Ed Gein Was Asked if He Ate Human Flesh — Here's What He Said

On Nov. 16, 1957, Ed Gein was arrested following the disappearance of 58-year-old Bernice Worden earlier that day. Her son called the police after blood was found at Worden's general store in Plainfield, Wisc. Authorities used a receipt with Gein's name on it to trace the murder back to the strange, quiet 51-year-old. What they found at his farm would shock the small community of roughly 680 people.

According to the Stevens Point Journal, the "eviscerated and decapitated body" of Worden was found along with 10 human skulls. Police searched Gein's home and discovered furniture made of human skin and other body parts, as well as the flayed skin of another woman who went missing three years prior. This led investigators to believe Gein was perhaps a cannibal. Here's what we know.

When Gein was questioned by police, he reportedly curled his fingers into claws and said he had been "killing for seven years," per the Twin City News-Record. Waushara County District Attorney Earl Kileen made a snap judgment two days after Gein's arrest. "It appears to be cannibalism," he said.

Apart from the two women Gein confessed to killing, he said the macabre items found in his home were fashioned out of bodies whose graves he robbed. According to the Chicago Tribune, forensic experts at the time were testing the human remains to see if they died "violent or natural deaths."

Kileen told the Tribune that he questioned Gein about a human heart found on a dish placed atop a table the killer used as his dining table. "I asked if he intended to eat the heart, and he said he did not," said Kileen. "I asked if he intended to eat the flesh of the woman, and he said no. He denied that he had ever eaten human flesh." Despite this response, Kileen still said he was on the fence as to whether or not Gein was a cannibal. It has never been proven.

Gein went into great detail about what he did to Worden's body, though he said he blacked out during the moment he fatally shot her. Because Gein allegedly had no recollection of the actual murder but could thoroughly describe what he did to the body, this made him a product killer. He was more interested in the outcome than the actual kill.

While dissecting Worden's body, Gein said he drained the blood from her torso into two galvanized iron pails. "I buried the blood," he told Sheriff Arthur Schley. Gein then proceeded to offer to show police where exactly he buried the blood. Gein also said he was in a daze while cutting up Worden's body and likened his actions to dressing a deer. That was the only way he could make sense of it.

Gein was found unfit to stand trial and was later diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic. Psychiatrists at the time attributed Gein's obsession with older women and the bodies of older women to a deeply toxic relationship with his mother. Augusta Gein was a religious zealot who isolated her two sons by telling them women were sinful and couldn't be trusted. Mental health professionals believe Gein was trying to both resurrect and kill his mother over and over again.