A true-crime historian has revealed how the disturbing crimes of a killer from a small town in Wisconsin inspired three of the most iconic horror films ever made.
Dubbed ‘The Butcher of Plainfield,’ Ed Gein is known to have killed at least two women – potentially more.
But unlike infamous serial killers such as Ted Bundy or Jeffrey Dahmer, he was predominantly was a body snatcher who preyed upon dead victims.
Gein, whose horrifying crimes are now set to be featured on Season 3 of Ryan Murphy’s ‘Monster’, would scan obituaries in his small town, go to the graveyard and dig up the bodies of the listed deceased.
He would then take the stolen remains to his farmhouse where he would dissect, dismember and skin them.
Some of the body parts he removed were used as home and fashion accessories.
Skin became chair covers, masks were made from human faces, kitchen utensils from skulls and bones, and nipples were used to make belts.
Gein’s descent into madness began when his mother, Augusta, died in 1945.
The loner had a sick infatuation with her and tried to dig up her grave when she died. When he came up empty-handed, he went in search of other woman who resembled her.
This led Harold Schechter, two-time Edgar nominee and true crime historian who has published more than 50 books, to nickname Gein the ‘original Pyscho’.
Edward Theodore Gein was known as ‘the Butcher of Plainfield.’ It is unclear the number of corpses he dug up but it is estimated to be at least a dozen
Bates lured his victims into his home as the proprietor of the ‘Bates Motel’
In the 1960s cult classic horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, Norman Bates was also obsessed with his mother and dressed up her corpse.
Gein has also been compared to fictional monsters Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs and Leatherface in Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
Even decades later, Gein continues to inspire terror in pop culture, with ‘Sons of Anarchy’ actor Charlie Hunnam pictured transforming into Gein on the set of the upcoming season of ‘Monster’ earlier this week
Donning the serial killer’s iconic plaid getup, Hunnam was seen chatting with a police officer in Los Angeles on Tuesday.
Schechter’s book ‘Deviant: The Shocking True Story of Ed Gein, the original ‘Psycho’ – first published in 1989 – has been called the definitive book on the Ed Gein case.
He told DailyMail.com that Gein was in a class of his own.
‘He wasn’t a Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, or a John Wayne Gacy. They were sadistic sex killers, people who derive this very sick sexual pleasure of torturing and killing helpless victims,’ he explained.
‘Gein did not have that mentality. He derived his pleasure from mutilating corpses.’
Between 1945 and his arrest in 1957, police said he killed two women.
Pictured: Charlie Hunnam was spotted on the set of ‘Monster’ as Ed Gein
Gein’s story is believed to have inspired the character of Hannibal Lecter played by Anthony Hopkins in the 1991 classic, ‘The Silence of the Lambs’
‘He executed them very swiftly. He was just interested in bringing their bodies home and doing the things he did to them,’ Schechter noted.
In his book, the author stated that Gein wasn’t the classic serial killer but more of a ‘ghoul’ or a ‘necrophile’ – someone who is sexually attracted to corpses.
‘Ghouls are creatures who violate corpses, dig up graves,’ he said.
‘You can’t really compare him to anybody else because there is nobody else certainly in American criminal history who is anything like him,’ he continued.
Schechter explained that murderers Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, The Hillside Strangler and the Night Stalker were classic serial killers and extreme sexual sadists who preyed on their victims and committed evil acts on them.
Gein, on the other hand, was ‘absolutely unique’..
‘No one is doing the stuff that he was doing. He wasn’t into torturing,’ Schechter explained.
‘Serial killers often have orgasms the moment they murder their victims. That wasn’t Gein.’
Gein pictured kneeling on the floor of his filthy kitchen in this dilapidated farm house where human skulls and body parts were found
Ed Gein as obsessed with his mother Augusta Wilhelmine Gein (pictured)
Gein kept his mother’s bedroom untouched after her death though the rest of the house was strewn with filth and human body parts
Schechter, who was a Professor Emeritus at Queens College, CUNY, where he taught classes in American literature and myth criticism for 42 years, explained that ‘classically, necrophiles do have sex with corpses’.
However, it remains unclear if Gein had sex with the bodies he dug up.
‘Gein claimed that they smelled too bad for him to have sex with them,’ Schechter said.
True crime historian Harold Schechter has written more than 50 books. He was a Professor Emeritus at Queens College, where he taught classes in American literature and myth criticism for 42 years
In his comprehensive book, Schechter wrote about Gein’s childhood in Wisconsin and his obsessive relationship with his mother.
He even traveled to Gein’s hometown to speak with those who knew he knew him.
Schechter revealed that Gein had grown up with an alcoholic father, who beat him and eventually died of a heart attack. His older brother Henry also died under mysterious circumstances.
Though some theorized that Gein killed his brother, Schechter said he doesn’t believe that to be true.
After their deaths, Gein lived alone with his mother for many years.
He described her as a God-fearing woman – a religious fanatic ‘who would frequently lecture her son on the evils of modern womanhood and the dangers of sex’.
‘His mother was such a dominating figure in his life,’ Schechter said. ‘I think he was trying to reconstitute her by bringing these corpses home but also taking this revenge on her by perpetuating these relations on the female body.’
Though he said there was no indication that that the mother and son were incestuous, Schechter pointed out that in some way their relationship was ‘psychologically and emotionally incestuous.’
Waushara County Sheriff Art Schley, left, escorts Edward Gein, 51, of Plainfield, Wisc. into Central State Hospital for the Criminally Insane November 23, 1957, in Milwaukee. Gein, who admitted slaying two women and dismembering their bodies as well as robbing graves, was about to undergo a 30-day mental examination
A horrifying photo of a broken bed with no mattress, a cardboard box that held four-gallon jugs of industrial sized bleach used in hospitals, soiled blankets and sheets and trash strewn about
Deputy sheriff standing outside of house belonging to Ed Gein, where he lived a deceptively quiet life and where parts of his victim’s bodies were found
Police investigators move a car as they search for evidence in a garage on the property of murderer and body snatcher
Overhead view of police investigators as they dig for evidence in a garage on the property of murderer and body snatcher Ed Gein, Plainfield, Wisconsin, late November, 1957
When his mother died in 1945, Gein spiraled into madness.
Schechter described him as a recluse. He worked as a handyman but in fact earned money as a babysitter.
It was only when two women in his small town mysteriously disappeared that cops began investigating him.
Shechter’s 1989 book ‘Deviant: The Shocking True Story of Ed Gein, The Original ‘Pscyho’ new book cover will be out in the Spring
Among them was Mary Hogan, 54, who ran a tavern that Gein frequented and went missing in December 1954.
Three years later, Bernice Worden, 58, disappeared from a hardware store she worked at in the town of Plainfield where Gein lived.
Worden’s son was the town’s deputy sheriff who had become suspicious of Gein.
After Gein was apprehended, the authorities went to his dilapidated farmhouse where they were confronted by a house of horrors.
Worden’s body was found hanging from the ceiling. She had been decapitated. Her head was found in a sack, and her heart was in a plastic bag.
It was revealed later in the search that the remains of more than 15 bodies were found at his home.
Schechter explained that ‘after Gein was arrested, people assumed that all the body parts in the farmhouse were woman he murdered, but when he explained to them that most of the bodies he had were dug up, they didn’t believe him.’
However, they soon realized he was telling the truth when they went to the victims’ graves and saw their coffins were empty.
After his arrest, Gein confessed to killing both Worden and Hogan. During his confession, he also spoke of what a ‘saintly woman’ his mother was.
He eventually entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity and was later found unfit to stand trial after a schizophrenia diagnosis. He was committed to Central State Hospital in Waupun, Wisconsin.
Gein was later transferred to Mendota Mental Health Institute in Madison, Wisconsin, where he died aged 77 in 1984 from lung cancer and respiratory illness complications.