Few true crime stories have cast as long a shadow over Hollywood as Ed Gein’s. The Wisconsin murderer and grave robber horrified the nation in the 1950s and went on to inspire some of the most iconic horror films ever made. Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) famously drew from Gein’s twisted crimes, transforming real-life terror into cinematic history. But Psycho was only the beginning.
Over the years, Gein’s disturbing legacy has continued to influence filmmakers, from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre to The Silence of the Lambs and, more recently, Netflix’s Monster: The Ed Gein Story. His name remains synonymous with the blurred line between fact and fiction in horror.
Below, learn how Psycho was inspired by Ed Gein, and see which other movies and TV shows were shaped by his chilling story.
Gein was an American murderer and grave robber from Plainfield, Wisconsin, whose gruesome crimes shocked the world in the 1950s. Born on August 27, 1906, Gein lived an isolated life under the strict control of his religious and abusive mother, Augusta Gein, who instilled in him a fear of women and sin.
After her death, Gein began robbing graves, exhuming bodies, and fashioning household items and clothing out of human remains. His deeply disturbed actions would later make him one of the most infamous figures in American criminal history.
On November 16, 1957, local hardware store owner Bernice Worden went missing in Plainfield, Wisconsin. Investigators traced her disappearance to Gein. When police searched his farmhouse, they uncovered Worden’s mutilated body, along with furniture, masks, and clothing made from human skin and bones. Gein admitted to killing two women—Worden and Mary Hogan, a tavern owner who vanished in 1954—as well as robbing graves for years.
In 1958, he was declared legally insane and committed to Central State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, later transferred to Mendota Mental Health Institute. He remained institutionalized for the rest of his life and died in 1984 at the age of 77 from respiratory failure due to cancer.
