Murderer Ed Gein - Research Paper Example

 While the majority of people never heard the name Ed Gein, he happens to be America's most famed murderer with his actions from four decades ago inspiring movies such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Psycho and its sequel and recently Silence of the Lambs (Balousek, 2000). Ed Gein and his family comprising of Henry his older brother, George his father and Augusta his mother, lived together at their 160-acre farm only a few miles out of Plainfield, Wisconsin. His father George was an alcoholic while his mother Augusta was demanding, while, at the same time, an overbearing woman who fully controlled her boys. The only thing Ed could remember about her mother is that she was either delegating the work of the farm for the boys to carry out, or quoting the Gospel. Most of the time, she attempted extremely hard to teach Ed, together with Henry concerning sin, particularly concerning the evils of sex, as well as women. In 1940, George died due to his alcoholism Henry died four years later while fighting a fire; as a result, Ed was the only one left at the hands of his domineering mother. He tended to the demands of his mother for two years until her demise in 1945. Left alone, Ed sealed off all except one room, along with the kitchen of the big farmhouse (Schechter, 1998). He stopped working at the farm when the government started paying him as branch of a program of soil conservation, while at the same time; he started undertaking local handyman jobs, which subsidized his income. Gein stayed to himself nobody had knowledge that he spent hours fanatical with sexual fantasy while reading on the female anatomy. Apart from that, the human experiments carried out in Nazi camps fascinated him. Consequently, his mind got filled with visions of sex, dismemberment, along with the mental images fused into one, leading to Ed reaching gratification. At 39, Ed Gein began his life as a loner. In his solitude, Gein started withdrawing from society, as well as reality. He drifted farther away from realism with his life becoming extremely bizarre. Throughout his free time, Ed fancied reading about the human anatomy, together with experiences at Nazi concentration camp. He read a number of medical and anatomical texts concerning the female body. As a result, he got highly obsessed with the female anatomy since he had a burning desire of becoming a woman. From childhood, Ed was uncertain about his masculinity and had the intention of amputating his own penis; however, it was costly, while, at the same time frightening (Balousek, 2000). Then again, the closest Ed came to this attempt was when he, utilizing real human skin, made a full body suit of a woman dressing himself in. Each day, Ed fantasized endlessly about sex; his desire was to become conversant with the female anatomy. His fantasies led him to digging up a corpse of a woman after reading an article in the newspaper concerning a woman getting buried that day, nearly a dozen feet from his mother's last place of resting. This corpse was just one of numerous that Ed dug up while taking home for his pleasure for over ten years; eventually, he also dug up his own mother. Ed got help from Gus, who was his old trusted friend while digging up corpses, who equaled Ed in strangeness. Gus thought that the corpses were for medical experiments while, in reality, Ed experimented with the dead bodies, developing objects from the skin, as well as bones while storing the organs inside the fridge for later meals. Apart from that, he committed necrophilia acts on the bodies; necrophilia refer to an abnormal lure with death, as well as the dead. His fascination was heightening with the increase of corpses he obtained (Paul & Errol, 1995). At the time of his death, Gus left Ed all alone with Ed becoming curious in newer and fresher bodies for his experimentations. In most cases, Ed attacked women whose age was similar to his mother, with two of his victims being Mary Hogan who was fifty-four year old and Bernice Worden who was the fifty-eight year old. The body parts of the women were inside a shed behind the house of Gein. The head of Bernice hung from the ceiling with her genitals carved out. Apart from that, her heart was inside a saucepan while her other organs were in a box within a corner of the shed. On top of that, skins from nearly ten human skulls were inside Ed’s shed with a chair covered in human skin, together with a belt made out of nipples. Apparently, Gein cut up these women while dressing himself with human skin and pretending that he was his own mother. Scenarios such as this one went on for not less than 10 years, including the removal of Gein's mother out of her grave. Overtime, the experiments using the corpses turned out to be extremely gruesome and bizarre and comprising of necrophilia, as well as cannibalism. Gein's fanatical fantasies concentrated on his overpowering desire of turning himself to a woman. He constructed items from the body’s skin then draping on himself a female mask, together with breasts to the extent of making up a whole jumpsuit of body-sized female (Schechter, 1998). An investigation into Bernice Worden’s whereabouts started after her son Frank, who was a deputy sheriff, came home late in the afternoon coming from a hunting trip he went in the early morning thereby discovering that his mother was not there, with blood on the store’s floor. Upon reviewing the store receipts, he found a receipt revealing the acquisition of a half of a gallon of antifreeze. Worden pondered about any suspicious activity he could recall, and he remembered Gein had gone to store the preceding week, while, at the same time, he visited to store the previous night before closing time. He remembered Gein asserting that he would be back the following morning for antifreeze. He also remembered that Gein had questioned Worden concerning his intentions of going hunting the following day. Though there were no known records of Gein getting involved in any criminal activity, the sheriff decided to pay the peculiar loner a visit. The police located Gein at a store close to his home and then went to the farmhouse of Gein with hopes of stumbling on Bernice Worden (Balousek, 2000). Upon arrival, the first place, to be searched was the shed. This search took place in the darkness of the night with Officer Schley lit ting a torch while slowly swinging it near the shed. In the interior was a corpse of a naked woman dangling upside down, the body eviscerated with both the throat, together with the head missing; this was Bernice Worden’s body. The next place searched by the police was Gein's house; they waded through heaps of garbage, while, at the same time through an unfathomable quantity of junk along with only oil lamps guiding them. With the adjustment of the officers’ eyes, the junk started taking a recognizable form, that which was extremely horrific to be imagined. Every place they searched they saw numerous body parts, some of which got used as household items like skulls crafted into bowls, jewelry crafted from human skin lips drapery, chair seats along with human skin upholstery, well preserved facial skin, as well as resembled masks, together with a pack of vulva's amongst painted silver belonging to his mother. Later on it there was the realization that these body parts belonged to 15 different women though it was not possible to ascertain some of the body parts. The most shocking of all these items was the heart of Worden's mother found inside a pan on the stovetop. The lives of those police officers who walked all the way through this house of horrors during that night got changed forever (Schechter, 1998). Ed got arrested and taken to a mental hospital whereby he spent ten years till he was in shape for standing trial (Paul & Errol, 1995). Although Gein was found guilty on January 16, 1958, there was a declaration that he was criminally insane thereby he got sent away to Central State Hospital found in Waupun, Wisconsin. In 1978, he moved to Mendota Mental Health Institute, eventually he died in this same institution in 1984, at the age of seventy seven due to respiratory and heart failure. References: Balousek, M. (2000). 101 Wisconsin Unsolved Mysteries. Illinois: Badger Books Inc. Paul A. W., Errol M. (1995). Ed Gein--Psycho! Chicago: St. Martin's Press. Schechter, H. (1998). Deviant. New York: Simon and Schuster. Read More