Featured Image Credit: Netflix/Bettmann
Topics: Crime, Netflix, True Crime, Ed Gein
Jen Thomas
Netflix subscribers have been binge-watching Monster: The Ed Gein Story and have been left horrified by his crimes, with viewers now digging for more details on the real-life case.
Dubbed the 'Butcher of Plainfield', the killer and grave-robber is the latest subject of the controversial Ryan Murphy Monsters series, which has previously focused on Jeffrey Dahmer and the Menendez brothers.
Gein killed and desecrated the bodies of multiple women in the 1950s, with the murderer having served as inspiration for horror directors over the decades, as it was said he was the muse for the likes of The Silence of the Lambs, Psycho and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
Sons Of Anarchy star Charlie Hunnam plays Gein in the show, and people have been questioning how close to life it is, and what he really sounds like.
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Now, viewers can see the state of Gein's home themselves, thanks to horrifying photos of his living quarters in a state of squalor taken when police finally busted him for his crimes.
Gein admitted to killing two women, Mary Hogan in 1954 and hardware store owner Bernice Worden in 1957, as well as stealing corpses from graves.
Authorities eventually searched Gein's home after Worden went missing, and they found a receipt for a purchase Gein had made, along with blood.
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Upon searching his house and the surrounding outbuildings, they horrifyingly discovered her mutilated body.
They also found the body parts of several other victims, and he had made furniture and clothing out of human skin and other remains.
The horrid pictures also show rubbish and clutter on every visible surface of the property. Interestingly, Gein is said to have kept his mother's rooms boarded up and in pristine condition following her death.
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There's also a photo of the smouldering remains of the house after a fire, which had been described as a 'house of horrors' on a Wisconsin farm.
Gein's house and the surrounding outbuildings and land were appraised and scheduled for auction in March 1958; however, locals and relatives of the victims worried it would become a tourist attraction as his crimes gained notoriety.
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On 20 March 1958, the house caught fire and was completely destroyed.
Investigations found that cleaners has started a garbage fire some 23 metres away from the property with coals, but the fire didn't travel along the ground to the home.
Arson was suspected but the cause of the fire was never officially determined.
When Gein was told his house had burned to the ground, he apparently said "Just as well."
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It's believed that Gein committed the crimes due to his deep connection with his mother, and that he wanted to feel 'more like a woman' by wearing their skin.
It was also claimed that Gein's mother Augusta regularly told him that she wished she had a daughter and that she 'should have castrated [him] at birth,' Charlie Hunnam revealed to Tudum.
However, biographer Harold Schechter said when Ed's mother died he 'lost his only friend and one true love. And he was absolutely alone in the world.'
Gein was institutionalised for his crimes after being declared insane.
He was held in a psychiatric hospital until he died from lung cancer at the age of 77.
His gravestone was chipped away at with people taking pieces from it, before it was eventually removed entirely, and his grave was left unmarked.