Darkness Of The World (Encyclopedia)

Ed Gein (Psycho/Serial Killer)

Authors note: Maeenjoy nio ang Chapter na ito kung may internet kayo, kasi may mga pics na nakainsert dito.

Born

August 27, 1906
DiedJuly 26, 1984 (aged 77)
Cause of deathand heart failure due to cancerOther namesThe Mad ButcherCriminal penaltyMurderKillingsVictimsBernice Worden and Mary Hogan (officially confirmed)CountryUnited StatesState(s)Date apprehendedNovember 16, 1957

Edward Theodore Gein () (August 27, 1906 – July 26, 1984) was an American murderer and . His crimes, committed around his hometown of , gathered widespread notoriety after authorities discovered Gein had corpses from local graveyards and fashioned trophies and keepsakes from their bones and skin. Gein confessed to killing two women – tavern owner Mary Hogan on December 8, 1954, and a Plainfield hardware store owner, Bernice Worden, on November 16, 1957. Initially found unfit for trial, after confinement in a mental health facility, in 1968 Gein was found guilty but legally insane of the murder of Worden and was confined in psychiatric institutions. He died at of cancer-induced liver and respiratory failure on July 26, 1984. He is buried in the Plainfield Cemetery, in a now-unmarked grave.

CAREER

Gein held on to the farm and earned money from odd jobs. He boarded up rooms used by his mother, including the upstairs, downstairs parlor and living room, leaving them untouched; while the rest of the house became increasingly squalid, these rooms remained pristine. Gein lived thereafter in a small room next to the kitchen. It was around this time that he became interested in reading death-cult magazines and adventure stories, particularly those involving or atrocities.

Gein was a handyman and received a farm subsidy from the federal government starting in 1951. He occasionally worked for the local municipal road crew and crop threshing crews in the area. Sometime between 1946 and 1956, he also sold an 80-acre parcel of land that his brother Henry had owned

CRIMES

On November 16, 1957, Plainfield hardware store owner Bernice Worden disappeared. When Worden's son told investigators that Gein had been in the store the evening before her disappearance, saying he would return the next morning for a gallon of anti-freeze, the police began to suspect Gein. A sales slip for a gallon of anti-freeze was the last receipt written by Worden on the morning she disappeared. Upon searching Gein's property, investigators discovered Worden's body in a shed, hung upside down by ropes at her wrists, with a crossbar at her ankles. The torso was " like a deer". She had been shot with a rifle, and the mutilations were made after her death.

Searching the house, authorities found:

Whole human bones and fragmentsWastebasket made of human skinHuman skin covering several chair seatsSkulls on his bedpostsFemale skulls, some with the tops sawn offBowls made from human skullsA corset made from a female torso skinned from shoulders to waistLeggings made from human leg skinMasks made from the skin from female headsMary Hogan's face mask in a paper bagMary Hogan's skull in a boxBernice Worden's entire head in a burlap sackBernice Worden's heart "in a plastic bag in front of Gein's potbellied stove"Nine in a shoe boxA young girl's dress and "the vulvas of two females judged to have been about fifteen years old"A belt made from female humanFour nosesA pair of lips on a window shade drawstringA faceFingernails from female fingers

These artifacts were photographed at the state crime laboratory and then destroyed.

When questioned, Gein told investigators that between 1947 and 1952, he made as many as 40 nocturnal visits to three local graveyards to exhume recently buried bodies while he was in a "daze-like" state. On about 30 of those visits, he said he came out of the daze while in the cemetery, left the grave in good order, and returned home empty handed. On the other occasions, he dug up the graves of recently buried middle-aged women he thought resembled his mother and took the bodies home, where he their skins to make his paraphernalia.