“Monster: The Ed Gein Story” Is Based On True Events, So Here Are 19 Real Facts About Ed Gein

If you’ve been on Netflix recently, you’ve probably noticed there’s a new #1 show in the US. Monster: The Ed Gein Story is the third season in Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan’s anthology series, and another true crime show garnering widespread attention.

The first season followed Jeffrey Dahmer, while the second season followed Lyle and Erik Menendez.

The fourth season has already been greenlit by Netflix as well. It will follow Lizzie Borden.

Starring Charlie Hunnam, the series is set in 1950s rural Wisconsin, where recluse Eddie Gein (Hunnam) lives on a decaying farm, hiding in a house of horrors. Driven by isolation and an all-consuming obsession with his mother (Laurie Metcalf), Gein’s crimes would become so renowned that they would birth countless fictional monsters and stories such as Psycho, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and The Silence of the Lambs.

So because Monster: The Ed Gein Story is based on real people and a real case, here are 19 facts about Ed Gein and what exactly happened:

There are obviously major spoilers ahead for Monster: The Ed Gein Story on Netflix.

This post contains mentions of murder, necrophilia, and more.

1. First, Ed Gein was born in 1906 in La Crosse County, Wisconsin, to parents George Philip Gein and Augusta Wilhelmine Gein. He had one older brother named Henry. The Gein family owned a 155-acre farm in Plainfield, Wisconsin, where Ed grew up and lived until his arrest in 1957. Augusta was very religious and was described as “nominally Lutheran.” She was said to have isolated her children and encouraged Ed to stay on the farm and not make friends, especially with women.

Netflix, Edward Kitch / Associated Press

According to Fiendish Killers: Perpetrators of the Worst Possible Evil, Augusta reportedly spent every afternoon reading to Ed and Henry from the Bible, namely passages from the Old Testament and Book of Revelation that dealt with death, murder, and divine retribution.

2. Following his father’s death from heart failure in 1940, Gein’s brother, Henry, died under mysterious circumstances in 1944. After a brush fire grew out of control on the family’s farm, the local fire department came to put out the fire. Then, Gein reported his brother missing. Local law enforcement eventually found Henry’s body, with the coroner ruling he died by asphyxiation. It was eventually reported by the Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune that he died of a heart attack “trying to protect his farm from the ravages of a grass and brush fire.”

It was later reported that Henry apparently had bruises on his head.

While Monster: The Ed Gein Story depicts Gein killing his brother by striking him, dragging his body to the woods, and starting the brush fire to explain Henry’s death, in real life, police reportedly dismissed foul play, and no official investigation or autopsy was performed. Ed never confessed to his brother’s death.

3. After his father’s and brother’s deaths, Gein became the sole caregiver for his mother, Augusta, after she had a stroke. In 1945, Augusta died at the age of 67, leaving Ed totally alone. In his book, Deviant: The Shocking True Story of Ed Gein. The Original ‘Psycho,’ author Harold Schechter wrote, “He lost his only friend and one true love. And he was absolutely alone in the world.”

According to Case File: Ed Gein, following Augusta’s death, Gein closed off his mother’s bedroom and other areas of the house, reportedly leaving them exactly as she had left them.

4. Gein began taking “odd jobs” in town after Augusta’s death, which allowed him to venture outside of his family’s farm. He reportedly worked as a handyman and occasionally babysat for local children, which is depicted in the Netflix series. There is no evidence to suggest Gein ever took these children to his home; however, in 1947, eight-year-old Georgia Weckler disappeared from her home and was never found. Witnesses reported seeing a dark Ford sedan in the area, and the only evidence found by police was tire tracks.

Apparently, Gein was known to have driven a maroon Ford sedan.

5. Relatedly, in 1953, 14-year-old Evelyn Grace Hartley also disappeared from La Crosse, Wisconsin. There were reportedly indications of forced entry at the home she was babysitting at, with authorities believing Hartley was dragged through the yard by her abductor. Her body was never found, except for her bra and underwear. After his arrest, Gein was considered a suspect; however, he reportedly denied involvement. Hartley’s disappearance and kidnapping led to one of the biggest searches in the history of Wisconsin.

According to The Charley Project, which profiles over 16,000 cold case missing people from mostly the United States, a neighbor reported seeing a “light-colored car circling the neighborhood,” while another reported hearing screams.

6. Two local men, Victor Travis and Ray Burgess, also went missing in 1952 after they were seen drinking at a local bar. They were never found again, and their case remains unsolved to this day. Travis and Burgess were two other disappearances that many speculate Gein had something to do with, but it was never proven.

In Monster: The Ed Gein Story, the show depicts Gein brutally killing a pair of men with a chainsaw. However, the scene is just speculation, and there’s no real evidence to support this.

7. After his mother’s death, it is reported that Gein began reading books about human anatomy, taxidermy, cannibalism, and more. The Netflix series heavily leans into reports that Gein became obsessed with German war criminal Ilse Koch, who had ties to the Nazis. Nicknamed the “Witch of Buchenwald,” Koch reportedly made lampshades, book covers, gloves, and more from the skin of tattooed camp prisoners.

Koch was tried for crimes against humanity at Nuremberg and was later sentenced to life in prison. She died by suicide in 1967.

In real life, Gein never publicly mentioned Koch, so it’s unclear how much of her trial and story influenced him.

8. In 1957, Plainfield Deputy Sheriff Frank Worden reported his mother, hardware store owner Bernice Worden, missing after searching her store and finding blood on the floor and the cash register open. At the time, Time Magazine reported that Gein went into Worden’s store and shot and killed her with a .22 rifle. While investigating her store, police apparently found a receipt for antifreeze made out to Gein, which was the final sale Worden made.

Netflix, Bettmann / Bettmann Archive / Getty Images

Netflix’s series about Gein depicts that he had a growing relationship with Worden prior to killing her; however, there is no evidence to suggest that they had any type of relationship. While detained at Central State Hospital following his arrest, Ed reportedly had told doctors he never had a sexual experience.

9. According to Time Magazine in 1957, when police arrived at Gein’s farmhouse, they “found a chamber of horrors.” Time wrote, “Bernice Worden’s body was strung up by the heels in a summer kitchen. It had been eviscerated and dressed out like a deer. Her severed head was in a cardboard box, her heart in a plastic bag on the stove.”

When asked about her murder, Gein reportedly said, “I was sort of in a daze-like.”

10. While Monster: The Ed Gein Story depicts necrophilia between Gein and one of his victims, there is no evidence to suggest this, with Gein reportedly denying he ever did so because he didn’t like the smell of the dead bodies, saying, “They smelled too bad.” As reported by Time in 1957, Gein apparently didn’t practice cannibalism or necrophilia, “but preserved the remains just to look at.”

11. After finding Worden’s body, police searched the rest of Gein’s farm, where they found a disturbing number of body parts, which reportedly included, according to Time Magazine, “ten skins of human heads, neatly seperated from the skull; assorted pieces of human skin, some between the pages of magazines, some made into small belts, some used to upholster chair seats (th largest piece, rolled up on the floor, was the front upper section of a woman’s torso); a box of noses.”

Other reports, like in Edward Gein: America’s Most Bizarre Murderer, police apparently also found: A corset made from a female torso, leggings made from human skin, nine vulvae in a shoebox, a belt made of female nipples, a lampshade made from the skin of a human face, and many more horrific discoveries.

12. While investigating the home, police also discovered the remains of Mary Hogan, a tavern operator who had disappeared in 1954. Namely, her head was found, reportedly her skull, and then her face had been turned into a mask. Apparently, both Worden and Hogan resembled Gein’s mother. The details of Gein’s murders, his facination with his mother, and the horrors found in his house became the inspiration for movies like Psycho and The Silence of the Lambs.

13. As for the other body parts found that did not belong to Hogan or Worden, Gein admitted during a lie detector test that he had visited local graveyards in a “daze-like” state over the years and exhumed bodies of recently buried middle-aged women. He said he robbed the graves of at least nine women. At the time, Waushara County authorities reopened two graves in Plainfield Cemetery to check Gein’s story. When the women’s caskets were opened, the coffins were empty, with the grave of Eleanore Adams also including “a few bones and a small prying bar.”

In an article in the Warsaw Times newspaper in 1957, District Attorney Earl Kileen said, “As far as I am concerned, the opening of these two graves verified Gein’s story. I won’t open any more if I can help it.”

14. Gein confessed to the murders of Worden and Hogan. In November 1957, Gein entered “a plea of innocent by reason of insanity” when he was arraigned on a first-degree murder charge in Waushara County, according to a local newspaper. He was later diagnosed with schizophrenia, which ruled him unfit for a trial. He was committed to Wisconsin’s Central State Hospital for observation and treatment.

In an interview with Time in 1957, Dr. Edward Kelleher, the then-head of Chicago’s Municipal Court Psychiatric Institute, called Gein schizophrenic and considered his case “unparalleled in modern history.”

15. Gein’s trial began on Nov. 7, 1968, and lasted a week, which was after doctors reportedly determined that he was “mentally able to confer with counsel and participate in his defense.” The trial was held without a jury, and he was found guilty of first-degree murder in Bernice Worden’s death. However, during his second trial, the judge ruled he was “not guilty by reason of insanity,” and he was committed to Central State Hospital. He was later transferred to Mendota Mental Institute in Madison, WI.

During the trial in 1968, Gein claimed that he didn’t aim a rifle at Worden and that he didn’t remember anything that happened the morning of her death.

According to Edward Gein: America’s Most Bizarre Murderer, he was only tried for Worden’s murder due to “prohibitive costs,” even though he had admitted to killing Mary Hogan.

16. In 1957, after Gein’s arrest, Adeline Watkins claimed to the Minneapolis Tribune that she and Gein had dated for 20 years, and described him as “good and kind and sweet.” She told the Tribune, “I loved him and I still do,” and they reportedly had their last date in February 1955 when he proposed, with Watkins saying, “Not in so many words, but I knew what he meant.” She said they used to talk about books and would discuss murder, adding, “I guess we discussed every murder we ever heard about. Eddie told how the murderer did wrong, what mistakes he had made. I thought it was interesting.”

Netflix, Bettmann / Bettmann Archive / Getty Images

Watskins’ mother, with whom she lived with, also described Gein to the Minneapolis Tribune, calling him a “sweet, polite man.”

17. Following Gein’s arrest, his house, other buildings, and the 195 acres were appraised for a reported $4,700 at the time, and were set to be auctioned off on March 30, 1958. However, on the morning of March 20, the house was destroyed by a fire. In a newspaper article, the fire marshal said he found “hot coals buried in the two-foot high pile of ashes left by a bonfire” that was reported to have been started by a cleaning crew disposing of trash. While arson was suspected, the cause of the fire was reportedly never officially determined.

At the time, community leaders in Plainfield “denounced” the sale of Gein’s home and property as “commercialism of Gein’s crimes.”

18. Gein notably used his 1949 Ford sedan to move his bodies back to his farm. After his arrest, the car was auctioned for $760 at the time to Bunny Gibbons, a carnival owner from Illinois. Then, Gibbons toured the car around the Midwest, calling the attraction “Ed Gein Ghoul Car.” It cost 25 cents to see the car, and Gibbons reportedly had more than 2,000 paying customers in July 1958.

Eventually, interest in the car waned, and Gibbons returned with it to Illinois. According to WTVO Rockford, no public records indicate where the car ultimately ended up, and Gibbons never revealed its location either.

19. And finally, Gein remained at Mendota Mental Institute until his death in 1984, where he died from respiratory failure related to lung cancer. He was buried in Plainfield Cemetery at his family’s plot next to his mother and brother. However, visitors began taking pieces of his headstone as souvenirs, with the cemetery unable to maintain the site. In 2000, his headstone was stolen altogether, and it was never found or returned, so his grave remains unmarked.

In 2000, the NY Post reported, “Investigators are looking at occult groups who worship the devil as possible culprits” for who could’ve stolen Gein’s headstone from the cemetary.

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