The Early Years of Ed Gein
Edward Theodore Gein — most notoriously known as Ed Gein— died of respiratory failure in July 1984 at the Mendota Mental Health Institute in Wisconsin, USA. Despite almost 40 years passing since his death, he is still referenced to this day as one of the most heinous killers to have ever lived.
Gein has become immortalised in film, inspiring a number of murderous antagonists within the horror genre: Norman Bates in Psycho, Leatherface in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs, to name a few. Gein’s portrayal in these movies has contributed more to his dehumanisation; the characters he inspired are inherently monstrous and evil, devoid of empathy and existing solely to cause suffering to those they victimise.
However, like all other adult human beings, Ed Gein was once a child. Although often overlooked, there was once a period of innocence in the lives of even the most abhorrent criminals, where time was spent developing and learning about the world around them. It is both interesting and important to explore these early years in order to uncover any events or experiences which might have caused a derailment in normal behaviour and instead paved a path of crime and bloodshed.
This post provides a more detailed insight into the childhood and upbringing of a man who inspired multiple on-screen killers, particularly the infatuation he had with his controlling mother.
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An insight into the childhood and upbringing of a man who inspired multiple on-screen killers.