E. Ed Gein: A Serial Killer

First Kill

The sight of a woman's decapitated body in a shed, hung upside down by ropes at her wrists, with a crossbar at her ankles were merely just a glance of the bigger picture. There were wastebasket made of human skin, bowls made from human skulls, leggings made from human leg skin, and masks made from females heads. This is the home of famous murder and body snatcher, Ed Gein. His case was unique, he didn’t murder in anger, revenge, or financial plesaure but on the emptiness left by his mother. The one question that dwells on every psychologists, criminologists, and scientists mind is whether killers like him were born with these genes that plays a crucial part in creating their homicidal tendencies or do psychokillers become murderous through their surroundings as children.

Second Kill

Ed Gein isn't the only known psychopath known for killing out of self-pleasure.

The infamous "Jack the Ripper", Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, and Albert DeSalvo. Childhood abuse is a key point which has been known to fuel many serial murderers. While evidence has shown not all victims of child abuse grow up to be criminals and/or murderers. There's been a heightened risk shown to be associated with childhood trauma personality disorders and criminal activity in adulthood. So, what is child abuse? "Child abuse is when a parent or caregiver, whether through action or failing to act, causes injury, death, emotional harm or risk of serious harm to a child." (para. 2). Abuse is a sequence of behavior used to gain and control power over someone. There's many forms of child mishandling including but not limiting to physical abuse, sexual abuse, psychological abuse, and

neglect.
Physical abuse is “any intentional and unwanted contact with you or something close to your body” (para 2). There’s many examples of physical abuse such as scratching, punching, strangling, throwing objects, pulling hair, and/or using a weapon. Well, physical abuse is more of unwanted contact, sexual abuse “ refers to any action that pressures or coerces someone to do something sexually they don’t want to do.” (para 4). Examples of sexual abuse are unwanted touching, unwanted violent sexual activity, using sexual insults, and rape. Psychological abuse, also known as emotional/verbal abuse “includes non-physical behaviors such as threats, insults, constant monitoring or “checking in,” excessive texting, humiliation, intimidation, isolation or stalking.” (para 3). The following are classified as psychological abuse, name calling, public display of embarrassment, isolation, stalking, and cyber bully. Last but not least, neglect which is a commonly used word for fail to care for properly or the state of fact of being uncared for. Such as making a child not feel wanted in a household and/or constantly not being part of their life.

In a 2005 study conducted by Mitchell and Aamodt from Radford University in Virginia. Over the 50 serial killer, their key finding were : “ 36% suffered physical abuse, 26% sexual abuse, 50% psychological abuse, 18% neglect, and 2% having no reported abuse at all” (para. 14). There were other questions explored during this study, such as : do serial killers have more abuse in their history than the average person? The results were shocking, “ … with a very clear higher percentage of abuse in all abuse categories, bar neglect, suffered by the serial killer group compared to the general population.” ( para 18).
Keen examples of this study can related to Ed Gein, our infamous body snatcher and murderer who’s the inspiration for several films such as ‘The Silence of the Lambs’, ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’, and ‘Psycho’. Gein was the son of an alcoholic father and a zealous religious mother. He grew up in an isolated household ruled by his mother’s preaching about “women were naturally prostitutes and instruments of the devil.” (para 3) She’s known for reciting verses from the Old Testament relating death, murder, and divine retribution. Gein was known for his odd affection toward his mother and being obsessively devoted to his mother until her death in 1945, he became increasingly engaged and eventually digging up cemeteries to of re recently buried females corpses.
Third Kill
But, there’s always these other question : does murderous intention start from a trigger in our brain? Base on a study in 2000 that was published by Dr. Richard Davidson. he compared the brain scans of hundreds of people between those who experienced violence and those who did not. The results of the study found that, “the brain images of those who had been convicted of a murder with aggressive or antisocial disorders showed distinct brain activity compared to those who were considered normal.” (para 7) In other words, if the study is shown to accuracy, then these murderers might had been born with an entirely different genetic code compared to those considered normal. “The orbital frontal cortex, the anterior cingulated cortex, and the amygdale, which plays a major part in negative and violent emotions, The orbital frontal cortex has been found to control and restrain the impulse of emotional outbursts, the anterior cingulated cortex was found to deal with responses to conflict, and the amygdale is known to control reactions to fear.” (para 7).

Final Moment
The battle between the two debate can go further down and deeper. With recent modern technology and more to come in the future, there may be a solid solution of what goes on in someone’s mind during their act of taking the life of someone else and what exactly triggers that moment. Whether it’s from experiencing childhood abuse or genetic code on one’s DNA : prevent or saving a child from the abuse thrown upon them or being able to diagnose genetic defects early, can lend a hand to a more safer and better future.