Ed Gein
Travis S. Franklin
Upper Iowa University

Ed Gein Edward Theodore Gein born on August 27th, 1906 was an American murderer and a body snatcher. Ed was the son of George and Augusta Gein, born in La Crosse, Wisconsin. His parents had two children, both boys, the older named Henry George Gein and the younger named Edward Theodore Gein. Ed’s parents had a horrible marriage, one where Augusta loathed her husband, but refused to get a divorce because of their family’s strong religious beliefs. Gein’s mother ran a small grocery store and later bought a farm in Plainfield, Wisconsin. Augusta’s reasoning on moving the family to the outskirts of the small town was to prevent outsiders from influencing her children. Augusta had kept her children very sheltered, and Ed was only allowed to leave the farm to go to school. Other than going to school, Ed mostly spent his every waking moment working on the farm doing chores, which kept him from making friends as a child. Even when Ed attempted to try and make friends his mother would punish him for doing so. Ed became very shy and an easy target for bullies. His mother took it upon herself to influence her boys about the wickedness of the world. She had told them that all women, herself not included, were prostitutes and were tools of the devil. Throughout the boys’ childhood, Augusta was convinced that they would grow up to be a failure like their father, and abused them frequently. The brothers only had each other for company during their teens and the beginning of their adulthood. After Gein’s father died of a heart attack in 1940, both boys started to work odd jobs to help their mother with living expenses. The majority of the community believed both brothers to be very reliable and honest. As Ed’s brother Henry got older, he began to worry about how attached Ed was to Augusta. On May 16, 1944, a brush fire burned close to the Gein farm, and the Gein brothers went out to try and extinguish it. Reportedly, the brothers got separated, and as night fell, Ed Gein lost sight of his brother. When the fire was extinguished, he reported to the police that his brother was missing. When a search party was organized, Gein led them directly to his missing brother, who lay face down dead on the ground. The police had concerns about the circumstances under which the body was discovered. The ground on which Henry Gein lay was untouched by fire, and he had bruises on his head. Despite this evidence, the police dismissed the possibility of foul play and the county coroner listed asphyxiation as the cause of death. Although some investigators suspected that Ed Gein killed his brother, no charges were filed against him. After his brother’s passing, Gein lived alone with his mother, who eventually passed away on Dec. 29, 1945, following a series of strokes, at which time Gein had lost his only friend and one true love. Gein remained on the farm, supporting himself with earnings from his odd jobs. He boarded up rooms that had been used by his mother which included: the upstairs, downstairs parlor, and the living room, leaving them untouched. He lived in a small room next to the kitchen. After his mother’s death Ed became increasingly lonely. He spent most of his spare time reading pulp magazines and anatomy books. From his readings Ed learned about the process of shrinking heads, exhuming corpses from graves and the anatomy of the human body. Ed also enjoyed reading the local newspaper. His favorite section was the obituaries. It was from the obituaries that Eddie would learn of the recent deaths of local women. Having never enjoyed the company of the opposite sex, he would quench his lust by visiting graves at night. Although he later swore to police that never had sexual intercourse with the bodies because they smelled to bad, he did take a particular pleasure in peeling their skin from their bodies and wearing it. He was curious to know what it was like to have breasts and a vagina and he often dreamed of being a woman. He became fascinated with women because of the power and hold that they had over men. When people heard about Ed’s experiences nobody had believed them to be true and that they were just a figment of his imagination. No one took his stories seriously until Bernice Worden disappeared years later. In fact, people joked with Ed about his shrunken head stories and Ed would just smile and make references to having them in his room. No one thought he was telling the truth or maybe they just didn’t want to believe them to be true. During the late 1940's and 1950's, Wisconsin police began to notice an alarming increase in missing persons cases including Bernice Worden’s. On Nov. 16, 1957, Plainfield hardware store owner Bernice Worden disappeared, and police had reason to suspect Gein. Worden’s son had told investigators that Gein had been in the store the evening before the disappearance, saying he would return the following morning for a gallon of anti-freeze. The last receipt found before Bernice Worden disappeared was a documented purchase made by an Edward Gein. When Frank Worden returned to his mother’s hardware store, there was said to be a small pool of blood and trail leading out of the store’s back door. Frank who was a local police officer then ordered a search of Gein’s property for Gein had left a large trail of suspicion behind for the authorities to consider him as the murderer. Officials went to Gein’s home and eventually found the body of Bernice Worden who was hanging upside down by her heels in a shed. She had been gutted, like a deer, and decapitated. She was so deformed that when an officer brushed up against her body in the dark, he had thought it was a deer hanging by its legs. When the police found her body on Gein’s property, they also found her head and the head of Mary Hogan inside his home. Mary Hogan had been missing since 1954, and Gein admitted to shooting her during his interrogation. Unfortunately for Mary Hogan’s family, Gein was not actually tried for her murder, only that of Bernice Worden’s according to the judge of Gein’s case, for the reason of “prohibitive costs”. After the shocking discovery of Bernice Worden’s body, police continued to search the outbuilding and forced entry into the main house because it had been locked. Authorities had found body parts of over 57 women total used as decoration, clothing, or simply laying around the house. The police ended up finding Bernice Worden’s head in a “burlap sack” and her intestines “rolled into a man’s suit. After the search ended Ed Gein was soon arrested and held in jail for more than 30 hours, refusing to talk to anyone. It wasn’t until he was confronted with Bernice Worden’s corpse and a slice of apple pie with cheddar cheese that he began to discuss the murders he had committed. He admitted to murdering both Mrs. Worden and Mary Hogan, along with taking bodies from the Plainfield cemetery for over 12 years. On Nov 21, 1957 Gein was accused of first degree murder but entered a plea that he was not guilty by reason of insanity. After further investigation and testing the court found that Ed Gein was unfit to stand trial. Soon after, he was sent to Central State Hospital for the Criminally Insane and was later transferred to the Mendota State Hospital.
After Ed Gein arrived at Mendota State Hospital he went back to court in 1968 when his doctors determined him fit for trial. He was found guilty of first degree murder by Judge Robert H. Gollmar. He was considered to be legally insane and was sentenced to life at the mental institution. On March 30, 1958 his house was auctioned off, eventually burned to the ground by the local community because it was evil and his car that had been used to transport the bodies was sold for $760 to a carnival sideshow owner. On July 25, 1984 Ed Gein died at the age of 77 of heart failure from respiratory distress do to cancer. He spent a total of ten years at the mental hospital and was considered a model prisoner. He was characterized as meek, mild, easy to get along with, and even likable by other prisoners and staff. Today, Ed Gein has a lot of influence on many horror movies, books, and music. Some of the most popular movies based off of his life are “Deranged” (1975), “In the Light of the Moon” (2000), and “Ed Gein: The Butcher of Plainfield” (2007). Some horror film characters inspired by Ed Gein are Norman Bates (Psycho), Leatherface (Texas Chainsaw Massacre), and Jame Gumb (The Silence of The Lambs). Many people when they think of a real serial killer Ed Gein’s name comes up. In my own opinion Ed became who he was from how he was raised. His father was an alcoholic, his mother was abusive and controlling, and his parents relationship was devastating. In some way I feel that Ed Gein could have been a good person and his mental problem wasn’t all his fault. I do believe that a person’s actions can be controlled regardless but having such a horrible childhood didn’t help with his mental instability.
References
EDWARD GEIN. (n.d.). Edward Gein. Retrieved June 25, 2014, from http://murderpedia.org/male.G/g/gein-edward.htm
Ed Gein. (n.d.). Ed Gein. Retrieved June 25, 2014, from http://nothingtogein.weebly.com/
Operandi, Modus. "File Case." Fortune City. Fortune City, n.d. Web. 27 Oct 2010. http://www.fortunecity.com/roswell/streiber/273/gein_cf.htm
Bell, Rachael. "Gein Eddie." TruTv. TruTv, 26 Apr 2010. Web. 27 Oct 2010. http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/notorious