
Even among seasoned true-crime fans, the story of Ed Gein elicits shock.
Gein was 51 years old when, in 1957, he was revealed to have murdered two women and robbed multiple graves. Most notoriously, he collected and lived amongst body parts. His case is a regular subject in true-crime media, where his crimes and their echoes on popular culture (Gein was the inspiration behind Psycho’s Richard Bates and Texas Chainsaw Massacre’s Leatherface, among others) have long been examined.