Though technically not a serial killer, Ed Gein’s legacy has inspired horror movies like Silence of the Lambs, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Psycho. Most famous for both his unhealthy relationship with his mother and his propensity for exhuming graves and creating household items out of human body parts (human skin lamp shades, nipple belts, skull bowls), Gein was also guilty of the murders of at least two women, Mary Hogan and Bernice Worden, and possibly his brother. He was found unfit to stand trial and was sent to a mental health facility.

Gein died in July of 1984, at the Mendota Mental Health Institute at the age of 77 from secondary lung cancer. He was buried at the Plainfield cemetery with his other deceased family members. Over time, people chipped away pieces of the gravestone for souvenirs and the full stone was stolen in 2000. Found near Seattle, it now resides in storage at the Waushara County Sheriff’s office. Gein’s grave remains unmarked, but is between his parents' and brother’s grave sites.

It's certainly strange that these people who have grown to almost mythic proportions, that become our physical symbols of evil, leave behind a body just like any regular human being. And that’s the thing—these people are people. They had loved ones, sometimes; they had childhoods and jobs and relationships. Whether their bodies are simply cremated or buried, marked modestly with graves that will be picked apart by a darker kind of tourist, or studied by doctors who believe they might be able to find a link between violent behavior and brain chemistry, they remain in our imaginations like ghosts that will never leave.