Ed Gein spent the rest of his life in Wisconsin mental hospitals after confessing to a pair of murders in 1957, but did he commit another murder while in the hospital?
In the Netflix series Monster: The Ed Gein Story, Gein, played by Charlie Hunnam, has a fatal encounter with a nurse at one of the mental hospitals where he is being held.
Did this really happen or is this another fictional deviation from Gein's story in the series?
Here's what you need to know.
What happens between Ed Gein and the nurse in Monster?
In the seventh of the show's eight episodes, Gein is shown dressing in women's underwear while in a mental hospital.
A new head nurse named Roz Mahoney, played by Linda Reuter, tells Gein on her first day that there will be no more cross-dressing. Gein's life inspired the cross-dressing Norman Bates, played by Anthony Perkins, in horror classic “Psycho”“
“You, sir, are the most notorious killer since Jack the Ripper, so I intend to treat you as such,” Mahoney says. “Wherever you go, you will be accompanied by staff.”
She also calls him “smart” rather than “crazy” and calls him a “liar” when he says he would never hurt her.
Gein is later shown brutally killing Mahoney with a chainsaw. Gein was never known to have used it against the two women he confessed to killing, but it is called inspiration for the iconic horror character Leatherface in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
However, after the nurse's murder scene, Gein wakes up and realizes that Mahoney is alive.
Her murder was just a violent hallucination that caused Gein to have a nervous breakdown.
Gein has been diagnosed with schizophrenia. and began taking medication under Mahoney's guidance.
Did Ed Gein really kill a nurse in a mental hospital?
No, Gein was committed to the Central State Hospital for the Criminally Insane in Wisconsin and then to Mendota State Hospital in the same state. He was 51 when he confessed to his crimes and spent the next 26 years living in two hospitals.
Gein pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity after being charged with first-degree murder.
It's true that Gein was diagnosed with schizophrenia. and suffered from hallucinations, according to a letter released Dec. 19, 1957, by Central State Hospital officials after interrogating Gein.
“It was determined that Mr. Gein had been suffering from a schizophrenic process for an undetermined number of years and that this schizophrenic process was manifested by delusional thinking,” the report said.
“He stated that his actions were the result of some external force acting on him and that he was chosen as an instrument of God to carry out the actions that were ordained,” the report said. “There have been at least several cases of olfactory, auditory and possibly visual hallucinations over the past 12 years.”
The letter recommended that Gein be admitted to the Central State Hospital as “insane.”
No incidents were reported during Gein's stay at several mental institutions. He died in 1984 at age 77 while living at the Mendota Mental Health Institute.
