Edward Theodore Gein, also known as the Plainfield Ghoul or the Butcher of Plainfield, was an American murderer and body snatcher. Gein’s crimes, committed in and around his hometown of Plainfield, Wisconsin, gained national attention in 1957 when authorities discovered that he had exhumed corpses from local cemeteries and fashioned trophies and keepsakes from their bones and skin.
Gein also admitted to killing two women: Mary Hogan, the owner of a tavern, in 1954, and Bernice Worden, the owner of a hardware store, in 1957.
Did Ed Gein have any siblings?
Henry George Gein was Gein’s elder brother.
Gein was initially found unfit to stand trial and was institutionalized. By 1968, Gein had been found competent to stand trial; he was found guilty of Worden’s murder, but legally insane, and was remanded to a psychiatric institution. On July 26, 1984, at the age of 77, he died of respiratory failure at Mendota Mental Health Institute. Gein is buried in Plainfield Cemetery, next to his family, in an unmarked grave.
