Ed Gein's Brother Died a Somewhat Mysterious Death — Was He Just Another Victim?

It's easy to forget that serial killers were people who had families before they became prolific murderers, with podcasts and documentaries devoted to their crimes.

Some of these individuals even used their own relatives as a shield of sorts to convince the public they were just like everyone else. Ted Bundy was a law school student and young Republican involved in local politics. At one point, he had a long-term girlfriend who had a daughter of her own.

They never suspected a thing.

Before Bundy was faking injuries in order to lure unsuspecting women to his car, Ed Gein was living a very different life in Wisconsin. The killer known as the Butcher of Plainfield was committing his crimes when Bundy was just a kid.

Gein was born in 1906 to an overbearing mother and a father who rarely succeeded at anything. The future killer also had a brother who died under mysterious circumstances. Here's what we know.

According to the Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune, Gein's brother, Henry, died from a heart attack at the age of 42 while battling a fire that was tearing through the grass and brush at the family farm. The incident occurred on May 16, 1944, while Henry and Gein were burning over their marsh.

The fire got out of control, but Gein reportedly didn't realize something was wrong until Henry didn't return to the farm.

A search party set out that evening, armed with flashlights, only to find Henry's body several hours later. He was lying facedown and did not get burned by the fire. Henry died by asphyxiation.

Author Harold Schechter is an expert on Gein and wrote about the killer in his book Deviant. In it, Schechter asserted that the fire was started by Gein in an effort to cover up Henry's murder. This was due to the fact that Henry had strange, unexplained bruises on the back of his head.

Gein is buried in an unmarked grave in Plainfield next to his mother, father, and brother. As if this story couldn't get any stranger, there is one more about Augusta Gein, the mother, and filmmakers Werner Herzog and Errol Morris.

In the fall of 2007, Herzog and Morris were speaking at Brandeis University, where they told a shocked audience about the time they nearly dug up Augusta's grave.

"Errol wanted to know more about the grave robberies, because Ed Gein had not only murdered people," explained Herzog, who said Morris was curious about whether or not Gein ever dug up his own mother. "I was living with Ed Gein’s next-door neighbors at the time, who I had befriended," said Morris.

Herzog was filming in Alaska, so he drove down to meet Morris in Wisconsin.

This never actually happened because they got their dates mixed up. What came of the mishap was Herzog's movie Stroszek, which was filmed in Plainfield after the filmmaker was charmed by a local mechanic.

He decided he simply had to make a movie there.