Ed Gein "The Butcher of Plainfield", Plainfield, Wisconsin (Active: 1954–1957)
Ed Gein, infamously known as "The Butcher of Plainfield," was a murderer and body snatcher whose gruesome acts in the 1950s shocked the nation. While he confessed to two murders, the full extent of his crimes included grave robbing and macabre practices that inspired numerous horror films such as Psycho and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Known Victims:
1. Mary Hogan – Disappeared in 1954. Mary was a tavern owner. Gein later admitted to her murder, and during the investigation, authorities found her face mask in a paper bag and her skull in a box at Gein's residence.
Bernice Worden – Disappeared on November 16, 1967. Bernice was a hardware store owner. Her decapitated body was discovered in a shed on Gein's property. She was hung upside down and mutilated. She had been shot with a .22-caliber rifle, and the mutilations were post-mortem.
Suspected Victims:
Gein was also a suspect in several other unsolved cases in Wisconsin:
1. Georgia Jean Weckler – 8 years old. Disappeared in 1947 near her farm home in Fort Atkinson
2. Evelyn Grace Hartley – 14 years old. Disappeared in 1953. She went missing while babysitting in La Crosse.
Victor Harold Travis and Raymond Burgess – Two men who vanished in 1952 after leaving a bar in Plainfield.
Gein also admitted to exhuming bodies from local graveyards. Items found in his home included: Human bones and skulls used as decorations, household items made from human skin, such as chairs and lampshades, masks crafted from the faces of corpses, a corset made from a female torso and a belt fashioned from human nipples. These gruesome artifacts highlighted Gein's deep-seated psychological issues and his obsession with creating a "woman suit" to emulate his deceased mother. He was declared legally insane and spent the remainder of his life in mental institutions until his death in 1984.
