The first source I am going to be using is from the Crime Library, this source covers basically anything you would want to know about Ed Gein. I think this is a good source to start with because it helps build background information on Gein for my readers. The Crime Library is written for anyone curious on the Ed Gein’s history and the crimes that he committed. The Crime Library is a place you can go to look up different offenders, whether it’s serial killers, sexual offenders, unsolved cases and many other things to learn more about a specific topic. This website is split up into chapters, sort of like a book would be to make it easier to find the information you are looking for.
Chapter 2: The Beginning starts out from the beginning of his life; Edward Theodore Gein was born on August 27, 1906 to Augusta and George Gein in La Crosse, WI. Ed was the youngest child in the family, having an older brother named Henry who was seven years older than him. The children’s mother was a very religious woman who raised her boys according to her strict moral code. The boys received teachings from the bible every day and she repeatedly warned her sons of the evilness of women. According to her beliefs all women except her were prostitutes and if either of her boys had sexual desires for them they would be cast into hell. George on the other hand was a sever alcoholic who had no say in the raising of his boys. The boys were always told how worthless their father was because he couldn’t keep a job. Augusta provided for the entire family financially by opening a grocery store when Ed was born, once she had saved enough money they moved to Plainfield, WI where she could raise her boys away from the city and the way she wanted to. Of course the boys had to attend school, which they did and Ed succeeded very well in reading which allowed him to escape into his own world away from his mother’s strict rules. The boys were not allowed to have any friends, which saddened Ed, but he tried his hardest to please his mother.
Chapter 3: Henry, looks at Ed’s relationship with his brother Henry. Ed looked up to his older brother Henry just as any normal little brother did. After their father died of a heart attack in 1940 the boys started taking on small jobs to help support the family farm and mother financially. Both boys were considered to be trustworthy and reliable by many townspeople, but Ed’s favorite job was babysitting for the neighbors. Henry often worried about Ed’s unhealthy attachment to their mother and often criticized her which shocked Ed, in his eyes their mother was pure goodness. On May 16th 1944 Henry and Ed fought a bush fire that was dangerously close to their farm. According to police, the two boys separated to fight the fire from different directions and as night approached Ed lost sight of Henry and contacted the police about his missing brother. A search party was formed and surprisingly Ed led them right to Henry, who was lying dead on the ground. Henry’s death remains a mystery because he was found on land untouched by the fire and had bruising on his head. Nobody ever suspected sweet, innocent Ed of being capable of killing anyone, especially his brother.
Chapter 4: Seriously Weird covers the beginning of his killings.The only person Ed had left after Henry’s death was his mother, but only for a brief time. Augusta died on December 29, 1945 after having several strokes, Ed was all alone know, he lost the person he loved the most.Ed remained living in the house, but boarded off the rooms that his mother used the most so they would remain as she had left them. Two rooms were all Ed had left, the kitchen and a small room next to the kitchen that he used as his bedroom. After his mother’s death Ed became real lonely and spent much of his time reading adventure books, pulp magazines and anatomy books. Ed became fascinated by the procedures done by the Nazis, South Sea headhunters and shipwrecks, after reading all these weird stories he became obsessed with them. Ed also enjoyed reading the obituaries, where he would learn of recent deaths of local women. He made many trips to grave yards to dig up the remains of recently buried women. After digging up women he would peel their skin off and wear it like a jumpsuit because he was curious what it was like to have breasts and a vagina. Ed began collecting different parts of the female body and preserving their heads to hang in his room.
A few years after starting his collection he decided he wanted fresher skin and in the winter of 1954 Ed killed his first victim, tavern keeper Mary Hogan, police excepted foul play when they found the pool of blood on the tavern floor (Chapter 4). Chapter 6: Skeletons in the Closet, covers the findings in Geins murders. On November 17, 19577 Ed killed his second victim Bernice Worden, the only thing that connected him to this crime was a receipt for antifreeze, which Ed had stated he would be back for the day prior to her disappearance in front of bernice Worden’s son. Worden’s son told police he knew it had to be Ed Gein, so police drove out to the Gein farm and what they found next would be etched in their memory for the rest of their lives. Not only did they find the headless body of Mary Hogan hanging in the shed but they found the remains of at least 10 other bodies. Police found Ed and took him into custody. At first Ed did not admit to the murders, but after 24 hours of silence he finally confessed his story of how he killed Mrs. Worden and where the body parts were located. He told stories of how he robbed the graves women and dissected their bodies. Although he confessed to the murders of Hogan and Warden he did not completely remember everything that had happened, he did not recall shooting either with a .22 caliber gun. Chapter 7: A Sexual Psychopath, talks about the findings of his sanity. Psychologists and psychiatrists found Ed was schizophrenic and a “sexual psychopath,” by those means alone Gein pled not guilty by reason of insanity. Many psychologists and psychiatrists believe his condition was due to the unhealthy relationship with his mother and upbringing. Ed spent 30 days in a mental institution and was evaluated as mentally incompetent and could no longer be tried for first degree murder; the people of Plainfield were irate. After 10 years spent in the mental institution courts decided he was indeed recovering and could be tried. Ed was found guilty of first degree murder, but was found insane at the time of killing and was later found not guilty by reason of insanity and acquitted. Although Ed escaped punishment because of insanity he spent the remainder of his life in the mental institution until he died on July 26, 1984 after a long fight with cancer.
I have found this source to be highly accurate from other sources that I have read; the information from this source matches all the others I have read. I chose to use this source instead of others because it included all of the information on Gein’s life instead of only parts like most of the other sources I have read. The crimes that Gein committed are mind blowing in my opinion, and what I find even more mind blowing is that psychologists link his problems to his unhealthy relationship to his mother. I’m really curious as to what his mother would think about his killings, some sources say he could hear her voice telling him how to execute the killing and I’d like to know if that is true. This source didn’t help much to answer my question of why he chose to keep certain things as souvenirs, so I think the next place I will go is to look into other cases that are similar to his that have been evaluated by psychologists already. This source did however give me incite on his relationship with his mother and how that played a key factor in his mental health issues.
Work cited:
Bell Rachael, Marilyn Bradsley. “Eddie Gein.” Crime Library: Criminal Minds and Methods. TruTv, 2013. Web. 30 Oct. 2013. <http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/notorious/gein/bill_1.html>.
http://www.documentingreality.com/forum/f237/ed-gein-crime-scene-pictures-new-109928/
http://mispeliculasdeterror.com/especiales/la-masacre-de-texas-historia-real