Swagatalakshmi Roychowdhury
Monster: The Ed Gein Story
It is the third season of the American biographical crime drama anthology series Monster which draws on the life and crimes of serial killer Ed Gein. Here's some fascinating and horrifying details about the 1906-born real-life Ed:
Sexual attraction to his mother
Ed Gein is widely said to have had an Oedipal relationship with his mother, Augusta, who controlled him from childhood and abused him all his life. However, unlike his brother who was able to leave their farm and detach from his mother, Ed was not.
Woman 'skin suit' was found at his Wisconsin house
He stitched up a suit from the corpses of women he dug up from graveyards. Ed was morbidly fascinated by German war criminal Ilse Koch, who had been accused of selecting tattooed prisoners for death in order to fashion lampshades and other items from their skins.
'Nipple' belt
A belt made from human nipples was among the horrifying items found inside Ed Gein's farmhouse in 1957. It is as gruesome as it gets.
Ed Gein may have had a girlfriend
After Ed's arrest in 1957, a 50-year-old woman named Adeline Watkins came forward to claim that she had dated the "good and kind and sweet" man for over two decades, but denied stating the same after those words were published by the media.
Ed was only tried for one murder
Ed Gein admitted to killing only two women. However, he spent his life in a mental hospital (and not a jail) since he was never convicted.