| After this, the Sheriff and the Captain returned to Ed�s house with other officers, the house was locked, but the door to the shed wasn�t. As the farm had no electricity, and it was now night, Art had to use a torch to find his way around, but to his horror, this unveiled a naked female corpse strung upside down from a cross-beam like a deer. The legs were spread apart and there was a long slit running from the groin to the neck, the head had also been removed as well as the anus and genitalia. Bernice�s body had been disembowelled like a deer. Using oil lamps and flashlights, they continued the search only to find Ed�s house deep in rubbish and the sealed off rooms littered with books, papers, magazines, utensils, cans and cartons and other junk. From then on, what the officers were to find was the extreme. They found - two shin bones, four human noses, a quart can converted into a tom-tom by skin stretched over both top and bottom, a bowl made from the inverted half of a human skull, nine �death masks.� Ten female heads with the tops sawn off above the eyebrows, bracelets of human skin, a purse made with a handle of human skin, sheath for a knife made in human skin, a pair of leggings made from human skin. Four chairs with the seats being replaced by strips of human skin, a shoe box containing nine salted vulvas of which his mothers was painted silver, a hanging human head, a lampshade covered with human skin, a shirt made of human skin, a number of shrunken heads. Two skulls for Ed�s bedposts, a pair of human lips hanging from string, Ed�s female body suit, Bernice Worden�s heart in a pan on the stove and the refrigerator stacked with human organs. The site was horrific and was far worse than any of their nightmares added together. 13 corpses and 2 murdered women�s bodies had provided the stock for Ed�s artefacts. It was also said that neighbours were sometimes brought gifts of venison, or what they believed to be venison. However, Ed had never shot a deer ever, so it was later thought that these gifts were not actually deer, but human. At the Central State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, Ed underwent a series of examinations from which he was proven insane. His two victims were both older women, and this was found to have stemmed from both his love and his hatred of his mother. Mary Hogan, his first victim, was said to have had more than a passing resemblance to Ed�s mother. Ed denied being either a necrophiliac or a cannibal, but he admitted to grave robbing. This horrific incident helped cause a sensation from which thousands turned up in their droves to take a glance at the �murder farm.� But eventually, the house was burnt to the ground, presumably by enraged locals, just before it was about to go up for auction. To Plainfield, this was a place of evil. At Christmas time of 1957, Ed was committed to Waupan State Hospital for a life sentence although he was briefly considered for parole on the grounds of good behaviour, but he was again judged as insane and never made it out of the asylum. Ed Gein died on the 26th July 1984, aged 78 due to a long spell of cancer. He was buried at Plainfield cemetery next to the graves of his family, ironically, only to have his tombstone stolen just before the turn of the century. Since his death, a film has been made shortly after the theft of his tombstone, simply entitled, Ed Gein. As a result of conducting this research, I have found that Ed Gein died within one month of my birth, I was exactly 27 days old when he died, and now, 17 years later, I am conducting research into his life and death. To say the least, being born within one month of his death is a little freaky. |