Ed Gein: the Real ‘psycho’

From Wikipedia, a list of what the police found at the house of Ed Gein;

• Human skulls mounted upon the corner posts of his bed
• Human skullcaps used as soup bowls
• An array of shriveled heads
• Skin fashioned into a lampshade and used to upholster chair seats
• Skin from the face of Mary Hogan, a local tavern owner, found in a paper bag
• Socks made from human flesh
• A sheath made from human skin
• 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)
• A window shade pull made of human lips
• Four noses
• Organs in the refrigerator
• Pieces of salted genitalia in a box

Under interrogation, Ed Gein admitted to all of these horrible transgressions. He admitted to the exhumation of some 40 graves of middle-aged women whom he claimed in life bore a resemblance to his mother, and he did things to their bodies at his leisure at his home. He tanned their skin to make trophy possessions that were wearable socks, long-sleeved gloves, skullcaps used as bowls, ornaments for the home, and he made facial masks of the exhumed women and so forth. He denied have sex with any of the dead bodies having said that they ‘smelled too bad’ but he apparently had no problem eating the flesh. He also confessed to the shooting death of one Mary Hogan in 1954, the only other person beside Bernice Worden that he actually murdered.

It was reported that shortly after Ed Gein’s mother Augusta died, he became obsessed with ‘becoming a woman’ and to that end he had created a wearable ‘woman suit’ from the tanned skin of one of the bodies he procured from the graveyard.

 Allegations of a forced confession were made, police officer Art Schley allegedly abused Gein by slamming his head repeated into a brick wall to obtain the confessions. Officer Art Schley died young at age 43 from a heart attack, just one month after the start of the Ed Gein trial. It was widely believed by his friends and family that the horror of the crimes contributed to the early demise of the young investigating officer.

 Found mentally incompetent to stand trial at the time, he was incarcerated at the Central State Hospital (currently, the Dodge Correctional Institution) of Waupun, Wisconsin until it was converted into a prison. He was transferred to Mendota State Hospital in Madison, WI and in 1968 was determined to be sane enough to stand trial for his crimes.

Deliberations of just one week determined his guilt of the two counts of first degree murder but owing to his mental state, he was remanded to life in a mental institution.

 Recovered Gravemarker

Image Source

Ed Gein died on July 26, 1984 of heart and respiratory failure, a complication due to his cancer. He was buried in Plainfield, Wisconsin, where his grave site was vandalized by people that hated him and/or by the souvenir seekers, taking chipped pieces of his headstone. The grave marker was stolen in the year 2000, but recovered in June 2001, where it is displayed today at a museum in Waushara County, Wisconsin. The monster Ed Gein impacted culturally many Hollywood screamer movies, providing the deeds for the fictional villains as well as in other popular culture where his name was invoked in songs, literature and musical performers such as a former bassist band member from the group Marilyn Manson who assumed Gein’s lastname.

No horror novel or screenplay can ever be scarier than the real tale of Ed Gein, the real serial killer monster of humanity.