Edgin is a maniac. Ed gin (ed gein) - the real story of a maniac leatherface. In popular culture

Having become legendary, this creepy type did not go down in history because of a large number crimes, but because of the horror that he caught up with his contemporaries. The murders took place in a very small town in central Wisconsin, where nothing like this had ever been heard of. Here are 15 facts about the maniac whose name is familiar to every American.

One of the most famous American maniacs is Ed Gein. Despite the fact that he has only two confirmed victims (and about a dozen more unconfirmed), it was this dangerous madman who became the prototype for many thrillers - books and films in the horror genre. There were legends about his terrible habits, and the best psychiatrists in the United States racked their brains over unnatural addictions.

15. Ed grew up on a farm, kept to himself

The Gein family moved to a farm in Plainsfield when Gein was a child. His father, a great drunkard, died quite early, leaving him with his mother, named Augusta, and a brother. August Gein was a religious fanatic, she constantly read the Bible to her sons, forced them to do hard work on the farm and did not allow them to communicate with their peers, believing that they would teach him bad things. She called the town "hell", and considered all women "whores". Augusta was more than just a mother to Ed, she was his whole world, his best and only friend.
It cannot be said that Eddie's childhood was prosperous. All members of the family, including the late drunken husband, were under the control of the despotic and tough Augusta, who does not recognize authorities, an imperious and strict woman. As for Gein himself, he considered his mother a saint, and her opinion was law. Many psychologists involved in the Gein case believe that the mother greatly influenced the subsequent development of Gein's personality. So, from childhood, she instilled in her sons hatred for female gender especially for sex.

14. There was a Bible study every day

Augusta belonged to the old Lutheran school and took every opportunity to preach to her boys about the dangers of sin. She made her sons study and memorize Old Testament, as well as poems about death and retribution. Pretty heavy material for a boy... Psychologists unanimously claim that it was the influence of a despotic mother that had a serious destructive effect on the personality of Ed Gein, and on his sexual addictions.
Bible study likely contributed to his shyness and what has been described as "weird behavior" such as laughing at his own jokes at the wrong time. When he really tried to befriend someone, his mother punished him for it. Certainly social empty life, without friends and acquaintances, daily forced Bible study, influenced the creation of that Ed, which eventually horrified all of America.

13. Ed worked part-time as a nanny

Ed's father died at the age of 66 from drinking. To help with the money, Ed and his brother Henry took on any job they were looking for throughout the city. The brothers had a good reputation as hardworking handymen. In addition to being a jack-of-all-trades, Ed also occasionally agreed to babysit the children. He loved this job, believing that he had better communication with children than other adults. Can you imagine entrusting your children to Gein? God, this is a real nightmare!
Around this time, Ed's brother, Henry, began dating a single mother of two. Henry was concerned about Ed's obsession with their own mother, Augustus, and even said, "Something's wrong with Ed..."

12 Gein May Have Killed His Brother

Dr. George W. Arndt studied Gein's case and reported that Ed probably killed his brother Henry; it was a typical case of "Cain and Abel". On May 16, 1944, under extremely mysterious circumstances, Henry died. On that day, the brothers worked on the farm, burning garbage or grass. According to Edward, the fire got out of control, his brother was engulfed in flames, and Eddie himself ran for help. When he returned with several men, his brother was already dead. At the same time, it is not clear what prevented the brother from knocking down the flames, because the edge of the field was so close, and his body was not burned much ... One way or another, someone is inclined to think that the elder brother was the first victim of Ed Gein, someone thinks his death was an accident, but Gein himself never admitted to killing his brother.
No autopsy was performed, but the brother had bruises on his head that could have been the result of a struggle. The dead brother was the only person standing between Ed and his mother. Now she began to belong to him entirely and undividedly.

11. He has never dated or dated anyone.

When Ed was young, his mother forbade him to have friends or go on dates with girls, but as he got older, he never tried to break his mother's covenants. Socially and emotionally he was a tabula rasa - a blank slate. This was partly because he was socially developed at the level of a child, partly because the real evil was already ripening in him, which later made Gein a monster.

Looking back, perhaps it was for the best. Who knows what these dates would lead to? In the meantime, the townspeople think old Ed Gein wouldn't hurt a fly. This is just a strange lonely man who can't even stand the sight of blood, because he has never participated in the traditional local fun - deer hunting.

10 He "mothballed" his mother's room

August had a stroke and was bedridden, and Ed nursed her almost whole year, regardless of abuse and whims. She died in December 1945 after a second stroke. 39-year-old Ed was left alone and it was then that his fall into the abyss of madness began. At first, no one noticed what was happening, even in a tiny town like Plainfield. Ed was very reserved and rarely left the farm. Leading a reclusive life, he came to the city only when he needed the services of a mechanic. No one seemed to notice that he was stranger than before his mother's death. Gein became known as "weird old Eddie", a nickname that characterized him quite vividly.
He boarded up his mother's room, and other rooms that were previously used the most, and began to "settle in" other rooms. He also gave free rein to his interests, which for so long he had been forced to hide even from himself. He began to study special literature ... Ed read books about the atrocities of the Nazis during World War II with their experiments on people in concentration camps, as well as about cannibalism... Eddie furiously drew information about the structure of the female body, hidden by his mother for so long, from books on anatomy, medical encyclopedias, scientific (and not so) magazines - from any available sources. He was especially attracted to pamphlets describing the exhumation of corpses. And Gein's favorite section of the local paper was obituaries.

9 Gein Moves From Theory To Practice

Between 1947 and 1952, Gein made regular visits to three local cemeteries - he visited at least 40 times. He claimed that he was as if in a stupor, as if "in a somnambulistic state, and it seemed to him that he was about to wake up." Regularly visiting the surrounding cemeteries, he opened up fresh women's graves, removed the corpses and studied them. Then he returned the bodies back to their place. But Gein kept some body parts for himself...
"Old Eddie" butchered corpses, cut out genitals, skinned bodies. Bringing body parts home, he sewed himself a suit of human skin, tanned and dried in accordance with all the rules. He later denied allegations of necrophilia and claimed that he did not perform any sexual acts with the bodies because "they smelled bad."

8. Leather suit

We all mourn the death of loved ones in different ways. Some of us are depressed, sad or angry. Gein mourned the death of his mother, creating a costume from the skin of other women in order to literally be in her shoes - that is, "to be her." Apparently, he has been in the shoes of many ... This practice has been described by someone as a "crazy transvestite ritual", but this definition does not seem adequate enough. And how can one go from an afternoon Bible study to butchering women's bodies? Almost immediately after starting to collect his terrible "collection", he sewed himself clothes from women's skin. Later, they will discover a whole nightmarish wardrobe made by him from human skin, as well as masks.
Cut off body parts stolen from cemeteries, Gein kept at home. Heads, scalps and skulls were hung on its walls. Strange rumors began to circulate about Gein's farm, but he only laughed it off. When the children looked through the window and saw the skulls, Gein told them that his brother served somewhere in the southern seas and brought them from there. When Gein was arrested for the murder of two women, parts of their bodies and skulls were found in his house.

7. Body parts and skin everywhere

The police managed to prove Gein's guilt in two murders. The first victim of a maniac in 1954 was the owner of the bar, Mary Hogan, whose corpse he managed to quietly smuggle through the whole city. He dismembered the body and it added to his "collection". The second murder, fortunately, was the last. When the 58-year-old widow Bernice Worden disappeared, her son, in addition to pools of blood, found a receipt in the name of Edward Gein. After searching the House of Horrors, even experienced cops were shocked by what they saw - the widow's body was hung on a hook like in a butcher's shop and partially butchered. During the investigation, Edward Gein confessed to both crimes.
What the cops found that night was unparalleled in the history of American criminology. Soup bowls made from human skulls; chairs upholstered in human skin, lampshades made of leather, a belt made of women's nipples; dried female genitalia. The faces of nine women, carved into effigies, hung on one of the walls ... there was also a leather bracelet, a drum made of flesh, and much more. The breasted shirt was made from the skin of a tanned, middle-aged woman. Gein later admitted that he wore this shirt at night, imagining himself as his own mother. The sheriff estimated that the remains belonged to about fifteen women. After several hours of searching, the police found a bloody bag. Inside was a recently severed head. Nails were stuck into the ears, connected to each other with twine. The head belonged to Bernice Worden. Gein planned to decorate one of the walls of his "House of Horrors" with it.

6 Gein's Initial Confession Wasn't Properly Obtained

One of the most terrible crime scenes in history and a personal confession of the killer - it would seem, what problems could there be to sue a maniac? But a sheriff named Art Schley turns out to have tapped Gein on a brick wall a couple of times during hours of interrogation. The judge decided that the confession thus obtained could not be added to the case. Needless to say, Sheriff Schley died of heart failure before the trial even began. Apparently he was so
traumatized by the Gein case that his heart gave out. The sheriff's friends blamed Gein for this death, calling Schley another victim of Gein. Obviously, it was difficult to keep cool in such a nightmare, but it was about the confession that one could not worry - there was enough evidence to charge.
Gein, who was detained, was first sent to the Central State Hospital for the Criminally Insane and then to Mendota State Hospital in Madison, Wisconsin. In 1968, doctors determined that Ed was quite sane to stand trial, and on November 14, 1968, the trial. Gein was found guilty of premeditated murder, but instead of prison, the legally insane defendant went to a psychiatric hospital for the rest of his life. The maniac died in 1984 in a psychiatric hospital, where he spent the last 14 years of his life.

4. Gein's crimes inspired the creation of the character Leatherface (Leatherface)

In many horror films (think of the famous Texas Chainsaw Massacre), maniacs like to dress in clothes made of human skin. But few people know that the beginning of this terrible "fashion" was laid by Ed Gein and the character of "Massacre" named Leatherface - wholly a reference to his atrocities.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a 2003 American horror film remake of the Tobe Hooper classic. The film is the first in a series of remakes of classic horror films produced by Platinum Dunes, who also produced The Amityville Horror, The Hitcher, Friday the 13th, and A Nightmare on Elm Street. Although the film received negative reviews from critics, the film was a box office success, grossing $107 million worldwide. Unbelievable but true - people love this movie!

4. Blind Melon made a song about Gein

Ever since the cops wrecked Gein's House of Horrors, which so impressed the people and the media, pop culture has begun to mold the legend of the notorious maniac. A kind of "black humor" accompanied all references to Gein's crimes. One of the strangest examples: in 1995, the band Blind Melon released the song "Skin" on their album called "Soup". Blind Melon never fit into any particular genre, they are somewhere between alternative and classic rock sound. The song is quite upbeat, playfully describing some of Gein's atrocities, with particular detail on the leather lampshades. Apparently it's funny to some...
There is a place for "shock" in pop culture, and Gein provided a lot of material for creativity - he has not been forgotten by the creators of music, cinema and now, bloggers. Here short list songs about Gein: "Dead Skin Mask" by Slayer; "Old Mean Ed Gein" by The Fibonaccis, "Nothing to Gein" by Mudvayne, "Young God" by Swans, "Deadache" by Lordi, "Butchery into the Light of the Moon" by The Mutilator, song "A Very Handy Man (Indeed)" by The Meteors from the album Madman Roll tells the story of Ed - even the cover of the LP uses a photo of Gein.

3. Ed Gein on the big screen

In addition to his influence on horror films, Gein had a fairly lasting impact on the minds of America. In addition to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, a retelling of Edward Gein's life as the most violent serial killer for the entire history of America was made in the film "Ed Gein: The Butcher of Plainfield" and in the film "In the Light of the Moon". He was also featured in the 1974 American film Deranged.

Elements of Ed's biography are included in famous films such as Hitchcock's Psycho, The Silence of the Lambs, and Necromancy. Ed is mentioned in the serial criminal series Criminal Minds, several episodes are filmed clearly about the plot of his life. He is mentioned in the movie "American Psycho", in the TV series "Bones", in the TV series "American Horror Story: Asylum", in the TV series "Bates Motel" in 2013 and many others. The television series Hannibal includes elements of the biography of Ed Gein.

2. The grave of a maniac suffered more than once

Last resort Ed Gein found in the city cemetery of Plainsfield, next to his parents (and this is one of those cemeteries where he stole body parts of the deceased). His headstone has become an odd tourist attraction for those who saw him as a pop culture hero. The killer's gravestone has been vandalized several times. And in the 90s, when various kinds of satanic sects and cults became popular, pieces of gravestone became a popular souvenir among various “adepts”. In 2000, the entire headstone was stolen, but restored by the local authorities in 2001.

1. "Gane's Ghoul Car"

The maniac left no heirs, and the authorities decided to sell the "House of Horrors" and all property at auction. But on the night of March 20, 1958, Gein's house mysteriously burned to the ground. It was rumored that it was arson, but the perpetrators were never found. According to the people of Planfield, the fire saved their town from becoming a monument to Ed Gein's madness. However, he did not stop the flow of curious people who want to participate in the sale of the surviving property.

Gein's car, which he used to transport his victims, sold at a public auction for an incredible $760 (approximately $5,773 adjusted for inflation). The buyer preferred to remain anonymous, but appears to have been the organizer of the fair, where the Ford was later shown as an attraction called Ed Gein's Ghoul Car. Speculation on the notoriety of Planfield was met with disapproval by the townspeople. At the Washington DC Fair in Slinger, Wisconsin, the car was on display for four hours before the sheriff arrived and closed the ride. After that, Wisconsin authorities banned the car from showing. The further fate of the car is unknown.

Every nation has its own dark secrets, "skeletons in the closet". One of the most famous American maniacs is Ed Gein. Despite the fact that he has only two confirmed victims (and about a dozen more unconfirmed), this dangerous madman has become the prototype for many directors who shoot thrillers and writers working in the horror genre. There were legends about his terrible habits, and the best psychiatrists in the USA puzzled over the unnatural addictions of a maniac.

Edward Theodor Gein Born August 27, 1906 in La Crosse County (Wisconsin, USA). His father, George Gein, was an alcoholic, and his mother, Augusta Gein, was a religious fanatic. She constantly read the Bible to Edward and her brother, forced them to do hard work on the farm and did not allow them to communicate with their peers, believing that they would teach him bad things. She called the town of La Crosse "hell", and she considered all women "whores".

Ed Gein spent all his childhood with his older brother Henry - his mother severely punished him when he tried to make friends with classmates. Despite the oddities (for example, according to the recollections of people who knew him, he could laugh for no reason), Gein studied well. He was especially good at reading. Classmates often laughed at him because of a small deviation - a growth on the eyelid. When Ed was a teenager, his mother decided to leave the "nest of debauchery" and acquired first one farm near La Crosse, and then another - in the vicinity of Plainfield. It was this quiet place that became the place of innumerable horrors.

After the death of his father (in 1940, George Gein was killed by alcohol), his mother's influence on Ed Gein increased many times over - it began to bother even those close to him sibling. Henry repeatedly criticized his mother, whom Ed idolized. Maybe this prompted the guy to the first crime. But psychologists (and the life of a maniac was investigated and dissected by hundreds of specialists) unanimously argue that it was the influence of a despotic mother that had a serious destructive effect on both the personality of Ed Gein and his sexual addictions.

"Evening" selected eight frightening facts from the life of a serial killer.

1. Unconfirmed fratricide. Until now, the death of Henry Gein is shrouded in mystery. According to official figures, he died while extinguishing a fire in one of the fields. It is known for certain that death overtook a man after he began to actively criticize his mother and condemn her growing influence on younger brother. On May 16, 1944, Henry and Ed Gein burned grass on the farm. After some time, the expanding ring of flame attracted the attention of the surrounding residents and sheriffs, who discovered the body. There were no visible injuries on the corpse of Henry Gein (although some sources indicate the presence of bruises on the head), and the coroner determined that he died of asphyxiation. However, no autopsy was performed and death young man considered an accident.

2. "A little weird." After the death of his mother on December 29, 1945, Edd Gein's mental state seriously deteriorated. He became interested in books on anatomy, he enthusiastically read stories about Nazi atrocities, as well as pamphlets describing the exhumations of corpses. Gein's favorite section of the local paper was obituaries. Moreover, the neighbors did not consider the man crazy, only "a little strange." And left him to sit with their children. By which he, by the way, with pleasure retold stories on topics that fascinated him so much. But this did not cause the inhabitants of the district to sound the alarm.

3. "They smelled bad." From reading exhumation books, Ed Gein quickly turned to practice and began visiting local cemeteries. He carefully read the obituaries, especially interested in the dead young women, tore up their graves and butchered the corpses, taking the parts with him. He later denied allegations of necrophilia and claimed that he did not perform any sexual acts with the bodies because "they smelled bad."

4. Nightmare Museum Cut off body parts stolen from cemeteries, Ed Gein kept at home. Heads and skulls were hung on the walls of his house. Strange rumors began to circulate about Gein's farm, and he only laughed and laughed it off. When the children looked through the window and saw the skulls, Gein told them that his brother served somewhere in the southern seas and brought them from there. The fame of a man not of this world was entrenched behind him, and his house was considered a strange place, but no one could imagine what kind of "nightmare museum" Gein had arranged there.

5. Clothes made of human skin. In many horror films (recall at least the famous "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre") maniacs like to dress in clothes made of human skin. But few people know that it was Ed Gein who laid the foundation for this terrible “fashion”. Almost immediately after starting to collect his terrible "collection", he sewed himself clothes from women's skin. He was later found to have a whole nightmarish wardrobe made by him. with my own hands as well as masks.

6. Proven murders. The police managed to prove for sure Gein's guilt in two murders. The first victim of a maniac in 1954 was the hostess of the bar, Mary Hogan, whose corpse he managed to quietly carry through the whole city. He dismembered the body and it added to his "collection". Later, he joked that Mary Hogan stopped to stay with him, but no one then took the eccentric seriously. The second murder, fortunately, was the last. When the 58-year-old widow Bernice Worden disappeared, her son, in addition to pools of blood, found a receipt in the name of Edward Gein. After searching the maniac's house, even experienced cops were shocked by what they saw - the widow's body was hung on a hook like in a butcher's shop and partially butchered. In addition, a lot of truly terrible finds were found at his house. During the investigation, Edward Gein confessed to both crimes. He was also suspected of being involved in the disappearance of several people, but his guilt was never proven.

7. Mansion of Terror. That is how the locals called Gein's house, which stood on the outskirts. First, on the farm, which quite rightly began to be considered a cursed place, windows began to be broken. And then the farm suddenly burned down. When the maniac, who was in a psychiatric clinic, found out about this, he uttered only three words: "That's right." Until now, the place where the nightmare farm stood is notorious among the inhabitants of Wisconsin.

8. Grave of the killer. Ed Gein found his final resting place at the Plainfield City Cemetery. A maniac recognized as insane died in a psychiatric hospital, where he spent the last 14 years of his life. The killer's gravestone has been vandalized several times. And in the 90s, when various kinds of satanic sects and cults became popular, pieces of gravestone became a popular souvenir among various “adepts”. In 2000, the entire tombstone was stolen, but recovered by local authorities in 2001. To this day, Ed Gein remains a local creepy legend, the Wisconsin "Count Dracula."

Serial killer Ed Geen (1906–1984) from the American town of Plainfield, Wisconsin, was the inspiration for villains in several horror films, including Leatherface from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Buffalo Bill from The Silence of the Lambs, and Norman Bates from Psycho.

Gein's mother, Augusta, suffered from psychosis. She became a single mother in 1940 after the death of her alcoholic husband, George, from a heart attack. After the death of his brother Henry in 1944, as some argue, not without the help of Ed himself, his mother became everything to him. Her world revolved around him, and she became the center of his existence. After her death at the end of 1945, Gin, who at that time was 39 years old, was left alone for the first time in his life.

Ed Geen, who was later diagnosed with schizophrenia, yearned for his mother. Perhaps in hopes of becoming his mother, he dressed like a woman and ransacked graves, digging up the bodies of women who reminded him of his mother. He later turned to murder.

He dismembered women and used their body parts to make furniture, other household items and clothing. Here are 10 gruesome items Ed Geen made from the corpses of women he killed or dug up in local cemeteries.

10. Clip for curtains from women's lips

Geen confessed to killing only two women, local bar owner Mary Hogan and hardware store owner Bernice Worden. But there is reason to believe that as many as seven women became his victims.

The exact number is difficult to determine, because Gin "diluted" the bodies of his victims with corpses stolen from neighboring cemeteries, among which was 51-year-old Eleanor Adams. He was also suspected of the disappearance of two children, eight-year-old Georgia Weckler and 15-year-old Evelina Hartley.

When Bernice Warden disappeared without a trace from her own hardware store in Plainfield, her son Frank, the town's deputy sheriff, suspected that Ed was involved. And he was right. Captain Lloyd Shoefoester and Sheriff Art Schley found Bernice's body at Gin's house.

Her decapitated corpse, which was hung like a deer carcass, was discovered in a courtyard building. In a nearby box were her head and intestines, and nails protruding from her ears. Bernice's heart was found in Gbna's house. The police immediately searched the premises and, among other horrors, they found a curtain clip made from a woman's lips.

9. Lampshade made of human skin.

To find something to do, Gin began to read a lot. However, his "library" can not be called anything other than strange. It contained articles about cannibalism, headhunting, dried heads, and Nazi lampshades made from human skin.

Gin also studied Grey's Anatomy (a popular English textbook on human anatomy, considered a classic). Perhaps it was this tutorial that inspired Gin to create unique "designer" interior items. In his house, next to the chair where he liked to read books, there was a lamp, the lampshade of which was made of human skin.

8. Chairs upholstered in human skin.

Gin was reluctant to part with the body parts of his victims. He tried to use the bodies of his victims to the maximum. He kept the organs in his refrigerator and appears to have consumed them after cooking them on the stove or in the oven. Some say that sometimes he invited acquaintances to his creepy dinners. Among the gruesome finds police found at Gin's home were several chairs upholstered in the skin of his victims.

7. Bowls, tableware and ashtrays.

Some serial killers are obsessed with the skulls of their victims. For example, Richard Ramirez (known as the "Night Stalker") liked to smoke them. Gin used skulls stolen from nearby cemeteries as makeshift soup bowls and ashtrays. He also made forks and spoons from bones.

6. Masks.

Gin, who used female body parts as clothing, made sure that his horrible costumes complemented by masks made from the faces of dead women.

The masks looked very realistic. They consisted of the victim's face, including hair, ears, nose, lips, chins, and jaws. The only thing missing was his eyeballs, Ed "used" his when he wore the masks.

5. Corset and belt.

As a boy, Gin exhibited an effeminate demeanor that caused him to be bullied by his classmates. After the death of his mother, he tried more and more to become a woman, perhaps in an attempt to "resurrect" his mother in this way.

Although he claimed to abstain from necrophilia because the women's corpses "smelled badly", he "tried on" the victims' skin to make clothes. One such piece was a corset, made to slim his waist and make him look more feminine. But he also had several other terrible items in his wardrobe. women's clothing including nipple strap.

4. Wall carpet and other artifacts.

The mountains strange artifacts were scattered all over Gin's house. Among them was a wastebasket made from human skin, a skull on the head of the bed, a collection of noses, a box of vaginas, and the head of victim Mary Hogan in a bag. Gin also made a wall hanging from various parts tel.

There were other equally disgusting things. A corset made from the skin of the victims helped him transform into a person of the opposite sex. Determined to be as human as possible, Gin skinned dead women's legs and used them as leggings.

3. Vest.

In Geen's time, psychological support, hormone therapy, breast augmentation, and sex reassignment surgery were not available, and gender dysphoria was not recognized as such. Consequently, in order to pretend to be a woman, Gin had to improvise.

In addition to the masks, corset and leggings, Gin used a "women's" vest. Made from the upper body of a woman, the vest included a woman's breasts, which is why it is referred to in some sources as a "chest vest". This thing gave him a feminine look, at least he believed in it.

2. Dress.

Gin made a grotesque dress from the skin of his victims, which he wore when he pretended to be a woman. His love for such dresses became the inspiration for many horror films about atrocities similar to those committed by Gin himself.

1. Accessories.

Gin's wardrobe also contained many accessories, such as an apron made from the skin of his victims. Too odd even for Gin, this piece of clothing was a collection of mismatched pieces of leather sewn together in large, thick stitches, similar topics, which are used by mortuary workers after performing an autopsy.

The nipple is present in the upper left part of the apron (but the breast itself is missing). Parts of the face - eyes, nose and upper lip - are sewn together at the bottom left. A pair of ears are sewn in where pockets should be, above them is part of another face. On the lower right side is the right breast with the nipple.

Gin's other possessions included a pair of human skin gloves (the stitches on which follow the contours of the fingers), a pair of leather pants, and a necklace of five tongues strung on a string.

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After the end of the Second World War in the state of Wisconsin, USA, there were several cases of missing people.

The chain of these dramatic and, as the police believed, related incidents began on May 1, 1947, when 8-year-old Georgia Weckler, who had come from school, left her house to take a walk. The Weckler family lived on a farm located in a relatively deserted place, a real "bear corner" in American terms, and therefore the girl's parents had no reason to be afraid of bad neighbors or strangers. The latter in these parts generally come across infrequently. Georgia's mother, looking out of the window several times, could see her daughter on the lawn in front of the forest at a distance of less than half a kilometer from the house. But when it came time to call Georgia home, it turned out that she could not be found.
As a result of a large-scale search in the territory of Jefferson County, carried out with the involvement of a large number of volunteers and police, an area of ​​\u200b\u200babout 25 square kilometers was carefully examined. The police believed that the girl, walking, could not go beyond it. Even if she was attacked by a large wild animal, such as a wolf, her remains must have been within this zone. But since no trace of the disappeared girl was found, it remained to be assumed that Georgia Weckler was abducted and taken outside the search area.
In the place where the girl was last seen, the police found vague prints of the wheels of the car on the ground. After determining the wheelbase, the detectives decided that these prints could have been left by a Ford pickup truck, a vehicle very common among local farmers due to its practicality.
The next disappearance occurred two years later and had a much more tragic character.
Evelyn Hartley, a serious and responsible 15-year-old girl beyond her years, in 1949 worked as a nanny in one of the houses of the town of La Crosse, located on the very border of the states of Wisconsin and Minnesota. Her father, knowing the phone number of the house where she worked, once took to calling her and was extremely surprised when no one picked up the phone. He arrived at the house and was even more surprised when he saw that the house was closed and obviously empty. Walking around the house and looking into the windows of the first floor, to his considerable horror, he noticed on the floor of one of the rooms ... his daughter's shoe and her glasses. Hoping that the daughter was still in the house and might need help, the father, without calling the police, broke the basement window and entered the building. But he did not find his daughter there. The house is really really empty.
Inspecting the building and the surrounding area, the police found traces of blood in the backyard. An indistinct, bloody handprint was left on the wall of a nearby building. In the house itself, traces were found indicating a struggle that had taken place in it. The police were able to reconstruct the sequence of events that apparently developed in the following way: the intruder entered the house through the basement window, where Evelyn Hartley descended, apparently noticing him. The fight started in the basement, then moved to the rooms on the first floor. There was no doubt that the girl desperately resisted: this was indicated not only by her lost glasses and shoes, but also by overturned pieces of furniture, as well as a tablecloth torn off the table. In the end, the criminal managed to get the upper hand; alive or dead, he took his victim out of the house.
Analyzing the circumstances of this incident, the police made two important conclusions: a) the offender certainly had a car in which he drove up to the house and took the girl away and b) he was most likely a local resident, well known to Evelyn Hartley. The fact that the girl, having witnessed the attacker entering the house, did not make an attempt to call the police or run away, but went to the basement to reason with him, seemed very eloquent to the police. The thief seemed to Evelyn so harmless that the girl was not afraid to enter into negotiations with him and was sure that she would be able to negotiate. But she completely misjudged the situation. The detectives came to the conclusion that the purpose of the criminal's entry into the house was by no means theft - since the attacker did not take any of the things - but the girl herself. Thus, by descending into the basement, Evelyn, in a sense, made her opponent's task easier by falling right into his hands.
Three days later, some of Evelyn Hartley's bloody belongings were found on the side of the highway at the exit of La Crosse. The police could not collect any more materials on the case of the kidnapping of Evelyn Hartley.
It remains to add that the places of disappearances of Georgia Weckler and Marilyn Hartley were separated by almost 200 km. Nothing united the disappeared, except for the very fact of their mysterious disappearance. The missing were never found; as of January 2008, their fates remain unknown and search cases initiated for the missing continue to remain open.
In November 1952, hunters Victor Travis and Ray Bargess disappeared with their car. The men were last seen buying beer in one of the shops in the town of Plainfield. Despite extensive searches, no traces of these people could be found.
Two years later, on December 8, 1954, Mary Hogan disappeared, the owner of a small pub in the town of Pine Grove, located next to Plainfield. On the floor of her pub, a cartridge case from a 22-caliber (5.59 mm) cartridge was found, traces of blood indicated that the body was being dragged. They led from the bar to the back door of the pub and on to the car park, where they ended. The pub was not robbed; the perpetrator did not even take any of the alcohol, which seemed quite strange. It was natural to assume that the murdered (or wounded) Mary Hogan was taken away by car, but by whom and why this was done remained a mystery.
All these crimes, although they were separated by significant intervals of time and had little in common at first glance, nevertheless could well be explained by the actions of one and the same person. The geography of the places where the disappearances of people attracted attention: all the mentioned settlements- Pine Grove, La Crosse, Plainfield - although they were separated by considerable distances, they were located in areas of relatively sparsely populated areas in which the appearance of strangers or cars usually does not go unnoticed by residents. Meanwhile, in none of the above-mentioned criminal episodes in the stories of witnesses and neighbors did they ever appear. The fact that every time the criminal (or is it criminals?) remained unnoticed, in fact only meant that he did not attract attention to himself; in other words, he was well known to the inhabitants and seemed absolutely harmless.
In 1957, deer hunting season in Wisconsin opened on November 16th. It was a very busy day for the county sheriff's office - its employees had to check hunting licenses and documents for weapons from a large number of people who wanted to hunt on the first day of the season.
Frank Warden, one of the Plainfield County sheriff's deputies, was released only in the evening and stopped by his mother's hardware store around 9:00 pm. He planned to pick up his mother - Bernice Warden - and drive her home in his car. Much to his amazement, the deputy sheriff found the store empty.




rice. 1: Bernice Warden and her hardware store in Plainfield, photographed from different points. In the lower right photo, you can see the porch through which the criminal carried the body of the woman he had killed to his car.

For some reason, the front door turned out to be locked from the inside, and the back exit leading to the cargo porch, on the contrary, was open. When Frank Warden entered the store through it, he found some confusion and blood on the floor. In addition, the cash register has disappeared. The latter circumstance suggested a quite obvious idea of ​​a robbery.


rice. Figure 2: Bernice Worden's shop environment, photographed by a forensic scientist from the Coroner's District Office on the morning of November 17, 1957. In the second photo, Bernice Warden's blood can be seen in the lower left corner, where she was shot the night before.

Frank immediately called his direct superior, County Sheriff Arthur Schley, and reported the incident.
While waiting for the sheriff's arrival, Frank Warden began a systematic inspection of the store. On the floor behind the counter, next to a small stain that looked very much like blood, he noticed a crumpled piece of paper that turned out to be a receipt for a purchase, not completely filled out by his mother's hand. Apparently, at the time of the attack, Bernice Warden was entering the result of the last transaction on the receipt. Such was the sale of a liter bottle of antifreeze. And with a high degree of probability m. to assume that it was the last buyer who attacked the saleswoman.
When the county sheriff, accompanied by another of his assistants, A. Fritz, drove up to the hardware store, Frank Worden was sure that he could already name the person who attacked his mother. In any case, he well remembered that the night before one of the regular customers of the store, a local fool Edward Gein, was interested in the price of a liter bottle of antifreeze. In addition, he tried to persuade Bernice Warden to set up a date with him. Bernice was ironic about her awkward and stupid suitor, who was known throughout the neighborhood as a generally good and good-natured man, but clearly not getting along with his head.
After a tour of the store and a short meeting with assistants, Arthur Schley recognized Frank Worden's arguments as quite logical and agreed to visit Gein in order to check his alibi.
Edward Theodor Gein lived all alone on an isolated farm six miles from Plainfield, at that time a very small town of less than seven hundred inhabitants. Gein owned 195 acres of land, not a lot by American standards. The soil was bad - clay and sand - so neither Gein's parents nor he himself managed to get rich. But under President Eisenhower, the federal program for the conservation of agricultural land provided Gein with a wonderful opportunity to abandon the tedious and unpromising work in the field and live on government rent. He, of course, did just that. Eddie devoted his free time to traveling around the district, looking for an opportunity to earn extra money, or spent it in all sorts of local eateries; although Gein hardly drank, he liked to be in company, to listen to what people had to say. A typical single man, a bean, as they are called in Russia.
Gein's farm had no sewerage and running water, electricity was generated by an old diesel generator. Late in the evening of November 16, 1957, she was plunged into darkness and looked extremely unfriendly.
After making sure that no one was on the farm, the sheriff and deputies decided to go around Gein's neighbors. Everyone knew very well that despite his small stature and seeming defenselessness, Eddie was very strong man, capable of performing the most difficult and exhausting work better than many recognized local strongmen. The surrounding farmers often provided Gein with work and it could well turn out that he was at that moment with one of them. There was no way Ed Gein could go hunting: it was no secret that he never hunted because he was afraid of the sight of blood. In general, Gein's compassion and kindness were known to many who knew him; some of the farmers even invited Edward to sit with their young children during the harvest season.
The decision to look for Gein at the neighbors turned out to be extremely productive. Even before 23.00, his old Ford was found in the yard of one of the neighboring farms. Ed Gein, after a hearty dinner, slept peacefully in the cab of the car. He looked really shocked when the sheriff pushed him, and Frank Warden grabbed his collar and yelled in his ear: "Moron! Where did you take my mother ?!"
Ed Gein was visibly frightened and houndedly silent. From that moment on, he did not utter a word for more than 30 hours; he didn’t ask for food or drink, he didn’t even stutter about the need to go to the toilet ... In fact, it’s not difficult to understand why he was so stubbornly silent: with an inappropriate phrase, Gein was afraid to provoke extrajudicial reprisal of those around him.
The owners of the farm told the sheriff that Ed Gein showed up a little after 21:00, had dinner and went to bed in the car; they did not notice anything suspicious in his behavior.
Although Frank Warden yelled at Gein, accusing him of kidnapping his mother, in fact, there were no serious grounds to connect her disappearance with Edward at that time. Intuition and a couple of coincidences still seemed unconvincing and, as a minimum, insufficient to advance such a serious accusation. In common sense, Sheriff Art Schley announced that Ed Gein was being held on suspicion of stealing a cash register. The sheriff ordered that his assistant, Arnold Fritz, take the detainee to the county sheriff's office and put him there under lock and key until the morning. For obvious reasons, Schley did not want to leave Frank Warden alone with the detainee, and therefore it was Fritz who was appointed the escort. The sheriff himself, accompanied by Worden, decided to go to Gein's farm and look for the cash register there.
If only the sheriff could have guessed what they would see at the Ed Gein farm, he would never have taken Frank Worden with him on this trip!
The farm's outbuildings consisted of a fairly large two-story wooden house, a barn (which had been empty for many years), a tool shed, a chicken coop, and an attached summer kitchen.


rice. 3: Edward Hein's house and attached summer kitchen.

Having briefly examined the shed, the chicken coop, the barn and not finding anything suspicious there, Schley and Warden entered the residential building. On its first floor there was a large living room, two bedrooms (the door to one of them was not only locked, but also sealed with sealing wax; this moment was explained later) and a kitchen. The door to the stairs leading to the second floor was boarded up with nails.
As soon as they crossed the threshold of the house, Shley and Worden smelled a disgusting mixture of smells. In the stagnant air of the cold house, the stench of sour food, dirty laundry and decaying flesh was clearly felt. Art Schley later admitted that when he entered Gein's house, he immediately thought of the rats that had died under the floor and behind the baseboards after being poisoned. It was a common occurrence for houses in countryside. The sheriff walked around the house, partly lit by the uneven moonlight, and periodically turned on the flashlight, examining the dark corners.
The cash register was nowhere to be seen.
Entering the kitchen, the sheriff and his deputy stopped at the threshold. Their attention was immediately drawn to the body suspended in the middle of the room by ropes. At first, each of them decided that he saw the carcass of a deer in front of him, but as soon as he illuminated it with a lantern, it became clear that in front of them was a naked female body. And gutted and headless. A second later, Frank Warden identified his mother, Bernice, in the suspended body.


rice. 4: The decapitated body of Bernice Worden hanging in the kitchen of Edward Gein's house. The killer cut off his victim's head, cut open the stomach and removed the intestines. In order to bleed the body as much as possible, he tied his hands with his hands up. The latter clearly indicated the killer's intention to ensure the best preservation of the soft tissues of the corpse and later served as one of the evidence of Gein's cannibalism.

But what they saw was by no means the only terrible discovery they made in those moments. In the light of a hand torch, Schley and Worden noticed blackened dumplings in a tureen that stood on the kitchen table. Upon closer examination, it became clear that these were not dumplings at all, but decayed and partially mummified human noses. There were four...
The sheriff took his shocked deputy out of the house and put him in the car. Through police communication, he turned to the sheriffs of neighboring counties and the state police department for help.
By the time the police and sheriff's vehicles began to arrive at Edward Gein's farm, Schley managed to start the diesel generator. Under the electric light, Ed's home took on a look even more frightening and repulsive than in the moonlight.


rice. 5: living room and kitchen in Edward Gein's house. If in the living room the owner was still trying to maintain at least some appearance of order, then real ruin reigned in the rest of the house and the buildings of the farm. Ed Gein clearly didn't bother with the fight for cleanliness and order.

In the living room, they hung on the walls, like deer heads or other hunting trophies, masks made from real human faces. There were nine such masks in total; during their lifetime they all belonged to women. Clothes made of roughly tanned human skin were laid out on the furniture in the living room: a waistcoat, two trousers, a jacket with sleeves, bracelets and belts. The halos of large nipples clearly appeared on the jacket, from which m. conclude that this skin also once belonged to women's bodies.
By two o'clock in the morning on November 17, 1957, a large force of law enforcement officers had already gathered on the farm of Edward Gein. Photographers and forensic doctors from the coroner's office arrived, the district attorney, invited witnesses appeared. A thorough search began for many hours, as it progressed, more and more nightmarish details of the madness in which the "quiet fool" Edward Gein was (and apparently for a long time!) Became apparent.


rice. 6: Some of the finds made during the search of Gein's house: one of the masks made from a human face; labia carved from the female body; a jar with another human face, the tenth in a row, found on the mezzanine.

For almost a day, experts from the central crime laboratory in Madison preserved and removed various organic tissues and human organs in special vessels from Gein's house.


rice. 7: Human remains prepared for removal from Gein's house. Loading one of the containers with human organs into the crime lab van.

The main results of this search were the following conclusions:
1) Inspection of the sealed bedroom and five rooms on the second floor unequivocally testified that these premises were closed a very long time ago, most likely many years ago and have not been visited by anyone since then. In the bedroom there were items of women's toilet; with confidence m. consider that it belonged to Edward's mother, Augusta Gein, who died in December 1945. Gein's entire life was concentrated in the living room, kitchen and second bedroom on the ground floor. enclosed spaces did not contain any evidence of the commission of any crimes by the owner of the house;
2) The attention of criminalists was attracted by books, as well as clippings from newspapers and magazines found in the house. All publications touched on three topics that undoubtedly greatly interested the one who collected them: a) the crimes of the Nazis in concentration camps; b) female anatomy; c) crimes related to the dismemberment of corpses, the removal of scalps, etc. things. The last category included books about pirates of the Caribbean and American Indians. There was no other literature in the house of Edward Gein. From the way in which the clippings were worn, one could conclude that they had all been subjected to careful study;
3) The sequence of Ed Gein's manipulation of Bernice Worden's body has been restored. The woman was shot in the head with a .22 caliber pistol. The criminal brought the corpse in the back of his "pickup truck" along with the cash register and transferred his prey to the barn. There, on the locksmith's table, Gein separated the woman's head from the body and carried it to his bedroom, where he hid it in the bed between two mattresses.


rice. 8: The head of Bernice Worden was found in Edward Gein's bed between the mattresses.
From the body of a woman, the offender removed the intestines and the heart, which was found in a saucepan on the kitchen table. This gave reason to suspect that Edward Gein was eating human meat. The very body of Bernice Worden was transferred by the offender to the kitchen and hung by the ankles and wrists from the ceiling. Gein left the cash register in the shed. Obviously, he intended to deal with it later. In any case, the money compartment was not broken into and $ 42 remained in it - proceeds last day hardware store work by Bernice Warden;
4) On the walls of the living room, like hunting trophies, nine masks made of women's faces were hung. Some still have traces of cosmetics. In addition to the masks on the walls, another one was found - the tenth in a row - placed in glass jar, closed with polyethylene film; this jar was in a bag on the mezzanine. In the same bag, in addition to the jar with the mask, some individual fragments of human bodies were also packed;
5) In addition to the mentioned bag, two shoeboxes were found, in which there were fragments of female genital organs in a state of rather strong putrefactive decomposition; besides this, four pairs of human lips were strung with a garland on a harsh thread, just as they do with mushrooms when drying;
6) The attention of forensic scientists was attracted by another gloomy find: in Gein's kitchen there was a skull, sawn above the superciliary arches. Traces of food remained inside the detached skullcap; it was obvious that Gein was using her like a plate. The skull, which served as an element of the table set, involuntarily strengthened the idea of ​​​​the possible cannibalism of the criminal.
Gein was picked up from the La Crosse sheriff's office and transported to a jail in Wautoma, Jailhouse County.



rice. 9: Gein in the first days after the arrest. The photographs below are curious: on the left is a frame from the first recording on the film, there he is still stupidly silent and clearly does not know how to behave in front of the lens. His condition can be understood - before Ed seriously loomed the prospect of landing on the electric chair. The lower right photograph is a still from a film reel of an investigative experiment conducted on Gein's farm. By this time, the prisoner had already recovered from the shock - the tape shows how he talks at ease with the policemen accompanying him, answers the questions of the prosecutor. After Gein was seated from the police car, reporters rushed to her to take photographs. Annoyed by the attention of the press, Ed covered himself from reporters with a glove ...

The policemen, replacing each other, tried to talk to the arrested person. It turned out quite unexpectedly: after a thirty-hour interrogation, one of the police officers threw in the hearts of Gein: "You are a petty thief!" He started up and unexpectedly replied: "No, I'm not a thief! I took the cash register just to see how it works!" The simplicity of what he heard amazed those present.
On the same day - November 19 - Edward Gein pleaded guilty to the murder of Bernice Warden. He said that he does not remember details well, because this sometimes happens to him: he finds numbness, the environment becomes unclear, and he does things about which he can say little later. He himself admitted that this state is the essence of demonic possession - and only prayer helped from it. But on the day Mrs. Warden was killed, prayer did not help, and Gein said that he remembered how he shot a woman and transferred her body to a truck. Why he did this, the offender could not explain.
Gein began to be asked about the rest of the bodies, because his house was filled with various fragments of human bodies! And then he again struck the police: Gein swore that he did not kill anyone but Bernice Worden, and everything that was found in his house belonged to bodies ... dug up in county cemeteries. By this time, the detectives already knew that reading the obituary section in local newspapers was one of the passions of the criminal: a variety of witnesses claimed that Ed Gein often read such notes aloud in local saloons. The interrogators did not believe Gein and he offered the police to drive with him to local cemeteries so that he could show the graves that he was digging up.
Edward claimed to have dug female bodies the very next night after burial, before they had time to undergo strong decomposition. He swore that he did not kill anyone except Bernice Warden, did not perform any sexual manipulations with bodies, did not eat human meat. All his assurances were perceived with skepticism for the time being, but after Gein made a trip with the assistant prosecutor and the police to the surrounding cemeteries and on four of them, without the slightest hesitation, showed nine female burials, from which he allegedly retrieved the bodies, to him listened. The County of La Crosse, on the advice of District Attorney Earl Cailin, sent a request to the Governor of Wisconsin to authorize a mass opening of graves in order to verify the claims of Edward Gein. In view of the obvious strong public outcry, the case took on an almost political character, and such an event required coordination at the highest level.


rice. 10: Attorney Earl Cailin.

Since Gein reported only nine cases of excavation of graves, the origin of the fragments of other bodies found in his house remained unclear. According to the most rough and favorable estimates for Gein, it turned out that at least 15 human bodies were dismembered in his house (9 - masks of women's faces on the walls of the living room, the tenth - in a jar hidden in a bag on the antesols, four noses and four pairs of lips - this is at least four more bodies, the fifteenth is Bernice Warden). Did this mean that the criminal killed the rest of the people, or did he really forget how he got the bodies? The answer to this question seemed to be received when one of the ten masks made from human faces was identified ... Mary Hogan, the same bar owner who disappeared without a trace on December 8, 1954.
Forensics had little doubt that she had been murdered (blood was found on the floor of her bar). And it was most likely Gein who did this, although he devoutly claimed that he did not do this. After a long fruitless interrogation, the offender was offered a polygraph test. He agreed and the lie detector convincingly showed that Gein was responsible for the death of Mary Hogan. When Eddie was told about the results of the check, he thought for a while, and then confessed that he really committed this crime. But at the same time, he continued with incredible persistence to repeat that he did not copulate with female corpses and did not eat human meat.
So, by November 23, 1957, it became clear that the murder of Bernice Worden was by no means the first committed by Edward Gein.
All nine graves indicated by Edward Gein appeared in the period before 1953. And in December of the following year, a necrophiliac committed the murder of Mary Hogan. Did this mean that he stopped digging graves because he switched to killing? The absence of skeletons and any large fragments of the bodies of women removed from the graves in the house, Ed Gein explained by the fact that he buried all the remains he did not need during the night. This statement could not be considered absolutely reliable until the State Governor authorized the opening of the graves, but at least it somehow explained the absence of bodies in the necrophiliac's house. But if, after 1953, Gein switched to murder, how did he dispose of the bodies in this case? After all, the excavated graves were no longer at his disposal ... The answer suggested itself - Gein dug out new graves. And obviously not in a cemetery.
Guided by these considerations, on November 22, the police began to dig up a piece of land that belonged to Gein. The work was done colossal, and its result was the discovery on November 29 of a large skeleton. The circumference of the skull of the found skeleton exceeded the size of all the masks of human faces in the Gein house. Without waiting for the official announcement of the conclusion of the forensic experts, the detectives offered their version to the press: since in last years only two men disappeared in these places - Travis and Bargess - and the anthropometric characteristics of the found skeleton corresponded to the second one (Burgess was above average height), then Gein is guilty of the death of both this man and his companion. There was another indirect consideration that strengthened the detectives in their opinion about the correctness of the conclusions made: one of the teeth of an unknown skull had a gold crown, and in the description of Bargess's special features, there was just a mention of a gold crown on the tooth. But if Eddie really killed him, then other disappearances of people in the area are most likely connected precisely with Gein.
The prematurity of such a statement was clearly manifested two days later, when the head of the forensic laboratory, Charles Wilson, announced the official conclusion of the study of the found skeleton.


rice. Figure 11: Madison crime lab director Charles Wilson.
It turned out that the find had nothing to do with Victor Travis: the remains found belonged to a woman. When Gein himself was asked whose skeleton he buried in the garden, the necrophiliac only smiled and stated that he did not take everyone to the cemetery, he found a corner for some in his own garden. The skeleton, he said, belonged to one of the bodies dug up in the cemetery.
Gein was not believed, and in the first days of December a new large interrogation of the criminal was carried out using a lie detector. This time the range of questions put to him was much broader than that at the first interrogation. Gein was asked about his cannibalism, and about the purposes of manipulating the bodies, and about the possible copulation with corpses, etc. things. The meaning of the answers received then will be explained below, but for now it is worth noting that Gein successfully passed the second polygraph test; his answers and explanations were considered reliable and the police no longer formally accused him of being involved in the disappearances of people in 1947-52.
After a week of hesitation, the Governor of the state signed a decree authorizing, in fact, a mass opening of graves in order to verify information about the possible abuse of the bodies of the deceased. The County Attorney officially notified relatives of those women whose ashes were supposed to be disturbed about the upcoming events, and after that, silence about the progress of the investigation became simply meaningless. If in the first days after Gein's arrest, only neighbors stared at the fuss of the police in the criminal's house, then after November 25, a real pilgrimage began to his farm. Gein hit the national news bulletins, Plainfield and La Crosse were flooded with reporters not only from America, but also from Europe and even from Australia. Onlookers and journalists stood behind the police fence around the clock, hoping to witness the birth of a new sensation.
And of course, everyone - visitors and local residents, police officers and psychiatrists, men and women, children and adults - on the lips was the same question that sounded constantly in those days in various interpretations: what kind of person should be to decide on such a thing ?! And really, what did Ed Gein have to be like to dig up women's bodies from graves, skin them and bury them back in?
Edward Theodor Gein was born on August 27, 1906. He was youngest child in the family of George and Augusta Gein; older brother Henry was born on January 4, 1902. The Gein family could hardly be called prosperous - a strong, imperious wife kept both her husband and children in "hedgehogs". Attempts to run a family business were unsuccessful: in the period 1909-13. George and Augusta tried to sell meat and groceries in La Crosse, but after suffering losses, they sold the store and moved to a farm 40 miles from the town. The whole subsequent life of this family was entirely connected with this farm. Edward's father gradually became an alcoholic and turned under the yoke of a tough, uncompromising wife into a quiet alcoholic. Attempts to live by farm labor were of little effect due to poor soil; from the second half of the 30s, the brothers began to be hired as farm laborers to more prosperous neighbors. August Gein was a Lutheran, and this set the whole family somewhat apart from the rest of the neighborhood. When the brothers became hired workers, the feeling of alienation only increased. The eldest of the brothers - Henry - was very burdened by this. He generally seemed more developed than Edward, and felt the abnormality of the increasingly obvious separation of the family from the outside world more sharply. The brothers never married; everyone who knew this family agreed that the reason for this was the completely unusual hatred of women, manifested with or without reason by Augusta Hein. For her, everything related to women, gender and sex was definitely vicious and lecherous. And if Edward looked at his mother with admiration and listened to her words without reasoning, then Henry allowed himself to challenge her judgments. After the death of George Gein, which followed on April 1, 1940, peace in the family not only did not come, but, on the contrary, completely crumbled. In the period 1940-44. Henry several times left home to work quite far and for a long time, it seemed unbearable for him to be under the same roof with a domestic tyrant in the face of his own mother. Most likely, some scandals occurred in the family itself for behind closed doors; now we can talk about it only in a hypothetical form.
These family dramas, hidden from the world, were believed by most of the Geins' neighbors to have led to the first death: in 1944, Henry died under circumstances that have not been fully clarified. According to Edward's stories, the brothers were burning last year's grass in a field when the fire got out of control and engulfed Henry. Edward claimed to have lost sight of his brother and rushed off for help, but when he managed to gather several farmers and they arrived in the field, the fire had already died out. The farmers scattered in different directions in search of Henry, and Edward went straight to the other end of the field and immediately stumbled upon the body. The corpse did not appear badly burned, and it was not clear why the man who was at the edge of the field could not retreat from the fire. The farmers who arrived on that day on May 16, 1944 to help Edward Gein later said that Henry's face seemed to bear signs of beatings, but there was no objective evidence of this and it may well be that these rumors were born under the influence of exposure of Edward Gein's subsequent crimes. Ed himself never pleaded guilty to the death of his older brother. It was officially recognized that Henry Gein died on May 16, 1944 as a result of an accident.
In January 1945, Edward Gein's mother, Augusta, suffered an apoplexy. It seemed that the woman had no chance to survive. But the care of an affectionate and attentive son restored the woman's strength - by the summer of 1945 she got out of bed and again became an unbending Augusta without feelings and emotions. Unfortunately for Ed, already on December 29, 1945, the second blow occurred and Augusta Hein died.


rice. 12: Grave of Augusta Hein.
Already in 1957, Edward's neighbors remembered that none of them had come to Augusta's funeral; Why are there neighbors, no one came at all! Already by this moment, Gein, in fact, turned out to be excluded from the community of people equal to him - he became an outcast, a person truly alien to everyone.
Subsequently, Edward Gein said that it was on the day of Augusta's funeral that he sealed the door of her bedroom and nailed the stairs leading to the second floor of the house. It was a very symbolic move - Edward cut off from himself his past, in which he was a "mama's boy", "weak" and "half-wit". It was on the first of January 1946 that he finally became Edward Theodor Gein.
He was never weak-minded in the everyday sense of the word. All people who knew him personally agreed that he had an unusual sense of humor; not that contagiously funny, but not devoid of caustic irony and originality. Left all alone, Ed seemed to reach out to people: in 1949, he bought a used Ford car, which drove a lot on the roads of the state, talking and getting to know the most different people spending evenings off work at local saloons. He never became the center of the company, but sometimes he could amuse those present with some curious story on historical topics. Usually these were stories about the atrocities of pirates in the seas of the Caribbean, or stories about the horrors of Nazi concentration camps. In the very theme of these stories, many saw some special black humor; at that time, no one could have guessed that the true spirit of Gein was actually revealed in them; these interests, perhaps, exhausted all of Edward's personal life.

Ed Gin(also found Gein; English Ed Gein, full name Edward Theodore Gin(Eng. Edward Theodore Gein; August 27, La Crosse, Wisconsin, USA - July 26, Madison, Wisconsin, USA) - American serial killer, necrophiliac and corpse snatcher. One of the most notorious serial killers in US history. His image has widely penetrated the popular culture of the second half of the 20th century (films and literature).

Biography

Childhood

Edward Geen was born in La Crosse, Wisconsin on August 27, 1906. Parents - George Philip Geen (August 4, 1873 - April 1, 1940) and Augusta Wilhelmina Lerke (July 21, 1878 - December 29, 1945). Mother was the daughter of Prussian emigrants. Edward had an older brother, Henry George Geen (January 17, 1901 – May 16, 1944). Augusta and George met when they were 19 and 24 respectively and married on December 4, 1899. The parents' marriage did not work out from the very beginning. Father was an alcoholic, systematically left without work (he worked either as an insurance agent, then as a carpenter, then as a tanner), because of which the entire household, in fact, kept on one Augusta, who had a small grocery store. Despite the fact that the mother despised the father, they did not dissolve the marriage because of religious beliefs. Augusta grew up in a devout Lutheran family, whose members were ardent opponents of everything related to sex, because of which she saw everything only dirt, sin and lust. Mother forbade Edward and Henry to communicate with other children, constantly forced them to do hard work on the farm and let them go only to school. She constantly read the Bible to her sons, and called the city of La Crosse a "hell hole" and convinced the children that the whole world was mired in sin and depravity, and that all women except her were whores. In 1913, Augusta decided that life near La Crosse was too pernicious for her children, and the Gins, having saved up money, bought a small dairy farm about forty miles east of La Crosse, but in 1914, for unknown reasons, they sold it and bought another, in the vicinity of Plainfield.

At school, Ed was very shy and had no friends, as his mother severely punished him for all his attempts to make friends with anyone. According to the book Deviant about Gin, he had a small skin growth on his left eyelid, which was the object of ridicule from classmates, and also became the reason why Edward, having received a summons to the army in 1942, did not pass a medical examination. Later, some of his former classmates recalled that Ed had a number of oddities. In particular, the boy could laugh at any moment for no reason, as if he had heard some kind of joke. Despite the difficult social development, Edward studied quite well and was especially successful in reading lessons. When Gin was 10 years old, he had an orgasm while watching his mother and father slaughter a pig. One day, Augusta saw him masturbating, and scalded him with boiling water as punishment. Despite this, Ed considered his mother a saint, although Augusta was rarely pleased with her sons, believing that they would grow up to be the same losers as their father. As teenagers, Edward and Henry very rarely went outside the farm, and their social circle was limited to their own family.

1940-1946

Shortly after Henry's death, Augustus had a stroke and was bedridden. Ed courted her around the clock, but she was still unhappy. She constantly yelled at her son, calling him a weakling and a loser. From time to time she let him lie in bed with her during the night. In 1945, Augusta recovered from a stroke. She and Edward went to their neighbor named Smith to buy straw from him. Augusta experienced a strong shock when she saw that he was cohabiting with a woman, after which she had a new stroke, which finally undermined her health, and she died on December 29, 1945 at 67 years old. Ed, who was now completely alone on the farm, began to read books on anatomy, stories about Nazi atrocities during World War II, various information about exhumations, he also liked to read the local newspaper, especially the obituaries section. The neighbors didn't think Gin was crazy, just a "slightly weird" harmless eccentric and left him to babysit, to whom Gin sometimes recounted what he had read on subjects he was obsessed with. Gin soon began visiting cemeteries, digging up and dismembering corpses. Often he was guided by information gleaned from obituaries in the local press. He especially liked [ ] tear open the fresh graves of women, although later during the investigation he swore that he had not performed any sexual manipulations with the corpses, since, according to him, "they smelled too bad." Some parts of the corpses Gin took home, and soon he had a kind of collection of skulls and severed heads, which he hung on the walls. Gin also made himself a suit made of women's leather, which he wore at home.

Local children, who looked into the windows of Gin's house, talked about what they saw human heads hanging on the walls. Edward just laughed and said that his brother served during the war somewhere in the South Seas and sent him these heads as a gift. Nevertheless, rumors spread around the town about strange objects in Gin's house, while he himself smiled and nodded without malice when asked about the severed heads that he supposedly keeps at home.

1947-1956

The police decided to search Gin's house and immediately found the disembowelled and mutilated corpse of Bernice Warden in Gin's barn. The corpse was mutilated and hung like a deer carcass. There was a terrible stench in Ed Gin's house. Masks made of human skin and severed heads were hung on the walls, a whole wardrobe was also found, made in a handicraft way from tanned human skin: two pairs of trousers, a vest, a suit, as well as a chair made of human skin, a belt from female nipples, a bowl of soup made from a skull. The refrigerator was filled to the brim with human organs, and a heart was found in one of the pots. Gin later confessed to digging up the bodies of middle-aged women who reminded him of his mother from graves.

During many hours of interrogation, Geen confessed to the murder of two women - Bernice Worden and Mary Hogan, although he finally confessed to the murder of the latter only a few months later, after a polygraph interrogation.

While the trial of Gin was going on, local boys began to throw stones at the windows of the "horror house", and the townspeople considered the farm a symbol of evil and debauchery, so they avoided it. The authorities decided to sell the estate at auction. People protested but could do nothing about it. On the night of March 20, 1958, Gin's house mysteriously burned to the ground. There is a version that it was arson, but the perpetrators were never found. When Gin, imprisoned at the Central State Hospital, found out about the incident, he said: "That's right." The Gin plot was acquired by real estate dealer Edmine Shi. Within a month, he destroyed the ashes and the nearby undergrowth of 60,000 trees.

Ed Geen's car, which he drove on the day of the murder to Bernice Worden, was put up for auction. 14 people competed for this lot, and the Ford was sold for a lot of money at that time, $760. The buyer was Bunny Gibbons, the organizer of the Seymour Fair, where a Ford appeared as an attraction called Ed Gin's Ghoul Car. Over 2,000 people paid 25 cents each to see the car on the first two days of the show. Making money on Gin's notoriety was greeted with outrage by the townspeople of Plainfield. At the Washington Fair in Slinger, Wisconsin, the car was shown for four hours, after which the sheriff arrived and closed the ride. After that, Wisconsin authorities banned the display of the car. Offended businessmen went to the south of Illinois, in the hope of understanding [ ] . The further fate of the car is unknown.

In accordance with the verdict of the court, Gin was declared insane and committed to compulsory treatment in a hospital for sick criminals with a maximum security (now the Dodge Correctional Facility) in Waupan, but was later transferred to the Institute mental health Mentoda in Madison. In 1968, the doctors decided that Geen was sane enough to stand trial again. The new trial began on November 7, 1968 and lasted a week. Judge Robert Gollmarp convicted Geen of premeditated murder, but since Geen was legally insane, he spent the rest of his life in a psychiatric hospital, where he died on July 26, 1984 from cardiac arrest caused by cancer, after which he was buried in Plainfield City Cemetery next to parents and brother. For a long time, the tombstone of his grave was destroyed due to souvenir hunters, and in 2000 most of the tombstone was stolen. In June 2001, the gravestone was restored near Seattle and placed in storage with the Washara County Sheriff's Department. Gin's burial itself remained in its original place, but without any identification marks.

Suspicions of other murders

Gin is still a suspect to this day. three cases unsolved disappearances. In all three cases, no direct evidence of the death of the missing was found.

  1. On May 1, 1947, eight-year-old Georgia Weckler disappeared on her way home from school in Jefferson. The search yielded no results. The only clues were Ford tire tracks found where she was last seen.
  2. In November 1952, Victor Travis and Ray Bargess decided to hunt deer. While driving through Plainfield, they stopped at a local bar for whiskey. An hour later the hunters left. Nobody else saw them.
  3. In 1953, a girl disappeared from La Crosse, near Plainfield. Fifteen-year-old Evelyn Hartley looked after a small child of acquaintances. A couple of hours later, John Hartley, Evelyn's father, called her, but no one answered the phone. Alarmed, Hartley went to check if everything was in order. No one answered the knock on the door. Looking out the window, he saw his daughter's shoe and her glasses on the floor. All doors and windows in the house were closed, except for the window in the basement, which had blood stains on it. Hartley climbed into the house through the basement. Seeing signs of a struggle, he called the police. Drops of blood trailed from the house. A bloody handprint was found on the wall of a neighboring house. A few days later, near the highway passing near La Crosse, the police found several rags from Evelyn Hartley's dress with blood stains.

In popular culture

In literature

  • Trilogy "Psychosis": "Psychosis", "Psycho 2", "Psychopath's House", Robert Bloch
  • "American Psycho", Bret Easton Ellis
  • Pythian Clues (2012), Victoria Bergman's Weakness trilogy, part. 3, Eric Axl Sund

To the cinema

  • A version of the retelling of the life of Edward Gein as the most brutal serial killer in the history of America is made in the film "Ed Gein: The Butcher of Plainfield" and in the film "In the Light of the Moon".
  • A retelling of Edward Geen's life is made in the 1974 American film Deranged.
  • Elements of Ed Gin's biography are included in famous films - such as Psycho, The Silence of the Lambs, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise, as well as underground Necromantic.
  • Ed Gin is mentioned in the Criminal Minds series about serial maniacs, several episodes are based on the plot of his life.
  • The character in the 4th episode of the 1st season of the animated series Super Prison! »
  • Ed Gin is mentioned in the movie American Psycho.
  • Ed Gin is mentioned in the television series Bones. Season 8, episode 5 "The Method in the Madness".
  • Ed Gin partially inspired Zachary Quinto's character in American Horror Story: Asylum.
  • Gin's character appears in the 2012 film Hitchcock, where his role is played by actor Michael Wincott.
  • Bates Motel 2013 television series. In the series, Norman Bates (whose prototype is Ed Gin) has an older brother, like Gin himself, although Norman did not have him in the Hitchcock film Psycho.
  • The television series Hannibal includes elements of the biography of Ed Gin.

In music

  • Bradley Mark Stewart, founding member of the band Marilyn Manson, used Ed Gin's last name as part of his pseudonym.
  • Song "Dead Skin Mask" by Slayer
  • Song "Old Mean Ed Gein" by The Fibonaccis
  • Song "Nothing to Gein" by Mudvayne
  • Song "Young God" by Swans
  • The song "Deadache" by Lordi
  • The song "Butchery into the Light of the Moon" by The Mutilator
  • The song "Ed Gein" by Macabre
  • The song "A Very Handy Man (Indeed)" by The Meteors from the album Madman Roll tells about Ed Gin; the cover art of the LP featured a photo of Gin.

In computer games

  • The personality of Ed Gin served as the prototype for the character Eddie Gluskin from the horror game Outlast: Whistleblower.

Links

Notes

  1. Encyclopædia Britannica
  2. American National Biography - 1999.
  3. Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English DVD, 5th Ed. Headwords/Entries: 62964/61212 Version: 1.0 (03 June 2009)
  4. , from. 164.
  5. Harold Schechter. deviant(English) . Retrieved 1 August 2013.
  6. Denise Noe. Augusta Gein, the woman who drove a man Psycho(English) . MND(April 27, 2007). Date of treatment August 1, 2013. Archived from the original on August 17, 2013.
  7. , from. 178-179.
  8. Flaster, Alex. Biography: Ed Gain. 2004. Los Angeles, California: A&E Television Networks.
  9. , from. 179.
  10. , p. 85.
  11. Rites Today For Man Who Died in Roche-a-Cri Fire. Rapids Daily Tribune, Wisconsin, May 19, 1944, p. 1, col. one.