ON a dark November night in 1957, two sheriffs sped to a remote midwest American farmhouse to make a murder arrest.
Their target, oddball loner Ed Gein, was out having dinner with a neighbour — but what the two men discovered inside his ramshackle home would shock a nation.
APSheriff Art Schley, left, escorts Ed Gein[/caption]
Domineering mum Augusta was a strict religious woman
News Corp AustraliaThe grave robber kept a human skull[/caption]
News Corp AustraliaThe macabre ‘trophy’ of skin and bones[/caption]
Getty – ContributorGhouls peer into the Wisconsin home of depraved Gein[/caption]
His crime would also spawn terrifying movies such as Psycho, Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Silence Of The Lambs.
Strung upside down in the rafters of a wood shed — her head cut clean off and her torso split open — was hardware store owner Bernice Worden, 58.
Walking into Gein’s adjoining house of horrors, cops found a human heart sitting in a pan on the stove, skulls mounted on bedposts and masks made from women’s faces.
Worse still was a corset and leggings that had been fashioned from human skin and Bernice’s head in a sack.
Their grisly discoveries didn’t end there, either. In the filthy, stinking property, Gein had covered chairs in skin and also used it to make a wastebasket and a lampshade.
A pair of lips hung from a curtain drawstring, and limbs were found in a suitcase.
It is believed he was trying to bring back to life a version of his domineering mum Augusta, a strict religious woman who warned her sons about the dangers of the outside world, boozing and “sinful” sex.
When she died, Gein boarded up the parlour and her bedroom, which he kept as a shrine.
‘Depth of his madness’
The man dubbed the “godfather of all serial killers” will this week be portrayed in a new Netflix drama by British actor Charlie Hunnam, whose credits include Sons Of Anarchy.
The Ed Gein Story is the third chapter of the hit series Monster, which previously delved into the stories of the Menendez brothers Lyle and Erik — who shot dead their own parents — and serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.
The latter proved to be one of the streaming giant’s biggest ever hits, with more than one billion hours viewed.
Hunnam says: “This is going to be the really human, tender, unflinching, no-holds-barred exploration of who Ed was and what he did.
“But who he was being at the centre of it, rather than what he did.”
As true crime fans eagerly await the release, The Sun has examined footage that reveals the killer’s first words to shocked investigators.
Gein admits to stunned cops that he killed Bernice, before telling them he had been digging up bodies at Plainfield cemetery in Wisconsin to make his grisly creations.
In eerie tapes, Gein describes to police how he was “in a haze” while he worked, and how he painted body parts to “preserve” them.
COURTESY OF NETFLIXCharlie Hunnam as Ed Gein and Laurie Metcalf as mum Augusta[/caption]
BackGridAddison Rae in the drama[/caption]
COURTESY OF NETFLIXCharlie as Ed with Suzanna Son as Adelina[/caption]
When asked if he enjoyed what he did, he answers in a calm but bewildered way: “That’s the part of it. I didn’t really think. I knew better but, you know, I was restless.”
We also spoke to the definitive expert on his case, who believes he could even have been inspired by Nazi Germany.
Harold Schechter, who wrote a book that piqued interest in the killer, told us: “Gein was a voracious reader of these lurid men’s magazines that were coming out at the time, and many were filled with stories of Nazi atrocities and so on.
“So it’s very possible some of his crimes came from that.
“Also, he apparently read other stories about headhunters in New Guinea who used the skin of their victims.
“One of the things that makes Gein so fascinating is the depth of his madness.”
Gein was a voracious reader of these lurid men’s magazines that were coming out at the time, and many were filled with stories of Nazi atrocities and so on
Harold Schechter
Also known as the Butcher of Plainfield and the Plainfield Ghoul, Gein was born in La Crosse, Wisconsin, a quiet city that runs along the coast of the Mississippi River.
His carpenter father was said to be a violent alcoholic who beat his two sons, while his authoritarian mother would read him Bible verses at night from the Old Testament and Book of Revelations.
Body snatcher Gein first fell under suspicion when Bernice’s son, Frank Worden, found his mum’s store empty and blood stains on the floor, alongside bullet casings.
He told cops Gein had been in the shop the night before and his sales slip for antifreeze was the last written.
Following the macabre discoveries by Sheriff Art Schley and his deputy, locals on archive footage describe Gein as “a nice man but a little odd” and “simple-minded but harmless”.
His first police interview was ruled inadmissible in court because distraught Schley later attacked Gein in his cell.
Charlie as a blood-spattered EdNetflix
NetflixCharlie wearing a mask of human skin[/caption]
BackGridCharlie fully naked for the role[/caption]
But the tapes, which featured in a recent Amazon documentary, were discovered by the family of late Judge Boyd Clark, who is heard questioning the killer.
The body snatcher appears unconcerned by his depravity, politely agreeing with the judge that he took a knife and carved up the bodies.
Gein nonchalantly told how he couldn’t remember undressing Bernice, before being asked if he thought he was deer hunting because her body had been “dressed out like a deer”. He replies: “That’s the way it could be.”
He later confessed to shooting dead a second woman three years earlier — Mary Hogan, 54, who ran a tavern in the nearby town of Bancroft.
Gein admitted making as many as 40 nocturnal visits to the local graveyard to dig up recently buried bodies, saying there were times he came to his senses and left empty-handed.
The grave robber confessed to stealing from nine plots, but no exhumations were ever carried out to confirm the true number.
Beneath the mask of being a sort of shy, retiring, unassuming fellow, there was this pathological willpower that allowed him to commit these atrocities
Harold Schechter
As more details of his crimes emerged in a now romanticised post-war America, characterised by the ideal family, ice cream parlours and Elvis Presley, Gein’s notoriety gained traction and he would later be the inspiration for Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 movie, Psycho.
‘Kind of homicidal rage’
Intriguingly, his older brother Henry died aged 43 after a fire on the family farm and, following Gein’s arrest, questions were asked about whether he was behind the death.
Police said he had suffered smoke inhalation, but a witness said he had bruises on his head.
Author Harold, renowned for his deep research into notorious killers, believes the reincarnation of Gein’s mum — played by Laurie Metcalf in the Netflix drama — was the core motive behind his crimes.
Augusta Gein, who died in 1945 aged 66, was fervently religious and preached to her sons about immortality, calling women instruments of the devil.
Schechter said: “I think it was primarily to do with the desire to resurrect his mother.
Corbis – GettyGein’s murders were the inspiration for horror movie Psycho[/caption]
Gein’s crime would also spawn terrifying movies such as Texas Chainsaw MassacreAlamy
AlamyThe Silence of the Lambs was also inspired by the evil events[/caption]
“Gein would have had this profound ambivalence towards his mother, who he worshipped and, on some level, had to have hated.
“I think there was a dual motivation in his necrophilia activities. He was trying to reconstitute his mother, but also performing all these mutilations and so forth, so perhaps he was enacting some kind of homicidal rage towards her?
“Beneath the mask of being a sort of shy, retiring, unassuming fellow, there was this pathological willpower that allowed him to commit these atrocities.”
Schechter reveals that Gein scoured the local obituaries for women who may have vaguely resembled his mum. He believes that some of the inspiration for his use of skin came from reading magazines about Nazi crimes during the Holocaust.
Despite the sheer revulsion of his grave robbing, those who came into contact with Gein described him as being quiet and reserved.
Sheriff Art Schley’s daughter Judi Weiland was 11 years old when her dad arrested the killer. The family lived at the jail house and she took food to Gein.
He (seemed like) just a nice old man. Just like people said, you didn’t know how he could do something so gruesome
Judi Weiland
She told documentary producers: “He had a little round face and always wore a baseball hat.
“He always thanked us or always said something, and greeted us in some way.
“He (seemed like) just a nice old man. Just like people said, you didn’t know how he could do something so gruesome.”
Dr Helen Morrison, a forensic psychiatrist at Mendota Health Institute in Wisconsin, where Gein died of lung cancer in 1984 at the age of 77, told how she first met the killer in the day room.
She said: “We would talk about the weather and some of the things he remembered about his life.
“He was aware that he had been very much written about and talked about.
“He knew that they had made a movie in which he was the prototype for the character in Psycho.
“The big story was that he was harmless. I think people kind of felt sorry for him because he’d been there (in the institution) for years and wasn’t showing any symptoms.
“Ed Gein was mild mannered, attractive, nice to the people around him — but very much hidden were all the crazy things he did.
“But he was a monster and I think people tended not to see that part of him.”
Harold Schechter’s book Deviant: True Story Of Ed Gein, The Original Psycho, is available on Amazon and in bookstores.