Mallory Ruff Period 3 October 29, 2001 His neighbors thought of Eddy as a normal guy with a strange sense of humor but in truth Ed Gein was far from normal. His long, twisted tale of cannibalism, necrophilia, and murder was kept hidden from everyone. the grisly things he did astounded this whole world and intrigued almost anyone who heard about it. Edward Theodore was born on August 27, 1906, the latter of two children of Augusta and George Gein of La Crosse, Wisconsin. Eddie wasn�t born into the happiest, most well developed, and compassionate family. His mother was a deeply religious woman who despised her alcoholic husband. Seeing him unfit to raise her boys she took it upon herself to raise Eddie and his brother, Henry, according to her beliefs and infused the teachings of the bible in her two sons as best she could. Even going as far as warning her sons of the harlots that women were in hopes to discourage them of any sexual desires. At the age of eight Eddie�s mother moved the family to a 195-acre farm in Plainfield, Wisconsin to further separate her and her sons from the �evils� of the outside world that could disturb her family. Ed was extremely secluded from other people and his whole life Augusta saw to it she was his only friend. When he would attempt to make friends his mother would scold him severely. Ed and Henry were often verbally abused by their mother and even throughout their early maturity remained removed from people outside of their family. Even with the constant abuse Ed endured from his mother he still remained loyal and obeyed her as best he could. At one point Henry openly criticized his mother, which upset Ed greatly. On May 16th, Henry mysteriously went missing while he and Ed were fighting a brush fire close to their farm. Eddie called together a search party to help him find his brother. After reaching the farm Ed led them directly to the �missing� Henry. Lying dead on ground untouched by any fire was Henry, unburned, with bruises on his head. The police quickly dismissed foul play because they couldn�t believe that gentle Eddie could have killed the brother that he had looked up to so much. Asphyxiation was reported as the cause of death. December 29th, 1945, Augusta died following a series of strokes. Augusta was probably his only reason for living and her death shattered him. He remained in his farm house after her death, preserving parts of the house as a shrine of some kind to his late mother, leaving them locked up for years. Eddie now spent his time reading death-cult magazines and making visits to the cemetery. Later on, Eddie would say he�d sometimes heard her voice talking to him at night. During the late 1940�s and 50�s there was an increase in missing persons cases throughout Wisconsin. In May of 1947, eight-year-old Georgia Weckler disappeared. Six years latter yet another girl went missing. Fifteen-year-old Evelyn Hartley vanished one night while babysitting. After an extensive search all that was found were her bloodied clothes on a highway just outside of La Crosse. November 1952 had yet another. This time it was two men, Victor Travis and Ray Burgess. Then again in 1954 Mary Hogan, a tavern keeper from Plainfield, went missing. All these cases had one connection. They all took place in or around Plainfield, Wisconsin. Three years later one more person turned up missing, but this time the Wisconsin police had a suspect, Eddie Gein. When searching Ed�s run down farmhouse for any evidence in the robbery of a local hardware store and the disappearance of Bernice Worden, police stumbled upon something that was absolutely horrifying. Sheriff Arthur Schley found what seemed to be at first glance the carcass of a gutted dear hanging in the house, which wasn�t uncommon in this rural area. Upon closer examination the sheriff discovered that this was no dear, but the decapitated and gutted body of Ms. Worden. Terrifyingly enough the gruesome discoveries didn�t end there. While searching through the rubble deputies found a funny-looking bowl which turned out to be the top of a human skull. Lampshades, waste baskets, an armchair made of human skin, a belt made of nipples, an human head and heart, four noses, a suit made completely from human skin... the list goes on. At first Eddie wouldn�t admit to any killings, but soon gave in and told the story of how he ended Bernice�s life. He also admitted to stealing most of the parts that he had used to make his crafts from local graveyards. Of course in court Gein�s sanity was questioned. Some thought he wasn�t able to stand trial for reasons of insanity. After many tests Gein was labeled a schizophrenic and a �sexual psychopath.� What had caused this? Augusta Gein. During the time Eddie was being psychologically tested police continued to search his farm for more evidence to prove or disprove that Eddie killed more people. Other than the bodies of Bernice Worden and Mary Hogan they found the remains of eight other women. Eddie claimed that they were taken from local graveyards but the police thought that he may have killed far more people than he admitted to. They found that Ed had in fact been telling the truth because the graves had been tampered with and body parts were missing. The Eddie Gein story was picked apart by the media and he was thought the be the �most famous of documented cases involving a combination of necrophilia, transvestism, and fetishism.�(Bell.) Plainfield had now become the home of the notorious Ed Gein and the inhabitants were badgered constantly by reporters. Most people only had good things to say about Ed. He was a little odd but other than that he seemed perfectly normal to them. Found unable to stand trial for first degree murder, Eddie was committed to the Central State Hospital. After ten years the court decided that Ed could now stand trail. The trial began November 7, 1968. With the evidence stacked heavily against him Eddie was found guilty of first degree murder after only one week at trial but because he was considered insane at the time of the killing he was found not guilty and acquitted. He was placed back in the Central State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. He was apparently very happy at the hospital and was considered a model prisoner. �Apart from certain peculiarities -- the disconcerting way he would stare fixedly at nurses of any other female staff members who wandered into his line of vision -- it was hard to tell that he was particularly insane at all...� (Bell.) He spent the rest of his life at Central State, but after a long fight with cancer Ed died on July 26 of 1984. He was buried next to his mother not far from the graves he had robbed years before. You may have heard this twisted tale before and just not known it. Eddie Gein was the inspiration for such well-known films as Psycho, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs. Though fiction stories are great, the non-fiction that Eddie himself created is far more interesting and complex. He is, and will forever be, known as the real American Psycho. Works Cited |