The Horrifying True Story of Ed Gein: The Killer Who Inspired Psycho and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Introduction: The Birth of a Horror Legend

The horror genre as we know it—with terrifying figures like Leatherface from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Norman Bates in Psycho, and Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs—owes its existence to a real-life monster. The story begins on November 16th, 1957, in the quiet village of Plainfield, Wisconsin. It was the first day of hunting season, and the town was uncharacteristically slow. 

Around 5 p.m., Deputy Frank Worden stopped by his mother's hardware store for a visit. He found the store eerily quiet, the cash register open with money scattered about, and chillingly, blood stains on the floor. His 58-year-old mother, Bernice Worden, was gone. The investigation that followed would uncover something so horrific it would change the landscape of horror forever, all revolving around one man: Ed Gein. 

This is the deep dive into everything that actually happened—his crimes, his victims, and his deeply disturbing upbringing. 

 

A Town in Fear: The Plainfield Disappearances

Bernice Worden's disappearance was the sixth in a string of mysterious cases that had plagued the small community of Plainfield over a 10-year period. With a population of only about 660 people, the number of missing persons was alarmingly high. 

•  May 1, 1947 - Georgia Weckler: Eight-year-old Georgia was dropped off near her family's mailbox after school but never made it home. The only clue was a set of tire marks in the dirt road, suggesting a frantic abduction. The community was devastated, and a palpable fear set in.  

• November 1, 1950 - Victor Travis and Ray Burgess: These two men, who were visiting Plainfield on a deer hunting trip, vanished after leaving a local bar. Their car and hunting dog also disappeared without a trace, leaving behind only rumors of mob ties and another unsolved mystery.  

• October 24, 1953 - Evelyn Hartley: 14-year-old Evelyn disappeared while babysitting for the Rasmussen family. The family returned home to find clear signs of a struggle: shattered glasses, blood on the carpet, and a missing window screen. The baby was unharmed, but Evelyn was gone. The search for her became one of the largest in Wisconsin's history, but she was never found. This case, in particular, shattered the town's sense of safety. 

• December 8, 1954 - Mary Hogan: The owner of a local tavern, Mary disappeared from her establishment. Investigators found blood on the floor and an empty bullet shell casing, indicating she had likely been shot. But with no strong leads, her case went cold, leaving the town to wonder about the violent individual still walking their streets. 

A Son's Investigation: The Antifreeze Receipt

Bernice Worden's case was different for one critical reason: her son, Frank, was the deputy sheriff.  Motivated by personal tragedy, he scrutinized every detail. On the counter of the hardware store, he found a receipt for a bottle of antifreeze.  While this seemed normal, Frank remembered something crucial. The night before his mother's disappearance, he had been in the store when a local man, Ed Gein, told Bernice he would be back the next morning for that very item. 

This made Ed Gein the last known person to have seen Bernice alive. While some sources say Bernice had written Ed's name on the receipt, others state it was Frank's memory alone that made Ed the prime person of interest. 

A Mother's Shadow: The Upbringing of Ed Gein

To the residents of Plainfield, Ed Gein was a harmless but eccentric loner. He rarely came into town, had no friends, and lived as a recluse on his family farm.  This isolation began in childhood. His mother, Augusta, was a fanatically religious Lutheran who preached constantly about the immorality of the world, especially women. 

Augusta taught her sons, Ed and Henry, that all women (except, presumably, herself) were promiscuous instruments of the devil, sent to corrupt men. She was so fervent in her beliefs that she would publicly reprimand women she deemed sinful. In one instance, she screamed at a neighbor's female visitor, calling her a "harlot" for simply being in a man's home, completely ignoring the fact that the man was brutally beating a dog to death in front of them. To Augusta, the man's violence was irrelevant; the woman's presence was the true sin. 

Ed absorbed these teachings completely. He saw his mother as a caring, God-fearing woman and the exception to her own twisted rules. Augusta punished him for trying to make friends and isolated him and his brother from the "evil" outside world. This intense, disturbing upbringing shaped Ed into the isolated and strange man the town knew in 1957. 

Inside the House of Horrors

While Ed was in custody, officers went to search his inherited farmhouse. What they discovered there was a scene of unimaginable depravity, a real-life house of horrors that would haunt them forever. 

The Shed and the Kitchen

The search began at night, with officers using flashlights to navigate the unlit property. In the shed, they found the headless body of a woman hanging upside down by her ankles from the rafters. Her body had been cut open from the sternum down, and her head was later found in a burlap sack.  Inside the house, the horror continued. On the kitchen stove was a human heart in a plastic bag, and the bowls in the kitchen were discovered to be made from the tops of human skulls. 

A Museum of Human Remains

Everywhere the investigators looked, they found more gruesome artifacts crafted from human body parts:

•  Masks made from the skin of human faces. 
• A lampshade made from a human face stretched around its circumference. 
• Chairs upholstered with human skin. 
• Human skulls adorning each of his bedposts. 
• A wastebasket made of human skin. 
• A belt made from multiple female nipples stitched together. 
• A corset made from a female torso, skinned from shoulder to waist. 
• Leggings made from the skin of human legs. 
• A shoebox containing nine preserved vulvas. 
• Human lips attached to a window shade pull cord. 

It took investigators a full week to sift through the hoarder-level mess of the farmhouse, separating trash from human remains. The only rooms untouched were those his mother had regularly used, which Ed had boarded up as a shrine after her death. 

The Confession: Murder, Grave Robbing, and a "Woman Suit"

Surprisingly, Ed confessed. The headless body in the shed belonged to Bernice Worden, whom he admitted to shooting with a .22 rifle at the hardware store. The skinned head belonged to Mary Hogan, the tavern owner who disappeared in 1954. 

But what about the dozens of other body parts? Ed admitted to something just as twisted: he was a grave robber. He claimed that after his mother's death in 1945, he was overcome with grief. By 1947, he began visiting cemeteries at night, digging up the fresh graves of middle-aged women who resembled his mother. He would steal the bodies and take them back to his farm. He did this for about five years, from 1947 to 1952, until he got "bored" with it and decided to experience the thrill of killing his victims himself. 

His motivation was as bizarre as his crimes: he wanted to create a "woman suit" from human skin so that he could literally climb inside and "become" his mother, believing it was the only way to live without her. 

Unanswered Questions and Lingering Mysteries

While Ed only confessed to two murders, many have speculated he was responsible for more deaths. 

The Suspicious Death of Henry Gein

In 1944, Ed's brother Henry died during a fire on the family farm. Ed reported him missing long after the firefighters had left. Henry's body was found face down on the burned ground but was curiously unburned itself. Although his death was officially ruled as heart failure, bruises were reportedly found on his head. Years later, the cause of death was mysteriously changed to asphyxiation. Henry had been openly critical of their mother's influence and Ed's unhealthy attachment to her, giving Ed a clear motive to kill him. Many now believe Henry was Ed's first victim. 

The Other Disappearances and Rumors of Cannibalism

Connections have also been drawn to the other Plainfield disappearances. A car matching the description of Ed's was seen near where Georgia Weckler was abducted. He was also allegedly visiting a relative near the house where Evelyn Hartley was babysitting on the night she vanished. Furthermore, rumors spread that the "venison" Ed would frequently give to his neighbors was actually human meat, a horrifying theory supported by the fact that Bernice Worden's body was found hung and dressed like a deer. While never proven, it adds another layer of terror to his legacy. 

The Trial and Final Years

In 1957, Ed Gein was arraigned on one count of first-degree murder for the death of Bernice Worden. He pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity and was diagnosed with schizophrenia, which deemed him incompetent to stand trial. After a decade in a maximum-security state hospital, he was found competent in 1968, stood trial, and was found guilty. However, in a second proceeding regarding his sanity, he was once again found not guilty by reason of insanity and was ordered to spend the rest of his life in a mental facility. 

He was never legally held responsible for the murder of Mary Hogan due to "prohibitive costs." Ed Gein died in 1984 at the age of 77. His farmhouse and its contents were supposed to be auctioned off, but the house mysteriously burned down 10 days before the auction was scheduled. 

Conclusion: An Enduring Legacy of Horror

The case of Ed Gein has remained infamous for decades, not just because of the gruesome nature of his crimes, but because of the vast number of unanswered questions. We may never know the true number of graves he robbed or people he killed. His acts were so unprecedented and tapped into such a deep, primal fear that they provided the haunting inspiration for some of cinema's most terrifying villains. He was a true monster, and his dark legacy continues to cast a long shadow over the world of true crime and horror.