Deviant

by Harold Schechter

  The vulva and adjoining structures that had been removed were presented in a carton box together with preserved and dried other specimens of the same type. The freshly removed vulva fitted well into the tissue defect of the body. Only few pubic hairs had remained on both sides of the removed organs and a portion of this hairy skin was removed for purposes of identification. Examination of the outer genitalia revealed no evidence of trauma and no conclusion could be reached whether or not sexual intercourse had taken place.

  The body cavities had been completely eviscerated together with most of the diaphragm. Inspection of the trunk and extremities revealed how the body had been hoisted by the heels.

  There was a deep cut above the Achilles tendon of the right leg and a pointed crossbar made of a rough wooden stick covered by bark had been forced underneath the tendon. The other side of the crossbar had been tied to a cord which was tightly fastened to a cut of the leg above the heel. This cut had severed the Achilles tendon and had necessitated the tying with cord to hold the body securely to the crossbar. The length of the crossbar was estimated as about three feet. Both wrists had been tied with longer hemp ropes to the corresponding ends of the crossbar attached to the feet, thus holding the arms firmly when the body had been suspended by the heels.

  Inspection of the skin surface of the body revealed dirt covering the shoulders, mostly the upper dorsal area, and the dirt resembled dry mud in thin scaly crusts. The skin of the back, both arms and legs, less of chest and abdomen was somewhat discolored by dust which showed irregular smudgy areas of heavier covering. Rather striking was the amount of black dust covering both plantar surfaces, dust which appeared somewhat “rubbed in,” as if from walking barefoot on a dirty, dusty floor.

  Both breasts appeared good sized and, for her age, well formed. They felt medium firm, mostly because the adipose tissue had hardened from the exposure to cold. The right nipple appeared normal, the left was somewhat inverted. Both breasts appeared to lean upward, apparently due to the long suspension by the heels. There was no evidence of mutilation of the breasts.

  Inspection of the body (trunk and extremities) revealed no evidence of ante mortem trauma. The exsanguination was complete, only fingernails showed moderate cyanosis. On the left ring finger was a cameo ring. The empty body cavities were glistening and free from blood, appeared as if they had been washed. No fractures of the trunk or extremities were found. The seventh vertebra was removed for further examination by the Wisconsin State Crime Laboratory.

  The thoracic and abdominal viscera had been separately kept, wrapped in newspaper and hidden in a bundle of old clothing. These viscera consisted of both lungs with the trachea, the aorta from the base to the abdominal bifurcation, the esophagus, stomach, small and large intestines with mesentary and omentum to the lower rectum. En bloc with this were removed: The spleen, pancreas, adrenals, kidneys with the ureters, upper half of the urine bladder, and internal genital organs. Separately removed had been:

  1. Heart (without the pericardium) and this had been kept in a plastic bag.

  2. Liver.

  The report then proceeds to detail the condition of the individual organs (stomach, intestines, pancreas, liver, and so on) before turning to a description of the capitated head—a particularly significant section from a forensic point of view, since it reveals how Mrs. Worden was killed:

  The head with the neck was submitted in a separate cardboard. It fitted with the trunk of the body. The hair was medium short cut, somewhat curly, and appeared soiled with dust and smeared with blood. The color of the hair was dark, showing considerable graying…. A roundish hole of the scalp which was difficult to find on outer inspection, measured, when moderately stretched, 0.76 cm. in diameter. The edge of the defect revealed a narrow marginal abrasion. There was no tear in the contour of the opening and no evidence of burn, nor could any powder particles be grossly visualized. This skin defect, suggesting the entrance wound of a bullet, was located to the left of the midline and about 6 cm. above the neck hairline, 3.5 cm. laterally and 2 cm. above the outer occipital protuberantia.

  The face appeared covered with dust in irregular distribution. There was no evidence of external trauma to the face. Both eyes were closed…. The nose appeared intact on palpation, but there was blood in both nostrils. The left ear had a hooked spike inserted, the tip of which was at the time of examination 2 cm. deep in the external ear canal. There were slight, apparently post mortem excoriations, on the outer border of the ear canal. Blood oozed from this ear in larger quantities than the excoriations indicated.

  Tied to the head of the hooked spike was a cord to which another hooked spike of the same size had been attached. This right spike was at the time of examination not inserted in the right ear canal.

  The neck revealed no evidence of applied force, like from strangling, no finger or nail imprints, nor scratches. The trachea and larynx appeared normal. The portion of the lower medulla oblongata and the upper cervical spine had been ripped out. This portion of the spinal cord was not found….

  Dissection of the brain showed hemorrhages in all ventricular spaces. The actual bullet track through the brain was difficult to visualize. It was evident that the bullet had traversed the brain beneath the corpus callosum passing through the ventricles, and struck the sphenoid bone. To facilitate the localization of the bullet, as there was no exit defect, X-ray pictures were taken and the bullet, apparently of .22 caliber, was located and found within the right orbita beneath the median portion of its roof without destruction to the eyeball. (Bullet turned over to the Wisconsin State Crime Laboratory.) The extensive skull fracture had been the cause for the bleedings from the nose and the right ear canal.

  After a brief summation of the findings of a microscopic examination of the brain, lungs, liver, heart, spleen, and kidneys, the autopsy report ends with the pathologist’s conclusions regarding the manner of Mrs. Worden’s death:

  Examination of the decapitated and eviscerated body of Mrs. Bernice Worden revealed as the only cause of death a bullet shot wound in the head which had been fired in the back of the head. The bullet had penetrated the brain anteriorly causing destruction of the vital areas and inter-ventricular hemorrhage as well as extensive skull fractures and some subarachnoid hemorrhage. The bullet had lodged in the left orbit. It had apparently not been a contact nor a very close shot…. Death had apparently occurred shortly (seconds or minutes) after the shot had been fired. All the other mutilations of the body had been carried out after death.

  Interestingly, Mrs. Eigenberger’s original handwritten sheets contain a number of parenthetical comments excluded from the final postmortem report. These brief notations, hastily scribbled on the back of the loose-leaf pages, consist of short, provocative phrases that clearly represent her spontaneous reflections on various aspects of the murder—ideas that struck her while the autopsy was in progress.

  At one point, for instance, she observes that Gein’s removal of the heart and liver conforms to a “deer hunter’s pattern.” A bit later, she wonders whether the “seed” for the murder had been “planted by crime comics and movies” (a speculation prompted partly, no doubt, by the discovery of Eddie’s massive collection of quasipornographic crime publications and partly by contemporary concerns over excessive comic book violence, a controversial issue in 1950s America).

  Perhaps the most striking of Mrs. Eigenberger’s jottings, however, appears on the back of the very last page of her notes, where she has written the words “Sex Slayer and the Battered Beauty.” What makes this phrase so arresting is its utter incongruity in the context of the postmortem report. In contrast to her husband’s detached, clinical language, Mrs. Eigenberger’s notation has the shamelessness of a tabloid headline.

  Indeed, her attempt to come up with a titillating catch phrase for the crime anticipates the kind of treatment that the Gein horrors were about to receive in the press. Within twenty-four hours of Mrs. Worden’s autopsy, newspapers throughout the Midwest would be ful
l of equally sensational headlines, as journalists tried to find language lurid enough to do justice to Eddie Gein’s demented handiwork.

  17

  Milwaukee Journal, November 18, 1957

  “Where last week the talk on North Street was about deer hunting or dairying, Monday it was filled with speculations on matters that are ordinarily far outside the interests of respectable residents of communities like this. Who could have imagined a few days ago that topics like cannibalism and human butchery would be discussed in Plainfield on Monday?”

  By the time the story broke late on Sunday, there couldn’t have been a soul in central Wisconsin who wasn’t aware that a crime of particularly monstrous proportions had been uncovered in Plainfield. But no one was prepared for the facts that finally emerged. The shock of that day’s disclosures quickly spread from the Midwest across the nation. Like the young bride in “Bluebeard,” who unlocks the door to the forbidden chamber and finds herself staring at a roomful of butchered corpses, America was transfixed by the horror.

  Throughout the day, rumors abounded in Plainfield that Ed Gein’s isolated farmhouse was in fact a “murder factory,” filled with the skeletal remains of at least seven victims. Sheriff Schley maintained a stubborn silence, refusing to speak a word to reporters, though he did release a statement confirming that “several skeletons” and anatomical parts of human bodies have been recovered.

  Later that afternoon, several officials on the scene—beginning with the district attorney of Waushara County, Earl Kileen—provided the press with the first detailed account of the findings. For the first time, reporters learned about Mrs. Worden’s trussed-up and dressed-out body, about the heads preserved in plastic bags, about the skulls scattered around Gein’s rooms, about the furniture and implements fashioned from human skin. Deputy Dave Sharkey of Wood County, who had spent the entire night searching through Gein’s farmhouse, offered additional facts, describing among other things Gein’s grisly collection of death masks. “I’m of the opinion that some of them are young people,” he told newsmen. “Some of them have lipstick on and look perfectly natural.”

  Far from putting an end to the hearsay, Kileen’s and Sharkey’s disclosures only added fuel to the rumor mills. The very hideousness of their revelations generated even ghastlier stories, including one that would quickly gain the status of fact—that Gein was not only a butcher of human flesh but a consumer of it as well.

  Kileen himself added considerable credibility to this tale when, after supplying newsmen with a graphic description of Mrs. Worden’s cleaned-out cadaver, he observed, “It appears to be cannibalism.”

  It wasn’t long before the facts surrounding Bernice Worden’s murder—horrific enough to begin with—underwent some significant alterations. Mrs. Worden’s heart, for example, which had actually been discovered in a plastic bag near Eddie’s stove, was suddenly reported to have been found in a frying pan on one of the burners. The old suit of clothes in which her entrails had been hidden became a refrigerator packed with vital organs, all of them neatly wrapped in brown butcher’s paper. Stories began to circulate that the widow’s body had been dismembered and her legs hung up to cure in Gein’s summer kitchen. Eddie’s cellar was rumored to be stocked with quart jars full of human blood.

  For the next few weeks in Plainfield, whatever horrors could be imagined were instantly reported as fact. William Senay, owner of Bill’s Bar on North Street, described the phenomenon to reporters. “Some guy comes in here and tells a story,” said Senay. “Then he goes down the street and tells it again. And by that time he believes it himself.”

  There was, in fact, another highly sensational charge still to come, one so incredible that it would be greeted with skepticism even by those who had no trouble believing that their reclusive neighbor was a cannibal. Still, it would be hard to dismiss the claim out of hand, since the person who would make it was Eddie Gein himself.

  18

  From the trial testimony of the necrophile Henri Blot

  “Everyone to his own taste. Mine is for corpses.”

  By Monday morning, the land lay under a four-inch blanket of snow. But the frigid conditions didn’t deter the investigators, who continued to sift through the squalor of Gein’s farm buildings. They also launched a search of his one-hundred-ninety-five-acre property, an undertaking that would end up lasting a week.

  The chaos of Gein’s house was such that new pieces of evidence were constantly turning up in the clutter. The number of body parts buried amid the debris seemed endless. On Sunday, for example, Kileen had told the press that four human heads had been found inside Gein’s house. On Monday, he announced the discovery of six more, some wrapped carefully in plastic bags, others tossed casually under furniture.

  Kileen’s revelations set off a media blitz. By Monday, the influx of newsmen into Plainfield had turned into a full-fledged invasion. Journalists descended on the stunned little town in droves. There were reporters from all the big regional dailies—the Milwaukee Journal, the Milwaukee Sentinel, the Madison Capital Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Minneapolis Star, the St. Paul Pioneer Press, and others. Some of these papers assigned as many as five reporters to cover various angles of the rapidly unfolding story. Writers and photographers arrived from Life, Time, and Look magazines. Television and radio stations sent news teams, and the Associated Press set up a portable wire service in the Local Union Telephone Company office to transmit photographs from Plainfield. Within a day or so, there would even be correspondents from overseas newspapers.

  The intense media interest in the horrors coming to light on Gein’s farmstead had as much to do with the locale of the case as with its gruesome nature. By early Monday, it was already evident that the village of Plainfield—a quiet little town in the heart of America’s dairyland—was the scene of one of the most sensational crimes in Wisconsin, if not American, history. As yet, no one could say how many murders had actually been committed, but investigators were inclined to believe that the number was substantial. “We know we have at least eleven dead,” Deputy Sharkey told reporters. “There might be fifty for that matter.”

  Indeed, among the many rumors circulating through Waushara County that morning were reports connecting Eddie to every unexplained disappearance that had occurred in Wisconsin during the past ten years. And it was true that a virtual army of investigators from throughout the Midwest—more than one hundred fifty officers, according to one estimate—visited Gein’s premises during a forty-eight-hour period to check it for clues to various missing-persons cases. Heading the list of crimes they were hoping to solve were those involving Georgia Weckler, the eight-year-old girl who had vanished in 1947; Victor “Bunk” Travis, the local man missing since 1952; the La Crosse teenager Evelyn Hartley, carried off while babysitting in 1953; and Mary Hogan, the Portage County tavern keeper whose mysterious disappearance in 1954 bore a striking similarity, as more than one local newspaper noted, to the details of Be mice Worden’s abduction.

  Shortly before eleven o’clock that Monday morning, a major development occurred in the case when prosecutor Kileen told a mob of reporters that Gein had finally broken his thirty-hour silence.

  In a statement to Kileen, Gein had acknowledged killing Mrs. Worden, though he insisted he couldn’t remember any details of the crime because it all happened while he was in a “daze.” A stenographic record of Gein’s admission was later released to the press. The section relating to Mrs. Worden’s murder reads as follows:

  KILEEN: Now you start from the time you went into the Worden implement store. Tell us exactly what happened the best you can recall.

  GEIN: When I went into Mrs. Worden’s, I took a glass jug for permanent antifreeze. When I entered the hardware store she came toward me and said, “Do you want a gallon of antifreeze?” and I said, “No, a half gallon.” She got out the antifreeze and pumped it out, and I held the jug for her to pour it in and then she pumped out another quart, and I was still holding the
jar while she pumped that. Then I paid her with a dollar bill. She gave me back one cent because it was 99 cents.

  This is what I can’t remember from now on because I don’t know just what happened from now on, you see.

  She glanced out of the window towards the filling station across the street and said, “They are checking deer there.” Then she looked towards the west, out of the west and north windows, and said, “There are more people up town than I thought there would be.” She might have said something about the opening of the season, she might have said that.

  KILEEN: Do you remember striking her or shooting her?

  GEIN: No. This is what got me—whether I took my antifreeze out. That is what I can’t remember. It is hard for me to say from now on. My memory is a little vague, but I do remember dragging her across the floor. I remember loading her body in the truck. Then I drove the truck out on the east road at the intersection where 51 and 73 separate east of Plainfield. I drove the truck up in the pine trees. Then I walked to town and got in my car and drove it out there and loaded her body in the back of the car, and also the cash register. I loaded the cash register in the truck when I put her body in there.

  Then I drove out to my farm and took the body out of the car and hung it up by the heels in my wood shed.

  KILEEN: Tell how you took the blood out and buried it. You used the knife you made from the file to cut her up?