In 2024, it was announced that Charlie Hunnam will portray Gein in The Original Monster, the third season of Monster, where Gein will be the primary focus of the season.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In 2023, a multi-part docuseries aired about Gein's life and upbringing titled Psycho: The Lost Tapes of Ed Gein.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

See alsoEdit

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NotesEdit

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ReferencesEdit

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BibliographyEdit

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External linksEdit

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