I just reread Evelyn's charleyproject page and, while we all seem to agree that Ed Gein had nothing to do with it, really thinking about it...it is so so ironic that he just happened to be right there and is a giant creeper.
I go back and forth with the Gein thing, so Im not sure what I think, a lot of people think this wasnt his normal type of crime but if he was responsible for this it would have been during the 'learning' stage of killing. Some interesting facts:
1) Some of Evelyns clothes were found in a cemetery; Gein later confessed that he often (50+ times) would go to grave yards because he wanted to dig up graves. "On about 30 of those visits, he said he had come out of the daze while in the cemetery, left the grave in good order, and returned home
empty handed. Also, there were three cemeteries less than a mile from the home she was taken.
2) The jacket that was found is very much similar to the type of jacket that Gein ALWAYS wore.
Here is a photo of the jacket found and
here,
here and
here are photos of him in the similar jacket. Jeans werent really popular until the late 50s (early 60s) yet the person that did this seems to have been wearing a denim jacket and denim 'trousers' - Just like Gein often did, as seen
here.
3) Gein was small enough to get into the basement window with no problem, but also small enough that Evelyn could have gotten away from him in the struggle upstairs, allowing her to run out of the home before he caught her. (She was 3 inches taller than him). Just a random fact - Gein was frequently a babysitter for his neighbors and everyone considered him trustworthy.
As far as Evelyn not matching his typical MO its worth note that it seems that he had a psychotic break mid May, 1944. Until this time he hadnt harmed anyone.. His brother started to go against their mothers view and mocking Ed for how close he was to his mother. On May 16th his brother was killed, people commonly agree that Ed killed him.. The murdering of his brother could have set him into motion as a killer.
It doesnt seem unthinkable that Evelyn could have been his first (or near the first) person he killed, only deciding afterwards that it was too messy (or risky)for his liking so moved onto already dead bodies, and what better place to do so than a place where nobody knows him? The town he was from was tiny (in 2000 - 899 people) so of course he wouldnt practice there.