PLAINFIELD, Wis. -- It has been a quarter century since mild mannered handyman Ed Gein was exposed as a ghoulish killer who robbed the graves of women and transformed human heads into death masks.
But even today a cloud of mystery remains -- questions that probably will never be answered.
For years, youngsters had called the little frame house on the outskirts of Plainfield, a quiet central Wisconsin town of 700 people, 'haunted.' They said Gein had shown them 'masks.' But their parents said the masks were only rubber carnival masks.
People dismissed Gein, a frail bachelor handyman, then 51, as 'different' but harmless. He babysat for their children.
But on Nov. 16, 1957, he was exposed as a killer and ghoul -- who robbed graves of female bodies by the flickering light of a kerosene lantern.
He was convicted of one murder, Bernice Worden, 58, a widow who operated the Plainfield hardware store.
Judge Robert Gollmar, who presided over the murder trial, suspected Gein was involved in other unsolved disappearances. The book and movie 'Psycho,' was based on the Gein episode.
Investigators said they found 'death masks' made from the skin of a dozen human heads, some so well-preserved they could be recognized. All had some resemblance to Gein's mother, who had died in 1945. He boarded up her home so it could be left as she had left it.
But they refused to show the masks to reporters, saying they were too gruesome. Then-state crime laboratory Charles Wilson ordered them buried. The home was destroyed by arson fire several years later.
'It was quite shocking,' recalled Allen Wilimovsky, a 33-year investigator with the state crime laboratory in Madison. 'I never experienced an investigation before or since that was so unusual.
Investigators also found preserved parts of female bodies and chairs and lampshades covered with tanned human skin. A human heart was found in acoffee can in the kitchen. Human skulls and bones were found in Gein's back yard.
His activities were uncovered when a sheriff's deputy turned a flashlight beam into a shed at the rear of the home. He saw a headless human body hanging 'like a dressed-out deer.'
Gein was first adjudged mentally incompetent to stand trial, and was sent to a state mental hospital. In 1968, he was tried and convicted and shipped back to a mental hospital.
Until 1976, Gein -- now 76 -- helped out as a groundskeeper, and spent most of his time listening to the radio and reading travel literature. He has shown signs of forgetfulness in recent years.
