While Netflix’s “Monster: The Ed Gein Story” weaves a dark and complicated tale between Ed Gein and his companion Adeline Watkins, the real-life story is far less dramatic. In the series, Adeline is portrayed as a kindred spirit, a participant in his grave-robbing, and a central figure in his life. This has led many to wonder about her ultimate fate and whether she became one of his victims.
The truth, however, is much more straightforward and perhaps even anticlimactic. According to the historical record, Adeline Watkins was not killed by Ed Gein. In fact, she outlived him and was very much alive to speak to newspapers both immediately after his arrest and decades later when his story regained public interest.
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The Exaggerated Romance of Adeline Watkins
The story of Adeline Watkins is a curious one, marked by sensational headlines and subsequent backtracking. In the days following Gein’s arrest in November 1957, a story surfaced in the Minneapolis Tribune featuring an interview with Watkins. She painted a picture of a two-decade-long courtship, claiming that she and Gein frequently went to movies and taverns together, bonded over a shared love of reading, and even discussed murder cases.
Most shockingly, she claimed that Gein had proposed to her during their final date in February 1955, but she had turned him down, not because of any fault of his, but because of her own insecurities. Her mother even corroborated the story, describing Gein as a “sweet, polite man” who never broke Adeline’s curfew.
However, this romantic narrative quickly unraveled. About two weeks later, Watkins herself refuted the original story. In a new report, she declared that the Tribune article “was blown up out of proportion to its importance and containing untrue statements.” She clarified that while she had known Gein for 20 years, their regular interactions only occurred for about seven months after 1954, and even then, it was only intermittent.
What’s the general consensus on Adeline Watkins?
Did she really have a 20 year courtship w/ Ed Gein, only go on a handful of dates, or make the whole thing up?
Most recaps of Gein completely leave her out. And people back then were weird enough to lie about stuff like this. pic.twitter.com/uGzpTC7iHP
— Buy My Girlfriend’s Poetry Book! (@JohnnyBud) February 28, 2023
She stated that they had attended the local theater “a few times” and specifically asserted that she had never been inside his horrific home, the place where police discovered his collection of human remains. The real Ed Gein never publicly spoke about any relationship with Watkins, leaving the full truth of their acquaintance forever unknown.
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A Fictionalized Character for a Dark Tale
The creators of “Monster: The Ed Gein Story” have been very open about taking creative liberties with Adeline’s character to serve their narrative. The show portrays her not just as a girlfriend, but as an active participant who joins Ed on grave-robbing excursions and introduces him to infamous figures like Nazi war criminal Ilse Koch. This version of Adeline is used as a vessel to explore how dark images and ideas can corrupt and transform a person.
Interestingly, even the star of the series, Charlie Hunnam, admitted that his interpretation of the relationship was that Adeline was, “in a large part a fantasy of Ed’s.” The show’s writers considered outright revealing that she was a figment of his imagination, but ultimately decided against it to preserve the emotional core of their story.
So, to answer the burning question directly: No, Ed Gein did not kill Adeline Watkins. The real Adeline Watkins lived through the notoriety of Gein’s crimes and the media circus that followed. Her story is not one of murder, but rather one of a fleeting and likely exaggerated association with a killer, an association that was later amplified and twisted for dramatic effect in popular culture. Her fate serves as a reminder that when true crime stories are adapted for the screen, the line between fact and fiction is often blurred, sometimes leaving the real people involved as mere footnotes to a more sensational legend.
