What made a mild-mannered loner from small town America turn into Ed Gein, the Butcher of Plainfield - a graverobber, murderer and ghoulish collector of female body parts - the inspiration for Norman Bates, Leatherface and countless other horror film demons.

In this documentary Prof Yorston, Neuropsychiatrist, uses his skills from assessing serious criminals for over 30 years to explore the life of Ed Gein, trying to understand why he committed some of the most horrifying crimes of the 20th century and re-evaluating some of the myths and sensationalist claims made about him over the years.

Finding Out More:
There are lots of books about Ed Gein of varying quality. If you want to read his original psychiatric evaluation from 1957 and a transcript of his confession, they are reprinted in The Ed Gein File: A Psycho's Confession and Case Documents by John Borowski. However, it does contain some extremely graphic crime photographs as well. It is available through my Amazon store page: https://amzn.to/3KlzKNU

Copyright Disclaimer:
The primary purpose of this video is educational. I have tried to use material in the public domain or with Creative Commons Non-attribution licences wherever possible. Where attribution is required, I have listed this below. I believe that any copyright material used falls under the remit of Fair Use, but if any content owners would like to dispute this, I will not hesitate to immediately remove that content. It is not my intention to infringe on content ownership in any way. If you happen to find your art or images in the video, please let me know and I will be glad to credit you.

Images:
Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons
Wellcome Collection

Video produced by Graeme Yorston and Martin Gale.