Gein's crimes, committed around his hometown of Plainfield , Wisconsin , gathered widespread notoriety in 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 , and hardware store owner Bernice Worden in Gein was initially found unfit to stand trial and confined to a mental health facility.
By he was judged competent to stand trial; he was found guilty of the murder of Worden, [ 2 ] but was found legally insane and thus was remanded to a psychiatric institution. Gein died at Mendota Mental Health Institute from respiratory failure resulting from lung cancer on July 26, , aged He is buried next to his family in the Plainfield Cemetery, in a now-unmarked grave.
She reserved time every afternoon to read to them from the Bible , usually selecting verses from the Old Testament and the Book of Revelation concerning death, murder and divine retribution. George Gein worked as a carpenter, tanner and in the city fire department. He also owned a local grocery shop but soon sold the business and left the city with his family to live on a acre hectare farm in the town of Plainfield, Wisconsin , [ 11 ] which became their permanent residence.
Gein left the farm only to attend school. Outside of school, he spent most of his time doing chores on the farm. Gein was shy; classmates and teachers remembered him as having strange mannerisms, such as seemingly random laughter, as if he were laughing at his own personal jokes.
Augusta punished Gein whenever he tried to make friends, according to family acquaintances. Despite his poor social development, Gein did fairly well in school, particularly in reading. On April 1, , Gein's father died of heart failure at age Gein and his brother Henry began doing odd jobs around town to help cover living expenses.
