Ed Gein’s horrific crimes have once again gripped audiences thanks to Netflix’s Monster: The Ed Gein Story, but one question still lingers decades later: Was he actually a cannibal?
It’s easy to see where the confusion comes from. Gein’s crimes were beyond disturbing. He did all the stuff that inspired horror classics such as Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and The Silence of the Lambs.
Well, he clearly had a grotesque fascination with the human body, that’s for sure.
So, was he really a cannibal?
via Netflix
Surprisingly, no. According to TIME magazine’s 1957 report, Gein “practised neither cannibalism nor necrophilia, but preserved the remains just to look at.” Investigators said he was obsessed with anatomy and preservation, not eating or sexual acts. He confessed to digging up graves, usually of recently buried women who reminded him of his mother. And he turned their body parts into what he called “trophies.”
Then, where did the rumours come from?
via Netflix
Basically, from how shocking his crimes were. Police found skulls used as bowls, lampshades made of skin, and clothing stitched together from body parts. With discoveries that disturbing, it’s no wonder people jumped to conclusions. But as reported by A&E, Gein told investigators he found human flesh “smelled too bad,” so he never ate it.
According to psychiatrists cited by TIME, Gein’s horrific acts were his way of coping with grief and guilt tied to his overbearing mother. They said his “development had been arrested,” and dismembering bodies “satisfied two contradictory urges”, to bring his mother back and destroy her for causing his pain.
Gein confessed to killing two women, Bernice Worden and Mary Hogan, and robbing countless graves before being arrested in 1957. According to theMilwaukee Journal Sentinel, he was found not guilty by reason of insanity. And he spent the rest of his life at Wisconsin’s Mendota Mental Health Institute. He died there in 1984 at age 77.
So, the “Butcher of Plainfield” never ate anyone. He just wanted to keep them.
