Ed Gein

Ed Gein

Gein, circa 1958
Born Edward Theodore Gein
(1906-08-27)August 27, 1906
La Crosse County, Wisconsin, United States
Died July 26, 1984(1984-07-26) (aged 77)
Madison, Wisconsin, United States
Cause of death Respiratory and heart failure due to cancer
Other names The Butcher of Plainfield[1]
Criminal penalty Served life in the Mendota Mental Health Institute
Conviction(s) Murder
Killings
Victims Bernice Worden and Mary Hogan (officially confirmed)
Country United States
State(s) Wisconsin
Date apprehended
 November 16, 1957

Edward Theodore Gein (/ˈɡiːn/; August 27, 1906[2] – July 26, 1984), also known as The Butcher of Plainfield, was an American murderer and body snatcher. His crimes, committed around his hometown of Plainfield, Wisconsin, gathered widespread notoriety after authorities discovered that Gein had exhumed corpses from local graveyards and fashioned trophies and keepsakes from their bones and skin. Gein confessed to killing two women – tavern owner Mary Hogan on December 8, 1954, and a Plainfield hardware store owner, Bernice Worden, on November 16, 1957. Gein was initially found unfit to stand trial and confined to a mental health facility. In 1968, Gein was found guilty but legally insane of the murder of Worden,[3] and was remanded to psychiatric institutions. He died at Mendota Mental Health Institute of cancer-induced liver and respiratory failure at age 77 on July 26, 1984. He is buried next to his family in the Plainfield Cemetery, in a now-unmarked grave.

Early life

Ed Gein was born in La Crosse County, Wisconsin, USA, on August 27, 1906,[2] the second of two boys of George Philip Gein (1873–1940[4]) and Augusta Wilhelmine (née Lehrke) Gein (1878–1945[5]). Gein had an older brother, Henry George Gein (1901–1944[6]). Augusta despised her husband, an alcoholic who was unable to keep a job; he had worked at various times as a carpenter, tanner, and insurance salesman. George owned a local grocery shop for a few years, but sold the business, and the family left the city to live in isolation on a 155-acre farm in the Town of Plainfield in Waushara County, Wisconsin,[7] which became the Gein family's permanent residence.[8]

Augusta took advantage of the farm's isolation by turning away outsiders who could have influenced her sons.[8] Edward left the farm only to attend school. Outside of school, he spent most of his time doing chores on the farm. Augusta was a fervent Lutheran. She preached to her boys about the innate immorality of the world, the evil of drinking, and the belief that all women were naturally 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 concerning death, murder, and divine retribution.[9]

Edward was shy, and classmates and teachers remembered him as having strange 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.[8]

Deaths in immediate family

On April 1, 1940, Ed's father George died of heart failure caused by his alcoholism; he was 66 years old. Henry and Ed began doing odd jobs around town to help cover living expenses. The brothers were generally considered reliable and honest by residents of the community. While both worked as handymen, Ed also frequently babysat for neighbors. He enjoyed babysitting, seeming to relate more easily to children than adults. Henry began dating a divorced, single mother of two and planned on moving in with her; Henry worried about his brother's attachment to their mother and often spoke ill of her around Ed, who responded with shock and hurt.[8]

On May 16, 1944, Henry and Ed were burning away marsh vegetation on the property;[10] 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 – Ed reported his brother missing. With lanterns and flashlights, a search party searched for Henry, whose dead body was found lying face down.[11] Apparently, he 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.[11] It was later reported, in Harold Schechter's biography of Gein, Deviant, that Henry had bruises on his head.[12][13] The police dismissed the possibility of foul play and the county coroner later officially listed asphyxiation as the cause of death.[8][13] The authorities accepted the accident theory, but no official investigation was conducted and an autopsy was not performed.[14] Some suspected that Ed Gein killed his brother. Questioning Gein about the death of Bernice Worden in 1957, state investigator Joe Wilimovsky brought up questions about Henry's death.[10] Dr. George W. 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".[15]

Gein and his mother were now alone. Augusta had a paralyzing stroke shortly after Henry's death, and Gein devoted himself to taking care of her. Sometime in 1945, Gein later recounted, his mother and he visited a man named Smith, who lived nearby, to purchase straw. According to Gein, Augusta witnessed Smith beating a dog. A woman inside the Smith home came outside and yelled to stop. Smith beat the dog to death. Augusta was extremely upset by this scene. What bothered her did not appear to be the brutality toward the dog, but the presence of the woman. Augusta told Ed that the woman was not married to Smith, so had no business being there. "Smith's harlot", Augusta angrily called her. She had a second stroke soon after, and her health deteriorated rapidly.[16] She died on December 29, 1945, at the age of 67. Ed 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."[13]

Career

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 death-cult magazines and adventure stories, particularly those involving cannibals or Nazi atrocities.[8]

Gein was a handyman and 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 area. Sometime between 1946 and 1956, he also sold an 80-acre parcel of land that his brother Henry had owned.[17]

Crimes

On the morning of November 16, 1957, Plainfield hardware store owner Bernice Worden disappeared. A Plainfield resident reported that the hardware store's truck had been driven out from the rear of the building around 9:30 am. The hardware store was closed the entire day; some area residents believed this was because of deer hunting season. Bernice Worden's son, Deputy Sheriff Frank Worden, entered the store around 5:00 pm to find the store's cash register open and blood stains on the floor.[18] Frank Worden told investigators that Ed Gein had been in the store the evening before his mother's disappearance, and that he would return the next morning for a gallon of antifreeze. A sales slip for a gallon of antifreeze was the last receipt written by Worden on the morning she disappeared.[19] On the evening of the same day, Gein was arrested at a West Plainfield[lower-alpha 1] grocery store,[20] and the Waushara County Sheriff's Department searched the Gein farm.[18] A Waushara County Sheriff's deputy[18] discovered Worden's decapitated body in a shed on Gein's property, hung upside down by ropes at her wrists, with a crossbar at her ankles. The torso was "dressed out like a deer".[21] She had been shot with a .22-caliber rifle, and the mutilations were made after her death.[22]

Searching the house, authorities found:[23]

These artifacts were photographed at the state crime laboratory and then destroyed.[36]

When questioned, Gein told investigators that between 1947 and 1952,[37] 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 came out of the daze while in the cemetery, left the grave in good order, and returned home empty-handed.[38] On the other occasions, he dug up the graves of recently buried middle-aged women he thought resembled his mother[39] and took the bodies home, where he tanned their skins to make his paraphernalia.

Gein admitted to stealing from 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 during a single evening, they exhumed two of the graves and found them empty (one had a crowbar in place of the body), thus apparently corroborating Gein's confession.[40][41] 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 two feet (60 cm) below the surface in sandy soil. Gein had robbed the graves soon after the funerals while the graves were not completed. They were found as Gein described: One casket was empty, one Gein had failed to open when he lost his pry bar, and most of the body was gone from the third, but Gein had returned rings and some body parts.[42]

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".[23] Gein denied having sex with the bodies he exhumed, explaining: "They smelled too bad."[43] During state crime laboratory interrogation, Gein also admitted to the shooting death of Mary Hogan, a tavern owner missing since 1954 whose head was found in his house, but he later denied memory of details of her death.[44]

A 16-year-old youth, whose parents were friends of Gein and who attended ball games and movies with him, reported that Gein kept shrunken heads in his house, which Gein had described as relics from the Philippines, sent by a cousin who had served on the islands during World War II.[45] Upon investigation by the police, these were determined to be human facial skins, carefully peeled from corpses and used by Gein as masks.[46]

Gein was also considered a suspect in several other unsolved cases in Wisconsin, including the 1953 disappearance of Evelyn Hartley, a La Crosse babysitter.[47]

During questioning, Waushara County 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.[13][48] Schley died of heart failure at age 43 in 1968, before Gein's trial.[49] 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. One of his friends said: "He was a victim of Ed Gein as surely as if he had butchered him."[13]

Trial

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.[50] Gein 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, Wisconsin, and later transferred to the Mendota State Hospital in Madison, Wisconsin.[51]

In 1968, doctors determined Gein was "mentally able to confer with counsel and participate in his defense."[52] The trial began on November 7, 1968[53][54][55][56][57] and lasted one week. A psychiatrist testified that Gein had told him that he did not know whether the killing of Bernice Worden was intentional or accidental. Gein had told him that while he examined a gun in Worden's store, the gun went off, killing Worden.[58] Gein testified that after trying to load a bullet into the rifle, it discharged. He said he had not aimed the rifle at Worden, and did not remember anything else that happened that morning.[59]

At the request of the defense, Gein's trial was held without a jury,[60] with Judge Robert H. Gollmar presiding. Gein was found guilty by Gollmar on November 14.[3] A second trial dealt with Gein's sanity;[3] 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.[61] Gein spent the rest of his life in a mental hospital.[3][62] 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."[63]

Aftermath

Gein's house and property were scheduled to be auctioned March 30, 1958, amid rumors the house was to become a tourist attraction. On March 27, the house was destroyed by fire. Arson was suspected, but the cause was never officially determined.[64] When Gein learned of the incident while in detention, he shrugged and said, "Just as well."[65] Gein's car, which he used to haul the bodies of his victims, was sold at public auction for $760 to carnival sideshow operator Bunny Gibbons.[66] Gibbons later charged carnival goers 25¢ admission to see it.[67]

Death

Ed 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.[13] Over the years, souvenir seekers chipped pieces from his gravestone at the Plainfield Cemetery, until the stone itself was stolen in 2000. It was recovered in June 2001, near Seattle, and was placed in storage at the Waushara County Sheriff's Department. The gravesite itself is now unmarked, but not unknown; Gein is interred between his parents and brother in the cemetery.[68]

Documentary

The story of Ed Gein was featured on season one, episode one of the R-rated documentary series Behind The Screams first shown on 26 September 2015, called "A Real Psycho".[69]

The story of Ed Gein 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,[70] Gein's story was loosely adapted into a number of films, including Deranged (1974),[70] In the Light of the Moon (2000) (released in the U.S. and Australia as Ed Gein (2001)), Ed Gein: The Butcher of Plainfield (2007), Hitchcock (2012), and the Rob Zombie films House of 1000 Corpses and its sequel, The Devil's Rejects. Gein served as a model for several book and film characters, most notably such fictional serial killers as Norman Bates (Psycho), Leatherface (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre),[70] Buffalo Bill (The Silence of the Lambs)[70] and the character Dr. Oliver Thredson from American Horror Story: Asylum.[71]

American filmmaker Errol Morris and German filmmaker Werner Herzog attempted unsuccessfully to collaborate on a film project about Gein in 1975–76. Morris 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.[72]

At the time, the news reports of Gein's crimes spawned a subgenre of "black humor".[73] Since the 1950s, Gein has frequently been exploited by transgressive art or "shock rock", often without association with his life or crimes beyond the shock value of his name. Examples of this include the song titled "Dead Skin Mask" (1990) from the Slayer album Seasons in the Abyss, "Nothing To Gein" (2001) from Mudvayne's album L.D. 50, and "Ed Gein" (1992) from The Ziggens' album Rusty Never Sleeps.[74] Ed Gein's atrocities were also satirized in Blind Melon's "Skinned" off the 1995 album Soup which juxtaposed cheery instrumentation with semi-factual representations of Gein's crimes, arguably towards a comedic end.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ West Plainfield was an unincorporated community three miles (5 km) west of the center of Plainfield at 44°12′50″N 89°33′10″W / 44.213931°N 89.552818°W[7] , which has since diminished and disappeared.

References

  1. ↑ Schechter, pp. 100, 116, 164, 221.
  2. 1 2 Vital Records, Pre-1907 Wisconsin. "Birth Index Record: Gien, Edward".
  3. 1 2 3 4 "Ed Gein Found Guilty of 1957 Murder in Plainfield". The Capital Times. Madison, Wisconsin. November 14, 1958. p. 2, col. 4. Ed Gein, the handyman whose home became known as a "house of horrors" 11 years ago, was found guilty today of first degree murder.
  4. ↑ Harold Schechter (2010). Deviant. Simon & Schuster. p. 50. ISBN 978-1-4391-0697-6.
  5. ↑ Schechter, p. 59.
  6. ↑ Schechter, p. 54.
  7. 1 2 LLC., Historic Map Works. "Plainfield Township, Atlas: Waushara County 1924, Wisconsin Historical Map". www.historicmapworks.com. Retrieved 2017-03-03.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Flaster, Alex. (producer) Biography: Ed Gain. 2004. Biography. Los Angeles, California: A&E Television Networks.
  9. ↑ Williams, Anne. Fiendish Killers. London: Futura, 2007.
  10. 1 2 Robert H. Gollmar, Edward Gein, Pinnacle Books, 1981, p. 85.
  11. 1 2 "Rites Today For Man Who Died in Roche-a-Cri Fire". Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune, Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin, May 19, 1944, p. 1, col. 1.
  12. ↑ Bell, Rachael; Marilyn Bardsley. "Henry". Crime Library. Retrieved 2008-11-23.
  13. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Schechter, pp. 30–31.
  14. ↑ Gollmar, p. 86.
  15. ↑ Gollmar, pp. viii–ix.
  16. ↑ "Augusta Gein, the woman who drove a man Psycho | MND: Your Daily Dose of Counter-Theory". Mensnewsdaily.com. Retrieved 2013-09-25.
  17. ↑ Mark, Timothy (2015). The "Ed Gein" Story. p. 22.
  18. 1 2 3 "Widow, 58, Found Slain in Wisconsin". Star Tribune. November 17, 1957. p. 1. Retrieved 2017-03-03 – via Newspapers.com.
  19. ↑ "Signs of 10 Victims at Farm". Stevens Point Daily Journal. November 18, 1957. p. 1, cols. 7–8.
  20. ↑ "Gein Admits Killing Woman, Kileen Reveals". The Oshkosh Northwestern. November 18, 1957. p. 1. Retrieved 2017-03-03 – via Newspapers.com.
  21. ↑ 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.
  22. ↑ "Ed Gein case file". Archived from the original on January 21, 2013.
  23. 1 2 3 4 5 Ramsland, Katherine. "A True Necrophile." Crime Library.
  24. ↑ Gollmar, p. 192. Judge Gollmar relied on the detailed report of state crime lab investigator Allan Wilimovsky who searched the Gein house, inventoried the evidence and interviewed Edward Gein. Gollmar also quotes other contemporary investigators, including Captain Lloyd Schoesphoester (Green Lake Sheriff's Dept.) who assisted the investigation of the Worden murder and search of Gein's home.
  25. 1 2 3 Gollmar, p. 44.
  26. 1 2 Gollmar, p. 20.
  27. 1 2 Gollmar, p. 22.
  28. ↑ Gollmar, pp. 18, 20, 44.
  29. ↑ Gollmar, pp. 18, 20, 22.
  30. ↑ Gollmar, p. 17.
  31. ↑ Gollmar, p. 25.
  32. ↑ Schechter, p. 92.
  33. ↑ Gollmar, p. 24.
  34. ↑ Gollmar, p. 87.
  35. ↑ Gollmar, p. 46.
  36. ↑ Gollmar, p. 48.
  37. ↑ Schechter 1989, p. 97.
  38. ↑ "Gein Also Admits He Killed Mary Hogan; Results of Lie Tests Announced". Stevens Point Daily Journal. November 20, 1957. p. 13, col. 6.
  39. ↑ "Case File – Ed Gein". Archived from the original on October 16, 2011. Retrieved 2014-04-11.
  40. ↑ "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.
  41. ↑ "DA Convinced Gein Actually Raided Graves". Stevens Point Daily Journal. November 26, 1957. p. 1, col. 3.
  42. ↑ Gollmar, pp. 48–50.
  43. ↑ Bell, Rachael and Marilyn Bardsley. "Seriously weird." CrimeLibrary.com.
  44. ↑ Gollmar
  45. ↑ "Youth Tells of Seeing Gein's Heads". Stevens Point Daily Journal. November 20, 1957. p. 1, col. 6.
  46. ↑ Schechter, p. 128.
  47. ↑ Schechter, p. 95, 100, 105, 177.
  48. ↑ Gollmar, pp. 31–34.
  49. ↑ Gollmar, p. 34.
  50. ↑ "Gein Pleads Innocent By Reason of Insanity". Stevens Point Daily Journal. November 21, 1957. p. 1, cols. 7–8.
  51. ↑ Moira Martingale (1993). Cannibal Killers. New York: St. Martin's. Retrieved November 30, 2013.
  52. ↑ Gollmar, p.95.
  53. ↑ "Ed Gein Will Be in Court", Oshkosh Daily Northwestern, Wednesday, November 6, 1968, p. 4, col. 6. "Accused murderer Ed Gein is scheduled to make his first court appearance since last April in Wautoma Thursday, when he appears before Circuit Judge Robert Gollmar of Baraboo.
  54. ↑ "Gein Trial Under Way", Oshkosh Daily Northwestern, November 7, 1968, p. 1, col. 5. "Circuit Judge Robert Gollmar of Baraboo ruled today that the murder trial of Ed Gein of Plainfield will be heard without a jury. ... The first trial witness called by the prosecution this morning was Leon Murty of Wild Rose."
  55. ↑ "Ed Gein Trial Opens Thursday in Wautoma", The Daily Telegram, Eau Claire, Wisconsin, Tuesday November 5, 1968, p. 8B, col. 1. "Ed Gein, charged in the murder and robbery of a Plainfield widow nearly 11 years ago this November, goes to trial Thursday."
  56. ↑ "Gein Trial Set Nov. 7", Wisconsin State Journal, Madison, Wisconsin, October 20, 1968, sec. 1, p. 7, col. 2. "The murder trial of Edward Gein, 62, charged in the 1957 slaying of a Plainfield woman, will begin Nov. 7 before Judge Robert Gollmar."
  57. ↑ Schechter, p. 227. "The trial began on Thursday, November 7, 1968."
  58. ↑ "Psychiatrist Tells Gein Account of Worden Death", Oshkosh Daily Northwestern, November 12, 1968, p. 1, col. 1.
  59. ↑ "Gein Takes Stand, Remembers Little", The Daily Telegram, Eau Claire, Wisconsin, November 13, 1968, p. 1, col. 3.
  60. ↑ Schechter, p. 227.
  61. ↑ Gollmar, p.172
  62. ↑ "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.
  63. ↑ Gollmar, p. 81.
  64. ↑ Gollmar, Edward Gein, Pinnacle Books, 3rd ed., 1989, p. 80.
  65. ↑ Woods, Paul Anthony; Morris, Errol (1995). Ed Gein–Psycho!. St. Martin's Press. p. 90.
  66. ↑ Hintz, Martin (2007). Got Murder?: Shocking True Stories of Wisconsins Notorious Killers. Big Earth Publishing. p. 62. ISBN 1-931599-96-3.
  67. ↑ Reavill, Gil Reavill (2007). Aftermath, Inc.: Cleaning Up After CSI Goes Home. Gotham. p. 228. ISBN 1-59240-296-8.
  68. ↑ Bie, Michael (2007). It Happened in Wisconsin. Guilford, Connecticut: TwoDot. p. 97. ISBN 0-7627-4153-8. OCLC 76820808.
  69. ↑ A Real Psycho on the Internet Movie Database
  70. 1 2 3 4 Maçek III, J.C. (4 February 2013). "No Texas, No Chainsaw, No Massacre: The True Links in the Chain". PopMatters.
  71. ↑ Eidell, Lynsey (October 7, 2015). "All the Real-Life Scary Stories Told on American Horror Story". Glamour.
  72. ↑ Singer, Mark (February 2, 1989). "Predilections". The New Yorker.
  73. ↑ George W. Arndt, "Appendix A: Gein Humor" in 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.
  74. ↑ 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.

Bibliography

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