Biography of Ed Gein
By: Lacie Quinn, Emily Nikolaus, Katie Monroe, Lyndsi Stockinger
Although you may have never heard his name, Ed Gein could be America's most famous murderer. His actions from four decades ago inspired the movie, Psycho and its sequel, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and also the more recent movie, Silence of the Lambs.
Ed Gein was born in LaCrosse, Wisconsin on August 8, 1906. Shortly after Ed's brother, Henry was born; the family left their 160-acre farm and relocated in Plainfield, Wisconsin. Eds father, George, was a farmer while holding jobs as a carpenter and tanner. He was an alcoholic and very violent when using substances. George Gein died from a heart attack in 1940. After his death, sons Eddie and Henry had no choice but to take over the work on the farm. His mother, Augusta, was the dominant parent, managing most of the family decisions on her own. She was extremely religious and warned Ed and his brother about pre-marital sex. While Augusta tried to keep her sons away from girls and busy with farm work, she was very protective of them. Her boys remained bachelors their entire lives due to their mothers incessant belief that no woman would ever return any love given by them and only she could ever truly love them. (According to evidence gathered from Central State Hospital after Geins arrest, interviews with Ed suggest Augusta may have mishandled and abused Gein when he was a child. Eddie stated he remembered very little of his childhood while living in LaCrosse, but did recall two disturbing incidents. He told a psychologist that one afternoon while standing at the top of the basement stairs, he felt something almost like a push that nearly caused him to tumble down the steps. He was horrified at the realization that his mother may have actually tried to push him down the stairs. After all of this, Ed still insisted that his mother was nothing less of a saint and convinced himself that she was in the kitchen at the time of the incident.) In 1945, Augusta suffered from a serious stroke that killed her. When his mother died, Ed was a thirty-nine year old bachelor emotionally enslaved to his mother who had tyrannized his life. After his mother's death, Ed boarded off his mother's room, the drawing room, and five bedrooms upstairs and lived in the remaining quarters of their house. Ed stopped working on the farm because he accepted a job offered by a government soil-conservation program. Shortly after, he started working as a handyman in the area and did some odd jobs for those who needed help around Plainfield. Although people who lived around Plainfield found him to be a little odd, they thought it was only because he was lonely. Ed's brother, Henry, died the same year as their mother. Henry's cause of death was reported as a heart attack that occurred during a fight to put out a brush fire, yet there is still a mystery behind his death. His body was found on the Gein property with unexplained bruises on the back of his head. Many believe Ed may have killed Henry because of his desire to be more alone with his mother. It is still unknown whether Ed Gein killed his brother; however, considering the twisted person he was, it would not be shocking if he did.
At the age of 39, Ed Gein started his life alone. In his solitude, Gein began to withdraw from society and reality. As he drifted farther away from reality, his life became more and more bizarre. During his free time, Ed enjoyed reading about the human anatomy and Nazi concentration camp experiences. He read many medical and anatomical texts about the female body. He became highly infatuated with the female anatomy because he had a burning desire to become a woman. Since childhood, Ed was ambiguous about his masculinity. He wanted to amputate his own penis, but it was costly and frightening. The closest Ed came to this was when he, using real human skin, constructed a full body suit of a woman to dress himself in. Day after day, Ed would think endlessly about sex. He desired to become familiar with the female anatomy. After reading a newspaper article about a woman being buried that day, Ed dug up a corpse of a woman just a dozen feet away from his mother's last resting place. This corpse was one of many over ten years that Ed dug up and took home for his pleasure. He eventually even dug up his own mother. While digging up corpses, Ed had the help of an old trusted friend, Gus, who matched Ed in strangeness. Gus was under the impression that the corpses were going to be used for medical experiments, so he had no knowledge about Ed's real experiments. Ed would experiment with the dead bodies, constructing objects from the skin and bones and storing the organs in the fridge for later meals. He also committed acts of necrophilia on the bodies. Necrophilia is an abnormal fascination with death and the dead. His obsession was growing with the number of corpses he was obtaining. Gus died leaving Ed all alone to become curious in newer, fresher bodies for his experiments.
Ed usually attacked women around the same age as his mother. Two of his victims were fifty-four year old Mary Hogan and fifty-eight year old Bernice Worden. Parts of the womens bodies were found in a shed behind Geins house. Bernices head hung from the ceiling and her genitals were carved out. Wordens heart was found in a saucepan and her other organs in a box in a corner of the shed. Skins from about ten human skulls were also found in Eds shed. Also, a chair was covered in human skin, and a belt made out of nipples. Gein would cut up these women and dress himself in human skin and pretend he was his own mother.
Ed remained in a mental hospital for ten years until he was considered fit to stand trial. On January 16, 1958 Gein was found guilty but criminally insane and sent off to Central State Hospital in Waupun, Wisconsin. He moved in 1978 to Mendota Mental Health Institute where he would eventually die. In 1984, at the age of seventyseven, Ed died of respiratory and heart failure.
Gein, who inspired Hitchcock to write about Norman Bates, a deranged mamas boy, influenced Alfred Hitchcocks Psycho. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre resembled Eds violence. In the movie, chairs were made out of human skin, human bodies hanging from meat hooks, and lamps made out of human hands. The third recurrence of Geins brutal violence occurred in 1991 in the movie Silence of the Lambs. Geins love of wearing human skin was an influence to this movie. Not only did Ed Gein influence many movies, but his specific story was also made into a movie: Ed Gein, the true story behind Psycho and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The movie is based closely on the life of the Wisconsin serial killer.
Many books were published on the life of Ed Gein. The first book written about Ed, titled Ed Gein, was a legal version of the story told by the judge who convicted him. Another novel, Ed Gein Psycho, was based on the films created about Gein. Deviant, another book about the life of this serial killer, has not yet come out but eventually will. The last book is Out Cry a fictional story speculating whether or not Ed had a son no one knew of.
Internet Sources:
http://www.weird-wi.com/ghouls/wispsycho.htm The title of this site is Weird Wisconsin. This site contains Gein's Biography.
http://www.fortunecity.com/roswell/streiber/273/gein_cf.htm The title of this site is Case File: Ed Gein the Butcher of Plainfield. This site contains Gein's Biography and also a profile of him.
http://www.carpenoctem.tv/killers/gein.html The title of this site is Seize the Night. This site contains Gein's Biography.
http://members.tripod.com/eddiegein/id2.htm The title of this site is The World of Ed Gein. This site contains Gein's Biography.
http://www.houseofhorrors.com/gein.htm The title of this site is Ed Gein American Psycho. This site contains Gein's Biography.
http://www.midnightgraffiti.com/edgein.html The title of this site is Ed Gein: In the Flesh. This site contains Gein's Biography.
http://www.arminm.com/ed_gein.htm The title of this site is Ed Gein: Known as the Man who Inspired Psycho. This site contains Gein's Biography.