Les MacDonald

wasHere is a chapter list for Scene of the Crime

 

Part I: Notorious Crimes

 

1.) The Very Strange Mr. Fish

2.) The Butcher of Plainfield

3.) From the Pros to the Penitentiary

4.) Nightmare on Elm Drive

5.) The Brown’s Chicken Murders

6.) The Kitty Genovese Murder

7.) The Wichita Horror

8.) The Hi Fi Murders

9.) The Poster Boy For Capital Punishment

10.) The Yogurt Shop Murders

11.) The Vampire Rapist

12.) The murder of James Bulger

13.) Thrill Killers: The Leopold and Loeb Story

14.) The Killing of Anita Cobby

15.) Death in a Bottle 1: The Tylenol Murders

16.) Death in a Bottle 2: The Excedrin Murders

17.) Death in a Bottle 3: The Sudafed Murders

18.) The Easter Sunday Murders

19.) Murder at McDonald’s

20.) The Luby’s Massacre

21.) Charles Manson and Helter Skelter

 

Part II: Quick Hits

 

22.) Eric Smith

23.) The Camden Killer

24.) Killed Over a Kiss

25.) The Bed and Breakfast Murders

26.) Who Shot the War Hero?

27.) The Colorado Springs Killings

28.) Joseph Vacher

29.) Jeanne Weber

30.) Michael Hernandez

31.) The Tourniquet Killer

32.) A Woman Scorned

33.) Killed Over Facebook Status

34.) I Don’t Like Mondays

 

 

 

                              Here is the chapter on Ed Gein

 

 

 

 “She isn’t missing. She’s at the farm right now.”

                                   -Ed Gein

 

 

 

   Plainfield, Wisconsin 1947-57: The union of George and Augusta Gein was not what one could call a blissfully happy one. George was an alcoholic who had trouble holding down a job. He was completely dominated by his wife Augusta who was a deeply religious woman. Okay, let’s be honest here. The woman was a religious fanatic. She also had no use for her husband or for sex which begs the question, where did Henry and Ed come from? Well, we can make an educated guess that George and Augusta had sex at least twice as Henry was born in 1899 and Edward followed in 1906.

 

  As the boys were growing up Augusta did her level best to insulate them from the outside world. There were daily bible readings and constant warnings to stay away from women. She believed that if the boys became sexually interested in women that they would surely go straight to hell. What Augusta didn’t know was that hell would have been a walk in the park when compared to the events that were still to come  To be fair to Augusta, she wasn’t all bad. She started up a grocery store in La Crosse, Wisconsin and worked very hard to support her family. By 1914 she had made more than enough money to purchase a 200 acre farm out in the country. The family now lived in Plainfield, Wisconsin, far from the evil influences of city life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                     

                              The Gein farmhouse in Plainfield

 

 

 

  

 

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                             THIS PAGE IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                                                     

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As the boys grew into their teens they made few friends. Augusta made them keep to themselves while Ed had an effeminate side that alienated him from his schoolmates. The two boys depended on each other for companionship. The older brother Henry was worried about what he seemed to believe was Eddie’s unnatural obsession with his mother. The siblings remained on the farm with their mother and were still there when George passed away in 1940. The younger brother’s dependence on his mother seemed even stronger with the father out of the picture. Henry was openly critical of his mother which did not sit well with Ed. Henry may have paid for this with his life as he was found dead near the farm under very suspicious circumstances. No one could believe that Eddie could have been involved in his brother’s death and no charges were ever filed. Eddie, who had turned 34 years old, now had his mother all to himself.

 

  Eddie’s world turned upside down when, in 1945, Augusta suffered a series of strokes and passed away. Eddie had always had either his brother or his mother to fall back on. Now nearly 40 years old Eddie Gein was all alone in the world. Things were about to get very strange in and around Plainfield, Wisconsin. Eddie took to doing odd jobs to support himself. He sealed off the rooms that Augusta had used and preserved them like a shrine. He took to reading stories about anatomy and learned how to shrink heads and properly exhume corpses…not exactly light reading. It would not be long before Eddie Gein began putting into practice what he had been learning in the books. Ed was now over 40 years old and still had never had sex with a woman. Apparently Ed had taken his childhood lessons from Augusta to heart. His favorite section of the newspaper became the obituaries where he would read about the deaths of local women. He began visiting the graves late at night and, in some cases, peeled the skin off of the women and wore it as his own. He became fascinated with women and dreamed of becoming one. He started collecting an assortment of female body parts, going so far as keeping preserved female heads in his bedroom. I imagine that might be quite the conversation piece, you know, if you had a young lady over for dinner. Of course the phrase “having a young lady for dinner” might mean something very different to Eddie…but I digress.

 

  In the late 1940’s and into the 1950’s there were a series of disappearances in and around Plainfield that baffled the authorities. Eight year old Georgia Weckler was taken on May 1, 1947 while on her way home from school. In 1953, 15 year old Evelyn Hartley vanished from La Crosse while babysitting. In 1954 a bar owner, Mary Hogan, disappeared without a trace. In all of the above cases there were no bodies and very little forensic evidence to go on. Then on November 16, 1957 a local store owner, Bernice Worden disappeared. A check of the stores receipts showed that Ed Gein had been in the store and had purchased a gallon of anti-freeze. It was also the last receipt issued meaning that it was certainly possible that Ed Gein had been the last person to see Bernice Worden before she disappeared.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                               

 

                                           Mary Hogan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                       Worden’s store in La Crosse

 

 

 

   The police went off in search of Ed Gein but had no idea what they would encounter down on the farm. Here is a list of some of the horrors that the police came upon when they reached the farm. Bernice Worden’s headless body was found hanging upside down in a shed. Human skulls were secured to the bedposts. There was a lampshade made from the skin of a human face. Four noses. Mary Hogan’s head was found in a paper bag. The head of the very recently departed Bernice Worden was found in a burlap sack. There were nine masks made from human skin. A belt made from female nipples. Two chairs which had been re-upholstered with human skin. There were bowls in the kitchen cupboards made from human skulls. Ten human skulls with the tops removed. A set of lips on a drawstring used to open and close the blinds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

         

 

 

 

                                       

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                Ed Gein in custody

 

 

   Ed Gein pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. After a 30 day examination it was determined that he was mentally incompetent and unfit to stand trial. He was sent to the Central State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. Nowadays that hospital’s name would be considered politically incorrect but it sure hit the nail on the head when thinking of Ed Gein. In 1968 doctors determined that Gein, now 62 years old, was well enough to stand trial. He was found guilty of first degree murder and also found to be insane. He would live out his remaining years in a mental institution.

 

   On March 27, 1958 the Gein farmhouse was destroyed by fire. Arson was found to be the cause but no one was ever charged. Carnival operator Bunny Gibbons paid $760 for the car (a 1949 Ford) that Gein had used to haul his victims in. It was billed as Ed Gein’s Ghoul Car and he charged 25 cents a pop for carnival goers to view it.

  

Ed Gein died of cancer in the Mendota Mental Health Institute in Madison, Wisconsin on July 26, 1984. He was 77 years old.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                       Ed Gein and his mother                             

 

                                

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                        

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                  © Copyright 2013 by Les MacDonald