The Life and Psychology of Ed Gein, the Plainfield Butcher (2/2)

Read part 1 of Ed Gein's story: Life and psychological portrait of Ed Gein, the Plainfield butcher (1/2)

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The news about the disappearance of Mary Hogan it caused a great impact on the small town of Plainfield and spread to the surrounding towns. All the townspeople speculated about what might have happened to him. The sawmill owner recalled seeing Ed Gein sitting at the back of the bar at the Tavern. Hogan, alone and deep in thought of him, staring at the owner with cold eyes. expressionless. He and many other neighbors who had spoken with Ed recalled how he often joked. on the whereabouts of Mary Hogan with phrases like "She has not disappeared... In fact she is right now in my farm".

But none of these comments ever alarmed anyone, since they attributed it to yet another example of the eccentric behavior of the farmer.

More cold-blooded murders

On November 16, 1957, when the case was beginning to be forgotten, Ed Gein murdered the owner of a hardware store, Bernice Worden, shooting her in the head with a hunting rifle. In the same way as three years before,

she dragged her body to the back of the premises, loading it into her van and taking it from there. But this time he made a mistake: Ed had come in with the excuse of buying antifreeze fluid to his van and his name were listed in the store's ledger as the last client.

While two police officers were arresting Ed, two others went to search his farm and what they saw as they entered the tool shed made their blood run cold: the corpse of a woman hung upside down from pulleys, decapitated and naked. He had been gutted from the chest to the base of the abdomen and emptied from the inside. The guts were stuffed inside an esparto bag and in another bag appeared Bernice Worden's head. It had hooks through the ears, ready to hang from the ceiling as a decoration.

Police take notice of Ed Gein's ghoulish acts

As they continued to inspect the farm, in addition to a large accumulation of garbage and waste, they found a ghoulish sight: a collection of human skulls, some whole and some cut crosswise to be used as bowls, masks made from human skin that decorated Ed Gein's room, as well as chairs and various garments made in the same way. There were boxes with human bones inside, and in the kitchen they found a boiling pot with Bernice Worden's heart in it. They also found Mary Hogan's head in one of the bags. The only room in the entire house that was intact was his mother's, which had been sealed with wooden planks since she passed away.

Once at the police station, Ed admitted that many times he felt the need to go to the cemetery and exhume the corpses of dead women who reminded her of his mother, many of whom he had met in lifetime. He sometimes took whole bodies, while other times simply those parts that interested him the most. According to him he said, he had never had sex with bodies, because he said they "smelled bad."

Also, Ed Gein He recognized that many nights he heard the voice of his mother before falling asleep and that somehow, she urged him to kill. Accordingly, according to Holmes and DeBurger's (1988) classification of serial killers, would be part of the type of "visionary" murderer, which is one who kills out of a mental disorder evident. This disorder causes a break with reality in the sufferer and, due to delusions and hallucinations (most of the time auditory type), fulfills the orders to kill a type of people, who usually have common characteristics between they. These commands usually come from beings from another world or from the devil himself, but also from beings who, for a reason or another, they have exercised a great dominion over the murderers, who come to perceive them as deities of undeniable authority.

The Traumas of the Plainfeld Butcher

In this case, Ed's feelings of love and hate towards her mother led him to see her as someone who continued to have enormous influence despite being deceased for years. According to him he testified to the sheriff, Mary Hogan and Bernice Worden were the type of women who embodied everything her mother detested, so following the strict moral code that she imposed on him, he murdered them to try to prevent them from continuing with hers (as he believed) indecent life sinful. The accumulation of forensic evidence at the crime scene (the shotgun shell, traces of blood or the marks in the snow from the van, not to mention everything found on his farm) would be another factor when considering Ed Gein within this typology.

However, it seems that there are elements that do not fit, as visionary killers often leave the gun and the corpse at the same crime scene. Also, their victims are chosen at random and, according to what the witnesses and Ed Gein himself alleged, he had been around them for some time.

There is an added element of great relevance in this story, and that is that Ed Gein's purpose in killing those women and unearthing the bodies of the cemetery was not only to revive her mother, but he wanted to become her: the confrontation of the love that he felt, with the Feelings of anger and frustration at denying him contact with women, mixed with delayed and abnormal sexual development, caused that, when he died Augusta, Ed Gein give free rein to fantasize about transsexuality. These ideas of sex change and his admiration for death and dismemberment was what led Ed Gein to make all those garments with the skin of his victims. Many nights he would put on her suits and walk around her house imitating Augusta's gestures and voice, behaving as if she were still alive, sitting in her armchair, etc.

During the police interrogation, he was administered the Weschler intelligence test, the results of which reflected an intelligence within the average, even exceeding it. But great difficulties were also detected in expressing themselves and communicating. Complementary to these conclusions, the psychologists at the hospital where he was admitted ruled that he suffered from an emotional disorder that led him to behaving irrationally, combined with lucid periods during which he felt remorse for the crimes that accumulated in his record.

Internment and death

Ed Gein was admitted to the Mendota asylum in 1958 for an indefinite period of time, a decision that he did not like to the relatives of the victims, who demanded a trial that was never held. After becoming a model recluse, standing out for his good behavior both with guards and with the rest of the the interns, as well as performing duties and various jobs that earned him a good reputation, in 1974 he requested the Liberty. The judge handling the case requested that a second report be made to him, carried out by four psychologists, who unanimously determined that Gein remained confined.

Ed Gein died of respiratory failure on July 26, 1984 at the Mendota Geriatric Hospital for the Mentally Ill. From the life of Ed Gein we can draw certain conclusions about the risk factors that led his criminal life to the point of being classified as a serial killer:

• His origin from a dysfunctional home, with a family history of parental neglect, alcohol abuse, and ill Treatments, among others, was the first component that made possible the development of his psychopathic and violent personality.

• Second, the social isolation suffered during adolescence rendered him incapable of engaging in necessary social relationships during this period and thus be able to connect emotionally with the people.

• And finally, the withdrawal and loneliness that led to the generation of fantasies and the development of antisocial behavior, based on the belief that the world is a hostile place. The lonelier Ed Gein became, the more his dependence on his fantasies increased. Over time, these fantasies became more violent and twisted.