The Real Horror Stories of Ed Gein

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His fascination with female body parts led him to focus on living victims. Such victims would be women around the same age as his mother, in their 50s. His victims included Bernice Worden who ran the local hardware store and Mary Hogan, who disappeared from her tavern in December 1954. Unfortunately for Ed Gein Bernice Worden’s son, Frank Worden was the local sheriff’s deputy. And knowing that Gein had been seen in town that day, decided to call in at the Ed Gein’s decaying farm. When Frank Worden and the sheriff attended the property, they found more than they could ever expect.

The farmhouse was hoarding various body parts of Ed Gein’s victims, including the headless body of Bernice Worden that was located in the nearby woods. Her head was found within the farmhouse in a box. The police also found chairs upholstered in human skin, a belt made from Ed Gein’s victims and the skulls of his victims placed on the end of each bedpost. Gein was soon arrested and admitted he had no clue as to how many victims there actually were. The bodies discovered were at estimated at 15. Following these horrific events, Ed Gein spent 10 years in a mental hospital before being deemed fit enough to stand trial. He was found guilty but also deemed criminally insane which saw him committed firstly to the Central State Hospital at Waupen before being moved in 1978 to the Mendota Mental Health Institute where he stayed until his death from heart failure in 1984.

Gein’s crime became the template for many Hollywood directors who used the real horror stories to create their own disturbing characters. Among them was the famous Norman Bates character from “Psycho,” who mirrored many characteristics of Ed Gein such as his concentrated loyalty to his mother. Other aspects of Ed Gein’s character would inspire slasher movies throughout the 1970s and 1980s such as “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and “Maniac.” There was also an infamous criminal portrayed in 1991’s “Silence of the Lambs” called Buffalo Bill. Buffalo Bill would also wear his victim’s skin and pose in the mirror.