Gein attracted the attention of the police in 1957, when a hardware store owner named Bernice Worden went missing. Gein had been seen with her shortly before her disappearance, and, when law enforcement officials visited his farm, they found her body. She had been fatally shot and decapitated. Subsequent examinations of his home showed that he had systematically robbed graves and collected body parts, which he used to make household items, clothing, and masks. Also discovered on the property was the head of Mary Hogan, a tavern operator who had disappeared in 1954. In 1958 Gein’s “house of horrors” was destroyed by fire, the origins of which remain unclear
