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Serial Killer of the Week:
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Ed Gein
Ed Gein grew up on a farm a few miles outside of the town of Plainfield, Wisconsin. His father, George, was a hard-luck farmer with little talent for working the soil and with a taste for alcohol. He also had a tendency to be quick with his fists after he had been drinking, but as rough as he was, he was no match for his wife, Augusta.
Augusta had been raised in a fiercely religious home and with this sort of influence, developed into a raving opponent of anything related to sex. All around her, she saw nothing but filth and depravity and how she managed to become pregnant with her two sons, Eddie and Henry, remains a mystery. Shortly after Ed's birth, she forced her husband to leave the "sinkhole of filth" called LaCrosse and moved to what she believed to be a more righteous location, Plainfield. However, this small, God-fearing town turned out to be no better, at least in Augusta's eyes. She considered the place to be a "hellhole" and kept her two sons on the farm and away from anything she considered dangerous or of a sinful influence, namely whorish women and the wickedness of carnal love.
In 1940, George Gein dropped dead from a heart attack. Most likely, he was not sorry to go. The years spent with Augusta had undoubtedly taken their toll on him. The two boys were left alone with their mother and soon Ed was even deeper under her terrible spell. Henry however, attempted to break away and have a normal life, but his brother would have nothing to do with it.
Henry's rebelliousness would have a price. In 1944, he was found dead on the Gein property. It was reported that he had suffered a heart attack while trying to put out a brush fire, though this did not explain the bruises discovered on the back of his head.
Ed finally had his mother all to himself, although a year later, Augusta had a stroke and was confined to her bed. Ed tended to her day and night, although even his constant attentions were found lacking. She screamed and cajoled him at all hours, calling him a weakling and a failure. He would never be able to survive without her, she constantly railed at him. Then at other times, Augusta would call him to her side and allow Eddie to crawl into bed with her. She would whisper and speak softly to him and allow him to stay beside her throughout the night. Ed prayed that his mother would not die, would never leave him to face the world alone.
Augusta died in December 1945 after suffering another, more serious stroke. Ed Gein, now 39 years old, was left alone to fend for himself. It was at this point that he began his descent into dark and unfathomable madness. For some time, no one seemed to notice. Even in a town as small as Plainfield, Ed Gein was a loner and rarely ventured off the farm. Hidden behind the ramshackle walls of his old farm house, he only appeared in town when he needed to run an errand, perform some handyman chores or stop for an occasional beer at Mary Hogan's tavern. No one seemed to think that he was any stranger than before... he had always been an odd little man, in need of a bath, but he seemed no different than he had before his mother's death.
Looking back, Ed's oddities stood out in hindsight. Local folks would later recall his barroom discussions of magazine articles that he had read in pulp men's magazines, stories of Nazi atrocities, island headhunters and sex-change operations. His jokes seemed to be a little on the cruel side as well. When Mary Hogan, the oversized tavern owner, suddenly disappeared, Ed began kidding that she was staying overnight at his house. Mary had vanished from the roadhouse, leaving nothing but a puddle of blood behind, and many thought Gein's jokes about the poor woman were tasteless. Even the stories about the strange things going on at Ed's house didn't faze anyone. Some local kids, peeking in Gein's windows, spread rumors that they had seen shrunken human heads in his living room. Ed laughed and explained that his cousin had served in the South Seas during World War II and had sent the heads to Ed as souvenirs.
Old Ed Gein would never hurt anybody. He was a strange little guy who didn't even like the sight of blood. He wouldn't even go deer hunting with the other fellows in town. That's what everyone in Plainfield said..... until Bernice Worden disappeared.
She vanished on November 16, 1957. Late that afternoon, Frank Worden returned to town from an empty day of deer hunting and stopped by the hardware store that was owned and operated by his mother, Bernice, a 58 year old widow. Strangely, his mother was not there. She had left, leaving the door unlocked and the back door open. Frank then discovered something terrifying.... a trail of blood leading from the storefront to the back door. A quick search revealed a receipt that had been left behind. The receipt was for a half-gallon of antifreeze. It had been made out to Ed Gein.
Frank notified the police and they went to Gein's farm house to question him about Mrs. Worden's whereabouts. When they arrived, they came upon the body of Bernice in the summer kitchen behind the house. She was naked, hanging by her heels from an overhead pulley. She had been beheaded and disemboweled.... dressed out like a butchered deer.
The stunned and sickened officers immediately called for reinforcements. A short time later, more than a dozen lawmen were combing the farm and exploring the contents of what would become known as Ed Gein's "house of horrors". What they found that night was like nothing that had ever been recorded in the annals of American crime.
Soup bowls had been made from the sawed-off tops of human skulls. Chairs had been upholstered in human skin. Lamp shades had been fashioned from flesh, giving off an eerie and putrid glow. A box was discovered that contained nothing but human noses. A belt had been made from female nipples. A shade pull had been decorated with a pair of woman's lips. A shoe box under a bed contained a collection of dried, female genitalia. The faces of nine women, carefully stuffed and mounted, were hanging on one wall.... and there was much more, including a bracelet of skin, a drum made from a coffee can and human flesh, and more. A shirt of human skin, complete with breasts, had been fashioned from the tanned torso of a middle-aged woman. Gein would later confess that he often put the shirt on at night and pretended to be his mother.
To make matters worse, the refrigerator turned out to be stocked with frozen human organs and a human heart was found in a pan on the stove. The local sheriff estimated that the various body parts added up to fifteen women, maybe more.
Around 4:30 in the morning, after hours of sifting through the hideous and horrifying debris, the investigators discovered a bloody burlap sack. Inside of it was a freshly severed head. Inserted into the ears were large nails connected with twine. The head belonged to Bernice Worden. Gein had planned to hang it on the wall as a decoration.
During the many hours of confession that followed, Gein admitted to the murders of two women, Bernice Worden and the tavern owner, Mary Hogan. The rest of the gruesome remains in the house had been scavenged from the local cemetery. For the past 12 years, following the death of his mother, Gein had been stealing into the Plainfield cemetery at night and robbing graves. His macabre collection had been gathered from the bodies of the dead. In his quest, Gein had enlisted the aid of a dim-witted farmer named Gus, who had helped him to dig up the bodies. Once back at the house though, the work had all been Ed's. When Gus had been committed to an old-age home, Gein became desperate for fresh trophies. At this point, he was driven to murder.
For months after Ed was taken away, neighbor boys threw rocks at his abandoned farm house. To many, the building was seen as a symbol of evil and depravity. The place was avoided at all costs. Eventually, notice was posted that the contents of the house and the farm itself would be auctioned off. The towns people were in an uproar, but little could be done about it.... or so it seemed. On the night of March 20, 1958, Gein's home was mysteriously set on fire and it burned to the ground. Arson was suspected but no matter how it had burned, the people of Plainfield were delighted to see it gone. When Gein, who was incarcerated at the Central State Hospital, learned of the loss, he only uttered three words in response. "Just as well," he said.
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Want to nominate a serial killer for the serial killer of the week e-mail me
Email:
malkiah_salome@yahoo.com
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