A fatal stroke after freaking out at a local woman she believed to be living in sin. Driving around the town of Plainfield in a 1949 Ford Sedan to the most local cemetery. Wrought iron gates, carved headstones with a shovel and voices echoing as the leaves rustle and the mourners cry. Stepping through the cut and damp grass as the voices echo “Just dig up this wh**e next to me!” And this was just the beginning of an historical era.
A softly spoken voice of a man who grew up with the bible and a farm. A man who was shaped by fantasization and isolation. Ed Gein. The man who shocked the nation with the gruesome reality of his crimes. Relevant today not because of the people he killed, but for the nature of his actions, the blueprint of the iconic villain who raised hell in his town. Redefining the word “monster” from someone immortal to an average guy who lived in the house across from you.
Edward Theodore Gein, also known as the Butcher of Plainfield and the Plainfield Ghoul, was an American serial killer and body snatcher throughout the 1900’s. This story has inspired the iconic cinematic films we know like Psycho, Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the Silence of the Lambs. Although these films didn’t directly reflect Gein’s life like the Monster series, they still were the inspiration behind these movies.
After his mother died from a stroke in 1945, Gein isolated himself from the world as he grieved from his mothers death, Later on Gein began to show signs of schizophrenia through hallucinations, delusions and the inability to detach fantasy from reality. These signs of schizophrenia combined with his isolation and trauma influenced his actions. Gein thought that he could reincarnate his mother by digging up bodies to inherit her “spirit”, and this was directly driven by his illness and attachment to his mom as she was the only he was around his whole life.
“This whole series was filled with disturbing scenes in my opinion. The directors really spent time to plan these scenes out and the way they were brung to the screen was phenomenal. From showing the bodies being dug up, committing sexual activities, how Ed’s schizophrenia specifically was as we seen him hear voices and let them guide him and what enhanced the series the most was seeing how Ed really believed his mom was guiding him through the killings and him making his Paraphernalia and the making of the human suit” Says Gilian who watched the series
Ed’s relationship with his mother was very oedipal (a child’s unconscious desire for their opposite-sex parent and rivalry with their same-sex parent). His father “George Philp Gein” was never active in his life and we never really hear much about his relationship with his dad because he only grew up around his brother Henry and his mother Augusta.
Augusta would consider the father of her sons a failure because he was a hard alcoholic, he was never fully present in the family, and was physically abusive to Ed as a child. Shortly after George and Augusta’s divorce she began to have a hatred for men in general and started to wish she had a daughter instead of a son. She worried that Ed would turn out like his dad, so she raised him with an overbearing protectiveness his whole life and isolated him from the “sinners of their city”. Augusta continued to speak badly of Ed’s father, as their bond strengthening Gein also started to believe that men were weak, this is why psychologists also suggested that one of the reasons of Gein’s action was that he wanted to become a woman like his mother as she was a heavy influence on his life.
Gein grew up in a very strictly and fanatically Christian household his whole life as his mom’s raised him heavily centered by her religious beliefs. Augusta was overbearingly religious, and she forbade her two sons from having any relationships with women, who she saw as “wanton sinners”.And if Ed was caught committing any sinful acts she would often do a few things, force a prayer on him or lecture him about the immorality of the world as a punishment. “Then, when Ed was 12 years old, Augusta caught him masturbating in the bathtub. In response, she grabbed his genitals, referring to them as the “curse of man.” And this was the beginning of Gein’s story.
Police reported Gein of making 40 nocturnal visits to three local graveyards to exhume recently buried bodies while he was in a “daze-like” state. On thirty of those visits, Gein stated he left the graves in good shape and went home empty handed. But on nine other occasions, he dug up the graves of recently buried women who resembled his mother, took the bodies home, and he harvested their skins to make his Paraphernalia (miscellaneous articles, especially the equipment needed for a particular activity).
On November 21, 1957, Gein was charged with first degree murder in Waushara County Court for the murder of Mary Hogan whose head was found in his home although he denied any memory of the murder taking place, and Bernice Worden a hardware store owner in Plainfield who was shot with .22 Caliber Rifle . Mutations were also made to her body after her death which was confirmed by police.
Digging deeper into Gein’s crimes, he wasn’t only skinning women and turning them into fabric for his house furniture. He was creating a human suit made out of their skin as an attempt to “become his mother” and live in her skin. It took the police department nearly three years to convict Gein for his crimes, A sheriff’s deputy discovered Worden’s body in a shed on Gein’s property.
And as authorities began to search Gein’s house for further evidence, authorities found human bones/fragments,wastebasket made of human skin, several chairs made of human skin, human skulls, corset made from a female torso, leggings made from human leg skin, masks made from female skin, Bernice Worden’s heart and head, nine vulvas, belt made from female nipple, four noses, pair of lips and a lampshade made from the skin of a human face.
Gein was later taken into investigation and was declared unfit to stand in court and was confined to a mental health facility. By 1968 he was competent to stand trial, he was found guilty of first degree murder but was found “legally” insane and remained in a psychiatric institution. Gein’s schizophrenia diagnosis was the “explanation” for his crimes. He received the diagnosis in December 1957 a month after his arrest. The physicians and psychiatrists examining Gein came to this conclusion on the basis that Gein continued to hear his mother’s voice long after she died, was delusional, and couldn’t tell the difference between right and wrong.
“I was so intrigued watching this series because it’s too interesting to get into the killer’s head and see how his mom treated him, how isolated he was from the people in his town and you can see how his moms death took a toll on him and was the beginning of his crimes. Sometimes it’s hard for the viewer to know what’s accurate and inaccurate about the story but I feel like Ryan Murphy portrayed Ed Gein very well by showing him during his crimes but also showing him in his vulnerable times when he’s battling his schizophrenia” Says another consumer of the series, Jasmine.
“Monster: The Ed Gein Story” is a Netflix biographical true crime series that delves into the life of Ed Gein who made an impact on pop culture by inspiring the script of Psycho and Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The series was the top one most watched show for over 2 weeks when it was first released. The series dives deeper into the crimes including other featured characters like his victims, influences and alliances.
Since the show aired it has received mixed reviews with some people enjoying the commentary on the horror and crime drama as well as Gein’s story while others are criticizing the show for its inaccuracy and its high amount of graphics throughout the show.
Although the series had mainly good reviews and most of the series was based on real life events there were some signs of inaccuracy throughout the series. The only and main thing that critics noticed was that the killings Gein committed in the show were inaccurate. Gein was shown killing his brother Henry accidentally and he was also shown taking the character Evelyn Hartly. The only two people who Gein was charged with were Bernice and Mary, and Gein was only ever really tried for the murder of Bernice and neither was he found guilty due to the fact he was legally insane . While the series is mainly factual and based on true events there were also exaggerated scenes as well as fictional interpretations throughout the series.
In summation Ed Gein’s story shocked many people because he is an example of the boundary between mundane and monstrous between the isolation and the horrors taking place behind his closed doors. Gein became what post world war Americans feared which is why Gein’s name is still mentioned in horror culture decades later after giving inspiration to many hits that we know that we wouldn’t even guess were based on the life of Gein. Leaving his story as a reminder that the monsters we hear about and see on our screen are often made, not born, and they come from the most quiet isolated places.
”I just have to understand him. And I don’t want to be too empathetic and let him off the hook because he did terrible things. But what constantly I found in the research was just how sympathetic I felt to him in his early years before he started committing crimes cuz he lived in total isolation. His only friend, his only relationship, his whole life was with his mother and she told him every day that she hated him because he wasn’t born the daughter that she’d wanted. And so first she died when he was 41. And then he lived in complete isolation, utterly alone, having no contact with the world for 2 years. And he was so lonely that at 43 the first crime he ever committed was going to the graveyard to dig his mom up to bring her home. and you start to hear details like that and you think like just this, you know, that you can’t help but feel a bit heartbroken for this man. His mother was the only person he ever knew. All he wanted was her love and acceptance. So how would that have impacted him? like him being told every day that she hated him because he wasn’t a girl. Um, but then of course it’s complicated cuz then he did these horrendous crimes.” -Charlie Hunnam
