Ed Gein, or “the Mad Butcher of Plainfield”, was a serial killer and grave robber from Plainfield, Wisconsin. He had reportedly murdered two women: Mary Hogan, a 54-year-old tavern owner, in 1954 and Bernice C. Worden, a 58-year-old hardware store owner, in 1957. His method of killing was shooting his victims with a .22-caliber rifle, but the most gruesome acts were taking place after the murders.

Short Bio and Family

Gein was born in August 1906 in Plainfield, a village in Wisconsin. He was the son of George and Augusta Gein. Mrs. Gein was the dominant parent in the family. She has been described as a religious, god-fearing person with control issues. It is speculated that Ed’s relationship to his mother was the harbinger to his heinous crimes.

His first unofficial victim might have been his brother, who died fighting a fire near the family’s farm. Both Gein brothers were trying to put the fire out, but Ed reported that they got separated and then his brother went missing. However, it seems that Ed was aware of the exact spot of his brother’s corpse, something that led to suspicions.

In 1944, Augusta Gein suffered a stroke and remained paralyzed. The next year, Ed’s mother died from a second stroke, something that eventually triggered her son’s psychosis. The killer’s father had died of heart attack in 1940.

Ed Gein was known in the Plainfield community as a hard worker who had lost his family. He would occasionally cause discomfort to women due to the way he was staring at them and it seems that he was terrified of human contact with females. The killer may have suffered from schizophrenia and severe delusions, problems attributed to his relationship with his mother.

The "Mad Butcher of Plainfield" was fascinated by death and he used to raid graves. He was taking the bodies to his house in order to perform mutilations.

Crimes and Victims

In 1957, Bernice C. Worden was mysteriously disappeared from her hardware store after a reported visited by Ed. She was later found decapitated and horribly mutilated at his house. His other official victim, Mary Hogan, was murdered in 1954 and her head was found in a bag in Gein’s house.

 

Ed Gein appeared to cut off his victims’ skin in order to create a suit made of human skin. He was allegedly wearing the suit and acting as if he was his deceased mother, endorsing in transvestite rituals. Apart from his two official victims, Gein was collecting bodies from the graveyard in order to practice his atrocious affinities. The police found and seized several grotesque sightings, including human bones, four noses, nine masks of human skin, human organs, a belt made of female nipples, furniture covered in human skin, and bowls made from human skulls.

Arrest, Trial and Death

Ed Gein was arrested on November 16, 1957, as a suspect in the disappearance of Bernice Worden. According to murderpedia.org, his reply to the charges was “somebody framed me”.

Four days later, on November 21, Gein would enter a trial with charges of first-degree murder, but he was deemed unfit for trial due to his mental condition. Consequently, he was incarcerated in the Central State Hospital for the Criminally Insane in Waupun, Wisconsin before he was transferred to the Mendota State Hospital in Madison, Wisconsin.

In 1968, his doctors deemed that he was mentally competent for a trial, which began on November 14 of the same year. Gein was found guilty for first-degree murder but also legally insane, so he was sent to a mental hospital for the rest of his life.

According to murderpedia.org, Ed Gein “died of respiratory and heart failure due to cancer in Goodland Hall at the Mendota Mental Health Institute” on July 26, 1984.

The case of Ed gain was the first to inspire plenty of discussions since it evolved during the spring of the media. Finally, the killer's atrocious activities inspired countless movie characters and movies such as "Texas Chainsaw Massacre".