The only real contact and means of socializing for Ed was when he was farming or doing other chores with Henry, odd jobs or baby-sitting that he occasionally was paid did for townspeople, and of course Augusta’s reading to the brothers from the Bible preaching of the evils of the world. Ed used his forbidden reading materials as the only way to escape from the harsh preaching’s and authoritarian life under the rule of his mother. At night, in the comfort of his own room, he would read his taboo literature until he fell asleep and again had to wake up in a world of isolation, hard work and rigid rule abiding. (Castleden)
Further Death in the Family
For most of their lives Ed had a good relationship with his older brother Henry. Henry was seven years older than his sibling and Ed looked up to Henry as younger brothers usually do. But as time went on, and especially after their father had passed away, Henry became more critical of the living conditions that he was a part of. Henry began to resent his mother’s overbearing and religiously fanatical worldview. He was also concerned of the unnatural attachment that Ed had to Augusta. Henry began to openly criticize her in front of Ed, which upset and angered the younger brother. Once Henry began to condemn the relationship between the two and Augusta in general, Ed became generally hostile towards his brother. (Castleden)
In May of 1944, the two brothers were fighting a brush fire that got out of control on their property. Ed left the fire and went to the police, who assembled a search party. Ed told the police that as the two fought the fire all day and had separated from one another to fight it from two ends. Once the fire died down Ed called for Henry but he did not respond and Ed could not find his brother. (Castleden)
Once the search party showed up on the Gein farm, Ed took the party to the exact spot where Henry lay dead (even though he had previously said he did not know where his brother was). There was unusual bruising on Henry’s forehead that Ed could not account for. Nobody thought that the shy Gein could have killed his brother and since the family had already went through the loss of their father and husband, the death was ruled an accident and attributed to asphyxiation by smoke. (Schechter) Many people believe that this was the first murder that Ed Gein committed, but that has never been proven.
In any event, Ed was alone with his mother (at last). But this union did not last very long. Shortly after Henry’s death, Augusta suffered a stroke which she never fully recovered from. Over the next year Ed took care of his mother the best that he could. Augusta suffered from multiple more strokes and in December 1945 she passed away. When this happened Ed, “lost his only true friend and one love. And he was absolutely alone in the world.” (Schechter)
Ed’s Mask of Sanity Starts to Slip Away
At the age of thirty-nine Ed was living by himself for the first time all alone in his farm. One of his first acts was to board off his mother’s room to preserve it in the perfect condition it was left. With no one to tell him what to do he let the acres of his farm overgrow, die and rot away. The inside of his home did not fare much better as soon there were dirty dishes, rotting food, stacks of newspapers, and other trash collecting in the home.
Since his mother was no longer around to tell him what to do or how to live his life Ed mainly passed his time with his Pulp Fiction and Horror Comics. As time went on he began to read more violent materials such as “Death-Cult” magazines. He was especially interested in books about Nazi war crimes and experiments, stories of sex change operations, resurrections, cannibalism and head-hunting. When he did venture into town he would occasionally do odd jobs or baby sit for extra money. The townspeople felt that ol’ Ed was a little weird but harmless and he continued living his life, going into town mainly to get supplies for the week or to grab a beer for a little socializing. (Schechter)
Ed started going to a local where he would drink beer and tell the people stories from his reading materials. The bar was run by a racy bartender, Mary Hogan. Mary Hogan was a friendly but lewd and crude woman. Mary fascinated Ed; she was pretty much the epitome of everything his mother said was wrong with women. But Augusta was no longer around, so Ed would drink his beer and stare at Mary. Years after Ed started going there, in December 1954, Mary went missing. There were no clues and no leads in the case. The police were baffled and of course nobody thought to investigate Ed Gein. Life went on as usual in Plainfield.
Ed was also a frequent customer at Worden’s Hardware Store. Worden’s was owned and operated by Bernice Worden (the mother of deputy sheriff Frank Worden). Bernice Worden was a senior-citizen that had known practically his whole life. She was always friendly towards him and she also felt sorry for Ed because of the loss of his mother. Gein would go into her store on a regular basis and sometime’s stared at her, as he did with Mary Hogan. Bernice did not think too much of it because Ed had once told her she reminded him of his dead mother. (Castleden)
On November 16, 1957 the nine-day deer hunting season started in Wisconsin. On that day the majority of Plainfield’s male population was off hunting. Having grown up his whole life in the state, Ed knew and took advantage of this fact. That morning around 8 a.m., Ed entered Bernice Worden’s store and shot her with a .22 caliber rifle that he brought into the store with him. He took her dead body to his home. Later that day, her son Frank arrived at the store and found it locked. He quickly got his keys and opened the store only to find what he had feared, a trail of blood and no sign of Bernice. The deputy checked the store accounts record; the last customer was Ed Gein. ()
Gruesome Discoveries at the Gein House
Frank Worden was aware of the odd stares that Gein had given his mother on a number of occasions and his “weirdo” reputation. Together with his name being written down in the stores records gave him the necessary reasons to suspect that Ed Gein was responsible for Bernice Worden’s disappearance. Frank called the sheriff and the two went to visit Ed Gein’s farmhouse.
Upon arrival at Gein’s farm the police take Gein into custody and search one of Ed’s barns. When they stepped inside they found the naked and headless body of Bernice Worden. There was a wound on the chest from the .22 rifle, but more alarming was the fact that the body was hanging upside down from a beam on a meat hook. Worden’s body was slit open down the front and her torso had been emptied. Her head and intestines were found in a box inside Ed’s house. (Castleden)
The defiled body of Bernice Worden was not the only horrific findings inside the Gein home. As the police investigated they found several ghastly belongings of Gein’s. They found several female human heads that were shrunken and preserved, a rug made from human skin, a belt and bracelet made from sliced off human nipples and a chair covered in human skin. There were lamps and tables that had been made from human bones and skin and there were human skulls on the bedposts in Ed’s bedroom. On his bedroom wall were the skinned faces of a number of women, one of which was Mary Hogan.
In Gein’s kitchen the police found bowls made from human skulls, a box of salted female-genitalia and Bernice Worden’s heart on a plate. There were more female faces, but this time they were stuffed with newspaper. They also found window shades stitched together from human lips, a trash can covered in skin and a bag of four human noses. Even more disturbing was that they located various “clothing items”, such as a vest made from the upper torso of a woman, a knee length item that included breasts and a vagina, and a full suit made from human flesh. Gein later said that he would dress up in these items and pretend he was his mother or pretend that he himself was a woman. Ed denied ever having sex or eating any parts of the corpses, although this is heavily disputed. (Castleden)
Confession and Conviction
At the beginning of the investigation Gein denied killing anybody and said that all of the bodies were corpses he had dug from the ground. After he was confronted with the evidence against him regarding Mary Hogan he admitted to two murders. He confessed to the murder of Mary Hogan and Bernice Worden. He also admitted to grave robbing and stealing at least ten corpses. He said he would check the local obituaries for fresh targets (recently deceased older women that always somewhat resembled his mother).
He told his interrogators that he was in a daze while committing his crimes and couldn’t remember what had happened in any great detail. Police reports are said to indicate that during his time in police custody Gein showed no sign of remorse for any of the crimes he committed. He later said that he had deliberately waited for an opportunity to murder Bernice, which came when most of the male population of Plainfield would be away hunting. The question at this time was whether he was sane enough to stand trial.
If he was found to be insane he would plead not guilty by reason of insanity. Ed Gein underwent many different psychological tests. Psychiatrists diagnosed Gein as a schizophrenic and sexual psychopath. The conclusion was that he was “emotionally impaired because of the upbringing he had had. His mother and her religious fanaticism together with her continual derision of women and sex had made him fascinated with both but in a very unhealthy manner. He was divided between a normal sexual attraction towards women and the immorality and sin that his mother had instilled in him. Even after his death he was bound up with his mother and her opinions”. (Schechter)
On November 21, 1957, Gein was on one count of in Waushara County Court, where he entered a plea of . He was found mentally incompetent and unfit to stand trial. He was then sent to the maximum-security and was later transferred to the Mendota State Hospital. In 1968 Gein's doctors determined he was sane enough to stand trial. The trial began on November 14, 1968, lasting one week. He was found guilty of but was found to be legally insane. He spent the rest of his life in a mental hospital until he died at the age of 77 from respiratory failure in 1984. (Castleden)
Social Bond Theory
According to Travis Hirschi, elements of social bonding include “attachment to families, commitment to social norms and institutions, involvement in activities, and the belief that these things are important”. In his book, Causes of Delinquency, Hirschi also said that “the “bond” between mother, father, and child in a normal nuclear family, is very strong, this in turn has made a blue print of an entire adult life on the child.” (Hirschi)
In the case of Ed Gein everything about his life and his crimes boils down to the attachment that he had with his mother and the “blueprint” that she laid out for him. While she was alive she kept him sane in his basic uneventful endeavors of life, such as farm work or other chores. But the way that she raised him, especially in her attitudes toward women, shaped the mental processes and thinking in which Ed was able to carry out the horrific acts that he did and feel no remorse for the victims.
Augusta was the main influence in Ed Gein’s life from the time that he was born. In her fanatic religious teachings and abusive “love/hate” relationship that she had with Ed, she very well shaped the mind of a sexual psychopath. She confused him on the idea of love and women. In all reality it seems that he had a love for her as a son but that he also had a sexual love for her. This most definitely was not her intention in raising him. Human sexuality is a natural occurrence in all humans, but she instilled in him the idea that she was the only pure woman alive and the only one worthy of his love. The bond that he shared with her was obviously not of an ordinary nature.
While she was alive Ed was able to control himself and as long as he had the love and company of his mother he needed little outside interference from the world. He was content with obeying his mother’s rule, being socially isolated and masturbating to his own private fantasies (that more than likely at times probably even included Augusta). She kept Ed on a straight and narrow path in which he had to follow her guidelines and norms or face her wrath. Even though her ideas about women may have been unconventional, she definitely did not condone killing women or making furniture from their dead bodies. She was the strongest social bond that he had in his life.
Once his mother died, Ed became a very confused individual and the Social Bond Theory seemed to have reversed itself. Before her death he never committed any sort of violent or sexual crimes. This was most likely due to the fear of the reprimands of his mother or possibly he was just content with the way things were in his routine and simple life. But once she died it seems that all bets were off in his mind. At this point he was free to openly explore the ideas of sex and violence that he had been fantasizing about since he was a child because he was by himself and no longer had any form of guardian supervising his decisions.
Aside from his social bond to mother, Gein also had a bond to general society with the townspeople that he kept up while his mother was alive and after her death. He was known to almost everyone in town as an odd but trustworthy person. He would often do handyman work and babysit for neighbors. He maintained these relationships while his mother was alive. She did not frown on these tasks as they made money and helped the family so he continued them after her death.
It may be possible that the reason that he committed the murders and grave robbing was to maintain the bond between himself and his mother. He obviously killed Mary Hogan because she was exactly the type of woman that his mother had told him was evil and immoral, so it can almost be seen as if he was honoring his mother by murdering her.
In contrast to Mary Hogan, Bernice Worden reminded Ed of his own mother. She was a senior citizen, religious, and she physically resembled Augusta to an extent. Ed did not know how to properly behave around live women, so in Ed’s head killing Bernice was the best way to get close to her. Due to his delusional thinking Ed probably felt that being close to someone that reminded him so much of his own mother would let him feel the relationship once again that he had with his mother while she was alive.
Social Learning Theory
In his 1993 article, The Application of Learning Theory to Serial Murder, Robert Hale built upon Ronald Akers work by applying the applied the social learning theory to serial murder using various case studies. In his research, Hale claimed that serial murdering can be a learned behavior. One of his case studies was of Ed Gein’s life and crimes. Hale makes the statement, “Ed Gein was humiliated early in his life and later turned his aggression out on others. Gein was controlled by his mother, and rejected by his father as a child, and was often abused”. (Hale)
In Hale’s work he says that Social Learning Theory “suggests that people learn new behavior through punishment and rewards”. He argues that serial murderers must go through some humiliating experience in the early development of their life. Although most children go through some sort of humiliation during their life, the circumstances are usually different for serial killers. Those that become killers are “often introduced to a humiliating experience, and cannot distinguish between a rewarding and non rewarding experience, which is part of the social learning theory”. (Hale)
This humiliation, especially if it is consistent for long periods of time, causes the child to look at certain situations in a negative way and this causes the child to become frustrated. When the individual becomes frustrated from a humiliating experience from the past, the individual then choose vulnerable outlets for their aggression. The child learns to expect humiliation or a negative situation from the past, which then causes frustration or aggression. In the case of Ed Gein, he was presented with humiliation from his mother and other children at school, and he learned to vent his anger through aggressive acts such as grave robbing, desecrating corpses, and murder. (Hale)
Neutralization
Some of Ed Gein’s crimes can also be explained by looking at Sykes and Matza’s techniques of neutralization. The grave robbing, desecrating of corpses and murder of Mary Hogan all seem to fall under categorization for neutralization theory. Sykes and Matza stated that “offenders display some selectivity in their choice of victims, tending to avoid those who more closely reflect mainstream values of society and seeking out disvalued targets”. (Brown,Esbensen,Geis)
This rings true of Ed Gein’s murdering of Mary Hogan and his grave robbing adventures. In Mary’s case, she was very far from the mainstream norm of the small town of Plainfield with her lewd behavior. She was single and operated her bar by herself, so once everyone was gone at night she was alone. Ed knew and exploited this by showing up after Mary closed shop the night he killed her. There were also rumors that before Mary arrived in Plainfield she was associated with the Chicago Mafia. This made her a good target for murder because the rumor was widespread and many attributed her disappearance to her former Mob ties. (Castleden). (Acts such as this and waiting until all of the men were out hunting before he killed Bernice Worden also show that Gein used rational choices when committing his crimes.)
The techniques of neutralization are denial of responsibility, denial of injury, denial of the victim, condemnation of the condemners and appeal to higher loyalties. In the murder of both of his victims and during his grave robbing expeditions, Ed had denied real responsibility by saying that he was “in a daze” while the events took place. (Castleden) In Ed’s eyes Mary’s murder was justifiable because he had been taught that women like her were immoral and evil. This fits into denial of the victim in Mary’s case because according to Sykes and Matza, “the existence of a victim is denied by the assertion that the targets of the offense are blameworthy” (Brown,Esbensen,Geis). In the case of the grave robbing,it could be rationalized that there were no real victims because they were already dead.
In regards to the condemnation of the condemners, when Gein was placed under arrest he was quoted as saying that he was being framed by the police before being handcuffed. In the case of Mary Hogan’s murder, it is reasonable to assume that Ed was appealing to the higher loyalty of his mother by killing Mary. Even though Ed was found to be insane, he still knew right from wrong and that if he was caught killing someone that he would be punished. But the thoughts that his mother instilled into his head and her approval carried more weight to him than the law.
General Theory of Crime
Travis Hirschi and Michael Gottfredson have developed a general theory of crime that is rooted in the notion of low self-control. According to their work, “crime is the result of individuals with low self-control encountering situations or opportunities in which crime will produce immediate gratification with relatively low levels of risk.” Before his mother passed away, Ed was able to willingly demonstrate self-control during the course of his life.
But after her passing Ed was no longer content with only fantasizing about the bodies of women. Ed’s level of self-control lowered substantially after Augusta died. This lowered self-control helped lead him to committing the brutal and horrific crimes that he did. No longer satisfied with only using his imagination, not socially adequate enough to entertain a real woman, and his head still filled with the words of his mother on women, Ed could no longer control himself. He began robbing graves, defiling corpses, making crazy house ornaments and tools, and finally he started killing live people. When asked why he committed the crimes, Ed replied,”I had a compulsion to do it”. (houseofhorrors)
Conclusion
Ed Gein’s crimes will no doubt be remembered as some of the most deranged and horrific acts in American history. After a series of tests, Gein was declared legally insane. It is clear to see that what made him turn out this way. Ed’s mother Augusta and her fanatical religious teachings and beliefs clearly influenced the development of the sick and crazy thoughts that floated around in Ed’s brain. Through looking at his crimes from a Criminological view and analyzing them using the Social Bond Theory, Social Learning Theory, the techniques of Neutralization, and the General Theory of Crime perspectives, it is possible to see that while Gein was, for all intents and purposes, a monster it also seems that he was a victim of his mother’s overbearing upbringing.
References
Best "Based On Ed Gein" Titles. The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). Retrieved December 4, 2011, from http://www.imdb.com/keyword/based-on-ed-gein/
Brown, S. E., Esbensen, F., Geis, G., & Stone, M. (2007). Criminology: explaining crime and its context (6th ed.). Newark, NJ: LexisNexis/Anderson Pub.
Carpe Noctem - Seize the Night. (n.d.). Ed Gein. Retrieved December 2, 2011, from http://www.carpenoctem.tv/serial-killers/ed-gein/
Castleden, C. 2011. Ed Gein: The Psycho Cannibal. Constable Robinson. Kindle Edition.
Ed Gein: Real American Psycho. House of Horrors | Terror Awaits You In Every Room!. Retrieved December 4, 2011, from http://www.houseofhorrors.com/gein.htm
Ed Gein— The Beginning — Crime Library on truTV.com. (2011).Retrieved from
Hale, R. 1993. The Application of Learning Theory to Serial Murder. American Journal of Criminal Justice. Vol 17 (2), 37-45.
Hirschi, T. 1969. Causes of delinquency. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Johnson, G. (n.d.). Ed Gein & his cultural legacy. Ed Gein. Retrieved December 2, 2011, from faculty.cua.edu/johnsong/hitchcock/pages/gein/gein1.html
Schechter, H. (1999). Deviant: the shocking true story of Ed Gein, the original psycho. New York: Pocket Books.
