The Henry Gein Crime Scene: Key Evidence That Points Directly to Ed
By James H. Sterling
The condition of Henry’s body immediately baffled the men who lifted him from the field. Although the county had dispatched volunteers to recover a burn casualty, Henry’s clothing showed no scorching. His skin lacked blistering or third-degree burns. He lay face down in an unburned island of marsh grass, separated from the actively blackened soil by several yards.
More unsettling were the marks on his head. Searchers noted pronounced bruising and soft-tissue swelling across Henry’s skull, consistent with blunt force impact rather than a fall on soft peat moss. While death by suffocation can occur away from the primary fire line when atmospheric oxygen drops, unburned asphyxiation victims rarely present with isolated head trauma. Despite these red flags, Waushara County Coroner Frank Worden, whose own mother, Bernice, would become Ed’s final confirmed murder victim thirteen years later, declined to request an autopsy. Worden ruled the cause of death as asphyxiation, bypassing a formal inquest or tissue toxicology.
James Sterling reports on renewable energy developments, climate policy, ecological conservation, and green tech innovations around the globe.
