What happened to Ed Gein’s house and more Wisconsin sites from Netflix’s ‘Monster’ series?

Wisconsin is known not only as the America’s Dairyland, but also has the unfortunate reputation of being the home to a couple of high-profile American serial killers. The first season of Netflix’s “Monster” series focused on one of them, Milwaukee’s Jeffery Dahmer. Now in its third season, which premiered Oct. 3, the series turns to a more rural Wisconsin killer, Plainfield’s Ed Gein.

Gein was arrested in November 1957 for the murder of Bernice Worden, a hardware store owner in Plainfield. He confessed to the murder of Worden and later admitted to having killed another woman, Mary Hogan, before Worden. Gein also confessed to digging up the corpses of several others, which he used to make lampshades, masks and other gruesome items that police found in his Plainfield farmhouse.

Nearly 70 years have passed since Gein’s arrest. True crime and horror fans still head to rural Plainfield to visit that farmhouse and other sites associated with Gein. But today, they only find an empy lot where Gein’s house once stood. Here’s what happened to the house, plus other sites associated with the Wisconsin killer.

Where is Plainfield?

Plainfield is a village in Waushara County, in central Wisconsin. It’s about 25 miles south of Stevens Point and approximately 90 miles north of Madison. Its population in 2020 was 924, according to the 2020 U.S. Census.

What happened to Ed Gein’s farmhouse in Plainfield?

Gein’s farmhouse burned down in a fire on March 20, 1958, according to an article from the Milwaukee Journal published the next day. Currently, there’s no building in the clearing where Gein’s house stood, but you’d never know anything was there since the property is now covered in vegetation.

Plainfield Village Deputy Clerk Natasha Stanley confirmed the site, at N5691 2nd Ave., is now private farmland.

What happened to Bernice Worden’s hardware store?

Bernice Worden, Gein’s second victim, owned a hardware store at 110 S. Main St. in Plainfield. The building is still standing, but it is privately owned and doesn’t currently house a business, according to Stanley. Until a couple of years ago, the building still operated as a hardware store, changing ownership ocassionally until its most recent iteration as a Hardware Hank.

Where is Ed Gein buried? Where are the cemeteries he exhumed bodies from?

• Plainfield Cemetery: This cemetery at N6590 5th Ave. in Plainfield is the final resting place of Gein’s first known victim, a Pine Grove tavern keeper named Mary Hogan; Gein’s father, George Gein; his mother, Augusta Gein; his older brother, Henry Gein; and Gein himself, who is buried in an unmarked grave between his mother and brother. Before his death, Gein exhumed bodies from this cemetery and used parts of those bodies to make grotesque objects including masks, a lampshade and a belt.
• Spiritland Cemetery: Gein also frequented Spiritland Cemetery to exhume bodies. It’s located near the corner of County Highways BB and D in Almond, a few miles north of Plainfield in Portage County.
• Hancock Cemetery: A third cemetery where Gein is said to have dug up bodies, according to various websites dedicated to true crime including cultofweird.com and houseofgein.com. It is located at N3800 4th Ave. in Hancock, Wisconsin, about 9 miles south of Plainfield.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: What happened to Ed Gein’s house and more Wisconsin sites from Netflix’s ‘Monster’ series?

Reporting by Angelika Ytuarte, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

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