toots_16@... asked this question on 5/12/2000:
What can you tell me about Eddie Gein? Do you have any suggestions for finding police reports?
Amandab gave this response on 5/12/2000:
Ed Gein, his story has been the basis for many films, including: Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs
Ed Gein was born in 1906 in Plainfield, Wisconsin to an uptight, domineering mother, who would often kneel and pray for the death of her husband in front of young Ed and his brother, Henry. She tried to instill in her sons the teachings of the scriptures, and a deep suspicion of women as schemers and whores. Mr. Gein eventually made his wife happy by dying, but then, so did she. Life's a bitch like that sometimes. So did Henry, sooner or later. Which leaves us Ed. He does what any lunatic would do, and seals up most of the house, especially his mothers room, which he kept locked up and just like she left it, her body included, like a shrine. To add to the list of "Why would he do that" information, Ed would often masterbate onto the corpse of his mother. Gein began reading books, particularly medical books detailing human anatomy as well as books dealing with Nazi concentration camp medical experiments. Then he summoned forth Gus, who was kinda like his own personal Igor, and they would head off to the graveyard to collect bodies. Ed later claimed he wanted to know how the human body worked. Eventually already dead people weren't good enough for Ed. Presumably Gus had nothing to do with any of the following events.
In December 1954, Ed Gein shot and killed fifty four year old Mary Hogan in her tavern, Hogans Tavern. Incidentally, Mary was said to have born more than a passing resemblance to the later Mrs. Gein. On November 16, 1957, Ed took his last victim, Bernie Worden, who was also in her fifties, as she worked in the store owned by her son. Ed's truck had been seen outside the store, so Plainfield police headed out to his homestead. This is what they found.
• Bernice's headless body, hanging from a block and tackle in an outdoor lean-to, gutted like a deer.
• Human bodies hanging from hooks set in the basement walls.
• Four noses in a cup in the kitchen.
• A pair of lips hanging from a string.
• A human heart (Wordens) in a pan on the stove.
• A literal "armchair" - A chair covered in human skin.
• A lampshade covered in human skin.
• A skull topping each of the four posts of his bed.
• A belt made of nipples.
• The crown of a skull used as a bowl.
• A refrigerator full of human organs and body parts.
• Some decorative masks hanging on the wall, women's skinned faces.
• A hanging human head.
• Bracelets made of human skin.
• A table with shinbone legs.
• A shoebox containing nine salted vulvas.
• Ed also made himself a "woman suit," complete with a mask and breasts.
In addition to the two older women, there are other mysterious disappearances that might be attributed to Ed. Two girls, in particular. One, an eight year old, turned up missing in 1947. A fifteen year old disappeared on her way home from babysitting in 1953. Her bloodstained clothing were found, but no body. As a gruesome sidenote, neighbors remembered Ed as always being a strange man, but one who sometimes brought them packages of fresh venison when he came to babysit for them. Ed later stated that he had never shot a deer in his life. Ed was tried and found guilty but insane of the murders of Mary Hogan and Bernice Worden. He was a model prisoner and died in the psychiatric ward at Mendota.
Because this all happened before computers, there isn't actually news articles as such on the net, however there are some good sites out there. Here is one with some pics of the victims as well as some different ones of Gein
http://www.houseofhorrors.com/gein.htm
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