You’ve probably heard the name whispered in true crime podcasts or seen the grainy black-and-white photos of a slumped, unassuming man in a hunting cap. People often search for the specific laundry list of what crimes did eddie gin commit, sometimes misspelling the name "Gein" as "Gin." Whether you call him the Butcher of Plainfield or the Plainfield Ghoul, the reality of what happened on that Wisconsin farm in the 1950s is actually weirder than the movies it inspired. Honestly, when you look at the evidence, it’s a miracle the guy wasn't caught years earlier.
He wasn't some high-profile gangster or a mastermind. He was a local handyman. Everyone thought he was just a bit eccentric, maybe a little "touched" in the head after his mother died. But when the Waushara County Sheriff’s Department finally stepped onto his property on November 16, 1957, they didn't just find a messy house. They found a nightmare that basically redefined how we look at criminal psychology today.
The Murders of Bernice Worden and Mary Hogan
The most direct answer to what crimes did eddie gin commit starts with two specific women. For years, folks in Plainfield just assumed people moved away or got lost. They didn't think the quiet guy down the road was capable of ending lives.
Bernice Worden was the one that finally brought the whole house of cards down. She ran the local hardware store. On a cold November morning in 1957, her son Frank—who happened to be a deputy—noticed the store was empty and the cash register was gone. He saw a blood trail. He also remembered that Ed Gein had been in the store the night before, talking about coming back for some antifreeze. When police raided Ed’s farm, they found Bernice in the shed. It wasn't just a murder; it was a scene so gruesome that the officers involved were reportedly traumatized for years. She had been shot with a .22-caliber rifle and then "dressed out" like a deer.
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Then there was Mary Hogan. She was a tavern owner who had vanished back in 1954. For three years, her disappearance was a cold case. People joked about Ed having her "at his place," but it was the kind of dark humor small towns use to fill the silence. It wasn't a joke. During the search of his home, investigators found Mary’s face mask in a paper bag. Her skull was in a box. Ed eventually confessed to shooting her, too.
The Ghastly Reality of Grave Robbing
While the murders are what got him life in an institution, his most frequent "crime" was actually grave robbing. This is where the story gets truly stomach-churning. Between 1947 and 1952, Ed made dozens of trips to three local cemeteries. He wasn't looking for jewelry or valuables. He was looking for bodies—specifically middle-aged women who reminded him of his late mother, Augusta.
He admitted to at least nine separate instances of exhuming corpses. He’d wait for the funeral to end and the workers to leave, then he’d dig. He claimed he was in a "daze" when he did it. The items he crafted from these remains are the stuff of legend, but they were very real:
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- Wastebaskets and chair seats covered in human skin.
- Skulls used as bedposts or fashioned into soup bowls.
- A "woman suit" made of tanned skin that he would wear around the house.
- Belts made from nipples and leggings made from leg skin.
The sheer volume of human remains found in that house was staggering. Police found the remains of roughly 15 different women. Most were from the graves he’d robbed, but the line between "collector" and "killer" became very blurry for the investigators on the scene.
The Mysterious Death of Henry Gein
There is a third potential crime that hangs over the Gein legacy: the death of his older brother, Henry Gein. This happened back in 1944, long before the world knew about the "Butcher." The brothers were out burning marsh vegetation on their property when the fire supposedly got out of control.
Ed reported Henry missing, but then led the police straight to his body. Here’s the kicker: Henry wasn't burned. He was lying on a patch of unburned ground, and he had bruises on his head. At the time, the coroner ruled it heart failure or asphyxiation from the smoke. But looking back? Most experts, including biographers like Harold Schechter, think Ed might have taken his brother out. Henry had been critical of Ed’s obsession with their mother. It’s a classic "what if" that remains officially unsolved but highly suspicious.
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Legal Fallout and the Insanity Defense
So, why isn't he on a list of executed criminals? Basically, because he was found legally insane. After his arrest in 1957, he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. He was initially deemed unfit to stand trial and sent to the Central State Hospital for the Criminally Insane.
It took ten years for doctors to decide he was stable enough to face a judge. In 1968, he was finally tried for the murder of Bernice Worden. He was found guilty, but because of his mental state, he was sent back to a state hospital rather than a prison. He spent the rest of his life as a model patient, doing carpentry and masonry work, until he died of respiratory failure in 1984.
Actionable Insights for True Crime Researchers
If you're looking into the Gein case, keep these specific details in mind to separate fact from Hollywood fiction:
- Verify the Victim Count: Despite being called a "serial killer," he was only ever convicted of one murder (Worden) and confessed to another (Hogan). The rest were grave robberies.
- Check the Location: All his crimes took place in or around Plainfield, Wisconsin. If a source says he traveled to other states, it's likely conflating him with Ted Bundy or leatherface.
- Distinguish the Movies: Psycho, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and The Silence of the Lambs (Buffalo Bill) all took inspiration from Gein, but none of them are "biopics." Gein didn't use a chainsaw, and he didn't live in a motel.
- Primary Sources: Look for the 1957 police reports and the psychiatric evaluations by the doctors at Mendota Mental Health Institute. These provide the most clinical, non-sensationalized view of his state of mind.
Understanding the specific crimes of Eddie Gein (or "Gin") requires looking past the "House of Horrors" headlines and seeing a man who was profoundly ill, deeply repressed, and dangerously obsessed with the dead. It's a dark chapter of American history that continues to fascinate precisely because it feels so impossible.