Ed Gein and the Killers Who Followed
Gein’s crimes shocked America long before Bundy came onto the scene. Born in 1906 in Plainfield, Wis., Gein was raised by a conservative, deeply religious mother. In 1957, after the disappearance of local hardware store owner Bernice Worden, police searched Gein’s farmhouse and discovered mutilated body parts, furniture upholstered with human skin and masks made from skulls. Investigators later determined that Gein had exhumed bodies from local cemeteries, in addition to murdering Worden and at least one other woman, Mary Hogan.
Gein was diagnosed with schizophrenia and sentenced to psychiatric hospitalization in Wisconsin, where he remained until his death in 1984. His crimes never extended beyond the 1950s, but his legacy lives on in pop culture, serving as the inspiration for characters in Psycho, The Silence of the Lambs and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. But by the time Bundy was active in the 1970s, Gein had been confined for nearly two decades, stoking serious doubt into any real-world involvement between the cases.
Ted Bundy’s Charm vs. Ed Gein’s Compulsions
Bundy came to notoriety in the 1970s as one of the most prolific serial killers in American history. Handsome and outwardly charismatic, Bundy used deception, often feigning injury or impersonating authority figures to lure young women to their deaths. His killing spree spanned multiple states, including Washington, Oregon, Utah, Colorado and Florida. Investigators believe he murdered at least 30 women.
Bundy was first arrested in Utah in 1975 for burglary and kidnapping. Investigators then began to connect him to a string of disappearances, aided by a victim who managed to escape and later identified him. Though Bundy was able to escape custody twice—once by jumping out of a courthouse window in Colorado and later by breaking out of a jail cell—his run ended in February 1978 in Florida. Weeks earlier, he’d murdered two sorority women at Florida State University before being pulled over in a stolen car. Inside, police found burglary tools such as a crowbar and face mask. Bundy was eventually convicted in July 1979 of two murders and three attempted murders and sentenced to death. He was executed in 1989.
The Myth of Ed Gein and Ted Bundy
In Monster: The Ed Gein Story, real-life FBI profilers John Douglas and Robert Ressler visit Gein in a psychiatric ward, hoping to use his insights to anticipate Bundy’s behavior. But there’s no evidence such a meeting ever took place. In fact, both Douglas and Ressler have published extensive accounts of their work in profiling, including interactions with killers like Bundy, and Gein’s name does not appear in them, with one exception: Douglas interviewed Gein earlier in his career, unrelated to Bundy, but said he was “so psychotic that it really wasn’t much of an interview.” Media accounts further note that the scene in Monster is purely fictional.
In the show, Gein’s perception that he helped nail down Bundy is purely a work of his schizophrenic delusion, not connected to any real-life meeting or investigation. Gein and Bundy are two of the most infamous names in American crime, but their connection exists only in fiction. By the time Bundy’s crimes escalated, Gein had long been sent to a mental facility. So no, Gein did not help catch Bundy; all that credit goes to law enforcement professionals.
