40 Facts About Ed Gein

Ed Gein's crimes, committed around his hometown of Plainfield, Wisconsin, gathered widespread notoriety in 1957 after authorities discovered that he had exhumed corpses from local graveyards and fashioned keepsakes from their bones and skin.

Ed Gein confessed to killing two women: tavern owner Mary Hogan in 1954, and hardware store owner Bernice Worden in 1957.

Ed Gein was initially found unfit to stand trial and confined to a mental health facility.

Ed Gein died at Mendota Mental Health Institute from respiratory failure resulting from lung cancer on July 26,1984, aged 77.

Ed Gein is buried next to his family in the Plainfield Cemetery, in a now-unmarked grave.

Ed Gein reserved time every afternoon to read to them from the Bible, usually selecting verses from the Old Testament and the Book of Revelation concerning death, murder and divine retribution.

George Ed Gein worked as a carpenter, tanner and in the city fire department.

Ed Gein owned a local grocery shop but soon sold the business and left the city with his family to live on a 155-acre farm in the town of Plainfield, Wisconsin, which became their permanent residence.

Ed Gein was shy; classmates and teachers remembered him as having strange mannerisms, such as seemingly random laughter, as if he were laughing at his own personal jokes.

Ed Gein enjoyed babysitting, seeming to relate more easily to children than adults.

On May 16,1944, Ed Gein was burning away marsh vegetation on the property; the fire got out of control, drawing the attention of the local fire department.

Ed Gein had a second stroke soon after, and her health deteriorated rapidly.

Ed Gein held on to the farm and earned money from odd jobs.

Ed Gein boarded up rooms used by his mother, including the upstairs, downstairs parlor and living room, leaving them untouched.

Ed Gein lived thereafter in a small room next to the kitchen.

Ed Gein received a farm subsidy from the federal government starting in 1951.

Ed Gein occasionally worked for the local municipal road crew and crop-threshing crews in the Plainfield area.

Frank Worden told investigators that on the evening before his mother's disappearance, Ed Gein had been in the store and was expected to have returned the next morning for a gallon of antifreeze.

That evening, Ed Gein was arrested at a West Plainfield grocery store, and the Waushara County Sheriff's Department searched the Ed Gein farm.

When questioned, Ed Gein told investigators that between 1947 and 1952, he had made as many as forty nocturnal visits to three local graveyards to exhume recently buried bodies while he was in a "daze-like" state.

Ed Gein admitted to stealing from nine graves and led investigators to their locations.

Ed Gein had robbed the graves soon after the funerals while the graves were not completed.

The test graves were exhumed because authorities were uncertain as to whether the slight Ed Gein was capable of single-handedly digging up a grave during a single evening.

On November 21,1957, Ed Gein was arraigned on one count of first degree murder in Waushara County Court, where he pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

Ed Gein was diagnosed with schizophrenia and found mentally incompetent, thus unfit for trial.

Ed Gein was sent to the Central State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, a maximum-security facility in Waupun, and later transferred to the Mendota State Hospital in Madison.

In 1968, doctors determined Gein was "mentally able to confer with counsel and participate in his defense".

Ed Gein had told him that while he examined a gun in Worden's store, the weapon discharged and killed Worden.

Ed Gein said he had not aimed the rifle at Worden, and did not remember anything else that happened that morning.

Ed Gein spent the rest of his life in a mental hospital.

Ed Gein's possessions were scheduled to be auctioned on March 30,1958, amidst rumors that the house and the land it stood on might become a tourist attraction.

Ed Gein died at the Mendota Mental Health Institute due to respiratory failure, secondary to lung cancer, on July 26,1984, at the age of 77.

Ed Gein is interred between his parents and brother in Plainfield Cemetery; his gravesite now unmarked, but not unknown.

Ed Gein's story has had a lasting effect on American popular culture as evidenced by its numerous appearances in film, music and literature.

Ed Gein served as the inspiration for a myriad of fictional serial killers, most notably, Norman Bates, Leatherface, Buffalo Bill, Garland Greene, and the character of Dr Oliver Thredson in the TV series American Horror Story: Asylum.

Ed Gein's story inspired American grunge band Tad to write the song "Nipple Belt" for their 1989 album, God's Balls.

Ed Gein inspired American thrash metal band Slayer to write the song "Dead Skin Mask" for their 1990 album, Seasons in the Abyss.

Ed Gein said, 'When I see a pretty girl walking down the street, I think two things.

In 2012, German director, Jorg Buttgereit, wrote and directed a stage play about Ed Gein's case titled Kannibale und Liebe, at Theater Dortmund in Germany.

In 2022, Ed Gein, portrayed by Shane Kerwin, appears in the first season of Netflix's anthology series Monster as a possible inspiration for serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer's crimes.