Ed Gein

Edward Theodore Gein is the man that is the real life example of every horror movie for the last 30 years. Psycho , 'The Silence of the Lambs', & The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, are all the result of the very real acts that Mr. Gein conducted in the small town of Plainfield, Wisconsin. This one man is the American standard for a certifiable psychopath. Many wonder what the formula is to breed such a mind. Is it the manner in which they are raised, the events that influence the mind or perhaps it is an inevitable & unseen destiny that some men have the misfortune from birth to bare?

There is a general pattern in which sexually sadistic killers become obsessed with the female body and the relationship that forms within their mind. Over the past 30 years many state and agree that the acts that Edward committed were the grounds for every “slasher” movie that had been produced since the 1950’s. The raw & animalistic characteristics that are displayed in these movies were verified by the real life actions that Gein conducted. He started out with engaging in necrophilia in the beginning by digging up several local graves of newly buried women to satisfy his sexual urges. Once this ritual became old he went through with killing two local women and butchering them for household items after committing necrophilia with their then dead corpses.

Ed was raised by his parents George & Augusta Gein in Plainfield, Wisconsin. His father was an unemployed alcoholic whom was very abusive toward his sons. His mother was a highly religious fanatic who stayed with her husband solely because of the family’s religious beliefs about divorce. His mother preached everyday to her sons about the evils of the flesh and that every woman except for herself was of the devil and was forbidden to even think of. Besides his overbearing & domineering mother a young Gein also became the target for bullies. After the suspicious death of his brother and father in a fire, Ed was forced to live alone and serve his mother until her death in 1945. After being left alone on the farm, Gein was so haunted by the memory of his mother that he sealed off the entire farm except for one room. At this time he began to explore extreme interest of social order in death-cult magazines and adventure stories.

Ed started his exploration by checking the newspaper daily for female corpses that had been recently buried. He would dig up the corpses in the night and transport them back to the farmhouse. He used the bodies for various reasons. Varying from necrophilia, to decoration, to fashioning a life-size human female suite, in which he would dance around and pretend to be his dead mother. He later stated after his arrest that doing this would give him great sexual gratification. After the corpses became non-gratifying to him anymore, Gein set out to take his first living female victim. The woman was a tavern owner by the name of Mary Hogan in 1957. Later he took another victim, which would be his last. He killed hardware store owner Bernice Worden, and transported her back to the farm house. They discovered her decapitated body hanging like a butchered cow in the barn. After further search of the farmhouse they discovered: Four noses, whole human bones and fragments, nine masks of human skin, bowls made from human skulls, ten female heads with the tops sawed off, human skin covering several chair seats, Mary Hogan’s head in a paper bag, Bernice Worden’s head in a burlap sack, nine vulvas in a shoe box, skulls on his bed posts, organs in the refrigerator, as well as a pair of lips on a draw string for a window shade.