Bizarre as the case had thus far proven to be, the officers were stunned by this latest admission. They were also disinclined to believe it. It seemed impossible that a man of Gein’s stature could dig up a corpse, drag it from its casket and then fill in the grave again, all in the few hours he’d have had to complete the task.
But Gien was insistent, even providing the officers with a list of the graves he’d robbed. His M.O., he said, was to follow the obituaries in local newspapers, looking for middle-aged women who had recently died. He’d then visit the graveyard late at night and get to work. The soil in the newly dug grave was still loose and that made the digging easy. Besides, Ed said with his trademark grin, he never had to dig the full six-feet. All of the coffins were encased in a wooden box, the lid of which was usually two feet below the surface. All he had to do was pry up the boards with a crowbar and he was in business. Sometimes, he’d carry the whole corpse away with him. On other occasions, he’d cut off the head and leave the body behind.
Once Gein had the desired body parts in hand, he’d return to his filthy farmhouse where he’d spend hours cutting and dissecting the corpse, creating the macabre artifacts that would later be found in his house. He’d then burn the rest of the body although, on a few occasions, he’d suffered the pangs of conscience and had returned the mutilated remains to the cemetery, where he’d buried them. He insisted that all of this was true although few of the officers believed him. They were still convinced that they had captured the worst serial killer in Wisconsin’s history.
In the midst of the storm brewing around him, Ed Gein appeared totally oblivious to the enormity of the crimes he’d committed. But by now stories about the macabre case had begun to leak out, alerting the media. Soon a frenzy would be whipped up with reporters from around the country descending on the hitherto unknown burg of Plainfield and on Wautoma where Gein was being held. Ed Gein, the shy little farmer from Wisconsin was suddenly a celebrity, with newsmen and TV crews besieging the jailhouse, hoping to get a shot of the diminutive ghoul. Any effort to move him from one location to another became an ordeal for the lawmen assigned to his case. They were immediately tracked by a convoy of a dozen cars, with any glimpse of Gein triggering a blizzard of flashbulbs.
Over the weeks that followed, Gein’s grinning countenance could be seen staring out from newspapers across the land. He even appeared on the cover of magazines like Time and Life. Meanwhile, some of the country’s most renowned psychiatrists offered their opinion on what made Ed tick and there was a new Gein-inspired phenomenon, a rash of distasteful but popular jokes, known as “Geiners.” One example went like this: “Why did they let Ed Gein out of prison on New Year’s Eve?” “So he could dig up a date.”
Back in Plainfield, residents were inundated with reporters, all of them keen to find the next new shocking twist in the Gein saga. Most Plainfielders resented the intrusion but some did speak to the press and others were happy to spin wild yarns which were instantly accepted as fact. The press also added their own spin. There were suggestions that Gein had had sex with the corpses he dug up (Ed denied this, saying that they smelled too bad). There were also unsubstantiated allegations of cannibalism (also denied by Gein). The Gein farmhouse, meanwhile, had become somewhat of a tourist attraction, with rubberneckers driving from all over the region just to catch a glimpse of the dilapidated old building.
In the midst of all this mayhem, permission was finally granted to dig up the graves Gein claimed to have robbed. This would answer once and for all the question of whether Ed Gein was a double murderer and grave robber or the prolific serial killer that law enforcement officers believed him to be.
The first of the graves cited for exhumation was that of Mrs. Eleanor Adams, and its location was telling. It was right next to that of Augusta Gein, Ed’s beloved mother. On the chilly morning of Monday, November 24, police and workmen descended on the Plainfield cemetery. District Attorney Earl Kileen had earlier announced that the evacuations would begin on Tuesday and so the army of newsmen encamped in Plainfield was caught entirely by surprise. Those who figured out that something was up arrived at the cemetery to find their way blocked and the grave itself screened off by a tarpaulin. Behind that screen, two workmen had already started digging.
After less than an hour, the shovels scraped against the top of the rough wooden box that encased the coffin. And it was immediately clear that the box had indeed been tampered with. The wood had been splintered. As for the coffin itself, it lay four feet below, a scattering of dirt on the lid. One of the workmen lowered himself into the hole and flipped back the lid as all of those present held a collective breath. The casket was empty. It was so with every coffin they dug up, save for those where Gein had taken the head and left the body behind or where he had, out of conscience, returned the mutilated remains to their final resting place.
Chapter 9: Psycho
And so Ed Gein’s stories of late night visits to the graveyard turned out to be true after all. Grave robbing was still a crime, of course, but not as serious a crime as murder. Ed still had two homicides to answer for. But the question plaguing D.A. Kileen was whether he’d be able to prosecute Gein at all. Already Gein’s defense counsel had stated his intention of pursuing an insanity defense and it seemed highly likely that such a defense would succeed. Surely a man who dug up and mutilated corpses, holding their body parts as keepsakes, had to be insane? It was an issue that needed to be resolved before the matter could be brought before a jury.
Gein was therefore sent to the Central State Hospital for the Criminally Insane where a month’s worth of tests by various experts delivered the inevitable verdict. Ed Gein was found to be mentally incompetent. “Mr. Gein has been suffering from a schizophrenic process for an undetermined period of years,” wrote Central State Hospital director, Dr. Edward Schubert. “Although Mr. Gein might voice knowledge of the difference between right and wrong, his ability to make such judgment will always be influenced by the existent mental illness. As a result of these findings, I must recommend his commitment to Central State Hospital as insane.”
And that, indeed, was the ruling of the court. Much to the disgust of the citizens of Plainfield, Gein was deemed to be criminally insane and was sent back to Central State, having never been called on to answer for his crimes. He adapted well to institutional life. To a man who had spent most of his adult life living in a grim and filthy farmhouse, the assurance of three hot meals a day and a warm cot at night must have seemed like Nirvana. He had clean clothes, medical care, even a small television set in his room. To the people of Plainfield, it must have appeared that Ed Gein had not only gotten away with murder but had profited from it. Perhaps that simmering resentment is what led to the fire at the Gein farm.
Shortly after Gein was sent to Central State, an auction was scheduled to sell off his farm and other belongings. Ed, of course, would see very little, if any, of the proceeds. He had legal bills to pay as well as civil suits that had been lodged by the families of his victims. Still, the auction attracted considerable interest, both from serious bidders and from the morbidly curious.
One item that would not end up under the auctioneer’s hammer was the farmhouse itself. In the early morning hours of March 20, 1958, the Plainfield volunteer fire department was called out to the Gein farm where they found the house ablaze and already beyond rescue. The firemen stood impassively by as the building burned to the ground. Arson was suspected but the town fire warden, Bernice Worden’s son Frank, was disinclined to launch an inquiry. When Ed was told about the destruction of his family home, he was equally pragmatic. “Just as well,” he said without emotion.
As for the rest of Gein’s possessions, the farm sold to a property investor for around $3,000 and the rest sold for a pittance. One item, however, provoked a bidding war. It was Ed's 1949 Ford sedan, the vehicle which he’d used to haul disinterred corpses back home. It sold eventually for $760 to a sideshow operator named Bunny Gibbons. That would prove to be
a shrewd investment. For years after, Gibbons toured the Midwest, exhibiting the “ghoul car” at a quarter a peek. It seemed that people just could not get enough of the Plainfield Butcher.
As for the object of their fascination, he was doing well at the hospital where he was described as a model prisoner. And he was responding well to therapy. So well, in fact, that in January 1968, ten years after he’d begun his incarceration, a court decided that he was now competent to stand trial for the murder of Bernice Worden.
Those proceedings got underway on November 7, 1968, with much of the testimony given over to gruesome autopsy reports and evidence by lawmen who had been involved in the original investigation, many of who had since retired. One notable absentee was Sheriff Art Schley, who had dropped dead of a heart attack just months before the trial was due to begin.
Gein himself was the main defense witness and even though a decade had passed since the murder, he was still sticking to his story that Bernice Worden’s death had been an accident.
Gein’s defense team had opted to waive his right to a jury trial, so it was up to Judge Robert H. Gollmar to decide on his guilt or innocence. And since Gein continued to insist that the shooting had been an accident, the judge had no difficulty in returning a guilty verdict. The outcome, however, was purely academic. Gein had been found to be mentally incompetent at the time of the shooting and thus could not be sentenced to jail time. Judge Gollmar ruled instead that he should be returned to the Central State Hospital for the Criminally Insane and should remain there for an indeterminate period. The possibility of release at some later date was not ruled out.
Ed was pleased at the outcome. He was happy at the hospital. He got along well with the staff and well enough with the other patients, even though he preferred to keep to himself. He’d put some weight on his scrawny frame and was in better condition physically than he’d been since his youth. He remained an avid reader even though his favorite material – Nazi atrocities and cannibal massacres – was off the menu. He enjoyed his regular chats with the psychologists and was keen on the occupational therapy projects he participated in. He even earned a small income by cleaning the wards and was allowed to spend his money on an inexpensive ham radio set. All in all, Gein was probably happier during his last decade and a half than he’d been at any time during his life.
Ed Gein died of respiratory failure on July 26, 1984, at the age of 78. By then he was senile and riddled with cancer. In accordance with his wishes, he was buried at the Plainfield cemetery beside his beloved mother. His grave is unmarked to discourage sightseers and vandals. Ironically, Ed lies buried close to the very graves that he so heartlessly plundered.
The Butcher of Plainfield was gone but the enormity of his crimes was not forgotten. Over the years that followed he would continue to be the bogeyman that Wisconsin mothers warned their misbehaving children about. And he would continue to inspire writers and movie makers. In addition to the character Buffalo Bill, mentioned in the intro of this book, Gein was also the inspiration for Leatherface, the chainsaw-wielding maniac in Tobe Hooper’s 1974 horror classic, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the film which launched the ‘Slasher’ subgenre.
But perhaps the most famous of Ed Gein’s fictional incarnations was Norman Bates, the cross-dressing, mother-obsessed Psycho of Robert Bloch’s novel and Alfred Hitchcock’s classic film. Each of these characters, Buffalo Bill, Leatherface and Norman Bates draws on Ed Gein. And yet the atrocities committed by Gein were far more bizarre, far more extreme than those of his fictional counterparts. Fact, in this case, really was stranger than fiction.
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About The Author
Robert Keller has had a deep fascination with true crime since his early teens and has researched and studied literally thousands of cases. He is also one of the best selling true crime authors on Amazon, with over 40 books to his credit.
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Unhinged: The Shocking True Story of Ed Gein, The Butcher of Plainfield Page 4
