Ed Gein: The Ghoul of Plainfield

An attractive young woman takes off her white bathrobe and steps into the shower. She pulls the shower curtain closed and turns on the water. As she is soaping herself, a silhouette appears through the curtain. It appears to be an elderly woman holding a butcher's knife in her left hand. Suddenly, the curtain is yanked back and the blade comes crashing down in rapid successions. The high-pitched music drowns out the cries of the young woman. Her blood is washed down the drain by the cascading water.

This is obviously a description of the infamous shower scene from the movie "Psycho." What is possibly even more frightening and bizarre than a middle-aged innkeeper dressing as his dead mother and murdering innocent people, is the fact that the movie was based on true events. Alfred Hitchcock's film was a silver screen adaptation of a novel written by Robert Bloch. Bloch based Norman Bates' character on the real-life "Ghoul of Plainfield," Ed Gein. Gein was also the inspiration for characters such as Leatherface (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) and Buffalo Bill (The Silence of the Lambs). Gein's body count is extremely low compared to that of other killers in his league, but what he lacked in victims, he made up for in depravity. His crimes were so unspeakable, they made on-screen killers like Norman Bates and Buffalo Bill look like Santa Claus. This is his story.