The Butcher-Ed Gein

So far I've covered perhaps the most well known serial killers in my previous articles if you haven't checked them here's the link:-

Serial Killers.

You'll find all my articles on this page.

But now I am about to take you to the realm of perhaps the weirdest savage ever to hold a place in the killer Hall of Infamy. He was the inspiration behind the Hitchcock classic movie, "Psycho", as well as "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," and, to some extent, "The Silence of the Lambs". There hasn't really been anyone who shocked the world as much as this guy,  don't believe me!!? Just ask the cops who discovered his house of horrors -  the ones that didn't succumb to a nervous breakdown, anyway. If you haven't heard of him, you're in for a surprise. 

Ed Gein-The Butcher of Plainfield

First of all, I should say that Mr. Gein was not close to someone like Ted Bundy on the nasty scale, nor was he as brutal as Jack the Ripper or as notorious as Jeffery Dahmer. If anything the man was wrapped beyond comprehension. Also known as, "The Butcher of Plainfield",  Gein was no doubt mentally ill to an unfathomable degree. 

So, many of you have heard of the movie Psycho. It's rather old and most likely older than most of you reading this article, and you might also have heard about the series The Bates Motel, which is based on that movie. Well, the main character in the movie was based on Ed Gein, and indeed Gein was said to have been brought up in an abusive family with a very oppressive and hyper-religious mother. He was born on August 27, 1906, in a place called La Crosse, Wisconsin. According to serial killer websites, Gein had a beleaguered childhood, having to listen to his mother's frantic preaching regarding sin and lust and the inevitable hell that they led to. It's said his childhood was very isolated and he had very few friends. He had a brother, who died in an accident when Gein was still young (some people have conjectured that Gein killed him, but there's no proof). People have ventured that Gein being the shy and weaker brother, killed his sibling and this can be compared to the old Testament thriller, Cain and Abel. But let's stick with what we know. 

Ed's place on the day of his arrest

One bio tells us at school he rarely socialized, although his teachers stated that he demonstrated queer mannerisms such as laughing randomly. Later in life, his family moved to a farm, and there Gein became even more isolated. His mother may have been strict but it's said Gein was obsessed with her; he adores her. She told him that having relationships whit women was a sin and that all other women besides herself were prostitutes and daring them essentially meant being in league with Satan himself. This was not a good start for young Ed, especially if you've read Freud on overbearing mothers. Gein's father died, and so it was just him and the zealous mother. But then she had a stroke and Gein ended up having to look after her. He took odd jobs around the town and was known as a quite decent guy who was reliable when you wanted something fixed. Apparently, he was quite a capable handyman. His devotion to his mother was unerring, but it's said that Gein had become fascinated with stories about Nazis and cannibals, which he read in vicious books and death-cult magazines. 

Gloves made from human flesh

His mother then passed away in 1945, leaving Ed alone on the farm. It's said he kept the rooms where she had stayed in the same condition, and locked them so they would stay that way forever. He continued working his odd jobs and doing work on the farm, but a few years after his mother's death, Gein took up a new hobby. To some extent, that hobby was trying to become her. Now for the gruesome part, as I said Gein was not a prolific serial killer, but what he did to make up for the low body count. In 1957, a woman who worked at a local hardware store went missing. Her name was Bernice Worden. Her son told police that one of the last people to be seen in the store with her was none other than the habitual hat-wearing Mr. Gein. He was arrested shortly after and police received a warrant to check-out the Gein farm. This is not one of those serial killer stories with twists and turns, because the cops found what they were looking for immediately upon searching the farm. That was Mrs. Worden's dead body-shot with a .22-caliber rifle-hung upside down in a shed-like an animal. The torso had been what's called in hunting "dressed out", meaning it was opened and the organs had been taken out. The body was also mutilated from head to toe. 

Captain Loyd Schoephoester, who saw this grizzly sight said, 

"Tendons in the ankles had been cut and a rod had been placed through them. The body was drawn up in the air by block and tackle. The body was dressed out and the head was missing."

Her head was later found in a burlap sack. Ed had a thing for heads, as you shall see. This was

The Butcher's little collection

obviously a sickening sight or the deputy who find the body, but inside the house, police got the shock of their lives. As I said, he liked to keep the heads of his victims. Police found 5 heads inside plastic bags, as well as four skulls. But more stomach-churning, they also found masks, whereby Gein had carefully cut off the faces and kept them intact so he could wear them. One police officer told the press,

"Some of them have lipstick on and look perfectly natural.....

If you know them, you'd be able to recognize them."

In fact, Gein was a handyman in many ways, and here I am not referring to fixing creaking doors. Police found all sorts of things, and not just human remains. Gein had made lampshades, chair covers, and wastebasket out of human skin. He had human skulls sitting atop bedposts, and in the kitchen, you could find bowls made from skulls. A la Psycho, he'd made a skin corset that he could get into, and thereby be a woman, or more specifically, his mother. He didn't leave out the bottom half, having leggings out of the skin as well as skin socks. Perhaps his piece de resistance in terms of fashionable items was a belt made from women's nipples. He also had a collection of noses and vulvas. If Ed wanted, he could become a woman by wearing all of this. But it wasn't all about dressing up; he even had lips he could grab hold on the end of curtain drawstrings.

According to one website, Gein wears a death mask and the skin clothes and then go and dance around in the garden with his costume on. I cannot confirm this, though but this clearly shows he is very much by himself. It doesn't really matter because Gein admitted he liked to wear the suit to become his mother, so just the thought of him watching TV in his face mask and skinsuit is horrifying enough. Now Gein didn't kill people for all of his handy work. He told the police that much of his raw material was gathered by robing local graves. He did, however, admit to at least one more murder, and he was suspected of having killed more women. A famous quote of Gein was this, 

"When I see a pretty girl walking down the streets, I think two things. One part wants to be real nice and sweet, and the other part wonders what her head would like on a stick."

It's clear that he is having a fight with the alternate thoughts inside his head. Well, some websites and even the movie American Psycho, attribute this to Gein, but other websites tell us it was another strange killer named Ed Kemper that said it. 

Finals days of Gein

Such strangeness and brutality left its mark on  Plainfield, which would never be plain again. Many say the sheriff of the town died fairly young as a direct result of the trauma from investigating this case. In fact, one of the sheriff's friends said, 

"He was a victim of Ed Gein as surely as if he had butchered him."

Gein was unsurprisingly found by the courts to be insane; he was diagnosed with schizophrenia and a severe Oedipus complex. He died in 1984 from lung cancer in Mendota Mental Health Institute. It's thought he said this about his time in one mental institution, 

"I like this place, everybody treats me nice, some of them are a little crazy though."

He was buried in Plainfield, although it's said parts of his grave are now missing because people wanted to take a souvenir home with them when they visited his grave. 

Gravestone of Ed Gein

The question I'll leave you with through this article is this, 

"Am I right to address him the weirdest serial killer of all time?"

Let me know in the comments.....