Ed Gein’s relationship with Adeline Watkins is at the center of “Monster: The Ed Gein Story,” but how much truth is it rooted in?
The series puts Gein (Charlie Hunnam) and Watkins’ (Suzanna Son) troubled coupling at the dead center in the early episode. Of course, with most Ryan Murphy shows based on real people and events, fact and fiction blend in the name of storytelling, so it can be tough to know just what is true.
Here is what happened between the couple in the show and what their relationship really looked like.
How was Ed Gein and Adeline Watkins’ relationship portrayed in the show?
Ed Gein and Adeline Watkins’ relationship in the show is depicted as quite serious. The two spend a significant amount of time together, and Gein even confided in her about his grave robbing. The two also bonded over macabre imagery, and Watkins photographed some of the bodies Gein procured.
The show also implied that Gein proposed to Watkins, which she turned down, and tried to move to New York City. When that went south, Watkins returned to Plainview and again tried to return to Gein, but in that time apart, he had turned to necrophilia – something the real killer denied doing because the stench of the bodies bothered him.
Did Ed Gein and Adeline Watkins date in real life?
Gein and Watkins did have a relationship in real life, but it was nowhere near as intense as the show depicts. After Gein was arrested, Watkins revealed to the Minneapolis Tribune that she had almost married him and that the two had a romance that lasted 20 years. She described him as “good and kind and sweet” and said they talked about books and “every murder that we ever heard about.” She also said it was her choice to end the relationship because she felt she was taking advantage of him.
“I turned him down, but not because there was anything wrong with him. It was something wrong with me,” Watkins said at the time. “I guess I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to live up to what he expected of me.”
In an interview with the Stevens Point Journal just two weeks after the one she gave to the Minneapolis Tribune, she walked back her initial recollection, saying her relationship with Gein “was blown up out of proportion to its importance ” and that her first interview contained untrue statements. She clarified that she’d known Gein for 20 years but only really began talking with him in 1954.
