Ed Gein

American murderer and human trophy collector (1906–1984)

  • Fame72.2
  • Momentum2.7
  • Historical Figures rank#62
Source-basedStable
  • Fame72.2
  • Momentum2.7
  • Historical Figures rank#62
  • Wikipedia597.3K
Lived 1906–1984, aged 78United States
  • Wikipedia
    45 languages
    Cross-language footprint
  • Era
    1906–1984
    Aged 78
  • Known for
    Inside the Labyrinth: …
    2001
Summary
Updated 2026-08-31

He murdered two women and dug up graves across central Wisconsin to build household objects from human remains—a case so viscerally strange that it seeded the DNA of American horror fiction for decades.

Biography

About

Edward Theodore Gein was born August 27, 1906, and spent most of his life on a failing farm outside Plainfield, Wisconsin. In 1957, after hardware store owner Bernice Worden disappeared, police traced her to Gein's property and found her body dressed like a deer carcass in his shed—along with furniture, clothing, and keepsakes made from exhumed corpses and human skin. He confessed to killing Worden and tavern owner Mary Hogan three years earlier. Declared unfit for trial, he was confined to a mental health facility until 1968, when he stood trial, was convicted of Worden's murder, found legall…

Deep cuts

Era & geography

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Platforms

By the numbers

Score breakdown

The six component signals behind the Fame score, and their ranks across the leaderboards.

Fame
Stable
72.2
Composite of search demand, mentions, audience & graph footprint.
Score components
Momentum2.7
Historical44.0
Source confidence65.0
Completeness75.0
Global rank
Country rank
Category rank
#62
Receipts

Sources

  • Wikipedia
    wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org
    High confidence
  • Wikidata
    wikidata · wikidata.org
    High confidence
  • Pantheon 2.0
    database · pantheon.world
    High confidence