EXTREMIST

Ed Gein

1906 - 1984

Photo of Ed Gein

Icon of person Ed Gein

Edward Theodore Gein ( GEEN; August 27, 1906 – July 26, 1984), also known as "the Butcher of Plainfield" or "the Plainfield Ghoul", was an American murderer, suspected serial killer and body snatcher. Gein's crimes, committed around his hometown of Plainfield, Wisconsin, gathered widespread notoriety in 1957 after authorities discovered that he had exhumed corpses from local graveyards and fashioned keepsakes from their bones and skin. He also confessed to killing two women: tavern owner Mary Hogan in 1954, and hardware store owner Bernice Worden in 1957. Gein was initially found unfit to stand trial and confined to a mental health facility. Read more on Wikipedia

His biography is available in different languages on Wikipedia. Ed Gein is the 27th most popular extremist (down from 21st in 2019), the 628th most popular biography from United States (down from 422nd in 2019) and the 11th most popular American Extremist.

Ed Gein is most famous for his crimes. He was a serial killer and necrophile. He would often dig up the bodies of recently buried women and use their skin to make masks, belts, and other objects.

Memorability Metrics

Loading...

Page views of Ed Gein by language

Loading...

Among EXTREMISTS

Among extremists, Ed Gein ranks 27 out of 283Before him are Patrizia Reggiani, Andrei Chikatilo, Mehmet Ali Ağca, Ted Kaczynski, John Wayne Gacy, and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. After him are Albert Fish, Carlos the Jackal, Machine Gun Kelly, Ulrike Meinhof, Frank Sheeran, and Cleon.

Most Popular Extremists in Wikipedia

Go to all Rankings

Contemporaries

Among people born in 1906, Ed Gein ranks 37Before him are Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ilse Koch, Sergei Korolev, Hassan al-Banna, Hermann Fegelein, and Léon Degrelle. After him are Josef Kramer, Clyde Tombaugh, Marcelo Caetano, Shin'ichirō Tomonaga, Soichiro Honda, and Alexey Stakhanov. Among people deceased in 1984, Ed Gein ranks 18Before him are Mohamed Naguib, Mikhail Sholokhov, Julio Cortázar, Johnny Weissmuller, Stanislaw Ulam, and Carl Ferdinand Cori. After him are Martin Ryle, Pyotr Kapitsa, Vicente Aleixandre, Ahmed Sékou Touré, Martin Niemöller, and Ray Kroc.

Others Born in 1906

Go to all Rankings

Others Deceased in 1984

Go to all Rankings

In United States

Among people born in United States, Ed Gein ranks 628 out of 20,380Before him are Mia Farrow (1945), Ernest Borgnine (1917), George Foreman (1949), Don King (1931), Steven Tyler (1948), and Paul Walker (1973). After him are Linda B. Buck (1947), Sydney Pollack (1934), Larry Ellison (1944), William Clark (1770), Robert A. Dahl (1915), and Peter Fonda (1940).

Among EXTREMISTS In United States

Among extremists born in United States, Ed Gein ranks 11Before him are Lee Harvey Oswald (1939), Leon Czolgosz (1873), Golden State Killer (1945), Jeffrey Dahmer (1960), Ted Kaczynski (1942), and John Wayne Gacy (1942). After him are Albert Fish (1870), Machine Gun Kelly (1895), Frank Sheeran (1920), John Hinckley Jr. (1955), H. H. Holmes (1861), and Timothy McVeigh (1968).