Ed Gein: The Butcher of Plainfield · 6 Sep 2026 · 12 min

The Barn Discovery: What Gein Built From Grief and Bone

On November 16, 1957, Bernice Worden vanished from a Plainfield hardware store — and the receipt in the register bore Ed Gein's name. Inside his barn, investigators found what no training had prepared them for.

Ed Gein: The Butcher of Plainfield
Now Playing
The Barn Discovery: What Gein Built From Grief and Bone

Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.

What's covered

The Crimes That Built American Horror

Three fictional monsters haunted American cinema for decades. Norman Bates.

Listen now →

Mary Hogan's Three-Year Absence

Mary Hogan ran a tavern in Pine Grove, a small community just outside Plainfield in central Wisconsin. On December eighth, nineteen fifty-four, she vanished from that tavern.

Listen now →

Augusta and the Farm

To understand what Gein was doing inside that farmhouse, you have to start with Augusta Gein. Augusta was his mother.

Listen now →

The Graves and the Farmhouse

Gein began visiting the local cemetery at night. Over the following years, he exhumed somewhere between nine and ten graves, selecting them deliberately.

Listen now →

Mary Hogan and Bernice Worden

The grave robberies gave Gein access to remains without requiring him to kill. And for years, that appears to have been sufficient.

Listen now →

The Arrest and the Cultural Detonation

Gein was arrested that night. He didn't flee.

Listen now →

The Legal Question and the Life That Followed

Gein pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. He was found incompetent to stand trial initially and committed to a psychiatric facility.

Listen now →

What Plainfield Left Behind

The farmhouse burned to the ground in March of nineteen fifty-eight, before it could be opened as a tourist attraction. A fire of uncertain origin.

Listen now →

Chapter summary auto-generated from the verified script. Listen to the full episode for the complete content.

More episodes

From Ed Gein: The Butcher of Plainfield