Edward Gein, Ghoul And Serial Killer
Posted: Friday, March 13, 2009
by Joel Hendon
http://hebronics.org/index.html
Seemingly, as long as records have been kept, we have had serial killers. Just a person with a quirk in their mentality that gives them the obsession to kill. Not always the same reason, but usually with a similar result of a lot of dead people.
Our story centers around a male named Edward Theodore Gein, born August 27, 1906 to George and Augusta Gein in Vernon County, Wisconsin. His family is of importance to our study since many credit his youthful environment as the prime cause of his later life problems.
The mother was domineering and was possibly the cause of the drinking and abuse of the father. She was verbally abusive to the boys and spent much time in reading the Bible to them and lecturing against the evils of the world and that they should leave women alone since they were almost all prostitutes. The older brother Henry, became wary of his mother's tactics and her wild assumptions so there developed a strained relationship between them. Ed developed a strange but very strong attachment to his mother and was appalled at his brother when he ridiculed her.
George died in 1940 from heart failure, leaving the overbearing mother as the prime driver of the now grown boys. Then in 1944, the boys were fighting a brush fire which was endangering their farm. The became separated while fighting the flames and when it was fully extinguished and darkness was coming, Ed returned to the house, but Henry did not return. Ed got the local sheriff's office who formed a search party. He then led them directly to Henry's body which was in an unburned area and he had bruises on his head. The sheriff was highly suspicious due to the finding of the body and the bruises yet, Ed denied any knowledge of what happened and the coroner did rule death by asphyxiation.
Ed's mother then died one year later leaving him alone in the house. He sealed off his mother's upstairs room and all else of the big house except one downstairs room and the kitchen. It was later learned that he read many death-cult books and magazines and also that between 1947 and 1954 he had made as many as 40 visits to three local cemeteries and dug up freshly buried corpses.
He continued to do odd jobs and chores for locals as a means of lively hood and no one suspected him of any wrong doing, police included.
In November 1957, a local Plainfield hardware store owner, Bernice Worden, disappeared. Her body was found hanging in a shed on Ed's property. She had been beheaded, her rib cage split open and she was reportedly "dressed out" as one might in dressing a beef of deer. She had been shot with a .22 rifle.
According to Wikipedia the following items were found inside his home:
(1) Human skulls mounted upon the corner posts of his bed
(2) Human skullcaps used as soup bowls
(3) An array of shriveled heads
(4) Skin fashioned into a lampshade and used to upholster chair seats
(5) Skin from the face of Mary Hogan, a local tavern owner, found in a paper bag
(6) Socks made from human flesh
(7) A sheath made from human skin
(8) A human heart (it is disputed where the heart was found; deputy reports all claimed that the heart was in a saucepan on the stove, while some crime scene photographers claimed it was in a paper bag)
(9) A window shade pull made of human lips
(10) Four noses
(11) Organs in the refrigerator
(12) Pieces of salted genitalia in a box
Ed Gein was ruled to be mentally insane and spent the rest of his life in a mental institution. He was 77 years old when he died on July 26, 1984 of respiratory and heart failure due to cancer. He confessed to and was found guilty of killing only two women, yet they consider him a serial killer. Several movies were inspired by his unbelievable life and even a song was written.
We never know who is sitting next to us in a cafe, or possibly even in church.
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Top-level comments on this article: (2 total)Joel,As gruesome as this is, you made me laugh because I'm imagining the people I sit next to in church as possible serial killers!Well done, what a fascinating story and told extremely well,Thank you for the laugh amidst the horror,Nancy
My husband rented the movie about him and he was one sick individual.
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