The latest crime series, : The Ed Gein Story, which premieres on Netflix on October 3, draws its narrative from the infamous Ed Gein, who terrorized women in his hometown of Plainfield, Wisconsin, throughout the 1950s.
This is not the first instance of Gein being the subject of a Hollywood production. Films from (1960), (1974), and (1991) all derive elements from Gein’s narrative. Other notorious killers that have served as inspiration for Murphy’s prior Monster installments include and the .
Here’s what you should know about the murderer who influenced Murphy’s newest Netflix series.
A Difficult Childhood
A 1957 TIME magazine feature examines Gein’s peculiar upbringing, which occurred on a farmhouse in Plainfield, Wisconsin, lacking both electricity and plumbing. His mother instilled in him a hatred of women. During periods of heavy rainfall, she would read to her children the story of in the Bible, prophesying another flood that would cleanse the world of women’s transgressions.
Influenced by her, Gein avoided romantic relationships with women, preferring to dedicate his time to studying anatomy books. His mother’s passing in 1945 left him profoundly distressed.
Cemetery Desecration
In 1957, Gein, then 51, became the central figure in what TIME referred to as “one of the century’s most gruesome criminal cases,” pertaining to the murder of a sales clerk named Bernice Worden. Concurrently, Gein confessed to the killing of Mary Hogan, a divorced tavern-keeper who had disappeared three years prior. TIME documented the scene authorities discovered at Gein’s farmhouse:
“[P]olice unearthed a chamber of horrors. Bernice Worden’s body was hung by the heels in a summer kitchen. It had been disemboweled and prepared like a deer carcass. Her severed head was found in a cardboard box, her heart in a plastic bag resting on the stove. Throughout the residence, police also located: ten human head skins, meticulously removed from the skull; assorted fragments of human skin, some positioned between magazine pages, some crafted into small belts, and some utilized as upholstery for chair seats (the largest piece, coiled on the floor, was the upper front section of a woman’s torso); a box containing noses.”
TIME, 1957
Gein monitored the obituary section of newspapers to ascertain where to find recently interred bodies in the local cemetery. He desecrated graves—including the one adjacent to his mother’s—to acquire human remains, such as heads. On one occasion, he exhumed an entire female corpse. According to TIME, Gein was neither a cannibal nor a necrophiliac, but instead “preserved the remains merely for viewing.”
Gein maintained that he was in a daze when he committed murders and robbed graves. He was later diagnosed with schizophrenia. Psychiatrists at the time postulated that he dismembered women who reminded him of his deceased mother, preserving parts of them both “to resurrect her and keep her perpetually by his side, and to obliterate her as the source of his profound frustration,” as reported by TIME.
Owing to his mental illness, Gein pleaded not guilty to the two killings, citing insanity. He remained institutionalized in psychiatric hospitals until his death in 1984, at the age of 77.
