Ed Gein: The Real Norman Bates
The Nation's Best-Known Serial Killer Inspired Hollywood Madmen
Jun 29, 2009
Leatherface, the killer in the cult flick "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," Norman Bates, through whom his mother lived on in "Psycho" and Buffalo Bill from "The Silence of the Lambs" were all inspired by the horrifying sights policemen captured in the dim beams of their flashlights when they began exploring Gein's Plainfield, Wis., farmhouse on Nov. 17, 1957.
A Grisly Discovery
It was hunting season, and in a shed on Gein's property police found missing hardware store owner Bernice Worden, gutted like a deer and hanging from the rafters, her head in a box nearby.
Inside Gein's home was an even more grisly tableau -- skulls fashioned into bowls, a belt made from amputated nipples, masks and chairs made from human skin and a box of female genitalia including that of his mother, who was among the corpses he exhumed from their graves in order to harvest their body parts.
It was soon determined that Plainfield bartender Mary Hogan was among the dead who were displayed in part in Gein's home, although the identities of other victims were never determined.
Everyone Asked Why
During extensive psychiatric testing, experts learned that Gein's mother, Augusta, was a domineering woman who despised woman, and set out on a mission to make sure her children, including Ed and another son who was killed in a fire, felt the same way.
For young Ed, just beginning to take an interest in girls, his mother's diatribes about sin left him confused and guilty.
After his mother's death, his confusion only grew.
Transgender?
Many of the items in Gein's house were masks and a female torso that Gein made for himself so that he could feel more like the woman he thought he believed he was meant to be, long before society could begin to accept such a concept.
He enlisted the help of a mentally challenged friend to assist him in robbing graves so that he could acquire body parts for experiments, until he later realized he needed fresher bodies to create the woman's body he desired.
He Seemed So Nice
For those who knew the quiet Gein, drank beer with him at Mary Hogan's tavern before she went missing or lived nearby, the discovery was shocking.
Jokes and stories soon followed, but that didn't mean area residents wouldn't ultimately protect the town's reputation as word spread about the madman in their midst.
When investors decided they could make a few dollars offering admission to Gein's home to tourists, neighbors burned the house down, erasing the chance that Plainfield would become a tourist mecca over such a depraved series of events.
Gein's car did make the carnival circuit, though, and for a time it was taken on tour of county fairs under the billing "Ed Gein's Death Car!"
Inspiration
In addition to the movie legends including Leatherface and Norman Bates, Gein also inspired the 2000 movie "Ed Gein," which was loosely based on Gein's life, as well as a thrash metal band that took his name.
Gein died of cancer on July 24, 1984, at Mendota Medical Health Institute near Madison, Wis.,
