Born 27th August 1906, Ed Gein (Edward Theodore Gein) was a religious fanatic and obsessively
devoted to his mother. He never left home nor ever dated a woman. After she
died, he started robbing graves – experimenting with taxidermy and necrophilia
and keeping body parts as trophies. He would prowl through cemeteries and
unearth recently buried females. Once he had cut off the body parts he wanted
he would return the corpses to the graves.
November 19th, 1957, hardware store owner Bernice Worden was reported missing. Investigators discovered that Gein had been in the shop the night before ordering a gallon of anti-freeze which he claimed he could come to collect it the following morning. This meant that he was the last person to see Worden alive. When police went to Gein's farm house to speak to him they found Bernice Worden's body hanging in a large shed. She had been decapitated and hung upside down by her ankles and had been shot by a .22 calibre rifle. Her internal organs has been removed.
When police searched his house, they found:
November 19th, 1957, hardware store owner Bernice Worden was reported missing. Investigators discovered that Gein had been in the shop the night before ordering a gallon of anti-freeze which he claimed he could come to collect it the following morning. This meant that he was the last person to see Worden alive. When police went to Gein's farm house to speak to him they found Bernice Worden's body hanging in a large shed. She had been decapitated and hung upside down by her ankles and had been shot by a .22 calibre rifle. Her internal organs has been removed.
When police searched his house, they found:
- A belt made from female nipples
- Bernice Worden's head in a sack
- Bernice Worden's heart in a plastic bag in front of Gein's pot-bellied stove
- Bowls made from human skulls
- A corset made from a female torso skinned from shoulders to waist
- Female skulls
- Fingernails from female fingers
- Four noses
- Gloves made from human skin
- Human skin covering several chair seats
- Lampshade made from the skin of a human face
- Leggings made from leg skin
- Mary Hogan's face mask in a paper bag
- Mary Hogan's skull in a box
- Masks which were made from the skin of other female heads
- Nine valvae in a shoe box
- Pair of lips on a window shade drawstring
- Skulls on his bedposts
- Waste basket made of human skin
- A young girl's dress and the valvas of two females which were said to have been around 15 years of age
He confessed to killing Bernice Worden and Mary Hogan (whom he made the human mask from) but he pleaded not guilty by reasons of insanity – he was found unfit to stand trial and was committed to a mental hospital. Nearly ten years later he was found fit to stand trial and was found guilty of murder. He was sent to various criminal psychiatric institutions including Mentota Mental Hospital Institute where he died of respiratory and heart failure due to cancer on July 26th 1984, aged 77. He is buried in Plainfield Cemetery in an unmarked grave.
He was the inspiration behind several characters including Norman Bates in Psycho, Leatherface from Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Jame Gumb of the Silence of the Lambs.
He was the inspiration behind several characters including Norman Bates in Psycho, Leatherface from Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Jame Gumb of the Silence of the Lambs.
Books:
Deviant: The Shocking True Story of Ed Gein, the Original "Psycho" - Harold Schechter
Ed Gein: Psycho - Paul Anthony Woods