EPISODE 146 - Ed Gein - The Butcher of Plainfield Part 1

Ed Gein: The Butcher of Plainfield

Ed Gein was born in 1906 in Plainfield, Wisconsin — a small town that would later wish it had never existed. His childhood was, to put it lightly, grim. His mother, Augusta, was a religious fanatic who preached that all women (except her, of course) were instruments of sin. His father was a drunk. His older brother died mysteriously in a fire, and — surprise, surprise — Ed was the one who found him.

After his mother’s death in 1945, Ed completely unraveled. He boarded up her room like a shrine and started dabbling in some light grave robbing — as one does. He’d dig up corpses from the local cemetery, bring them home, and use the body parts to make things like lampshades, bowls, and even a “woman suit” made from human skin. Yeah. That happened.

When police finally caught up with him in 1957, they found the body of Bernice Worden — a local hardware store owner — hanging in his shed, gutted like a deer. Inside the house? A museum of horrors: skulls used as bowls, furniture upholstered in skin, and masks made from human faces.

Gein was declared legally insane and spent the rest of his life in mental institutions until his death in 1984.

His crimes inspired some of the most infamous characters in horror history — Norman Bates (Psycho), Leatherface (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre), and Buffalo Bill (The Silence of the Lambs). Basically, without Ed Gein, the modern horror genre might look very different... and maybe a little less terrifying.