1906: Ed Gein, the Butcher of Plainfield, Born in Wisconsin
Edward Theodore Gein was born on August 27, 1906, in Plainfield, Wisconsin. He would become one of the most disturbing figures in American criminal history, a murderer and body snatcher whose crimes shocked the nation when they were uncovered in November 1957. Authorities searching his farm found the decapitated, mutilated body of hardware store owner Bernice Worden hanging upside down in a shed, dressed out like a deer. Gein had also been raiding local graveyards for years, fashioning keepsakes from the bones and skin of exhumed corpses.
Gein confessed to two murders: Worden in 1957 and tavern owner Mary Hogan in 1954. Found legally insane, he was committed to a psychiatric institution and never stood trial. He died in 1984. His crimes inspired some of fiction’s most iconic killers in movie history.
