Serial killers are no strangers to getting the Netflix treatment – and Ed Gein is next to take his turn in the spotlight. The subject of the next Monster instalment, the Ryan Murphy series which has previously focused on the stories of Jeffrey Dahmer and the Menendez brothers, is set to be the most harrowing yet. 

Released on Netflix today (3 October 2025), Charlie Hunnam plays Gein – the Wisconsin murderer whose crimes have inspired disturbing (but thankfully fictional) characters such as Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs and Leatherface in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Best known for his role as the rough-around-the-edges heartthrob Jax Teller in Sons of Anarchy, it was quite the tall order for Hunnam to portray the ‘Butcher of Plainfield’, but he was determined to tell Gein’s story as accurately as possible. He told Tudum: “I wanted to get as close as possible to who Ed was, to do him justice, and for this thing to feel authentic. 

“This is going to be the really human, tender, unflinching, no-holds-barred exploration of who Ed was and what he did. But who he was being at the centre of it, rather than what he did.”

Born in 1906 in Plainfield, Wisconsin, to an alcoholic father and radically religious Lutheran mother, Gein grew up on a rural farm with his older brother Henry. Their mother regularly preached to them about the temptations of the devil and rarely let them out of her sight to ensure they didn’t sin. The brothers only left the house to go to school, where Gein’s lazy eye and slow speech attracted bullies. 

His childhood certainly wasn’t a happy one – he and Henry were regularly abused by their father – but Gein idolised his mother. When his father died of a heart attack in 1940, it was Gein and Henry who had to work the farm, and the first harrowing event in Gein’s abhorrent life came when Henry died in a fire. Around the same time, Gein learned of his brother’s relationship with a divorced mother and his plans to ask her to move to the farm. Henry was found face down and it was ruled that he died of asphyxiation – years later, however, questions arose about whether Gein was responsible for his brother’s death.  

Gein lived peacefully with his mother for a few years until she suffered a series of strokes, which eventually killed her, in 1945. He remained living at the family home, boarding up his mother’s room and leaving it completely untouched while the rest of the property went to rack and ruin. Her death, however, marks a turning point in Gein’s story; it was something he would never recover from and ultimately kickstarted his slew of dreadful crimes. 

While Gein was living alone, he allegedly became obsessed with human anatomy, cannibalism and Nazi war crimes, leading him to regularly rob graves and exhume the bodies of women who bore any resemblance to his mother. In 1954, local tavern keeper Mary Hogan went missing, but no one suspected Gein. His neighbours reportedly thought he was harmless, if a little eccentric, and just a man who kept himself to himself. 

Things changed three years later when Bernice Worden vanished from her Plainfield hardware store. Her son, who happened to be the town’s deputy sheriff, reported her missing and all clues led to Gein. Worden’s blood was found on the floor of the shop and the till proved the last purchase rung through was Gein’s gallon of antifreeze. 

Upon arresting Gein and subsequently searching his home, the police discovered what can only be described as a real-life house of horrors. Many of the details are too graphic to report, but findings included skulls on bedposts, leggings made from human skin, Hogan’s skull in a box and Worden’s decapitated head in a sack. 

In preparation for taking on the role, Hunnam sifted through police archives and found a recording of Gein during a police interview. He told Tudum: “I was able to get access to the only known recording which was made two days after he was arrested. A lot of the musicality, and his inflection, and his choice of words, and where his energy sat, I was able to extract from it.”

Under questioning, Gein didn’t hold back. He admitted to killing both women because they resembled his mother and he wanted to create a ‘skin suit’ he could wear to, quite literally, become his mother. It soon became clear Gein didn’t just have two victims, but had killed a vast number of women and girls given the volume of bodies and bones found at his home. However, police could not find enough evidence to link him to other crimes, despite four other women being reported missing in the area. 

Gein was initially due to stand trial in 1957 at Waushara County Court before being diagnosed with schizophrenia and deemed mentally unfit. He was moved to the Central State Hospital for the Criminally Insane in Waupun, where he remained until 1968, when a one-week trial took place. He was found guilty of the murder of Worden but at the second trial for Hogan’s murder, the judge ruled he was “not guilty by reason of insanity” despite Gein admitting he had done it. 

Gein was recommitted to the same mental hospital, where he took up work as a mason and carpenter. He petitioned for release in 1974 but was rejected and, following a period of ill health, died in 1984 at the age of 77. 

Ed Gein, 51, leaves the Wisconsin State Crime Laboratory on 20 November 1957 after undergoing lie detector tests and intensive interrogation. He is accompanied by Waushara County Sheriff Arthur Schley (left) and Special Deputy Leon Murty (right). Image: Alamy

Ed Gein, 61, waits for the judge to call court to order in Wautoma, Wisconsin, on 22 January 1968. Image: AP Photo/Paul Shane/Alamy

Speaking to Tudum, screenwriter Ryan Murphy said: “[Gein] influenced some of the biggest serial killers of the 20^th century – which is another thing that I think people did not and do not know about him – Ted Bundy, and on and on and on.”

Co-creator Ian Brennan, who wrote every episode of the new Monster series, added: “I think this is the best season of the three, and I think it’s going to blow people’s socks off.” And, probably, give them nightmares. 

Monster: The Ed Gein Story is available to stream on Netflix now.

Read more: House of Guinness: The truth behind the family feud that shaped Ireland’s famous brewing dynasty