Edward was an unusual character, born on a farm and raised by a domineering mother. In the space of a few years his entire family died and he was left to raise the farm himself. His crimes inspired the movies Psycho, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Silence of the Lambs.
Edward came from a small family consisting of his mother, father, and a brother named Henry. ed would soon become known as "The Butcher of Plainfield," "The Mad Butcher," or " The Plainfield Ghoul." Ed was a serial killer that practiced grave robbery, necrophilia, cannibalism, sadism, and death fetishism.
Edward Gein and his older brother Henry were raised by a very domineering mother on their 160-acre farm seven miles outside of Plainfield, Wisconsin. She was a very religious woman that taught her sons at young ages that sex was a sin. She discouraged them from women and kept busy with farm work.
His alcholic father died in 1940, four years later his brother died. Shortly thereafter his mother suffered from a second stroke and never recovered, leaving Ed alone at age thirty-nine. It was then that he sealed off the upstairs and live only in the kitchen and farm shed. He stopped working on the farm because the government soil-conservation program offered him a subsidy, which he augmented by taking work as a handyman.
Ed soon began to read books on human anatomy and Nazi concentration camp experiments. He was quite interested in it all, especially the female anatomy. He soon took to the real thing by digging up decaying female bodies by night in the local Wisconsin cemetaries. He enlisted the help of another wierd loner, Gus. Gus was sent to an asylum during this. The first corpse came from a grave only a few feet away from his mothers. Over the next ten years Ed did the same, checked the newspaper for recent funerals, and then by the light of a full moon he would visit the grave; the body he would dissect and keep some parts such as the head, sex organs, livers, hearts, and intestines. He would also take a full body if he felt the need for it. He would construct objects out of the bones and skin, and would store the organs to eat later. He also commited acts of necrophilia on the bodies. He eventually dug up his mom's grave.
Edward didn't want to reveal to Gus or anyone else for that matter, his burning desire to become a woman himself. And then when Gus was sent to the asylum, he began to work on his woman suit and even murder.
His first murder victim was Mary Hogan. Mary was fifty-four years old. She was alone when Ed came up to her and shot her in the head with a .32 caliber at point blank range. He then loaded her up in his truck and drove back to his shed. There may have been more murders in the years that followed but nothing is definite until November 16, 1957 when he shot and killed Bernice Worden who was in her late fifties.
The house was dark and Ed was absent, so quickly acting on a hunch the sheriff took Ed Gein into custody after finding him in a local grocery store. The cops returned later that night to the farmhouse. The doors to the farmhouse were locked but when the sheriff pushed the shed door with his foot it opened revealing a naked woman hanging from the crossbeam upside down. The legs were spread wide apart and a long slit was running from the genitals. But the throat like the head was missing. Ed had also removed the anus and genitals. Bernice Worden had been disembowled like that of a deer. There was no electricity so the cops had to use lanterns to see inside the house. The place looked like it hadn't been cleaned in years. There were piles of rubbish everywhere. In the house they found: two shin bones, four human noses, a quart can converted into a tom-tom by using human skin, a bowl made from half a skull, nine death masks, ten female heads with the tops sawed off above the eyebrows, bracelets made of human skin, a number of shrunken heads, two skulls foe Ed's bedposts, a pair of human lips hanging from a string, and Ed's full woman body suit. The suit was complete with breasts genitals and a head. Bernice Worden's heart was found on a pan on the stove, and the refrigerator was packed with human organs.
the bodies of fifteen women had been mutilated to make Ed's trophies. It is also said that Ed brought over fresh venison to his neighbors, but Ed said he never shot a deer in his life. Ed died of cancer on July 26, 1984 in Waupan State Hospital where he was considered a modle patient.
~Kaylah