Ed Gein Paper

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CJC 112: CRIMINOLOGY THEORY APPLICATION PROJECT Edward Gein Serial killer Ed Gein was obsessively devoted to his mother, a religious fanatic. After her death, he began robbing graves and keeping body parts as trophies, practicing necrophilia, and experimenting with human taxidermy. He then turned to murder, killing at least two women in 1957. Gein inspired film characters Norman Bates in Psycho, Jame Gumb in The Silence of the Lambs and Leather face in Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Edward Theodore Gein was born on August 27, 1906 in La Crosse, Wisconsin. The son of a timid alcoholic father and a fanatically religious mother, Gein grew up alongside his older brother, Henry, in a household ruled by his mother's puritanical preaching’s about the sins of lust and carnal desire. (Sickness) Obsessively devoted to his mother until her death in 1945,Gein never left home or dated women. After she died, he became increasingly deranged and eventually began prowling cemeteries to unearth recently buried female corpses. He would cut off body parts and keep them as trophies, returning the corpses seemingly undisturbed to their graves. In 1954, Ed Gein turned from grave robbing to murder, a task he was less meticulous about. Police charged him with the murders of two women in 1957. During the investigations, police learned that he had practiced necrophilia and experimented with human taxidermy. (Sickness) Shortly after his mother’s death, Gein decided he wanted a sex change, although it is a matter of some debate whether or not he was transsexual; by most accounts, he created his “woman suit” so he could pretend to be his mother, rather than change his sex. (Sickness) Gein’s most notorious creations were an array of “shrunken heads.” Various neighborhood children whom Gein occasionally babysat had seen or heard of these objects, which Gein offhandedly described as
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