Edward Theodore "
Ed"
Gein (August 27, 1906 – July 26, 1984) was an American
killer and
body snatcher. His crimes, committed around his hometown of
Plainfield, Wisconsin, gathered widespread notoriety after authorities discovered Gein had
exhumed corpses from local graveyards and fashioned trophies and keepsakes from their bones and skin. Gein confessed to killing two women – tavern owner Mary Hogan on December 8, 1954, and a Plainfield hardware store owner, Bernice Worden, on November 16, 1957. Initially found unfit for trial, after confinement in a mental health facility, in 1968 Gein was found guilty but legally insane for the murder of Worden and was confined in psychiatric institutions. He died at
Mendota Mental Health Institute of cancer-induced liver and respiratory failure on July 26, 1984. He is buried in the Plainfield Cemetery, in a now-unmarked grave.