Though not a serial killer, people often talk about Ed Gein as if he were one, which is probably because his real actions inspired characters and storylines in films like Silence of the Lambs and Psycho.
Like in Psycho, Ed Gein had problems with his mother, Augusta. The pair lived alone after the death of Ed’s father, who died of a heart attack, and his brother, who died of asphyxiation in a fire that got out of control near their home. At first, they considered that Ed might be responsible for the death, but they never brought formal charges against him.
For one whole year, Ed lived with his overbearing Lutheran mother, who called all unwed women harlots. She had suffered a paralyzing stroke after her other son, Henry’s, death, and Ed had devoted himself to taking care of her. But his mother’s opinions about unmarried women stayed with Ed even after she died in 1945, only days before the new year. Now Ed was alone in the world.
Ed was considered reliable and honest growing up in Plainfield, and he enjoyed babysitting for neighbours. And after his mother’s death, he held onto the farm, boarding up rooms that his mother had used, and taking on odd jobs to help pay for the upkeep. He also sold an 80-acre parcel of land that had been owned by Henry.
Worden and Hogan
Bernice Warden disappeared in November 1957, the hardware store where she worked remained closed all day, and a resident reported the store’s truck being driven out of the back at 9.30am. At 5pm, her son, Deputy Sheriff Frank Worden, entered the store and found the cash register open and blood on the floor. The last receipt written by Bernice the morning she disappeared was for a gallon of Anti-freeze to one Ed Gein.
Police arrested Ed later that day and searched his property. Officers discovered Worden’s decapitated body hung upside down in a shed on the farm, shot with a 22. calibre rifle. But that wasn’t all they found, inside the property were bones, furniture and accessories covered and made from human skin -not unlike those in the TV series Hannibal, bowls made from human skulls, articles of clothing made from human skin, a shoebox containing nine vulvae, a belt made from human nipples, noses, lips, fingernails, and the facemask and skull of Mary Hogan.
Mary Hogen was a tavern owner who had been missing since 1954. Initially, Gein admitted to shooting Hogan but later denied any memory of her death.
Body Snatcher
Like Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs, Ed Gein was constructing a woman suit. He began this endeavour not long after his mother’s death with the intention of being able to wear the suit and become his mother.
Ed Gein told officers that he had made 40 nocturnal visits to the local graveyard to exhume the recently deceased, saying he was in some kind of daze whilst the activities took place and during 30 of these returned to himself in time to cease what he was doing and return home empty-handed. On those occasions when he did not leave empty-handed, he brought home the bodies of women who resembled his mother and used their skins and bones to make the items the officers had found in his house.
Ed Gein: Guilty or Not Guilty
Ed Gein pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to the charges of first-degree murder brought against him on November 21st, 1957. They diagnosed him with schizophrenia and sent him to the Central State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. But in 1968, doctors found Gein capable of conferring with counsel and able to participate in his defence. Gein claimed to remember very little of what happened to Bernice Worden other than attempting to load a round into a rifle and it accidentally going off and killing her. He was found not guilty by reason of insanity and once again committed to Central State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, where he remained until his death.
Born in 1906, in Plainfield, Wisconsin, Ed Gein lived until the age of 77. He died of liver cancer and respiratory failure in Mendota Mental Health Institute.
Ed Gein on Streaming
You can now watch the Ed Gein Story on Netflix, in Ryan Murphey series, Monsters. A relatively dark series, based on the stories of those criminals and killers that most of us have heard of. Obviously, they’re dramatisations, through Murphey’s lens, of each focus’s life. But he has a particular knack for bringing these people to life, and it looks like there are a lot more series planned.
An anthology series about high-profile crimes or killers that captured public attention and notoriety.
–Monster, IMDb–
Post updated Saturday 18th October 2025
Horror and Fantasy Author – Also writing as K.T. McQueen. Love Western Horror, cowboy boots, my cactus Collin, & my Demon Cat.
Moths – I hate moths, the way they flutter at your face!
