On November 16, 1957, Bernice Worden, owner of a hardware store in Plainfield, disappeared. Her son Frank Worden, who was a local police officer, discovered an open cash register and blood stains on the floor in the store. The last transaction Bernice recorded was a purchase made by Ed Gein – officers arrested him at a grocery store and went to his secluded farm to search it. No one expected what would be discovered there.
Plainfield Butcher inspired ‘Psycho’ and ‘Silence of the Lambs’
At the scene, the police quickly found the decapitated body of Bernice Worden. The body was hanging upside down in the shed, and it turned out to have been disemboweled like animals after a hunt. The cause of death was a gunshot from a .22 caliber carbine, and the mutilations were done after her death. Officers searched the house and found me whole human bones and bone fragments, a garbage can made of human skin, skulls on the bedposts, several chairs upholstered in human skin, bowls made of human skulls, a corset made of a woman’s torso from shoulder to waist, human skin leggings crafted to mask female faces, Bernice Worden’s head in a bag, a human heart cut out, a box filled with the genitals of different women, a box filled with the genitals of various women, four human noses, a child’s dress, a human skin lampshade, and a belt made of female nipples.
During questioning, Ed Gein told police that from 1947 to 1952 he had been to the cemetery at least 40 times, from which he had stolen the freshly buried corpses of women of various ages. Soon after his mother’s death, Gein began creating a “female jumpsuit” to become her and “literally step into her shoes,” describes Katherine Ramsland in A True Necrophile. He denied having sex because it “smelled bad.” He also confessed to shooting Mary Hogan, a tavern owner who disappeared in 1954. Her head was discovered in his house. Officers suspected that Gein was also involved in the disappearance and death of several other people, including his own brother, who allegedly died of carbon monoxide poisoning in a fire (investigation and autopsy were never undertaken).
Ed Gein photo: Fair use / http://www.allserialkillers.com/ed_gein.htm Allserialkillers.com
Sheriff Art Scheley was extremely traumatized by Gein’s crimes. His relatives believed he was so terrified of the prospect of testifying at the trial that he suffered a heart attack and died at the age of only 43. Friends considered him another victim of the Plainfield Butcher (as the media dubbed Ed Gein) – described Harold Schechter in the book “Deviant”. Before the trial, Gein was examined by forensic doctors and psychiatrists – they said he had schizophrenia and sexual psychopathy. He was considered insane, which precluded sentencing him to death – the court placed him in a psychiatric hospital. After 10 years of treatment, Gein was deemed eligible for the trial. He was found guilty of the murder of Bernice Worden and sentenced to life in prison at Central State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. Gein died in a psychiatric hospital on June 26, 1984 at the age of 77 – he had lung cancer.
What was the Pleinfield Butcher’s childhood like?
Ed Gein’s life has been the subject of extensive research and analysis. He was born in 1906 and was the younger son of George and Augusta Gein. His older brother’s name was Henry, and the family lived in poverty due to his father’s alcoholism, which led to him having to sell his grocery store. As a consequence, they moved to an isolated and cut off farm, where they all lived together – most of the clan members lived there until the end of their days.
Augusta was an obsessively religious person and she despised her alcoholic husband in the extreme. She taught her sons that the outside world was immoral, that drinking alcohol was wrong, and that all women (except herself) were by nature licentious and tools of the devil. Every afternoon she read to the boys from the Bible, mostly from the Old Testament and the Book of Revelation about death, murder, and divine redemption. After moving to the farm, she took advantage of the isolation and chased away all strangers and outsiders who might have had some influence on her sons.
Gein only left home to go to school and worked on a farm in his spare time. Teachers described him as a good but very shy student with strange reflexes. They recalled that he would often laugh at random moments, as if he were laughing at his own jokes. Alex Falster also reported in his 2004 biography of Ed Gein that his mother punished him whenever he tried to make friends.
In 1940, Ed’s father died of a heart attack, and he and his brother Henry began working odd jobs in the city to earn money to support themselves. The local community considered them honest and trustworthy people – both dabbled in various repairs, Ed very much liked to look after the children of the neighbors. It was easier for him to establish a relationship with children than with adults. Meanwhile, his brother had started dating a divorced mother of two and was planning to move in with her. He often told his fiancée that he was worried about his brother’s morbid attachment to their mother. Ed was hurt that Henry was talking badly about his mother and wanted to move out. In May 1944, a tragedy occurred – the brothers were burning dried organic waste, and the fire got out of control. The fire department arrived on the spot. That same day, Ed reported his brother missing. After a short search, his body was found with his face facing the ground. He had no burns, but there were visible bruises on his head – but the police at the time ruled out third party involvement and it was ruled that he died of asphyxiation during the fire.
From then on, Ed and Augusta lived just the two of them. The mother had suffered a serious stroke after the death of her older son and her health was clearly failing. Ed devoted himself to Augusta’s care, but after her second stroke, her condition quickly worsened. She died on June 29, 1945 at the age of 67. Harold Schechter wrote that Ed was distraught: “He lost his only friend and his only true love. He was alone in this world from now on,” he wrote. Gein spent the next few years working odd jobs to earn money. He locked up the rooms used by his mother and left them in exactly the same condition when she was there. He cleaned them regularly and kept them in immaculate condition.
In addition, he began to read popular adventure magazines, and he was particularly interested in those devoted to cannibalism and the crimes of the Nazis, especially those committed by Ilse Koch. Prisoners in the Buchenwald camps testified after the war that Ilse selected prisoners with “interesting” tattoos and had lampshades, gloves, handbags and book bindings made of human skin. She also tortured male and female prisoners, and especially enjoyed forcing them to rape fellow female prisoners. This led the Nazis to find it necessary to discipline her.
Impact on popular culture
Ed Gein’s crimes left a strong mark and found numerous reflections in numerous books, films and even music. In 1959, the writer Robert Bloch wrote the short story “Psycho”, which was later adapted for film by Alfred Hitchcock. As we remember, the main character Norman Bates had an extremely unhealthy relationship with his toxic mother, and after her death he dressed up as her and murdered “immoral” women. Strong inspirations and motifs from the life of the Pleinfield Butcher can also be seen in the books of Thomas Harris, who based on his crimes and experiences created the characters of Buffalo Bill from “who sewed a costume for himself from women’s skin, as well as the Tooth Fairy from “Red Dragon” – this hero he was a traumatized victim of domestic abuse by an abusive grandmother, and Gein has been an inspiration to films such as “Deranged,” “House of 1000 Corpses,” “The Devil’s Basterds” and “Texas Chainsaw Mascara,” among others.
Source: Gazeta
Bruce is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment . He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
