The third season of Netflix’s true crime anthology Monster dives into the life and crimes of serial killer and grave robber Ed Gein. The Wisconsin-born farmer gained national infamy in 1957 after police, investigating the disappearance of local store owner Bernice Worden, discovered her body — and the remains of nine others — inside his home. Many of those bodies had been exhumed and turned into grisly keepsakes, including lamps, bowls, and masks.

Gein ultimately confessed to one additional murder and was suspected in as many as seven others, including the deaths of his brother and a missing babysitter from a nearby town. Though never charged beyond the two murders, the horrifying details of his crimes turned him into a macabre household name. His story would go on to inspire some of horror’s most iconic villains: Norman Bates (Psycho), Leatherface (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre), and Buffalo Bill (The Silence of the Lambs). Gein was later convicted of first-degree murder but found legally insane, leading to his confinement to a series of mental institutions. He remained there for the rest of his life, passing away in 1984 at the age of 77 from lung cancer and respiratory failure.

Given America’s obsession with true crime, it was only a matter of time before Netflix — and producers Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan — turned their lens toward the man who inspired so many fictional monsters.

Released on Oct. 4, the new season has been met with largely unfavorable reviews. Critics have taken issue with its unfocused storytelling and what they describe as a grotesque, “pulpy and sloppy” portrayal of Gein’s crimes and personal life. The show also takes significant creative liberties, depicting graphic acts that Gein was accused of but never proven to have committed.

With Monster’s history of blurring fact and fiction in its dramatizations of real-life killers, the question remains: what’s true, and what’s invented, in the story of Ed Gein?

Who was Ed Gein?

Ed Gein was born in Plainfield, Wisconsin, in 1906, the youngest of two sons to George and Augusta Gein. According to Harold Schechter’s book Deviant, Augusta was a “devoutly — even fanatically — religious” woman who often preached to her sons about the evils of the world, particularly the corrupting influence of women. Schechter writes that Augusta viewed her husband as “feckless and worthless” and believed sex — indeed, the very act of it — was a “loathsome duty to be tolerated for the sake of procreation.” When she gave birth to Ed, her second child, and learned he was a boy, she reportedly “felt bitter and betrayed.” Determined to protect her sons from temptation and sin, she devoted herself to raising them into what she considered “good” men—at least as good as men could be in her eyes.

Growing up, Ed idolized his mother. “In his eyes, she was no less infallible than God,” Schechter writes. Other accounts describe George Gein as a violent alcoholic who regularly beat his sons, while Augusta was also known to physically harm and humiliate Ed.

The only time Ed left the family’s isolated farm was to attend school. Augusta used their remoteness to her advantage, keeping outside influences away and punishing Ed whenever he tried to befriend other children.

George Gein died of heart failure in 1940 at the age of 66. Four years later, Ed’s brother Henry died at 43, also from what was ruled heart failure—though the circumstances around his death remain murky (more on that later). The following year, Augusta suffered a stroke, leaving Ed to care for her. According to The Milwaukee Sentinel Journal, about a year later, Augusta suffered a second, fatal stroke after flying into a rage upon seeing a neighbor with a woman who wasn’t his wife.

After his parents’ deaths, Ed stayed on the farm and supported himself with odd jobs around town. During this period, as described in Laurence Rickels’ The Psycho Records, he began reading pulp magazines and lurid adventure stories — many focused on cannibalism and Nazi war crimes, particularly crimes committed by Ilsa Koch.

It’s unclear how Gein first encountered these materials or his connection to Koch, though Monster suggests he was introduced to them by a woman named Adeleine Watkins — a detail that, like much of the show, shouldn’t be taken as fact.

Who is Adeline Watkins?

Suzanna Son as Adeline Watkins.
Credit: Netflix

In Netflix’s Monster, Suzanne Son portrays Adeline Watkins, Gein’s love interest and the woman who introduces him to the lurid pulp magazines that supposedly inspired his later crimes. In reality, though, Watkins appears to have been nothing more than a longtime friend and neighbor.

In a 1957 interview with the Minneapolis Tribune (now the Wisconsin State Journal), Watkins — then 50 years old — claimed she had dated Gein for about 20 years. She described how the two would often go to movies and taverns together and shared a fondness for reading. In that same interview, Watkins reportedly called Gein “good and kind and sweet,” adding that he had once proposed marriage, but she turned him down.

However, just two weeks after the story was published, Watkins walked back much of what she had said. She told reporters that the article had exaggerated both the nature and duration of their relationship. While she confirmed she’d known Gein for more than two decades, she clarified that they had only been romantically involved for about a year. According to Watkins, during that brief time they dated, Gein would occasionally stop by her home (she claims to have never been to his home) and they’d go to shows at the theater. Watkins also denied ever describing Gein — or her mother’s opinion of him — as “sweet.”

Did Gein kill his brother?

While Ed Gein ultimately confessed to only two murders — Mary Hogan in 1954 and Bernice Worden in 1957 — the gruesome discovery of flesh lamps, masks, and other human remains led authorities to suspect him in several unsolved cases in the area. Gein denied any further killings, and lie detector tests at the time cleared him of additional charges — though, as always, the reliability of polygraph results is questionable.

Netflix’s version of Gein, however, takes a different stance. The series implies he was also responsible for the deaths of local babysitter Evelyn Grace Hartley (portrayed by Addison Rae), a deer hunter named Victor Travis, and even his own brother.

As mentioned earlier, official records state that Gein’s brother, Henry, died at age 43 in 1944 from heart failure after going missing during a brush fire on the family farm. According to reports, Gein had been burning marshland when the flames spread out of control. After the fire was extinguished, he told firefighters that Henry was missing. They later found Henry lying face down, with no significant burns or visible injuries. Authorities ruled the death as heart failure, though many — including some investigators —found the circumstances suspicious.

Gein’s biographer, Schechter, later noted that Henry’s body was found with bruises on his head — an odd detail that didn’t align with the official story. Despite this, no autopsy was ever performed. The county coroner ultimately listed the cause of death as asphyxiation.

Adding to the mystery, although Gein told authorities his brother was missing, he led them straight to Henry’s body. While theories vary about what might have motivated him, most center on the brothers’ strained relationship over their mother. Henry reportedly wanted to leave the farm and move in with the woman he was dating — a plan that clashed with Gein’s deep, almost fanatical devotion to Augusta.