Edward Theodore Gein: The Butcher of Plainfield

Edward Theodore Gein, born August 27, 1906, in La Crosse County, Wisconsin, managed to live a life of quiet obscurity until his rather dramatic debut onto the national stage in November 1957. Residing in the unassuming town of Plainfield, Wisconsin, Gein became the unwilling poster child for rural horror, forever linking the pastoral image of American farm life with unspeakable depravity.

The Origin of Aberration: Childhood and Family Influences

Gein’s upbringing was less “Little House on the Prairie” and more a masterclass in dysfunction, courtesy of his parents, George and Augusta Gein.

• George Gein: Often depicted as an alcoholic and generally ineffective presence, frequently subjected to the verbal (and perhaps physical) dominance of his wife. He died of heart failure related to his alcoholism in 1940. A footnote in Ed’s macabre story.
• Augusta Gein: The true architect of the Gein family’s psychological landscape. A fervent Lutheran, Augusta harbored an intense hatred for perceived immorality (especially concerning sex) and preached fire-and-brimstone rhetoric to her sons, Edward and his older brother, Henry. She isolated the family, moving them to a secluded farm outside Plainfield in 1914 to shield her boys from the corrupting influences of the outside world. She viewed women, apart from herself, as vessels of sin.
• Henry Gein: More independent and socially adjusted than Ed, Henry occasionally challenged his mother’s suffocating worldview. His death in 1944 under questionable circumstances (suffocation during a marsh fire Ed had reported, with bruises reportedly found on his head later, though no official charges were pursued) left Ed entirely alone with Augusta. A convenient departure, one might cynically note.
• Isolation and Fixation: Following Henry’s death, Ed devoted himself entirely to caring for Augusta after she suffered a stroke. Her death in December 1945 shattered Gein’s world, removing the sole object of his intense, pathologically dependent relationship. This loss is widely considered the primary catalyst for his subsequent descent into grave robbing and murder.

Modus Operandi: A Ghastly Pursuit

Gein’s activities post-Augusta’s death reveal a grim trajectory aimed at, quite literally, reconstructing his maternal figure and exploring a deeply confused, repressed sexuality.

• Grave Robbing: Gein admitted to numerous nocturnal visits to local cemeteries (Shiloh Cemetery, Spiritland Cemetery, Plainfield Cemetery). His targets were recently buried, middle-aged women who, in his distorted perception, resembled his mother. He timed his excursions carefully, often utilizing his knowledge of recent deaths announced in local papers and favoring nights shortly after burials when the earth was easier to move. He sought bodies primarily to obtain skin and other parts for his “projects.” He claimed to have entered a fugue state during these acts.
• Murder: While suspected in other disappearances, Gein was definitively linked to two murders:
  • Mary Hogan (1954): Owner of a local tavern. Gein shot her with a .32-caliber pistol. Her head was found in a box at his home; her face mask was in a paper bag.
  • Bernice Worden (1957): Owner of the Plainfield hardware store. Gein shot her with a .22-caliber rifle on the morning of November 16th. Her disappearance, and the fact that Gein was the last person known to have seen her (he’d been in the store for antifreeze), led authorities directly to his farm. Her body was found decapitated and “dressed out” like a deer in Gein’s summer kitchen.

The House of Horrors: Inventory of Atrocities

The search of Gein’s farmhouse on November 16, 1957, unveiled a scene that defied comprehension. The squalor was profound, but it was the decor that cemented Gein’s place in criminal history. The discoveries included, but were certainly not limited to:

• Bernice Worden’s decapitated body, hung upside down.
• Bernice Worden’s head in a burlap sack and her heart in a saucepan on the stove (though some accounts place it in a plastic bag).
• Whole human bones and fragments scattered throughout.
• Wastebaskets and chair seats upholstered in human skin.
• Skulls, some with the tops neatly sawn off, used as bowls or decorating bedposts.
• A corset crafted from a female torso, skinned from shoulders to waist.
• Leggings made from human leg skin.
• Masks meticulously fashioned from the skin of female faces.
• Mary Hogan’s face mask and skull.
• A collection of nine vulvae stored in a shoebox.
• A belt adorned with human nipples.
• Noses saved as apparent trophies.
• A pair of lips used as a drawstring pull for a window shade.
• A lampshade made from a human face.
• Fingernails.

These items were documented and subsequently destroyed, deemed too disturbing for preservation or public display. The sheer banality with which Gein seemed to integrate these human remains into everyday objects remains profoundly unsettling.

Psychiatric Dissection: An Unspooled Mind

Gein’s motivations were rooted in a complex psychological morass.

• Maternal Fixation: An overwhelming, unhealthy attachment to Augusta, warped by her extreme religious views and condemnation of sexuality. Her death created a void Gein desperately sought to fill, leading him to “become” his mother by wearing female skin and attempting to resurrect her through his ghastly crafts. This aligns with theories regarding an unresolved Oedipus complex.
• Schizophrenia: Gein was diagnosed with schizophrenia and found legally insane. He experienced delusions, hallucinations, and an inability to distinguish reality from his morbid fantasies. His claims of entering trance-like states during grave robbing fit this diagnosis.
• Necrophilia: While Gein denied sexual contact with the corpses he exhumed, claiming he smelled “too bad,” the nature of his crimes, particularly the crafting of objects from female bodies and the desire to wear female skin, points towards necrophilic tendencies or, at minimum, severe paraphilic confusion related to dead bodies.
• Ritualistic Behavior: Though not involved in organized occultism, Gein’s actions possessed a deeply personal, ritualistic quality. The grave robbing, the dismemberment, the crafting of artifacts – these were components of his private, psychosis-driven ceremonies aimed at fulfilling profound psychological needs related to his mother, sexuality, and identity.

Legal Outcome: Initially found mentally unfit to stand trial in 1957, Gein was confined to the Central State Hospital for the Criminally Insane (later the Dodge Correctional Institution). In 1968, deemed competent, he stood trial for Bernice Worden’s murder. He was found guilty, but a second phase of the trial determined he was legally insane at the time of the crime. He was returned to Central State Hospital and later transferred to the Mendota Mental Health Institute, where he died of respiratory failure secondary to cancer on July 26, 1984.

Cultural Contagion: The Gein Effect

Gein’s case exerted a powerful, morbid fascination that permeated popular culture, serving as foundational material for some of horror’s most enduring figures.

• Psycho (Novel 1959, Film 1960): Robert Bloch’s novel and Alfred Hitchcock’s subsequent film drew heavily on the Gein case, particularly the killer’s unhealthy maternal fixation and the quiet, unassuming facade hiding monstrous deeds (Norman Bates).
• The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974): The film’s antagonist, Leatherface, with his mask crafted from human skin and the general theme of a grotesque, cannibalistic family in rural isolation, directly reflects Gein’s skin-crafting and the horrors found in his home.
• The Silence of the Lambs (Novel 1988, Film 1991): The character Jame “Buffalo Bill” Gumb, who murders women to create a “woman suit” from their skin, is a direct literary descendant of Ed Gein.
• Other Influences: Numerous other films, books, songs (e.g., Slayer’s “Dead Skin Mask”), and true crime analyses continue to dissect and reference the Gein case, exploring themes of psychological horror, repressed sexuality, and the darkness lurking beneath mundane surfaces.

Ed Gein remains a uniquely American nightmare. His crimes, born from a crucible of religious fanaticism, isolation, and profound mental illness, exposed a capacity for human depravity that continues to both repulse and fascinate. He serves as a grim benchmark in the annals of true crime, a reminder that the most terrifying monsters often wear the most ordinary faces.

Bibliography

Books:

Gollmar, Robert H. Edward Gein: America’s Most Bizarre Murderer. Pinnacle Books, 1981. (Written by Gein’s trial judge).

Schechter, Harold. Deviant: The Shocking True Story of Ed Gein, the Original “Psycho. Pocket Books, 1989.

Stone, Michael H., and Brucato, Gary. The New Evil: Understanding the Emergence of Modern Violent Crime. Prometheus Books, 2019. (Includes psychiatric analysis).

Documentaries:

Ed Gein: The Ghoul of Plainfield (Various productions available).

Biography: Ed Gein (A&E Network).