Ryan Murphy‘s Netflix series Monster has received backlash in the past for inaccuracies about its subjects — but what did the show get wrong about Ed Gein’s case?
The first season of the scripted true crime show debuted in 2022 and focused on Evan Peters’ portrayal of Jeffrey Dahmer. Monster, which also starred Niecy Nash, came under fire after the families of Dahmer’s victims revealed they weren’t consulted for the show.
Season 2 faced similar backlash after Erik Menendez slammed Murphy’s portrayal of him and brother Lyle Menendez. Murphy, however, stood by his work and even claimed that Monsters created renewed support in the Menendez case. While Erik and Lyle were denied their individual requests for parole, they later walked back their public criticism of the show outside of the incest insinuations.
Murphy ultimately chose Ed Gein as the subject for the show’s third installment. Played by Charlie Hunnam, the series focused on how Gein turned into a convicted murderer and suspected serial killer and grave robber. It also explored how Gein’s crimes helped true crime evolve into a pop culture phenomenon with projects such as Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Silence of the Lambs.
“This whole series, it turns the camera right on us,” showrunner Ian Brennan told Tudum in October 2025. “It really matters what you look at and the images and stories you consume. They do stick with you, and they do have an impact.”
Hunnam explained the main message of Monster, adding, “Who was the monster? This poor boy who was abused his whole life then left in total isolation, suffering from undiagnosed mental illness? Or the legion of people who sensationalized his life for entertainment and arguably darkened the American psyche and the global psyche in the process?”
But in order to highlight Gein’s crimes — and its influence on society — Monster made some changes.
Monster is currently streaming on Netflix. Keep scrolling for a breakdown of every inaccuracy or onscreen shift the show made in order to create the TV show:
Ed Killing His Brother
The season premiere shows Ed getting into a fight with brother Henry Gein (Hudson Oz) and hitting him in the head. Despite Henry’s 1944 death being an accident, Ed went to great lengths to cover it up and make it seem like his sibling was killed in the aftermath of a brush fire.
Henry’s official cause of death was asphyxiation leading to heart failure. He did have bruises on his head but no autopsy was performed and officials didn’t consider foul play until Ed was arrested in 1957.
Ed, who found his brother’s body at the time, didn’t confess to being involved in Henry’s death — while Monster made the claim that he was definitely at fault.
The Existence of Adeline Watkins
Throughout the season, Ed was involved with neighbor Adeline Watkins (Suzanna Son) and the couple even got engaged. They experienced ups and downs with Watkins making the move to New York before returning to Wisconsin but she ultimately didn’t remain with Ed. Watkins was the person who introduced Ed to grave robbing and knew about his murderous tendencies, which she publicly walked back in the show once he was caught.
The real Watkins clarified in an interview at the time that public claims of an alleged two-decade romance were wrong. She said they didn’t know each other until 1954 when Ed had already been involved in his concerning behavior. Watkins also claimed they were only in touch on occasion for a prior of seven months but she never visited his home or knew about the crimes.
Brennan told Tudum that the show used the real Watkins as a jumping off point.
“[What] we do know is that she came out at first talking about how they were an item, and they were going to get married,” he added. “And then she came out like, ‘No, I made that all up.’”
Hunnam and the rest of the writers’ room told Tudum they were divided on whether Watkins truly existed in the context of the show or whether it was a figment of Ed’s imagination meant to drive his story on screen.
Various Other Crimes
In real life, Ed confessed to killing two women: tavern owner Mary Hogan in 1954 and hardware store owner Bernice Worden in 1957. It has been suspected that Ed was involved in multiple other crimes around his Plainfield, Wisconsin, hometown. (Ed also admitted to exhuming multiple graves and fashioned grotesque keepsakes out of the bodies.)
Netflix’s Monster explored Ed’s potential crimes more by showing a traumatic babysitting gig that ended with him taking the children into his house of horrors. He then murdered their usual babysitter Evelyn (Addison Rae), which veered more into fictional territory although Rae did play a real woman whose death went unsolved named Evelyn Hartley. There were also hunters Victor Travis and Raymond Burgess that did go missing at the same time.
His Interest in Ilse Koch
Much of Ed’s interest in skinning his victims allegedly came from exposure to Holocaust survival stories. The Netflix series specifically pointed to Ilse Koch — a real Holocaust war criminal — as Ed’s inspiration. While both Koch and Ed were notorious for creating furniture out of human body parts, there wasn’t concrete documentation that proved Ed pulled from Koch’s crimes.
Watkins, who introduced Ed to graphic Holocaust imagery, was meant to be the common thread between them, which on the show could have just been a way to connect certain plot lines.
The Use of a Chainsaw
Promotional footage and even a scene in the show connected Ed to a chainsaw. The real-life criminal shot his first victim and his second was dismembered — but without the use of a chainsaw. The addition was a nod since Ed inspired the killer in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
The Ham Radio
The real-life Ed was initially found unfit to stand trial and transferred to a mental health facility. In 1968 a judge found him competent to stand trial and Ed was found guilty of the murder of Worden. He was subsequently found legally insane and remained at a psychiatric institution until his death in 1984 at age 77 from respiratory failure resulting from lung cancer.
During his stay in a psychiatric institution, Ed did have access to a ham radio. But Monster featured several fantasies of Ed communicating with Koch and Christine Jorgensen (Alanna Darby), who was one of the first people to undergo sex reassignment surgery in the United States.
There hasn’t been any proof that Ed ever spoke with either Koch nor Jorgensen. Murphy and Brennan broke down the ham radio “gimmick,” telling Tudum, “[We thought,] this is a perfect way to dramatize his relationships with all of those women and have those conversations be the catalyst that led to his realization of who he was and what he did, and what their influence [was] on him.”
Details of Ed’s Crimes
After being arrested, Ed claimed he didn’t have sex with the bodies he exhumed because of the smell. Monster took a departure from that reporting by showing in explicit detail how Ed would sleep with corpses.
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