why did ed gein kill

Ed Gein killed due to a deeply disturbed psychological state shaped by his traumatic upbringing, especially his abusive and religiously domineering mother. His intense attachment to his mother and her death left him emotionally deranged. He sought to "become" or resurrect his mother by exhuming corpses to make masks and body suits from human skin and murdered at least two women who resembled her to obtain body parts for this purpose. His schizophrenia and sense of loneliness drove him to commit these murders and grave robbing as a way to fulfill his delusional need to keep his mother alive or embody her, deeply entangled with his sense of identity and mental illness. He was ruled legally insane and spent the rest of his life institutionalized, never fully conscious of the gravity of his crimes in typical terms.