Ed Gein: America's Most Depraved Death Cult Criminal

Edward Theodore Gein, born August 27, 1906, in Plainfield, Wisconsin, became one of America's most grotesque killers—a man so obsessed with reconstructing his dead mother that he turned to murder and desecration of corpses. Between 1947 and 1952, he made approximately 40 nocturnal visits to three local graveyards, exhuming recently buried bodies and removing human remains with calculated precision.

Gein's grave-robbing spree targeted at least 15 women from incomplete graves, their bodies stripped of skin and bones for a sinister purpose: crafting a "woman suit" to wear. Police later discovered the full extent of his macabre collection—masks fashioned from human skin, belts and vests made from flesh, chair upholstery stuffed with tissue, bedpost skull mounts, and boxes containing noses and nipples preserved in his farmhouse. Remarkably, Gein confessed to these crimes, and investigators corroborated his account by exhuming graves, finding empty caskets and the tools he'd left behind. He denied engaging in necrophilia, claiming the bodies had already decomposed too far.

But grave robbing soon gave way to murder. On December 8, 1954, Gein shot 51-year-old tavern owner Mary Hogan in the head. Her severed head was found in his house. Police notes indicate Gein admitted to the shooting but claimed not to remember the details. Both his victims physically resembled his mother, Augusta Gein, who had died in 1945—the very year his crimes began. Obsessed with "becoming his mother," Gein's delusions had morphed into lethal violence.

The second murder came three years later. On November 16, 1957, Gein shot hardware store clerk Bernice Worden, 41, with a .32-caliber rifle. Her body was discovered hanging in a shed on his rural farm during the police investigation into her disappearance. Post-mortem mutilations included decapitation, disembowelment, and organ removal.