Written by: Rushina Tamang - 26008, Grade VIII
Posted on: 26 May, 2021
Edward Theodore Gein was born on August 27,1906. He was born in La crosse county, Wisconsin. The second child of two boys of George Philip Gein and Augusta Wilhelmine Gein. Gein had an elder brother, Henry George Gein. Augusta hated her husband. He was an alcoholic who couldn’t hold a stable job. He worked various times as a Carpenter, Tanner and insurance salesman. George owned a grocery shop but later on sold his business to move into a 155 acre farm. Augusta to isolate her sons. The only time Gein left the farm was when he had to go to school. Agusta used to teach her sons that all women ( apart from her ) were devils and evil. Gein was shy, and his classmates and teachers used to think he was weird. He used to randomly laugh as if he was laughing at his own joke. To make matters worse, Augusta used to punish him whenever he made friends. Gein did fairly well in school, partially in reading. After their father’s death, the brothers used to work jobs around town to pay bills. Henry used to babysit children and fell in love with a mother of two and decided to move in with her. He was worried that his brother would not be able to leave his mother since he was so attached to her. So, he used to speak ill of her in front of him which hurt him. Shortly there was a fire on the farm. They found Henry’s body inside faced down with bruises on his head. It seemed like he was dead before the fire but the police didn’t investigate further and caused his death in the fire. Shortly, Augusta caught a heart stroke and Gein worked full time to take care of her. But at the age of 67, she passed away. On November 16, 1957, in Plainfield Hardware, a store owner named Bernice Worden had disappeared. Her son had walked into the store to find blood stains on the cash register. Frank Worden, the son of Bernice, had told the investigators that Gein had been in the store that evening before his mother’s disappearance, and that he would return for a gallon of antifreeze the next morning. A sales slip for a gallon of antifreeze was the last receipt written by Worden on the morning she disappeared. On the same evening, Gein was arrested at the Plainfield Grocery store. The investigators searched his entire farm and found Worden's decapitated body in a shed on Gein's property, hung upside down by her legs with a crossbar at her ankles and ropes at her wrists. The torso was "dressed out like a deer". She had been shot with a 22-caliber rifle, and the mutilations were made after her death.
Searching the house, the investigators found:
Whole human bones and fragments.
A wastebasket made of human skin.
Human skin covering several chairs.
Skulls on his bedposts.
Female skulls, some with the top sawn off.
Bowls made from human skulls.
A corset made from female torso skin.
Leggings made from human leg skin.
Masks made from female heads.
Mary Hogan's face mask in a paper bag.
Mary Hogan's skull in a box.
Bernice Worden's entire head in a burlap sack.
Bernice Worden's heart "in a plastic bag in front of Gein's potbelly stove".
Nine vulvae in a shoebox.
A young girl's dress and "the vulvas of two females judged to have been about fifteen years old".
A belt made from female human nipples.
Four noses.
A pair of lips on a window shade drawstring.
A lampshade made from the skin of a human face.
Fingernails from female fingers.
When Gein was questioned about his crimes, he said that between 1947 and 1952, he paid a visit to almost 40 newly dug graves. About 30 of those, he came back empty-handed. But the other ten graves were dug up by him and were taken to his home to be created in these things. The police even dug those graves to find them empty. Ed Gein also admitted the shooting of Mary Hogan, who was reported missing. He also admitted that, after his mother’s death, he had begun to create a “woman suit” so that he could become his mother and literally crawl into her skin. He was soon taken to the jury and was found guilty. He was taken to a mental hospital where they found his mental illness. Later on, Gein died because of respiratory failure or lung cancer at the Mendota Mental Health Institute. Gein’s body has been buried between his parents and his brother.
