“Psycho: The Lost Tapes of Ed Gein,” a four-part docu-series on MGM+, has further drawn all the attention to the heinous crimes of Gein, the serial killer. Along with new interviews with crime experts and scholars, this docuseries has “never-before-heard recordings” of this beastly murderer.
These recordings grabbed everyone’s attention, with Harold Schechter, the author of “Deviant: The Shocking True Story of Ed Gein, the Original Psycho,” saying,
“I had no idea these tapes existed. I have always imagined Ed Gein’s voice sounding as one way, but it was totally different – and it brings you so much closer to the reality of the case. It was quite eye-opening… I think Gein has become such a mythical character that hearing his actual human voice was revelatory in certain ways.”
He thus expressed his surprise in an interview with Fox News Digital. The life and crimes of Ed Gein have inspired many celebrated films, like “Silence of the Lambs,” “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” and “Psycho.” However, his real life and the murders he committed were more shocking than these cinematic adaptations.
Here is a sneak peek into the life of Ed Gein, or the Butcher of Plainfield.
Ed Gein’s Relationship With Her Mother: Was It the Root Of His Crimes?
You will find the criminal bent of mind for many serial killers was grown due to a troubled childhood and an unusual relationship with their families. For Ed Gein, the impact of her mother, Augusta Gein, had a role to play.
Augusta Gein was a dominating personality with puritan beliefs. She thought of sex as a sin. She thought of the modern world as “sinful, decadent, Sodom and Gomorrah.” Ed Gein was very close to his mother, and she was believed to inculcate in him a deep sense of fear for women and sexuality.
She often sometimes treated him as a slave by keeping him tied to her. It was an act to restrict his moves and deny his maturity.
Schechter, the author of Deviant, rightly states, “Gein lived alone for many years with his mother in this very isolated place that was cut off from other meaningful human contact. His mother just became the center of his emotional, and at some level, sexual life. Now, I’m not implying that they had sex, but his sexuality was channeled into this slavish relationship with his mother.” (Source)
There is no wonder that Ed Gein’s mental health deteriorated after his mother’s death. There were also suspicions about Gein making an attempt to dig his mother’s grave. He was not successful in his attempt.
As a result, he started digging the graves around the grave of Augusta Gein. According to Schechter, he only started killing women when he could not find corpses. He killed women who resembled his mother, and he was essentially a necrophiliac.
Though Ed Gein always maintained that he had profound love and respect for his mother, many find his acts as a way of protesting against the confined life his mother forced him to live.
Did You Know?
As a child, Ed Gein was bullied several times. He only stepped out of his house to visit his school. However, he was unable to build a bond or connection with anyone.
His classmates found him socially awkward, and young Gein often used to burst into inexplicable fits of laughter.
He often had lazy eyes and some problems with his speech. So, naturally, it was difficult for him to communicate and make connections.
So, his mother was his only companion, and he absorbed all her teachings. Like his mother, he also developed a harsh overview of the world.
Was Ed Gein’s Brother His First Victim?
George Philip Gein, Ed Gein’s father, was an alcoholic, and he died in 1940. So, Ed Gein only had his mother and brother Henry in the family as he was growing up. Henry sometimes had problems dealing with the way Augusta wanted to raise her children.
So, many suspect that out of deep love for his mother, Ed Gein took revenge by killing his brother.
Ed and Henry Gein were about to clean some vegetation in their field by setting a fire in them. However, that night in 1944 was the last time when both brothers lived, as the fire engulfed everything in no time.
The firefighters who came to put out the fire only found Ed, who said that his brother had “vanished.” After a while, Henry’s corpse was found, and asphyxiation was said to be the reason for his death.
After his brother’s death in 1944 at the age of 43, Ed and his mother lived an isolated life. Unfortunately, his mother died in 1945.
How Ed Gein Became The Butcher Of Plainfield
After Augusta’s death, Ed Gein kept his mother’s room and other parts of the property untouched. Out of his absolute devotion to his mother, he wanted to build their farmhouse as a shrine. Harold Schechter said, “Even as a grown man, Gein appeared as this little boy who worshiped this powerful goddess that was his mother.”
He was living alone, and there were no human interactions. With time, he developed obsessions in certain areas. He started studying human anatomy and Nazi medical experiments. Also, he became addicted to porn, adding fuel to his unnatural fantasies. He even loved reading horror novels.
Having said that, he never dated or had a relationship with a real woman.
It Took A Decade To Know What Ed Gein Was Upto
Days passed, and Gein spent his days obsessing over his strange practices. A decade after he started living alone, in 1957, an incident drew all the attention to Ed Gein.
Bernice Worden, the owner of a local hardware store, suddenly disappeared. Ed Gein was the last customer to visit the store of this 58-year-old widow. He went there to buy antifreeze.
There was no trace of Worden. However, police found bloodstains in her store. They visited Gein’s household to investigate, and they truly discovered a house of horror.
Worden’s son, Frank, was a deputy sheriff. He first expected his suspicion about Ed Gein being behind the murder of his mother. Upon finding Gein’s connection with the murder of Worden, the local authorities tried building Gein’s connection with other missing cases that happened in the locality at the same time. However, their attempts were not successful.
The investigators questioned him following his arrest, and all the sessions were recorded. These recordings were securely kept inside a judge’s deposit box. After the judge passed in 2018, his family discovered the recordings in 2019.
These recordings are the highlights of Psycho: The Lost Tapes of Ed Gein. There is no denying that listening to Gein’s voice is terrifying, and it is enough to remind us of the heinous crimes he committed.
Ed Gein’s House Of Horror
The police first found the corpse of Bernice Worden upon entering Ed Gein’s house. The corpse was hung from the rafters. The body was headless.
Then, they found the house to be a storehouse of endless human bones and skulls.
Gein made many bowls and utensils using human skulls. There were even household essentials, including furniture made of human skin.
Some of the most shocking discoveries in Gein’s house were:
- A wastebasket made using human skin
- Leggings tailored with the skin of human legs
- Human faces used as masks
- A window shade drawstring made of human lips
- A belt made of nipples
- Lampshade made using a human face
- A corset made of a female torso
- Jars filled with human organs
Leaving the police in further shock, some body parts of another missing woman, Mary Hogan, were also found. She was a tavern keeper, and she had been missing since 1954.
And that’s not all! There were genitals of different women, fingernails, and noses scattered in his house, leaving the entire place in an extreme state of disarray.
Many officers fell sick after entering Gein’s house and discovering the massacre there. They could smell death, and there was no electricity inside the house. They were also struggling to breathe.
Ed Gein’s Crimes In Pursuit Of Him Becoming His Mother
When questioned about his heinous acts, Ed Gein mentioned that he collected the corpses and human remains from nearby graveyards. He started visiting these graveyards after two years of his mother’s death. He used to look for corpses that resembled his mother.
Further, he explained that he was collecting these remains so that he could make a “Woman Suit.” He wanted to wear that suit to “become his mother.”
Ed Gein And His Killing Spree
To date, there is no clarity about how many people Gein killed. He was only sent to trial after ten years of his arrest. He was deemed mentally unfit, causing a delay in the trial.
In the trial, he was only accused of killing Bernice Worden and Mary Hogan. However, police found as many as forty dead bodies in Gein’s house. Gein mentioned that he stole most of them from local graveyards.
Having said that, Ed Gein and his killer spree will be one of the most disturbing accounts of serial killing, irrespective of the number of people he actually killed.
What Happened After Ed Gein’s Arrest?
Ed Gein was arrested in 1957 as the police unearthed many heinous accounts of crime in his farmhouse. However, he was not sent for trial, and he was found mentally sick.
So, he was referred to the “Central State Hospital for the Criminally Insane.” There, he was diagnosed with suffering from schizophrenia.
For reasons unknown, his farmhouse also got burnt to the ground during the same time. According to a deputy fire marshal, Gein’s house was ablaze due to a garbage fire. However, there was no official declaration of how his house caught fire.
Ten years passed, and finally, Gein was found to stand for trial in 1967. He was charged with killing only two women, and the police seemed disinterested in finding more details about Gein’s crimes as they saw that as a futile process.
Gein was not mentally sound, and he was anyway going to spend the rest of his life in the hospital. Ed Gein died in 1984 at the age of 77, and he never showed any remorse for whatever he did.
Ed Gein: The Unexpected Killer
Like many other serial killers, like Ted Bundy, Ed Gein was hard to believe to be a murderer. He was socially odd, and he was apparently perceived as a shy person. He was a farmer and even used to work as a maintenance worker and sometimes as a babysitter.
Despite there being rumors about Gein and his reclusive life, nobody could think of him doing the things he actually did. He was seen as a “simple-minded” guy.
In the interview with Fox News, Schechter has mentioned,
“There were certainly rumors floating around from some neighborhood kids I interviewed. But this wasn’t the kind of thing people would naturally suspect… And he was seen as very simple-minded. His criminal activities were so beyond the pale that no one would possibly suspect what was going on. Even now, decades later, there’s nothing comparable to what he was doing in the history of American crimes.”
Wrapping Up!
Ed Gein is surely one of the most disturbing serial killers in history, and he was also a necrophiliac. An unnatural relationship with his mother is seen as the root of his criminal acts. When arrested, he was also diagnosed with schizophrenia.
With bones, skulls, and human remains scattered all over, his farmhouse was indeed a house of horror. He even made and used household essentials made of human skin and body parts.
His gruesome crimes inspired many horror films and series, including the cult Hitchcock movie Psycho. Overall, it is difficult to find another account of crime that matched the deeds of Ed Gein or the Butcher of Plainfield.
Do you know of some other interesting facts about Ed Gein? Don’t forget to share them with us!
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