Ed Gein led a reclusive life inside a cluttered house on a farm in rural Plainfield, Wisconsin, in the 1950s. It was a house of horrors.
Authorities later determined that Gein's house was filled with macabre trophies from his penchant for robbing graves, generally of women who resembled his deceased mother. He also murdered two local women.
"He made chairs and lamp shades out of human skin which he carefully tanned for that purpose," the judge at the time, Robert H. Gollmar, said, according to the Wisconsin Historical Society.
Gein is now the subject of a Ryan Murphy Netflix series called Monster: The Ed Gein Story.
There are photos on Getty Images from the 1950s that show the crime scene, giving viewers a peek inside of Gein's real farmhouse. The Wisconsin Historical Society's website also contains photos of Gein and his house.
The caption of the Getty Images crime scene photo above reads, "Unidentified police officer examines the junk-littered kitchen in the farm home of Edward Gein, where authorities found human skulls and other parts of human bodies. They also found the butchered body of Mrs. Bernice Worden hung in a shed near the house."
"After Gein was transferred to the Central State Hospital for the Criminally Insane his farm was sold. There was a rumor that his home was to become a tourist attraction. Shortly after this was reported, the home caught fire one night and burned to the ground," Gollmar wrote. Here is the farmhouse before it was destroyed, per Getty Images:
The Wisconsin Historical Society website contains a photo showing an auction advertisement for Gein's farm. There is also a photo showing authorities escorting Gein. Another picture shows Gein signing paperwork when he was brought in for a lie detector test.
The Getty Images caption for the photo below says, "Trooper Dave Sharkey looks over some of the musical instruments found in the home of bachelor farmer Ed Gein, 51, suspected grave robber and murderer. Also found in the house were human skulls, heads, death masks and the newly-butchered corpse of a neighboring woman."
Gein was the inspiration for notorious cinematic serial killers in Psycho, The Silence of the Lambs, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
The aftermath of the Gein house fire is also seen in photos on Getty Images.
Gein died in 1984 in a state mental institution in Wisconsin.