Ed Gein

Ed Gein and his elder brother Henry lived on a rural farm near Plainfield, WI. George Gein, his father, was a tanner and carpenter and was drunk most of the time. Augusta, Ed's domineering mother, was the real power of the house. She was a religious fanatic who constantly warned her sons about the sins of premarital sex and railed against "evil" women. Ed's father died in 1940, and brother Henry died four years later fighting a marsh fire (although it was later suspected that Ed might have killed him). Ed stayed at the family farm with his mother and never strayed out of the surrounding few counties. When she died of a stroke in 1945, Ed was left all alone at the "tender" age of 39. He sealed her bedroom and the rest of his house off, living in just the kitchen and one other room. During the period of 1950-55, he visited three local cemeteries at night and dug up at least ten graves. He removed bits and pieces from each body, returning some to their graves. He used skullcaps for bowls, and stitched chair seats and lampshades out of human skin. On special occasions, he would dance outside in the moonlight wearing numerous stitched skin coverings, including the face masks of some of his victims. His first murder was committed on December 8, 1954, the other occurred on November 16, 1957. He attacked his last victim in her store and dragged her body to a truck parked out back. Later that evening the victim's son stopped in at the store to check on his mother and found the doors locked, the cash register missing and a trail of blood leading out to the back door. He recalled that he had seen Ed at the store the day before. When the police went to his farm, they found her headless body in his shed, hanging by it's heels from the rafters. Gein was arrested and eventually confessed to his crimes. On January 16, 1958, he was sent to Central State Hospital at Waupun, WI. In November 1968, he was judged competent to stand trial. He was now diagnosed to have chronic schizophrenia, found "not guilty by reason of insanity" and returned to Waupun. It has been theorized that Gein might have killed two men who hired him as their hunting guide in 1952 and were never seen again. There were also two other unidentified women's body parts were found at his farm. In that his murder & grave robbing victims were all of middle or elderly age, these two women's remains were decisively young, in their teenage years. This was never conclusively investigated. In 1978, he was moved to Mendota Mental Health Institute. Gein was a model prisoner and died quietly in his sleep in the geriatric psychiatric ward in 1984. He is buried next to his mother in the Plainfield Cemetery.