Eddie's Family Farm

The Serial Killer:  Edward Theodore Gein (August 27, 1906–July 26, 1984) was an American murderer, body snatcher, and suspected serial killer.  The second of two boys, Ed Gein was the son of George Gein, an alcoholic "jack-of-all-trades," and Augusta Gein, a religious fanatic that frequently reminded both sons of her belief that all women, except for her, were promiscuous instruments of the devil.  By 1945, his father, brother, and mother had all passed away, and Gein lived like a hermit on the isolated family farm while working odd jobs around Plainfield, WI.  In 1957, Gein gained notoriety after authorities realized he had stolen corpses from various graveyards and fashioned keepsakes from their body parts.  He also confessed to killing a local bar owner named Mary Hogan, as well as a hardware store owner by the name of Bernice Worden.  In addition to those murders, Gein was suspected of other unsolved cases in the area.  Lie detector tests, however, exonerated Gein of those murders, and his psychiatrists stated that Gein's violence was directed specifically to women that physically resembled his mother.  Having been found mentally incompetent and unfit for trial, Gein was sent to the Central State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, and he was later transferred to the Mendota State Hospital in Madison.  At the age of 77, he died at Mendota of respiratory failure resulting from lung cancer, and the "Butcher of Plainfield" was buried next to his family in a now-unmarked grave.

The Farmhouse:  A dilapidated Gothic farmhouse surrounded by 196 acres of barren farmland, the Gein residence was located just a few miles southwest of Plainfield, WI.  The two-story structure served as the primary location for Ed Gein's horrible crimes after the death of his mother in 1945.  There were supposedly five bedrooms upstairs, one spare bedroom downstairs, a living room, a formal parlor, a kitchen, a summer kitchen, and three separate porches.  The house was built circa 1863, it had neither electricity nor running water, and it was suspiciously burned down in March of 1958 once locals learned that an entrepreneur intended to buy the house and open it as a "House of Horrors" tour attraction.  Ed Gein may have been a loner, but he kept busy by surrounding himself with his macabre collection:

1)  Authorities found the remains of at least 10 women in his house.  In addition to the two women he murdered, he had also visited area cemeteries and dug up buried women that reminded him of his mother.

2)  While searching Gein's home, police found human skin-covered chairs.

3)  Bowls made from human skulls were found on the kitchen table.

4)  A mask made from Mary Hogan's face was found in a paper bag behind a door in the living room.

5)  Mary Hogan's skull was found in a box in the kitchen.

6)  Bernice Worden's head was found in a burlap sack next to her decapitated body in the summer kitchen.  In addition, her heart was found in a bag close to the kitchen stove.

The Floor Plan:  Since very few pictures of the inside of Gein's farmhouse exist, I had to guesstimate the locations of the staircase, as well as the guestroom.  I am only including a floor plan of the first floor, as there seems to be no pictures of the second floor available.  In researching the house, I learned that while most of Gein's home was dirty to the point of unsanitary, certain rooms were found to be in pristine condition.  Such rooms included his mother's bedroom, as well as the formal parlor on the first floor.

Sources:

Bie, Michael.  It Happened in Wisconsin.  Morris Book Publishing, 2007.

Gollmar, Robert H.  Edward Gein:  America's Most Bizarre Murderer.  Windsor Publishing Corp., 1981.

Jenkins, John Philip.  "Ed Gein:  American Serial Killer."  Britannica.  26 April 2024.  https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ed-Gein.  Accessed 24 May 2024.

Kerr, Gordon.  Evil Psychopaths:  Dangerous and Deranged.  Time Warner Paperbacks, 2009.

Rebello, Stephen.  Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho.  Dembner Books, 1990.

Schechter, Harold.  Deviant:  The Shocking True Story of Ed Gein, the Original 'Psycho.'  Simon & Schuster, 1989.

Williams, Anne.  Fiendish Killers:  Perpetrators of the Worst Possible Evil.  Futura Publishing, 2007.

Wisconsin Historical Society.  "Birth Index Record, Gein, Edward."  https://www.wisconsinhistory.org.  Accessed 21 May 2024.