Just What Type Of Man Was Edward Gein?

The Butcher of Plain field better known as Edward Theodore Gein or Ed Gein was an American man whose heinous crimes cannot be absolved, actions of a man so grotesque he inspired the characters of Norman Bates in Psycho, Leatherface in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs. Just what type of man was Ed Gein really?
Born in the small farming community of Plainfield, Wisconsin on 27th July 1906, Gein lived a repressive and solitary life on his family farm with his alcoholic father George and domineering mother Augusta.
A fervent Lutheran, she preached to her boys the innate sins of the world, and instilled the belief that all women were prostitutes and instruments of the devil. Ironically, she would quote
On May 16th, 1944, 4 years after Ed’s father died, a brush fire broke out on the property, Ed and his older brother Henry attempted to extinguish it but were seemingly separated and Henry was not to be seen alive again.
Gein later filed a missing person’s report and when the search party accumulated, despite not having any knowledge of Henry’s whereabouts, managed to lead them right to his body, lying face down with bruising on his head, though this was just chalked up to ‘mysterious circumstances’.
Not long after the incident, Gein’s mother passed away in 1945, after which his mannerisms became more unpredictable and his mental state declined even further, leading to his fascination of the female anatomy and torture, fuelling his sexual fantasies and curiosities.
Engrossed in books on the Nazi’s torture techniques, Gein became obsessed with those techniques, he wanted to experiment, he didn’t go for those living, not yet
Gein was arrested at a West Plainfield grocery store.
Upon entering Gein’s house detectives discovered the house had been in kept in unimaginable squalor, everything except his mother’s room.
Alongside Organs, Officers found human skulls on Gein’s bedposts, a belt made of nipples, four noses, masks made from human faces, and a suit made from the skins of females. He had also used human skin to upholster chairs.
On November 21, 1957, Gein was arraigned on one count of first degree murder in Waushara County Court, where he entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity.
Found mentally incompetent and thus unfit to stand trial, Gein was sent to the Central State Hospital for the Criminally Insane a maximum-security facility in Waupun, Wisconsin, and later transferred to the Mendota State Hospital in Madison, Wisconsin.
In 1968, Gein was sane enough to stand trial. The trial began on November 14, 1968, lasting one week. Gein was found guilty of first-degree murder, but because he was found to be legally insane, he spent the rest of his life in a mental