Whenever any serious or casual discussion is held around the brutal and violent crimes of the schizophrenic psychopath, Ed Gein, the total number of his victims is either up for debate, or general terms like ‘many’ or ‘numerous’ are used. In the wake of trying to comprehend the criminal’s mind and getting overwhelmed by his unbelievably violent ways, we often tend to overlook his victims, who are, after all, reduced to mere numbers and statistics. With the release of Netflix’s Monster: The Ed Gein Story, we are perhaps a little bit closer to knowing how many people Gein had actually killed, or perhaps we’re just as clueless as before, considering the series presents its own perspective on the tale. Either way, in this article, we take a closer look at the victims that Ed Gein is believed to have killed, and what the Netflix show has to say about each of the cases.
Spoiler Alert
Henry Gein
The first possible victim of Ed Gein was his own elder brother, Henry, who died under seemingly mysterious circumstances in 1944. On the 16th of May, 1944, Henry Gein was burning the marsh vegetation on the Gein farm by himself when the fire took a horrific shape suddenly, and he could no longer bring it back under control. By the time Ed realized what was going on and alerted the authorities, the fire had spread dangerously, and Henry had gone missing. Although Ed and a group of policemen were able to find Henry a few hours later, he had already passed away, seemingly due to the toxic fumes from the fire and smoke. It was later reported, most notably by biographer Harold Schechter, that unusual signs of injury had been found on Henry’s head, which could not have been caused just by him collapsing to the ground. Yet, the police did not care much about this detail, and the coroner had actively ruled the death to have been caused by asphyxiation.
Despite the official claims, though, many people still believe that Henry had been killed by his own brother, out of a feeling of jealousy and spite, for Ed wanted to be the sole caretaker of his mother, Augusta, which would not have been possible with the overbearing presence of Henry. Netflix’s The Ed Gein Story plays along with this theory, as we watch Ed kill his brother by striking him in the head with a heavy piece of chopped wood. This action comes right after Henry tells his brother that he is about to move in with his girlfriend and marry her, which is directly against the teachings of Augusta, and also after Henry tries to claim their manipulative mother is not the best person to listen to. Ed was always believed to have been a staunch follower of his mother’s teachings, which had really pushed him towards the horrid crimes that he committed, and he also held her in very high regard, almost worshipping her.
Therefore, Henry’s words angered and hurt Ed doubly more than usual, and he could no longer contain his feelings. It is suggested that Ed did not perhaps realize the extent of the consequences of his action, meaning that he probably did not think that he would end up killing Henry, but he did want to hurt his brother. It is from this very nascent stage of his criminal career that Ed’s hallucinations made him believe that he was doing the right thing, as he sees Henry literally wake up from the dead and tell him so in this scene. Ultimately, it can never be proven whether Henry Gein had been killed by his serial killer brother, especially since his death was officially reported to have been caused by asphyxiation by the police, who chose to overlook the injuries on his head for some odd reason. But speculation about whether Henry was Ed’s first-ever victim will always remain, and most will still choose to believe that this was indeed his first major crime.
Mary Hogan
Ed Gein started to lose control over his mind and life in a way that was dangerous for people around him only after the death of his mother in 1945, and a woman named Mary Hogan became his first victim. The bartender and possibly owner of a local tavern that he frequently visited, Ed knew Mary quite well and was even friends with her, according to the reports of the townsfolk and his own claim. However, on the 8th of December, 1954, something seemed to push Ed beyond his mental threshold, and he shot the tavern owner to death before pulling her body out of the establishment and into his truck. Since Mary’s flayed face which had been turned into a mask, and her skull were recovered from Ed’s house by the police in 1957, there was no room for doubt that her body had been subjected to all the unthinkably brutal acts Ed usually carried out, like dismembering and perhaps necrophilia as well.
The exact reason for Mary Hogan’s murder has not been revealed, since Ed confessed to having committed the murder but never stated why he had done so. He had, in fact, claimed to not even remember how or why the incident had happened, and the seemingly ineffective lie-detector test that he was made to go through after his arrest also showed that he was telling the truth. However, the Netflix series builds an idea around the known nature and psyche of Ed Gein to present a thoroughly convincing account of what might have happened on the night of 8th December. Ed had always yearned for the company of a woman, but he treated such company as a sinful act one should refrain from, as per the teachings of his orthodox mother. This desire had evidently grown after the death of his mother, and he pursued his romantic interest, Adeline Watkins.
On this specific night, according to the creators of the series, Ed took Adeline to his house for the first time, where he had already started to keep the decomposing dead body of a woman from the local graveyard, dressed as his mother. Adeline was understandably spooked by the lifeless appearance of the mother, as she only saw the body from behind, and left the house in a hurry, leaving Ed frustrated. In his schizophrenic mind, Adeline had gone away only because his mother had refused to speak to her and had kept eerily silent. He seemingly experienced a deep anger towards his mother at this time, and when he drove to the local tavern a few minutes later, he could not help but notice the similarities between Augusta and the bartender, Mary Hogan.
Added to this was the fact that Mary had just offered Ed the chance to date some of her old friends, seemingly prostitutes, which offended the man terribly. Driven by both the anger against his mother, which he projected on the similarly aged tavern owner, and also by his male ego, which was hurt because of her suggestion that he cannot date normal women and would have to resort to sex workers, Ed shot and killed Mary Hogan in her tavern. Since the body had been dragged away, the police remained clueless as to what had happened to her for almost three years, before her remains were found at Ed’s house, which confirmed her to be the first victim of the Butcher of Plainfield.
Evelyn Hartley
Evelyn Hartley was a young woman who mysteriously went missing on the 24th of October, 1953, from her native city of La Crosse, Wisconsin. Aged about 14 at the time, Evelyn would regularly babysit for the Rasmussen family to earn her pocket money, and she had set out to do the same on the 24th as well. But when she did not return home throughout the evening, her concerned father called up the Rasmussens and then drove to the house when nobody picked up. Evelyn was seemingly supposed to put the Rasmussen’s only daughter to bed and then leave for her own home, but she had disappeared. The child had been put to bed, and all the doors in the house had been locked from the inside, apart from the backdoor to the basement, which must have been used by the perpetrator to enter. Blood trails and other clues suggested that Evelyn had been carried out of the house and put into a car on the nearby street, which was used to abduct her.
No trace of Evelyn was ever found again, and she was officially declared deceased after many years passed. But since La Crosse was not far from Plainfield, and La Crosse County was also where Ed Gein had been born, Ed was once suspected to have kidnapped the girl and killed her. The Ed Gein Story runs with this theory by extensively showing how Ed kidnapped and murdered Evelyn Hartley after having grown angry at her, believing that she had taken away his job as a babysitter, although his own strange behavior and outrageous decision to have taken the kids to his own home had gotten him replaced.
In reality, no connection between Evelyn and Ed could ever be proved, and since no trace of her body or items used by her could be found at his house, the police ultimately ruled Ed was not the perpetrator behind her disappearance. But the series also makes sure to present a theory as to why Evelyn’s body parts could not be found at the house, as Ed is seen embalming the whole body and putting it to his perverse use as a whole, without ever dismembering it.
Georgia Weckler
Georgia Weckler was another young girl who had gone missing from a town in Wisconsin, Fort Atkinson, a few years earlier than the others, in 1947. On the 1st of May, 8-year-old Georgia was given a lift back home from school by a neighbor, and she was left just around the corner of the house. Although she still had to run some distance to reach home, the neighbor had decided to leave her there since they were already inside the private property of the Weckler farm. However, something happened to Georgia before she could reach home, and she is believed to have been kidnapped by a perpetrator who had sneaked into the property and had been waiting for the young girl to come home. The biographer, Harold Schechter, wrote in his book on Ed Gein that Georgia was his first-ever victim (outside his family), and his theory was based on the fact that the police did see Gein as a suspect in the case later on.
But just like in the case of Evelyn Hartley, no sign of Georgia Weckler could be found at Ed’s house, which was unusual, considering his habit of making trophies out of his victims. It is also often pointed out in these cases that almost all of Ed’s victims were older women who resembled his mother. There was seemingly no reason for his disturbed psyche to drive him to attack teenagers and young girls, and while The Ed Gein Story cooks up a story about his possible motive behind killing Evelyn, the show leaves out Georgia Weckler completely.
Victor Travis and Ray Burgess
Victor Travis and Ray Burgess were two more individuals rumored to have been killed by Ed Gein, although no proof could be found, and therefore their deaths are not officially considered to have been caused by Gein. On the 1st of November, 1952, two 43-year-old men in Adams County, Wisconsin, named Victor Travis and Raymond ‘Ray’ Burgess set out to go hunting in the nearby woods. They had been reported to have stopped for a drink at the town of Plainfield and were then seen driving away from the place as well. However, no trace of the two men or their car was found ever again, while the pet dog that had been accompanying them showed up a few days later, running around in the woods near Plainfield. The men were officially declared to have died after they could not be found for many years.
When the police later found out about Ed Gein and his crimes in Plainfield, they suspected him to have killed the two hunters as well. However, there was nothing to prove their theory, and the fact that all of Ed’s victims had been women did not help either. Further investigation by the police revealed that Raymond Burgess was possibly linked to the Chicago mob, which seemed a more pertinent angle to look into. The Netflix series presents them to have been victims of Ed Gein as well, as they had been lost in the forest and found Ed’s shed, where they decided to stop temporarily for some rest. It was then that Ed had possibly killed them, as he did not want intruders at his sacred workshop. But the series also seems to have fictionalized the dates as well, as Travis and Burgess are seen being killed by the serial murderer after he kills Bernice Worden in 1957. Ultimately, the two hunters are also only believed, or rumored, to have been Ed Gein’s victims, with no proof ever found.
Bernice Worden
Bernice Worden was undoubtedly the most well-known victim of Ed Gein, and the first one to have been confirmed by the authorities, since her disappearance was what exposed the horrific truth about Ed Gein to the world. The 58-year-old shopkeeper was apparently romantically approached by the socially awkward Ed before she turned him down, as per the official records. The Ed Gein Story changes it up a bit to show Bernice to have been equally interested in the relationship. While in reality, Ed had probably killed the woman out of rage over her rejection, the series manages to give the matter a satisfyingly deep story, better exposing the complex nature of the serial killer.
After having shot and killed Bernice at her store, Ed had dragged her body into her truck and driven it back to his house, where he severed her head and then gutted the body before hanging it from the rafters like the carcass of a hunted deer. These discoveries absolutely shattered the peace in Plainfield, and the town was gripped by the horror of what more devastating things could be found at Ed’s house. Ultimately, Bernice Worden’s murder was what brought his criminal career to an end, and she, along with Mary Hogan, remains one of the only two confirmed victims of Ed Gein to this day.
The numerous other victims
Aside from the people that Ed Gein probably, or surely, murdered, it is also necessary to remember the numerous others he had victimized after their deaths by desecrating their graves and stealing the bodies. As per the record presented in Monster: The Ed Gein Story, the severed body parts of more than 200 people were found at Ed’s house, although he had officially admitted to having stolen only 9 dead bodies from the Plainfield cemetery. Many believe that he had been digging up bodies from the cemeteries in neighboring towns as well, and the remains found at his house were all ultimately reburied in a single grave at the Plainfield cemetery.
There are also rumors of Ed having victimized his neighbors in an indirect manner when he started gifting them venison despite admitting that he had never hunted deer in his life. While it is possible that his schizophrenia might have played a role in these conflicting claims, to most it seemed like Ed had fed them human flesh by stating it to be venison. Once again, no basis for these claims was ever found, which is why these allegations against the serial killer are seen to have been baseless rumors, while we will never really find the truth anymore.
