Ed Gein was an American murderer and body snatcher. Gein's crimes, committed around his hometown of Plainfield, Wisconsin, gathered widespread notoriety in 1957 after authorities discovered he had exhumed corpses from local graveyards and fashioned trophies and keepsakes from their bones and skin. Gein also confessed to killing two women: tavern owner Mary Hogan in 1954 and hardware store owner Bernice Worden in 1957.

Gein's story has had a lasting effect on American popular culture as evident by its numerous appearances in film, music and literature. The tale first came to widespread public attention in the fictionalized version presented by Robert Bloch in his 1959 suspense novel, Psycho. In addition to Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 film of Bloch's novel Gein's story was loosely adapted into numerous films, including Deranged (1974). Gein served as the inspiration for myriad fictional serial killers, most notably Norman Bates (Psycho), Leatherface (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre) and Buffalo Bill (The Silence of the Lambs).

Edward Gein, America's Most Bizarre Murderer is a book by Judge Robert H. Gollmar.