(August 27, 1906 — July 26, 1984) was one of the most notorious American murderers of the 20th century. Born in Wisconsin in 1906, he was the second of two sons to devout Lutheran parents, George and Augusta Gein. Gein's mother was a dour religious fanatic and Female Misogynist who dominated her husband and two sons, frequently preaching that all sex was sinful and that other women were unrepentant whores. Eventually the family moved to a remote farm on the outskirts of Plainfield, Wisconsin, which would eventually become one of the most infamous addresses in America.
Gein continued to live on the farm into adulthood. When his father died of heart failure, Gein and his brother Henry began taking odd jobs around Plainfield to supplement the family's income; Gein—a shy, awkward man initially considered a harmless eccentric by the locals—got along with children and was often hired to babysit. However, the brothers' newfound exposure to the outside world led to Henry questioning their mother's teachings, and tensions rose within the family when he began seeing a divorced single mother. In May 1944, Henry died while the brothers were burning away brush on the farm. While authorities at the time officially determined that his death was caused by asphyxiation from the fire, no autopsy was conducted and bruises were reportedly seen on Henry's head, raising the possibility that he was Ed's first victim.
Gein's mother suffered a stroke shortly after Henry's death, leading to Gein, ever the dutiful son, devoting his time to her care. She eventually suffered a second, more debilitating stroke (caused by seeing a neighbor in the company of a woman who was not his wife) and passed away in December 1945. Her death devastated Gein as, despite being an abusive tyrant all his life, he genuinely considered her to be the only person he cared about. Driven by grief, he boarded up all of the rooms she had used in their house — the second floor, the living room, the downstairs parlor — and lived an increasingly squalid existence in a small room next to the kitchen. With his mother no longer around to discourage him, he began reading gruesome pulp magazines.
Between 1947 and 1952, Gein broke into local cemeteries and disturbed a total of nine graves belonging to local women who he thought resembled his mother, either removing body parts or the entire corpse. He did this with the aim of constructing a "woman suit" that would enable him to become his mother by symbolically crawling into her skin. After dark he would don the suit and dance in the dooryard of his farm, watching his shadow in the moonlight. From the disinterred corpses he fashioned body parts and pieces of flesh into macabre clothing and furnishings, including but not limited to: a belt made from nipples; lampshades, wastebaskets and upholstery made of skin; a window drawstring pulled by a severed pair of lips; a corset made from a flayed female torso; skulls mounted on Gein's bedposts; and we are surprised you are still reading this.
Gein was arrested in November 1957 following the disappearance of Bernice Worden, the owner of a Plainfield hardware store. Sheriff's deputies ventured onto the Gein farm and discovered Worden's decapitated body, "dressed out like a deer", hung upside down in a shed. A search of the house quickly uncovered Gein's ghastly interior decorating as well as the partial remains of missing tavern owner Mary Hogan, which included a mask made from Hogan's face.
Gein's initial confession was ruled inadmissible because the sheriff, traumatized by what was discovered inside the house, slammed his head and face into a brick wall. Gein claimed no memory of killing Hogan and didn't know whether the murder of Worden had been intentional or accidental, but readily admitted to his serial bodysnatching and activities related to. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia and declared unfit to stand trial, resulting in him being detained at state hospitals for eleven years. A trial in 1968 formally determined that Gein was not guilty by reason of insanity, and he was remanded to Wisconsin's Central State Hospital for the Criminally Insane for the remainder of his life. He died on July 26, 1984, from lung cancer.
Not (officially) a Serial Killer, as he is only confirmed to have killed two people, notwithstanding the suspicious death of his brother, though suspected of up to nine killings which would indeed mean he was a serial killer if true. Also not a necrophile, because, in his words, "They smelled too bad."
Associated Tropes:
- Cain and Abel: Is strongly suspected of killing his brother Henry, although since no post-mortem was done on the body this can't be confirmed.
- Genuine Human Hide: What made the case infamous, not to mention enduring. An entire list of the items Gein used from the bodies he dug up (and his two victims) can be found on Wikipedia... but it's not for the faint of heart.
- Sibling Yin-Yang: Gein's brother Henry gradually began to question their mother's religious teachings as they grew older, and reportedly spoke of trying to get his brother out of her control. Gein, however, remained loyal to their mother and would be shocked and hurt if Henry spoke ill about her. See Cain and Abel above to see how that might have turned out.
Fictional works portraying Ed Gein:
- Gein is perhaps best known for being the basis of several fictional serial killers in horror media: Norman Bates in Psycho (1960), the Narrator in Ratman's Notebooks (adapted in 1971 and 2004 under the title Willard), Ezra Cobb in Deranged (1974), Leatherface in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), and Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs (1991).
