Monster: The Ed Gein Story – Who were Bernice Worden and Mary Hogan? Details of the victims of America’s most notorious killer, explored 

Ryan Murphy's third chapter in the Monster saga, titled Monster: The Ed Gein Story, is finally streaming on Netflix.

The biographical crime series turns its lens on convicted serial killer Ed Gein, America's most notorious serial killer and body snatcher. The serial killer gained widespread discredit in the late 1950s, when he started committing female murders in his hometown of Plainfield and exhuming graves to fashion skin and bones into keepsakes.

In 1957, Ed Gein confessed to murdering two middle-aged women, a local hardware store owner, Bernice Worden and a local saloonkeeper frequented by Ed Gein, Mary Hogan. Both Worden and Hogan are confirmed victims of Ed Gein, who were shot at their place of work. Ed Gein dragged their battered bodies and fashioned their organs into keepsakes at his house on the farm in Plainfield, now dubbed the House of Horrors in the media.

More on Monster: The Ed Gein Story in our story.

Monster: The Ed Gein Story- Exploring America’s most notorious serial killer's victims

The authorities first came to know about Ed Gein's crimes when Worden's son, Deputy Sheriff Frank Worden, reported his mother as missing. On November 16, 1957, Frank entered his mother's hardware store at 5 pm, only to find the cash register open and blood stains on the floor. According to Frank's initial statement to the authorities, Ed Gein had inquired about a gallon of antifreeze in the morning and was expected to pick it up the next day. A quick search of the sales receipt revealed that Ed Gein had already bought the antifreeze and it was the last sales receipt recorded by Bernice Worden.

As depicted in Netflix's Monster: The Ed Gein Story, Gein was arrested from the West Plainfield grocery store, which opened his house of horrors for the police. A search of Ed Gein's shed led the authorities to discover Bernice Worden's decapitated body hanging upside down, with a rope on her wrists and a crossbar at her ankles. The police concluded that Bernice Worden was shot by Ed Gein, following which he mutilated her body and 'dressed her like a deer'.

After the authorities discovered Bernice Worden's body, Ed Gein also confessed to murdering Mary Hogan. Three years after her disappearance, the authorities finally found Mary Hogan's face mask in a paper bag at Ed Gein's house, following which, he also confessed to both crimes.

Monster: The Ed Gein Story- Hogan, Worden and the 'House of Horrors'

Both Bernice Worden and Mary Hogan were women in their late 50s who were shot and murdered by Ed Gein because they looked similar to his mother, with whom he had an unnatural attraction.

As depicted in Monster: The Ed Gein Story Episode 1, Ed Gein and his brother spent their childhood on their family farm in Plainfield with an absent father and an overbearing mother. Since Ed Gein's mother wanted to protect her sons from the evils of society, she regularly preached the Bible to them and kept them away from women, whom she believed were naturally promiscuous in nature. Ed Gein's social distancing from women in his growing-up years eventually developed into an Oedipal Complex for his mother.

Monster: The Ed Gein Story suggests the mother's death had a profound impact on Ed Gein, following which he wanted to physically recreate his mother using deceased women's parts. When digging graves became insufficient, Ed Gein murdered Bernice Worden and Mary Hogan and fashioned their body parts into a 'woman's suit', which acted as his surrogate mother.

From Ed Gein's House of Horrors, the police found human skulls fashioned into soup bowls and fruit baskets, organ jars, chairs fashioned out of human flesh and human lips and nose preserved with care. In addition to Mary Hogan's face mask in a bag, the authorities also found her battered skull in a box. Lastly, Bernice Worden's heart was found "in a plastic bag in front of Gein's potbelly stove".

Monster: The Ed Gein Story is streaming on Netflix.

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