Few murderers have ever impacted American pop-culture as much as Ed Gein, also known
as the Ghoul or Butcher of Plainfield, Wisconsin. While you might not have realized it, Silence
of The Lambs, Psycho, and most obviously, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre are all based
on the horrors that occured on the Gein Family Farm and the interesting relationship Ed had
with his mother. Today we’ll be taking a deep dive into the life of Ed Gein, the crimes
he commited, and the forces in his life that drove him to be the Butcher of Plainfield.
On August 27th, 1906 Edward Theodore Gein was born in Lacrosse County to Parents Augusta
and George Gein, alongside his older brother Henry. George was an alcoholic, much to Augusta’s
chagrin, and that often left him jobless. Despite her hatred for her husband, Augusta’s
strict Lutheran beliefs kept her from divorcing him, instead focusing her energy on her two
boys. The family eventually moved from Lacrosse County to a 155 acre farm in Waushara County,
just outside the town of Plainfield. With the huge amounts of land they now owned, it
became incredibly easy for Augusta to isolate her boys from most of the outside world. Ed
and Henry were only allowed outside the farm for school, however they were not allowed
to make any friends, and if they were caught with friends then the boys would be severely
punished. While at school, Ed was known to randomly start laughing out loud during class,
although most of his peers and teachers simply assumed that he was making himself laugh with
his own personal jokes.
Back on the farm, Augusta began enforcing her religious beliefs onto her sons, reading
them passages from the Bible, especially the more violent passages from the Old Testament.
She also warned them away from women nearly entirely, telling them that all women were
natural born prostitutes. Outside of their mother’s lessons the two boys would do oddball
chores to help keep the farm running while their father found odd jobs around town to
do for money. Once the boys were done with school and entered their teenage years and
their early adulthood they became completely cut off from the outside world while also
facing physical and mental abuse from their mother. In 1940, the boy’s father George
died from heart failure that was induced as a result of his alcoholism at age 66. With
their father no longer earning money in town for the farm, Augusta loosened her iron grip
on Ed and Henry just enough to allow them to go into town for work. Henry picked up
jobs more similar to his father, doing handiwork around town where he eventually met and began
dating a single mother. Ed, on the other hand, took a shine to babysitting, finding that
he could relate more to children than adults. The community viewed both boys as honest and
reliable, and good work wasn’t hard to find for them, leading to a reliable stream of
income to support the farm.
With Henry dating a single mother and spending more and more time outside of the farm, he
began to slowly reject his mother’s ideas and religious views. Despite also spending
time outside of town, Ed showed no signs of rejecting his Mother’s views, and Henry
began to grow worried over his younger brother’s fondness and obsession with Augusta. Henry
would talk poorly about their mother in front of Ed in order to sway his opinions of her,
but as we will soon find out, that effort seems to have backfired.
On May 16th, 1944, Ed and Henry started a brush fire on their farm that quickly got
out of control, spreading into the nearby forest. The two men got separated at some
point, and hours later when the fire was finally extinguished by the local firefighters hours
later, Ed told them that Henry had gone missing and that he had no clue where he might be.
The police got together a search party with lanterns and torches that went searching for
Henry, and after not too long they found him dead face down in the forest. Henry had no
burns on him indicating that it hadn’t been the fire that killed him. Henry had also been
dead for a few hours, and even had bruises on his head indicating that someone likely
bludgeoned him to death. Despite this, the polie ruled out foul play and did no further
investigations or an autopsy. Following this tragic event, Augusta had a stroke and Ed
vowed to care for her every need.
Months passed after Henry’s death without issue, until 1945, when Augusta and Ed went
to buy straw from a man named Smith. While there, they witnessed Smith beat a dog to
death. The entire time there was also an unnamed woman who was begging and pleading with Smith,
trying to convince him to let the dog live. Augusta was infuriated after they witnessed
this, however, not for the reasons you might expect. Augusta wasn’t upset about the brutality
and animal abuse they had been forced to witness, but instead she was furious that there was
a woman on the property who wasn’t married to Smith. Following this, Augusta had another
stroke and her health began to rapidly decline. On December 29th of this same year, Augusta
Gein died at age 67, leaving Ed as the last surviving member of the Gein family, and the
sole resident of the farm.
Ed took his mother’s death incredibly hard, and he even boarded up every room in the house
where she spent time. This consisted of much of the farmhouse, including the upstairs and
the living room. The house quickly fell into disorganization and became incredibly decrepit.
With all of this time to himself, and the lack of an overbearing Mother to keep track
of what he was doing, Ed began reading horror comics and pulp fiction magazines, as well
as medical encyclopedias.
Twelve years later, on November 16th of 1957, Bernice Worden, a local hardware store owner,
went missing. Locals had seen her truck being driven out from behind the store at 9:30 AM
that day, and when the store was closed everyone assumed it must have been because of Deer
Season. After another day of the store being closed, Deputy Sheriff Worden, Bernice’s
son, entered the store for answers, only to find the register left open and blood stains
on the floor. Frank, the deputy sheriff, saw that there was a receipt for antifreeze on
the counter, and he had remembered a conversation he had had with Ed Gein on the day of his
Mother’s disappearance, where Gein had stated that he would be returning to the store later
that night to buy some antifreeze. Gein was later apprehended while finishing dinner at
a local coffee shop. While Gein claimed at the shop that he had nothing to do with it,
the police still brought him to the local jail and locked him in a cell. They then decided
to search the Gein Farmstead for any evidence of what happened to Bernice, but the police
had no idea the living hell they were about to walk into.
Bernice Worden’s body was found hanging in a shed dressed out like a deer, however
she had evidently been killed by a .22 caliber shot to the head. Unfortunately, this would
be the least disturbing find in the Gein Farmhouse. After thoroughly searching the house the police
found a number of bones and bone fragments, as well as an assortment of skulls, with some
of the skulls even being sawed and used as bowls. They also found a waste basket made
of human skin, several chair seat coverings made from skin, a lampshade made of skin,
and a pair of lips on a draw string. There was also a variety of clothes made from people,
which included a corset made from a female torso, a pair of skin leggings, a belt made
from female nipples, and nine carefully and disturbingly crafted face masks made from
real faces. He also had a collection of body parts including a sack with Bernice Worden’s
head, Bernice’s heart in a plastic bag, a shoe box with 9 external vaginas, the genitals
of 15 year girls, some organs in the refrigerator, and some female fingernails. The police also
solved another missing persons case while at the farm when they found the skull and
face mask of local tavern owner Mary Hogan.
Ed confessed to the murder of Mary Hogan, as well as over 40 late night visits to three
different cemeteries between 1947 and 1952. While Gein claimed he normally left empty-handed,
he mentioned that he sometimes took middle aged female corpses who resembled his mother,
and tanned their skin for use in his sick creations. He stole bodies from nine different
graves, and murdered two known women. At first the police didn’t believe that one man could
dig up an entire grave and steal a body in the course of a night, and exhumed one of
the bodies mentioned by Ed, only for the grave to be empty. Ed denied that any necrophilia
ever happened, as the corpses apparently smelled too bad. However, he did create a “woman
suit” that he used to imitate his mother, and pretend to crawl back into her skin. He
would also carefully skin his victim’s faces and turn them into masks which he wore around.
During Ed’s interrogations, Sheriff Art Sly repeatedly slammed Ed’s head against
a brick wall, which rendered Ed’s first confession inadmissible in court. Despite
this, on November 21st, 1957, Ed was charged with one count of first degree murder for
which he pleaded Insanity. After some evaluations it turned out Ed was schizophrenic, and was
sent to Central State Hospital before being transferred to Mendota State Hospital. After
eleven years of treatment Ed was finally deemed stable enough to stand trial. The trial was
held on November 7th of that same year, and Gein claimed that he couldn’t fully remember
whether or not he had actually killed Bernice Worden. He claimed that while checking out
a .22 Caliber rifle that it accidentally went off and shot Bernice, where he then took her
body back to his farm. The trial was held without a jury, and the judge ruled that Gein
was guilty. However, a second trial was then held in regards to Ed’s sanity, where he
was ruled not guilty by reason of insanity. Ed was sent back to Mendota State Hospital,
where he would remain until his death on July 26th, 1984.
The Gein Family Farmhouse was supposed to be auctioned off, and there were even rumors
about it being turned into a twisted tourist attraction, but some mysterious fires led
to the house being burned down. However, his car would be sold to a carnival owner who
would charge customers to get into it, and called it Ed Gein’s Ghoul Car. Despite the
tragic events that surrounded Ed Gein’s crimes, the public was still so intrigued
that they ate up this attraction, as well as the three films that were all based on
Ed, all of which would go on to become amazingly popular. No matter how much we as a society
condemn serial killers, we seem to have some sort of sick obsession with them and many
end up having some sort of impact on our pop culture, especially in America. Nowhere is
this more evident than with Ed Gein, and the horrible shadow he cast across Plainfield,
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