Abstract Edward Gein was a man from Wisconsin that would exhume bodies, take parts he desired and make necklaces, lampshades, etc. Gein began to act out after his mother died when Gein was 39. He began to have hallucination and thought his mother was talking to him. He wanted to bring her back and that is why he exhumed the bodies. Gein had taken over the family business and one day his shop-keeper became missing. Officials thought of Gein immediately and went to his house. They found the shop-keeper hanging upside down, decapitated. Besides that, they found shoeboxes full of body parts and ten skulls in the home. Gein was soon deemed mentally ill and psychotic. He was rated a level 13/22 on Dr. Stone’s scale and eventually died of cancer in 1984 at Central State Hospital.

Edward Theodore Gein was born in La Crosse, Wisconsin to Augusta Crafter and George Gein. He had an older brother as well named Henry. Ed’s father, George was an alcoholic and was also very violent. He never seemed to keep a job and the rest of the family ended up not wanting to live with George anymore. Divorce was not an option for Augusta and George because of their religious beliefs. Soon they left George. Augusta was running the family’s grocery store and when she saved enough money, she purchased an old farm in another town called Plainfield. She particularly liked this spot because it was secluded so there were very few outside influences on her sons. Edward only left home to go to school, where he was bullied because of a slight growth over one eye. Augusta did not allow him to have any friends. If Ed was not at school, he was doing chores for his mother. Augusta seemed to ‘press’ religion on her boys. She preached to them about alcohol and sex and many other things. She also read from the bible every day to Ed and Henry. In 1840, George Gein passed away and Henry began rebelling against the religious beliefs of the family. He would constantly back-talk Augusta and disobey her in front of Ed. Then in 1944, Edward and Henry were caught in the middle of a brush fire. Ed went to the police and said that he could not find Henry but then directed them to Henry’s body. Henry did have trauma to the head but the coroner declared his death was caused by asphyxiation. That left Edward and Augusta living alone together, but not for long. A year later on December 29, 1945, Augusta also passed away. She died from strokes, leaving Ed all alone on the farm. In 1957 a store clerk, Bernice Worden, disappeared and Ed was a suspect. The officials went to the farm where they first searched the shed. They found Bernice’s body there, where she was decapitated and her body was hanging upside down with ropes and a crossbar. Her ribcage was split and it was almost like she had been gutted like a deer. She had also been shot with a .22 caliber rifle. The police then searched the house where they found a lot more gruesome things. The found human skulls on his bedposts, human skin on lampshades and chair seats, skullcaps, possibly used as bowls, a human heart, a head of another woman in a plastic bag, a ceiling light pull made of lips, a vest made of a woman’s torso, a belt made of nipples, and socks made of flesh. Gein also admitted to digging up other bodies of middle-aged woman. He wanted to make a body suit using their flesh so he could pretend to be his mother. Apparently after his mother’s death, Gein wanted a sex change, but did not want to be transsexual. Ed was indeed found mentally ill and could not stand at trial. He was send to Central State Hospital in Waupin, Wisconsin. The hospital was turned into a prison and Ed was transferred to Mendota State Hospital in Madison, Wisconsin, where he was deemed able to stand at trial. He was found not guilty by reason of insanity but did spend the rest of his life in the hospital. Edwards Gein’s farmhouse ended up burning down (suspected arson) and his car was sold. On July 26, 1984 he died of respiratory and heart failure due to cancer at the same hospital. His gravesite and been vandalized multiple times. People would chip off pieces as souvenirs. In 2000 the rest of it was stolen. It was recovered in 2001 and is now displayed in a museum in Wautoma, Wisconsin.

References
Wisconsin Sickness. (2013). Ed Gein. Wisconsinsickness.com. Retrieved on February 16,2013 from www.wisconsinsickness.com/ed-gein/