Early Life and Background
Edward Theodore Gein was born on August 27, 1906, in La Crosse County, Wisconsin, the younger of two sons of George and Augusta Gein. The family later moved to an isolated farm near Plainfield, Wisconsin, where Ed spent most of his life. His father was an alcoholic who struggled to hold steady work, while his mother, Augusta, was a domineering and deeply religious woman who warned her sons about the immorality of the outside world and discouraged them from forming relationships with others.
Augusta exerted a powerful influence over Ed throughout his life. His father died in 1940, and his older brother, Henry, died in 1944 under circumstances that some later questioned, though his death was officially attributed to a fire or heart trouble. When Augusta died in 1945 following a series of strokes, Ed was left alone on the farm. By most accounts, her death devastated him, and he sealed off the rooms she had used, leaving them as a kind of shrine while he lived in a small portion of the house.
The Crimes
After his mother's death, Gein became increasingly isolated. He developed a morbid fascination with death, anatomy, and the human body, reportedly reading about anatomy, medical procedures, and atrocities. Over a period of years, he made nighttime visits to local cemeteries, where he exhumed the bodies of recently buried middle-aged women, some of whom he said resembled his mother. He took body parts and whole corpses back to his farmhouse.
Gein was also responsible for the murders of two women. In 1954, Mary Hogan, a tavern operator from nearby Pine Grove, disappeared, and in November 1957, Bernice Worden, who ran a hardware store in Plainfield, went missing. Using human remains from both the graves he robbed and his victims, Gein fashioned a collection of macabre objects, including items of clothing and household articles made from human skin and bones. He later told investigators he intended to create a 'woman suit' so he could, in effect, become his deceased mother.
Investigation and Arrest
The case broke open on November 16, 1957, when Bernice Worden disappeared from her hardware store. Her son, a deputy sheriff, noted that the store's sales receipts showed Ed Gein had been in to purchase antifreeze that morning and recalled that Gein had spoken of visiting the store. Investigators traveled to Gein's farm to question him.
When authorities searched the property, they made a horrifying discovery. Worden's decapitated body was found in a shed, and inside the cluttered farmhouse police uncovered numerous items crafted from human remains, along with preserved body parts. The grim findings shocked the nation and drew intense national media attention to the small rural community. Gein was taken into custody and, under questioning, confessed to robbing graves and to the killings of Worden and Hogan, providing details that investigators corroborated.
Trial and Outcome
Because of his apparent severe mental illness, Gein was initially found unfit to stand trial and was committed to a state mental health facility, the Central State Hospital for the Criminally Insane in Waupun, Wisconsin. He remained institutionalized for years before doctors determined he was competent to participate in legal proceedings.
In 1968, Gein stood trial for the murder of Bernice Worden. The judge, hearing the case without a jury, found him guilty of first-degree murder, but in a second phase of the proceedings concluded that Gein was legally insane at the time of the crime. As a result, he was found not guilty by reason of insanity and was returned to a secure mental institution rather than prison. He spent the remainder of his life in psychiatric custody.
Death and Legacy
Ed Gein lived out his final years at the Mendota Mental Health Institute in Madison, Wisconsin. He died of respiratory failure related to cancer on July 26, 1984, at the age of 77. He was buried in the Plainfield Cemetery, near the graves he had once disturbed; his grave marker was later stolen and recovered, and at one point removed from public display.
Although the number of people Gein actually murdered was small compared with many notorious killers, the disturbing nature of his crimes gave him an outsized place in American popular culture. His case inspired or influenced numerous works of fiction, including elements of the films 'Psycho,' 'The Texas Chain Saw Massacre,' and 'The Silence of the Lambs.' The Gein farmhouse itself was destroyed by a fire in 1958, widely suspected to have been deliberately set. Decades later, he remains one of the most studied and frequently referenced figures in the history of American crime.
