Ed Gein · The Murders At Starved Rock

The crime
Before his arrest, the locals of Plainfield, Wisconsin considered Ed Gein a benign neighbor who sometimes showed the local kids his “Halloween masks,” said to be shrunken heads from Pacific Islands. When police suspected that Gein had murdered two women, they searched his farmhouse to find that, alongside the disfigured remains of his victims, Gein had been taking body parts from graves. Gein was tried for the death of Bernice Worden in 1958 and declared insane.

The story
Which Ed Gein tale do you want? Gein has been inspiring stories since the news media descended on Plainfield straight after the discovery of his particularly gruesome crimes, including arguably the three most influential serial-killer movies of all time (Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and The Silence of the Lambs).