Ed Gein

Ed Gein
"Gein" redirects here. For other uses, see Gein (disambiguation).
Ed Gein

Ed Gein circa 1957
Background information
Birth name Edward Theodore Gein
Also known as The Plainfield Ghoul, The Mad Butcher
Born August 27, 1906(1906-08-27)
La Crosse, Wisconsin
Died July 26, 1984(1984-07-26) (aged 77)
Madison, Wisconsin
Cause of death Respiratory and heart failure
Conviction Guilty
Killings
Number of victims: Two (known)
Country United States
State(s) Wisconsin
Date apprehended November 16, 1957

Edward Theodore "Ed" Gein (play /ˈɡiːn/; August 27, 1906[1] - July 26, 1984) was an American murderer and body snatcher. His crimes, committed around his hometown of Plainfield, Wisconsin, gathered widespread notoriety after authorities discovered Gein had exhumed corpses from local graveyards and fashioned trophies and keepsakes from their bones and skin. After police found body parts in his house in 1957, Gein confessed to killing two women: tavern owner Mary Hogan in 1954 and a Plainfield hardware store owner Bernice Worden in 1957.

Initially found unfit to stand trial, following confinement in a mental health facility he was tried in 1968 for the murder of Worden and sentenced to life imprisonment, which he spent 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. Robert H. Gollmar, the judge in the Gein case, wrote: "Due to prohibitive costs, Gein was tried for only one murder — that of Mrs. Worden."[2] With fewer than three murders attributed to him, Gein does not meet the traditional definition of a serial killer.[3] His case influenced the creation of several fictional serial killers, including Norman Bates from Psycho, Leatherface from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Jame Gumb from The Silence of the Lambs.

Contents

Biography

Childhood

Gein was born in La Crosse, Wisconsin. His parents, George Philip Gein (1873-1940) and Augusta Wilhelmine (Lehrke) Gein (1878-1945), both natives of Wisconsin, had two sons: Henry George Gein (1901-1944), and his younger brother, Edward Theodore Gein. Augusta despised her husband, but the marriage persisted because of the family's religious belief against divorce. Augusta Gein operated a small grocery store and eventually purchased a farm on the outskirts of the small town of Plainfield, Wisconsin, which then became the Gein family's permanent home.[4]

Augusta Gein moved to this location to prevent outsiders from influencing her sons.[4] Edward Gein left the premises only to go to school. Besides school, he spent most of his time doing chores on the farm. Augusta Gein, a fervent Lutheran, preached to her boys the innate immorality of the world, the evil of drinking, and the belief that all women (herself excluded) were prostitutes and instruments of the devil. She reserved time every afternoon to read to them from the Bible, usually selecting graphic verses from the Old Testament dealing with death, murder, and divine retribution.[5]

A shy, effeminate boy, the younger Gein became a target for bullies. Classmates and teachers recalled off-putting mannerisms, such as seemingly random laughter, as if he were laughing at his own personal jokes. To make matters worse, his mother punished him whenever he tried to make friends. Despite his poor social development, he did fairly well in school, particularly in reading.[6]

Gein tried to make his mother happy, but she was rarely pleased with her boys; she often abused them, believing that they were destined to become failures like their father. During their teens and throughout their early adulthood, the boys remained detached from people outside of their farmstead, and so had only each other for company.[4]

Deaths of family members

After George Gein died of a heart attack in 1940, the Gein brothers began working at odd jobs to help with expenses. Both brothers were considered reliable and honest by residents of the community. While both worked as handymen, Ed Gein also frequently babysat for neighbors. He enjoyed babysitting, seeming to relate more easily to children than adults. As he matured, Henry Gein began to reject his mother's view of the world and worried about his brother's attachment to her. He spoke ill of her around his brother, who responded with shock and hurt.[7][8]

On May 16, 1944 his brother Henry decided to burn off a marsh on the property.[9] The burn off escaped control and the local fire department was called to estiguish the fire and protect the family farm from flames. At day's end, with the fire under control, the men returned to their homes when it was discovered that Henry had not come in with the others. A searching party, with lanterns and flashlights, searched the burned over area and in the evening, several hours after the search began, found the dead body of Henry Gein lying face down. [10] Apparently the man had been dead for some time when he was found, and it appeared that death was result of a heart attack, since he had not been burned or otherwise injured. [11]It was later reported, and possibly embellished in the Ed Geine biography, "Deviant" by Harold Schechter that he had bruises on his head.[7][12] The police dismissed the possibility of foul play and the county coroner later officaly listed asphyxiation as the cause of death. Although some investigators suspected that Ed Gein killed his brother, no charges were filed against him.[7][12]

After his brother's death, Gein lived alone with his mother, who died on December 29, 1945, following a series of strokes. Gein was devastated by her death; in the words of author Harold Schechter, he had "lost his only friend and one true love. And he was absolutely alone in the world."[12]

Gein remained on the farm, supporting himself with earnings from odd jobs. He boarded up rooms used by his mother, including the upstairs, downstairs parlor, and living room, leaving them untouched. He lived in a small room next to the kitchen. Gein became interested in reading death-cult magazines and adventure stories.[7]

Arrest

On November 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. A sales slip for a gallon of anti-freeze was the last receipt written by Worden on the morning she disappeared.[13] Upon searching Gein's property, investigators discovered Worden's decapitated body in a shed, hung upside down by ropes at her wrists, with a crossbar at her ankles. The torso was "dressed out" like that of a deer.[14] She had been shot with a .22-caliber rifle, and the mutilations were made after death.

Searching the house, authorities found:[15]

  • Four noses
  • Whole human bones and fragments[16]
  • Nine masks of human skin[17]
  • 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[18]
  • Bernice Worden's head in a burlap sack[19]
  • Nine vulvae in a shoe box[20]
  • A belt made from female human nipples[21]
  • Skulls on his bedposts
  • Organs in the refrigerator
  • A pair of lips on a draw string for a windowshade
  • A lampshade made from the skin from a human face

These artifacts were photographed at the crime lab and then were properly destroyed.[22]

When questioned, Gein told investigators that between 1947 and 1952,[23] he made as many as 40 nocturnal visits to three local graveyards to exhume recently buried bodies while he was in a "daze-like" state. On about 30 of those visits, he said he had come out of the daze while in the cemetery, left the grave in good order, and returned home empty handed.[24] On the other occasions, he dug up the graves of recently buried middle-aged women he thought resembled his mother[25] and took the bodies home, where he tanned their skins to make his paraphernalia. Gein admitted robbing nine graves, leading investigators to their locations. Because authorities were uncertain as to whether the slight Gein was capable of single-handedly digging up a grave in a single evening, they exhumed two of the graves and found them empty, thus corroborating Gein's confession.[26][27]

Shortly after his mother's death, Gein had decided he wanted a sex change and began to create a "woman suit" so he could pretend to be a female.[15] Gein's practice of donning the tanned skins of women was described as an "insane transvestite ritual".[28] Gein denied having sex with the bodies he exhumed, explaining, "They smelled too bad."[28] During interrogation, Gein also admitted to the shooting death of Mary Hogan, a tavern operator missing since 1954.

A 16-year-old youth whose parents were friends of Gein and who attended ball games and movies with him reported that he was aware of the shrunken heads, which Gein had described as relics from the Philippines sent by a cousin who had served in World War II.[29] Upon investigation by the police, these were determined to be human facial skins, carefully peeled from corpses and used as masks by Gein.

Waushara County sheriff Art Schley reportedly physically assaulted Gein during questioning by banging Gein's head and face into a brick wall; as a result, Gein's initial confession was ruled inadmissible.[12] Schley died of a heart attack in December 1968, at age 43, only a month after testifying at Gein's trial. Many who knew him said he was traumatized by the horror of Gein's crime and that this, along with the fear of having to testify (especially about assaulting Gein), led to his death. One of his friends said, "He was a victim of Ed Gein as surely as if he had butchered him."[12].

Trial

On November 21, 1957, Gein was arraigned on one count of first degree murder in Waushara County Court, where he entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity.[30] Found mentally incompetent and thus unfit to stand trial, Gein was sent to the Central State Hospital for the Criminally Insane (now the Dodge Correctional Institution), a maximum-security facility in Waupun, Wisconsin, and later transferred to the Mendota State Hospital in Madison, Wisconsin. In 1968, Gein's doctors determined he was sane enough to stand trial. The trial began on November 14, 1968, lasting one week. He was found guilty of first-degree murder by Judge Robert H. Gollmar, but because he was found to be legally insane, he spent the rest of his life in a mental hospital.[31][32]

Aftermath

Gein's house and property were scheduled to be auctioned March 30, 1958, amid rumors the house was to become a tourist attraction. The house was completely burned March 27. Arson was suspected but the fire was never officially solved.[33] When Gein learned of the incident while in detention, he shrugged and said, "Just as well."[34] Gein's car, which he had used to haul the bodies of his victims, was sold at the public auction for $760 to carnival sideshow operator Bunny Gibbons.[35] Gibbons later charged carnival goers 25¢ admission to see it.[36]

Death

Ed Gein's vandalized grave marker as it appeared in 1999

On July 26, 1984, Gein died of respiratory and heart failure due to cancer at the age of 77 in Stovall Hall at the Mendota Mental Health Institute.[12] His grave site in the Plainfield cemetery was frequently vandalized over the years; souvenir seekers chipped off pieces of his gravestone before the bulk of it was stolen in 2000. The gravestone was recovered in June 2001 near Seattle and is now in a museum in Waushara County.[37]

Popular culture

The story of Ed Gein has had a lasting impact on western popular culture as evidenced by its numerous appearances in movies, music and literature. Gein's story was adapted into a number of movies, including Deranged (1974), In the Light of the Moon (2000) released in the U.S. as Ed Gein (2001), and Ed Gein: The Butcher of Plainfield (2007). Gein served as a model for several book and film characters, most notably such fictional serial killers as Norman Bates (Psycho), Leatherface (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre), and Buffalo Bill (The Silence of the Lambs).[34]

At the time, the news reports of Gein's crimes spawned a subgenre of black humor.[38] Since the 1950s, Gein has frequently been exploited in transgressive art or shock rock, often with no connection to his life or crimes beyond the shock value of his name. Examples of this include the song titled Dead Skin Mask from the band Slayer's album Seasons in the Abyss.[39] Ed Gein: the Musical premiered on January 2, 2010 in Menasha, Wisconsin.[40][41]

References

  1. ^ "Birth Record Details". Wisconsin Historical Society. http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/vitalrecords/index.asp?id=2625292&record_type=b. Retrieved 2009-07-23. 
  2. ^ Robert H. Gollmar, Edward Gein, Pinnacle Books, 1981, page 81.
  3. ^ Reavill, Gil (2007). Aftermath, Inc.: Cleaning Up After CSI Goes Home. Gotham. p. 228. ISBN 9781592402960. "With only two confirmed kills, Ed did not technically qualify as a serial killer (the traditional minimum requirement was three)" 
  4. ^ a b c Bell, Rachael; Marilyn Bardsley. "The Beginning". Crime Library. http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/notorious/gein/begin_2.html. Retrieved 2008-11-23. 
  5. ^ Williams, A ; Head, V ; Prooth, Sebastien C.; Williams, A (2007) Fiendish Killers, Futura
  6. ^ http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/notorious/gein/begin_2.html
  7. ^ a b c d Bell, Rachael; Marilyn Bardsley. "Henry". Crime Library. http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/notorious/gein/2b.html. Retrieved 2008-11-23. 
  8. ^ Schechter, Harold (2003). The Serial Killer Files. Random House. pp. 191. ISBN 0345465660. 
  9. ^ Judge Robert H. Gollmar, Edward Gein, Pinnacle Books, 1981, page 85.
  10. ^ Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune | Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin | Friday, May 19, 1944 | Page 1.
  11. ^ Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune | Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin | Friday, May 19, 1944 | Page 1.
  12. ^ a b c d e f Schechter, Harold (1998). Deviant: The Shocking True Story of Ed Gein, the Original Psycho. New York: Simon and Schuster. pp. 30–31. ISBN 0671025465. 
  13. ^ "Signs of 10 Victims at Farm". Stevens Point Daily Journal. November 18, 1957. p. 1, cols. 7–8. 
  14. ^ Douglas, John E.; Olshaker, Mark (1998). Obsession: The FBI's Legendary Profiler Probes the Psyches of Killers, Rapists, and Stalkers and Their Victims and Tells How to Fight Back. Simon and Schuster. pp. 367–368. ISBN 0-671-01704-7. 
  15. ^ a b Ramsland, Katherine. "A True Necrophile." Crime Library.
  16. ^ Robert H. Gollmar, Edward Gein , Pinnacle Books, 1981, page 192.
  17. ^ Robert H. Gollmar, Edward Gein , Pinnacle Books, 1981, page 19-20.
  18. ^ Robert H. Gollmar, Edward Gein , Pinnacle Books, 1981, page 22.
  19. ^ Robert H. Gollmar, Edward Gein , Pinnacle Books, 1981, page 25.
  20. ^ Robert H. Gollmar, Edward Gein , Pinnacle Books, 1981, page 24.
  21. ^ Robert H. Gollmar, Edward Gein , Pinnacle Books, 1981, page 46.
  22. ^ Robert H. Gollmar, Edward Gein , Pinnacle Books, 1981, page 48.
  23. ^ Schechter 1989, p. 97.
  24. ^ "Gein Also Admits He Killed Mary Hogan; Results of Lie Tests Announced". Stevens Point Daily Journal. November 20, 1957. p. 13, col. 6. 
  25. ^ http://www.fortunecity.com/roswell/streiber/273/gein_cf.htm
  26. ^ "Empty Coffins Discovered in Graves At Plainfield; Appears To Back Up Gein's Story". Stevens Point Daily Journal. November 25, 1957. p. 1, cols. 7–8. 
  27. ^ "DA Convinced Gein Actually Raided Graves". Stevens Point Daily Journal. November 26, 1957. p. 1, col. 3. 
  28. ^ a b Bell, Rachael and Marilyn Bardsley. "Buffalo Bill and Psycho." CrimeLibrary.com.
  29. ^ "Youth Tells of Seeing Gein's Heads". Stevens Point Daily Journal. November 20, 1957. p. 1, col. 6. 
  30. ^ "Gein Pleads Innocent By Reason of Insanity". Stevens Point Daily Journal. November 21, 1957. p. 1, cols. 7–8. 
  31. ^ "Ed Gein Found Guilty of 1957 Murder in Plainfield". Capital Times, Madison, Wisconsin. November 14, 1958. "Ed Gein, the handyman whose home became known as a "house of horrors" 11 years ago, was found guilty today of first degree murder." 
  32. ^ "Wisconsin Killer Gein Ruled Guilty, Insane". Chicago Tribune. November 15, 1968. "Ed Gein, 62, the recluse who horrified the nation in 1957 when the remains of 11 bodies were found on his farm, was ruled today to have been insane when he killed a Plainfield, Wis., woman." 
  33. ^ Judge Robert H. Gollmar, Edward Gein, Pinnacle Books, 3rd Ed, 1989, p. 80.
  34. ^ a b Bell, Rachael; Marilyn Bardsley. "Ed Gein: The Inspiration for Buffalo Bill and Psycho". Crime Library. http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/notorious/gein/bill_1.html. Retrieved 2008-11-23. 
  35. ^ Hintz, Martin (2007). Got Murder?: Shocking True Stories of Wisconsins Notorious Killers. Big Earth Publishing. p. 62. ISBN 1-931-59996-3. 
  36. ^ Reavill, Gil Reavill (2007). Aftermath, Inc.: Cleaning Up After CSI Goes Home. Gotham. p. 228. ISBN 1-592-40296-8. 
  37. ^ Bie, Michael (2007). It Happened in Wisconsin. Guilford, Connecticut: TwoDot. p. 97. ISBN 0-7627-4153-8. OCLC 76820808. 
  38. ^ George W. Arndt, "Appendix A: Gein Humor" in Judge Robert H. Gollmar, Edward Gein (Pinnacle Books, Windsor Publishing, 3rd ed 1989) excerpted from Arndt's original "Horror, Humor and Human Nature" also published abridged as "Community Reactions to a Horrifying event" by Menninger School of Psychiatry; both versions reprinted in several psychology textbooks.
  39. ^ The Slayer song "Dead Skin Mask" features a young girl pleading with Gein to release her; Gein never held a live captive and his victims were middle aged women.
  40. ^ http://www.jsonline.com/entertainment/movies/80482317.html "Ed Gein: The Musical" premieres Saturday in Menasha
  41. ^ http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/article/20091227/GPG0704/912270605/Warren-Gerds-column--%5C-Ed-Gein--The-Musical%5C--includes-local-actors Warren Gerds column: 'Ed Gein, The Musical' includes local actors

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