Week 3 Blog Post

Running Head: ED GEIN






Ed Gein:
Case Study
Beth Burt, Bryan Fleming,
Melissa Glamann,
Kari Kuss, and Jason Schreiner
Northcentral Technical College
Abnormal Psychology
April 7, 2010

Author Note
Kari E. Kuss, Beth R. Burt, Bryan W. Fleming, Melissa A. Glamann, Jason Schreiner, North Central Technical College Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Kari Kuss, Beth Burt, Bryan Fleming, Melissa Glamann, Jason Schreiner North Central Technical College E-mail: kekuss1@.edu; maglamann@ntc.edu; bburt@ntc.edu; bfleming1@ntc.edu;


Abstract


This is the story of one man that took the media by storm and his name will live forever in infamy. Edward Gein an American murderer from Plainfield, Wisconsin, gained widespread attention when police found body parts inside his home. This story will tell about the horrible and disturbing hobbies this man had. We will discuss his childhood, deaths of family members, arrest, trial, aftermath, impact on popular culture, and his death. Ed Gein impacted and influenced the creation of several fictional serial killers, including James Gumb from The Silence of the Lambs, Leatherface from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Norman Bates from Psycho.

Childhood
Edward Theodore “Ed” Gein was born August 27, 1906, in Lacrosse, Wisconsin (Ed Gein at AllExperts). Ed’s parents are native to Wisconsin and were married on July 7, 1900. Augusta, Ed’s Mother, soon took on the role as the domestic tyrant (Schechter, Deviant, 1989). Ed’s father George P. Gein was an alcoholic who couldn’t seem to hold a job. He would come home drunk and have to hear Augusta belittle him. On some occasions he would fly off the handle and punch her to the floor. She decided maybe children would bring some joy to her. She was appalled by any sexual relations but she endured it for the sake of children. She viewed women as harlots. To her, sexual relations were wrong if it wasn’t for procreation. She was never really close to her firstborn, Henry because he was a boy. She longed for a daughter. Their second child ended up being a boy as well. When she found out it was another boy she was bitter. She vowed this one would be different. He would not be lustful or foul mouthed (Schechter, Deviant, 1989). Ed and his brother, Henry both rejected their violent father. Eddie’s parents only stayed married because of Augusta’s deep religious beliefs. Divorce was not an option. Ed’s mother Augusta moved the family to a 195 acre farm in Plainfield, Wisconsin known to the locals as the old John Greenfield place (Schechter, Deviant, 1989). Back when property was almost entirely in the hands of men, Augusta Gein was what the purchase and deed records showed (Ed Gein). She wanted to prevent outsiders from influencing her sons. The closest neighbors lived a quarter mile away. Ed only left the house to go to school. Augusta prevented him from having any friends and this led to his classmates shunning him. He developed poor social skills, even though he did fairly well in school (Ed Gein at AllExperts).
Ed became even more sensitively timid. Ed spent most of his childhood doing farm chores.
Ed and his brother were brought up as Lutherans. His mother was a religious fanatic and would drill her two boys about the immorality of the world, evils of drinking, and that all women (except her) were whores (Ed Gein). Augusta made time every night to read the bible to her boys, usually reading verses from the Old Testament about death, murder and divine retribution.
Ed’s mother verbally abused him, telling him that he was destined to become a failure like his father. Throughout Ed’s teenage years and early adulthood he remained detached from the rest of the world. Ed loved his mom. Ed’s brother Henry was very critical of her, this bothered Eddie.
Deaths of Family Members
In 1940, Ed’s father, George, died from a heart attack.
On May 16th, 1944, Ed and Henry were fighting a brush fire near their farm. The police report stated that the two boys were separated during their struggle to put out the fire and Ed lost sight of Henry. After the fire was extinguished, Ed became worried about his missing brother and contacted the police. The police rounded up a search party only to have Ed lead them directly to Henry’s dead body. The police were suspicious of Henry’s death. There was evidence that Henry had blunt head trauma, but police decided cause of death was from asphyxiation while fighting the fire.
On December 29, 1945, Augusta, his mother died from a series of strokes (Ed Gein). This left Ed alone on the farm. He adored his mother and had lost his only friend. Ed boarded off the rooms his mother used the most. He preserved them as shrines to her (Schechter, Deviant, 1989).
Ed on His Own
After the death of Ed Gein’s mother was when everything started happening. According to Dead Men Do Tell Tales (Taylor, 2004), no one had even noticed how different and strange Eddie was and what was taking place inside his farm house. Ed was looked upon as odd because he didn’t hunt like the other men in the town did. They also thought he had a strong odor and was in need of a bath.
Everything changed in the small town of Plainfield on November 16, 1957. That day an old widowed woman named Bernice Warden went missing. She was the owner of the local hardware store and one evening she wasn’t there. Her son, Frank, had gone to the store that afternoon after a day of hunting, only to find his mother missing. The front door was unlocked and the back door was open. He then found the long thin line of blood trailing from the front of the store all the way to that back door. Frank quickly notified police. The police found a sales receipt made to Ed Gein for a half gallon of anti-freeze.
Police had reasons to believe that Eddie was a suspect so they drove up to his farm house, none of them expecting to see the sight they had found there. Found in his back shed behind the house was Bernice Warden, beheaded, gutted, naked and hung like a deer. The police immediately called for backup. As they entered the house they discovered many more disturbing images. There were a number of different body parts that Eddie had turned into human furniture. The cops found four noses, nine vulvas in a shoe box and heads in paper bags. He made human skin lamp shades, masks and skulls made into bowls and on bed posts. The police at the scene had guessed there were about fifteen women’s body parts, at least, that they had found there (Taylor, 2004).
Confessions
In the Article titled Ed Gein (2003), Ed Gein had later confessed to the killings of Bernice Warden and Mary Hogan, a tavern owner who went missing December 8, 1954, three years before Bernice’s murder. The police had found her skull in Gein’s house while searching for Bernice Warden. Eddie would go to the local cemetery and dig up bodies to dismember. He then became desperate for fresh trophies. He made about 40 visits to the local cemetery. During his confessions Ed Gein was very cooperative with everyone and openly admitted to all his perversions (Schechter, Deviant, 1989).
The Press
The story broke late Sunday evening. There wasn’t a living soul who didn’t learn of what was to become the most heinous crimes to ever be committed in Wisconsin. This would put Plainfield, Wisconsin forever in the minds of people as the home of the most demented murderer. All the major media from the large dailies ascended into Plainfield, Wisconsin on that Monday morning. They began to connect every missing person in the last 10 years to Ed Gein. This was the most talked about news story for the year. This small town would become a side show freak for many visitors to come. This is where a lot of rumors began to circulate from the major city press to make the stories sound more exciting. The little town began to feel exploited. The Plainfield head collector was a headline. He was becoming known as the Plainfield Butcher.
Crime lab
William Belter, a thirty-year old former state assemblyman from Wautoma would become Ed Gein’s defense attorney. They transported Eddie to Madison to the state’s major crime lab where they could give him a few lie detector tests. They would later find out that these tests only work sometimes. Here they learned of even more gruesome details. The graves that were all thought to be robbed were generating a lot of controversy. He showed no signs of guilt or indeed any consciousness of what he actually did. His attorney informed Eddie of his intention to enter a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. It seemed as if Gein had no clue of what crimes he committed. This is where they learned that he had a greater fondness for his mother than was normal. He suffered from Oedipus complex (Schechter, Deviant, 1989). A term used by Freud in his theory of psychosexual stages of development to describe a boy's feelings of desire for his mother and jealously and anger towards his father. Ed wished he was woman instead of a man. He was really intrigued by the story of the GI looking to do a sex change that he read about in the paper. He had medical books and studied anatomy. He also read crime magazines and horror comics. He read about the torturous stories of the Nazi’s. He read about cannibalism and necrophilia which is sexual feelings for or sexual acts with dead bodies. He found sexual mutilation fascinating as well. After all this, he always made sure to keep up on the obituaries. Ed’s sexual attitudes were encouraged by his mother’s control over him. This is what drove him to murder woman that reminded him of his mother’s likeness. The psychiatrists speculated that he was a sexual psychopath, mentally defective to society, and possibly schizophrenic. He had a love hate relationship with his mother (Schechter, Deviant, 1989).
Trial
Ed Gein’s face showed no sign of emotion as the initial court proceedings began. The citizens from Plainfield were outraged that he would get away with the crimes of the two women he murdered. The DA, Kileen, explained that Ed Gein would never be free to roam the streets of Plainfield ever again. They had considered that the town folk could become violent after hearing the outcome so they made sure to put extra security on Eddie. He was recommended to the Central State Hospital for a sanity test before the actual trial began. He was ordered to Waupun for a thirty day evaluation. The sanity hearing on January 6 was held in Wisconsin Rapids. The staff that evaluated him felt he could best be classified as pseudo (which means not authentic or sincere, in spite of appearances) neurotic schizophrenic. Dr. Schubert summed up his findings as chronic schizophrenic. He was ruled insane and unfit to stand trial. He was recommitted to the Central State Hospital in Waupun for an indeterminate term of commitment. A lot people thought he was going away to a better life than what he was even accustomed to.
This was a poor county to begin with. The question was how long they could keep footing the bill on the Ed Gein case. They had to have 24 hour watch on his homestead. They had to keep groups of frat boys from trying to have parties there. The other pertinent question was whether they exhume any of the eight or nine bodies of the graves he claimed to have robbed. They were all women no men. They decided to do it and to their shocking surprise the graves were empty. Everything that Gein told them was gruesomely true. So now they pretty much had to exhume the rest of the graves on the list. The Waushara County appealed to the state that they couldn’t afford to keep paying for the investigation. The state ended up taking it over. They did find out he robbed from another local grave in Hancock also.
The final disposition of the evidence from the Gein case was ending in December of 1962. Eddie was enjoying his life at the hospital. Finally ten years after, Circuit Judge Gollmar received a letter stating that Ed Gein was competent to stand trial for the two murders. In the end he ended up right where he was. It came as a shock in 1974 when he petitioned the court that he had recovered. It was determined that he would stay right where he was. He would eventually get to leave Central State because it was turned into a correctional facility. He was moved to Mendota Health Institute in Madison. He became the resident celebrity. This is where he would die at the age of 78 years old, senile, and suffering from cancer. He died of respiratory failure in the geriatrics ward on July 26, 1984. He was buried the following night between three and six A.M., Gein was laid to rest in an unmarked plot in the Plainfield Cemetery. Only a handful of the Gasperic Funeral Home workers were there (Schechter, Deviant, 1989).

After he was sentenced there was to be an auction of his belongings and land. There were already lawsuits pending from the families that he grave robbed. They determined the auction would be held on March 30. The town was irritated it fell on a Palm Sunday day of worship. The town was angered that they were charging fifty cents to get into the auction. The community was bitter. They protested and got the charge removed. But the date was to stay. Some say it had to be arson but ten days before the auction was to commence Ed Gein’s home was burnt. This sight actually was very pleasing to many.
An exhibitor named Koch /Cook/Kook Brothers purchased Ed Gein’s car under false pretense. He intended to make some money off the gruesome car that hauled body parts and bodies to local fairs around the state. He charged an admission to see the car up close. This soon was halted by the fair board (Schechter, Deviant, 1989).
Popular Culture
The legacy of the gruesome events that took place at the hands of Ed Gein has, needless to say, carried on throughout the years in popular culture. Bands Such as Slayer, Mudvayne, and Macabre have entire songs about Ed, and even local Stevens Point band Wrath of the Girth, have a song called “November 16, 1957”. One band even called them simply “Ed Gein”.
Hollywood has had many movie characters based on Ed as well, including characters such as Buffalo Bill from The Silence of the Lambs, Leatherface from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Norman Bates from the Alfred Hitchcock classic “Psycho”. A recent musical called “Ed Gein: The Musical” was filmed, and created mixed reactions amongst the public and critics.
 

Works Cited
Bardsley, R. B. (n.d.). tru TV Crime Library Criminal Minds and Methods Serial Killers Most Notorious Eddie Gein. Retrieved April 5, 2010, from True Tv: http://www.truetv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/notorious/gein/bill_1.htmltr
Ed Gein. (n.d.). Retrieved March 15, 2010, from Monstropedia: http://www.monstropedia.org/index.php?title=Ed_Gein
Ed Gein at AllExperts. (n.d.). Retrieved February 10, 2010, from AllExperts: http://en.allexperts.com/e/e/ed/ed_gein.htm#hd1
Schechter, H. (1989). Deviant. New York: Pocket Books.
Schechter, H., Everitt, D., & Brottman, M. (1997- present). Ed Gein: Real American Psycho. Retrieved April 5, 2010, from House of horrors: http://www.houseofhorrors.com/gein.htm
Taylor, T. (2004). Dead Men do Tell Tales. Retrieved March 9, 2010, from www.prairieghosts.com/ed_gein.html
(Mudvayne, 2001)
(Slayer, 2001)
(Macabre, 1994)
(Demme, 1991)
(Hitchcock, 1960)
(Hooper, 1974)
(Ed Gein: The Musical, 2010)

This was one of the hardest papers I worked on in a class that was a bit of a challenge. I really enjoyed it. I really needed a good grade to boost my grade up as the teachers quizzes were tough. I worked on this paper in a group setting. Which can suck sometimes if you don't have a great group of people that all pull their share. We all were responsible for a part. Mine was the paper. I was also the only one who read the the book. It was worth 200 points, we received 198! The only points missing was my sighting sources which is my weak spot. We worked on this right down to the night before. We were kind of iffy on a member of the group pulling his share of the paper but he pulled off the creativity part with video clips. There was a bond some of us shared that will last us forever as we got to know each other that semester. A couple of us I ended up becoming good friends together and we car pooled to school the last semester of school in Wausau.