It’s been almost 70 years since Ed Gein’s horrifying crimes came to light in Plainfield, Wisconsin, and while the known evidence is horrifying, an expert has revealed that almost all of it is fake, and there’s actually just one real piece of Ed Gein evidence left in existence.
With Charlie Hunnam stepping into the role of Ed Gein in Netflix’s new true crime drama Monster: The Ed Gein Story, fascination with the man who shocked America in the 1950s has exploded all over again. His crimes involving murder, grave robbing, and creating household items made from human remains blurred the line between reality and horror fiction.
So it’s not exactly surprising that people want to know what actually still exists from Ed Gein’s crimes?
‘A lot of it’s just mocked-up evidence’
via Netflix
Chloë Manon, co-owner of The Graveface Museum in Savannah, Georgia, is warning people to be sceptical about what they find. According to her, most so-called “Ed Gein artefacts” floating around museums and online auctions are complete fakes.
“A lot of it’s just mocked-up evidence,” she said in a TikTok video. “People are basing things off films, not facts.”
She explained that almost all of the real evidence was destroyed. After Gein’s arrest in 1957, authorities confiscated countless gruesome items from his farmhouse, from masks made of human skin to skull bowls and furniture covered in flesh. But most of it couldn’t legally be kept.
Since the items were obtained without a proper search warrant, nearly everything was destroyed, burned, buried, or incinerated.
Loads of museums and collectors now display “mock-ups”, replicas made to look like Gein’s lamps, bowls, or masks but they’re not the real deal. Even worse, some of these are based more on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre than the real case. “Back in 1957, as the case was breaking, people were just making sh*t up,” Manon said.
So, while crime enthusiasts might think they’re staring at a piece of true horror history, chances are they’re not.
Okay, so what exactly is this one last piece of Ed Gein evidence that still exists?
@graveface_museum Disclaimer I haven’t watched the series on Ed Gein. I genuinely left out SOO MUCH but you get the idea. Hopefully this generates a discussion about this case from a fact-base perspective please ask me all the questions thank you
#monster #gein #truecrime #truecrimetok
Among all the fake displays and sensationalised props, there’s only one verified piece of Ed Gein evidence that still exists. And it’s currently held at The Graveface Museum.
Apparently, this piece survived thanks to state investigator Joe Wilimovsky and state crime lab worker Allan Wilimovsky, who kept it after Gein’s arrest. It was never entered into court evidence, which is probably the only reason it wasn’t destroyed.
It’s not a mask, or a chair. It’s something smaller, stranger, and infinitely creepier, a keychain with a lock of human hair and scalp attached. It also includes a little metal tag signed “Ed Gein” with his home address on one side. It also has a Shell service station address on the other. That Shell station was right across the street from Bernice Worden’s hardware store where Gein murdered her back in 1957.
Creepy doesn’t even begin to cover it.
Monster: The Ed Gein Story is available on Netflix now. For all the latest Netflix news and drops, like The Holy Church of Netflix on Facebook.
