Ed Gein

Ed Gein was an American murderer and grave robber. He committed all these crimes around his hometown in Plainfield, Wisconsin. After the police found all kinds of body parts in his house in 1957, Gein confessed to killing two women-Mary Hogan a tavern owner in 1954, and a Plainfield hardware store owner, Bernice Worden in 1957. He was at unfit to stand trial, but later he was tried in 1968 for the murder of Worden and was sentenced to life imprisonment, where he spent the rest of his life in a mental hospital. The body of Bernice Worden was found in Gein's shed. Her head and the head of Mary Hogan were found inside his house.

When Gein's mother died on December 29, 1954, it was very hard for Gein to get over her death. He boarded up rooms used by his mother which was the upstairs, downstairs parlor, and living room, leaving them all untouched and neat. He became very interested in reading death-cult magazines and adventure stores. I believe that the death of Gein's mother really changed Gein into a whole different type of person. He wasn't like himself. Shorty after his mothers death, Gein decided he wanted a sex change and began to create a "women suit" so he could pretend to be female.

When searching the house authorities found
-Four noses
-Whole human bones and fragments
-Nine masks of human skin
-Bowls made from human skulls
-Ten female heads with the tops sawn off
-Human skin covering several chair seats
-Mary Hogan's head in a paper bag
-Bernice Worden's head in a burlap sack
-Nine vulvas in a shoe box
-Skulls on his bedposts
-A belt made from human female nipples

When questioned for his actions, Gein told investigators that between 1947-1952 he made as many as 40 visits to three local graveyards. He would dig up middle aged women who he thought resembled his mother and took the bodies home, where he tanned their skins to make paraphernalia.

Ed Gein had a lasting impact of western popular culture. Gein's story was adapted into a number of movies Psycho, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Both these movies show some type of Gein's odd behavior.




Case files ed gein: the butcher of plainfield . (2010). Retrieved from http://www.fortunecity.com/roswell/streiber/273/gein_cf.htm

Fisher, Mark. "Ed Gein." 2011. Web. 22 Mar 2011. <http://carpenoctem.tv/killers/gein.html>.

Montaldo, Charles. "Ed Gein." 2011. Web. 22 Mar 2011. <http://crime.about.com/od/murder/p/gein.htm>.