The so-called Butcher of Plainfield, Ed Gein, comes to life in Ryan Murphy’s Netflix contribution, where Charlie Hunnam becomes part of a grim picture to induce horror—but not everything in the series is true.
Gein was born in the early 1900s and was thought of as a quiet Wisconsin farmer as an adult, until he was arrested in 1957 for the shooting of local hardware owner Bernice Worden.
Highlights
- Netflix series Monster: The Ed Gein Story adds crimes with no evidence
- No proof Gein took his brother’s life, wrote to Richard Speck, or had an accomplice
- FBI agent said Gein was too psychotic to speak—let alone help catch Ted Bundy
While he would later admit to taking another woman’s life, these were the only slayings authorities could pin on him.
Unlike what Netflix’s Monster: The Ed Gein Story suggests, Gein was not responsible for the following crimes and associations:
1. Ed Gein had no accomplices
Image credits: Bettmann Archive/Getty Images / Netflix
One aspect of the series, fabricated for heightened drama, is the portrayal of Adeline Watkins (played by Suzanna Son) as his accomplice and partner in crime.
The woman who initially described her interaction with Gein as a “20-year relationship” allegedly turned down his bid for marriage in 1955.
Speaking to the Minneapolis Tribune after he was captured, she described the man as being so “nice about doing things I wanted to do that sometimes I felt I was taking advantage of him.”
Image credits: Netflix
She would double back on this statement later, and limit herself to “quiet and polite” in her description of him, denying her previous assessment and rubbishing her earlier account of said 20-year relationship.
“There was no 20-year romance,” she told the outlet.
2. He came from a religious background and explained that that was the reason he was not romantically involved with Bernice Worden
Image credits: Netflix
The series’ producers try to create a context for Gein taking the life of Bernice Worden, the store owner, by suggesting that the two were intimately involved.
But Gein, while willing to admit firing the fatal shot, denied any intimacy with Worden, citing his religious upbringing.
But Gein, while willing to admit firing the fatal shot, denied any intimacy with Worden, citing his religious upbringing.
3. Neither is a there proof that Ed Gein took his brother’s life
Image credits: Bettmann Archive/Getty Images / Netflix
Murphy writes a scene into the story in which Gein strikes his brother, Henry (Hudson Oz), over the head and then ultimately burns him.
The real story, at least according to Ed, was that Henry had succumbed while they were fighting a bushfire.
A post-mortem on Henry showed signs of the usual asphyxiation associated with fire-related fatalities, while investigators of that era were unable to disprove Ed’s claims.
4. Evelyn had been missing for four years before Gein was arrested, and police favored him as the prime suspect
Image credits: Netflix
After he was arrested, Gein became the prime suspect in the 1953 disappearance of a 15-year-old girl, Evelyn Hartley.
The Netflix show paints a picture of a man obsessed with the minor (portrayed by Addison Rae), whom he eventually kidnaps and slays.
Police tried him for the disappearance, and even put gave him a lie detector test, but could not prove he was responsible for Hartley’s disappearance.
5. There is no record of Gein writing to Richard ‘Birdman’ Speck
Image credits: Chicago Police Department
The series depicts Richard ‘Birdman’ Speck, a man who took the lives of eight nurses, as idolizing Gein to the point that he wrote him letters after Gein was interned at a psychiatric facility.
In the final episode of the show, Speck can be heard saying of Gein: “[He is] who I wanted to be, and he’s who I became.”
People reported that there is no evidence that the two had communicated and recalled the serial slayer telling the Chicago Tribune in 1978: “I’m not like [John] Dillinger or anybody else. I'm freakish.”
6. Ed Gein could barely speak when he was visited in prison by an FBI agent, let alone assist in Ted Bundy’s capture
Image credits: State Library and Archives of Florida
Another aspect of Gein’s story obfuscated by the production was his purported contribution to the arrest of Ted Bundy, who was blamed for attacking and ending the lives of dozens of young nurses between 1974 and 1978.
While the part about an investigator visiting Gein while he was serving out a life sentence at the Mendota State Mental Institution in Wisconsin was true, FBI agent John Douglas claimed speaking to him proved futile.
“I had the opportunity to briefly meet him, but Gein was so psychotic that it really wasn’t much of an interview,” Douglas was quoted as saying on Flashback Files.
Ed Gein spent the rest of his life in an asylum
Image credits: Bettmann Archive/Getty Images
Edward Theodore Gein, who expired at the Mendota facility at the age of 77 in 1984, would have been a run-of-the-mill criminal who just happened to take the lives of two women.
But it was the discovery that he robbed graves and used human remains to fashion pieces of furniture that made him a salient feature in America’s history, alongside the likes of the aforementioned Bundy and Speck.
Image credits: Netflix
After his arrest, he was found to be severely psychotic—so much so that he was deemed unfit for trial and thus sent straight to a mental facility.
In 1968, a judgment was passed declaring him fit for trial. Though he was found guilty, it was decided he could not serve time in a regular prison and he was committed to the Mendota psychiatric facility for the rest of his life.
Netizens feel the series postures Ed Gein as a victim and is disrespectful to those whose lives he took
