10 Dark Secrets You Didn’t Know About Ed Gein

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Everyone knows the legend, but few know the disturbing truth behind Ed Gein — the real-life killer who inspired Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Silence of the Lambs. Here are 10 lesser-known facts that reveal the shocking mind and crimes of one of history’s most infamous murderers.   Real-life horror behind Hollywood’s monsters ⚰️ Facts the media rarely mentions 😱 The disturbing legacy of Ed Gein  Watch till the end — #5 will leave you speechless.

Transcript

00:00Police explored what few leads they had. Ed Gein was never questioned. No one considered him a

00:06suspect. Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're disputing myths and looking at obscure details

00:13that shape the true story of one of America's most notorious killers, Ed Gein. Don't mean

00:19nothing by it. Just wanted to welcome her to town is all. Not officially a serial killer,

00:30the so-called Butcher of Plainfield inspired some of the most twisted ideas about serial killers

00:35long before the term was coined. When it was, the criteria described someone who was confirmed to

00:50have committed at least three murders. Ed Gein was convicted of murdering hardware store owner

00:56Bernice Worden and confessed to also killing bar owner Mary Hogan. Thus, he did not meet the legal

01:06definition of a serial killer until the FBI lowered the victim count threshold to two in 2008. Even

01:12then, criminology generally upholds the three-victim rule. Gein has, in fact, been linked to many more

01:19possible homicides, but with only two victims confirmed. The popular term for him is just

01:25speculation. A community man. Gein had a very sheltered and troubled youth, but was a distinct

01:42personality around the tight-knit town of Plainfield, Wisconsin. His schoolmates recalled him having an

01:47eccentric sense of humor that he often kept to himself. He would have random laughing fits over

01:59thoughts of jokes he wouldn't share. Gein became more social after the loss of his family, working

02:05as a handyman and a babysitter. He was a little girl, and she remembers going over to his house,

02:13and he would serve soup and everything. What turned out the soup bowls were the skulls of many of his

02:19victims. His reputation as a meek but friendly neighbor runs counter to the popular assumption

02:25that he spent his whole life in some form of isolation. But given his disturbing quirks and the

02:31fates of some associates, there are always signs of a neighbor being less friendly than his

02:36presentation. Adeline Watkins. Not even the aforementioned tight-knit community knew much

02:56about Gein's love life. Following his arrest in 1957, the Minneapolis Tribune published a piece

03:02on 50-year-old Adeline Watkins and a 20-year romance with Gein. She later clarified to the

03:08Stevens Point Journal that she only knew the man for that long. The supposed couple dated for about seven

03:15months, breaking up in 54, following a declined proposal. You sure are one, Mr. Gein. Statements from other

03:23community members contradict this by describing Gein as an introverted bachelor. It's speculated

03:28that Watkins exaggerated the nature of a platonic friendship for attention. Whether Gein ever got

03:34that close with anyone, it's clear that nobody understood the darker qualities of this sweet,

03:40polite man.

03:41Eddie Gein was at one time an acquaintance of mine.

03:45Home Life. Edward Theodore Gein was the second son of George and Augusta. His father,

03:51a laborer and one-time grocery owner, drank heavily and abused his family. Four years after George's

03:57death, his elder son Henry died under mysterious circumstances. Death would hit the Gein family once

04:03again, but this time in more suspicious circumstances after a brush fire on their farmland got out of

04:10control. Ed's relationship with his mother is much more infamous, but some details seem hard to

04:17believe. Augusta was oppressively religious and forbade Ed from associating with girls. As close as

04:24he became with his mother, her death in 1945 ostensibly triggered his breakdown.

04:30Because his mother was so domineering, I think she really did stunt his development and he almost got

04:35stuck at a kind of teenage, adolescent phase in his life. He even targeted women who resembled Augusta

04:41to make a woman's suit for himself. Robert Block couldn't have made up something that disturbing,

04:47but modeled Norman Bates' parental issues more closely after Gein's than we'd care to know.

04:53Well, a boy's best friend is his mother. Influences. The most influential killers often get their ideas from

05:00somewhere else. After his mother's death, Ed Gein began collecting macabre newspaper clippings, artifacts,

05:06and literature. Adeline Watkins claimed that she bonded with him over their mutual interest in true crime

05:12stories. Gein most notably favored Nazi materials, likely leading to an interest in Ilse Koch.

05:19And he developed a particular interest in Ilse Koch, who worked at one of the Nazi concentration camps and

05:26collected patches of skin. The so-called witch of Buchenwald was the wife of a concentration camp

05:32commandant and is believed to have collected prisoners' skin to make lampshades.

05:37The parallels with Gein's methods are undeniable. Their variations and twisted creativity suggest

05:50that the butcher of Plainfield drew heavily on horrendous history. Of course, his acting on

05:56these influences is entirely his responsibility.

06:00Ed Gein's crimes were heinous enough without urban legends. Rumors of cannibalism and certain other

06:14desecrations of bodies go all the way back to his arrest. While admitting to collecting and tanning

06:20dead bodies, Gein explicitly denied sexual activity on the grounds that he was repulsed by the smell.

06:26The common misconception resurged after the release of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre,

06:31along with the myth that Leatherface's inspiration used a chainsaw. He didn't even use a knife,

06:39as Psycho suggested. Both of Gein's confirmed victims were killed by gunshot. It's unlikely that

06:45he was much more sadistic than that if he committed other murders, but the unconfirmed crimes are also

06:51key to understanding this subject. Suspected victims. It's popularly speculated that Gein's first victim

07:05was his brother, Henry, who officially died of asphyxiation during a fire in 1944. Skeptics note

07:11bruises on Henry's head and Ed's intensifying attachment to their mother. Gein was also cleared

07:26of kidnapping teenager Evelyn Hartley while visiting her town in 1953. There's less attention paid to

07:33other missing persons, like eight-year-old Georgia Weckler and hunters Raymond Burgess and Victor

07:39Travis. Gein also did chores for the wife of neighbor James Walsh after his disappearance.

07:44True crime enthusiasts think these unsolved cases could point to Gein as a prolific serial killer,

07:50despite psychiatric assessments that he only targeted women who resembled his mother.

07:55Of course, the at least nine cadavers found in Gein's home were also victims.

08:00You shouldn't be watching this. What became of Gein's property? The farmhouse to which Ed Gein was

08:07so twistedly attached is as much a part of his legacy as his acts, but not many know the dramatic

08:14fates of this site of his downfall or the 1949 Ford sedan he used in his crimes. Four months after

08:21Gein's conviction, his property was set for auction when a fire of mysterious origin destroyed the house.

08:27A mysterious fire broke out one morning in Gein's farmhouse and completely obliterated it before

08:34it can be turned into a kind of tourist attraction. The fire chief who allowed this to happen was the

08:39son of Bernice Warden. Carnival owner Bunny Gibbons then claimed fame by buying Gein's sedan for a

08:46showcase. The Ed Gein ghoul car was perhaps the first of many capitalizations on the killer's legacy for

08:53entertainment. No one knows what ultimately became of the car itself.

08:59Forgotten Adaptations

09:02In 1959, Robert Bloch published a novel about a mild-mannered motel owner who dresses as his

09:08dead mother to commit murder. Psycho was quickly adapted into one of the most significant horror

09:19films ever, notably influencing John Carpenter's Halloween, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and The

09:26Silence of the Lambs. But Ed Gein has inspired many more low-profile films, including Three on a

09:32Meat Hook, Deranged, and Ed Gein the musical. Werner Herzog and Errol Morris collaborated on an

09:42ultimately unproduced biopic. And Slayer, Blind Melon, Cannibal Corpse, and Volbeat all have songs

09:49about Gein. The scale of the killer's direct pop culture impact alone is greater than anyone can

09:54keep up with. The controversy surrounding this is just as substantial.

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10:16Returned to the scene of the crime. Ed Gein died of cancer in 1984 at age 77. He was buried beside

10:26his family at Plainfield Cemetery, which he claimed to have visited around 40 times to rob graves. The

10:32irony continued with visitors vandalizing and taking pieces of his headstone until it was stolen entirely

10:38in 2000. In the year 2000, somebody was found to be selling parts of the gravestone that had

10:46been erected at Ed Gein's grave. It was later recovered and stored away to avoid further damage.

10:52It was eventually recovered and is currently being kept in storage at the Washara County Sheriff's

10:58Department. Gein's unmarked final resting place can be easily spotted between those

11:03of brother Henry and mother Augusta. Other than this impact on pop culture, the only artifacts of his

11:09existence that haven't been lost are his twisted upholstery. As impossible as it can be to know

11:16enough facts to define someone's life, truth and speculation are getting hard to define with Gein.

11:23Only a mother could love you. What details about Ed Gein and other killers

11:28haunt you? Testify in the comments below.

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