What happened to Adeline Watkins, Ed Gein's 'girlfriend'?
The real-life Adeline Watkins claimed Ed Gein proposed to her two years before he was arrested, before later retracting her claims.
Netflix has released its latest Monster offering, titled Monster: The Ed Gein Story.
The third instalment in Ryan Murphy’s crime anthology series delves into the true story of the titular figure - a notorious murderer and body snatcher who gained notoriety in the 1950s when authorities discovered his habit of fashioning costumes out of human skin.
Gein’s crimes went on to inspire numerous horror classics, including The Silence of the Lambs, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Psycho, and certainly make for a violent and grotesque TV show.
But aside from the horror, another aspect bound to shock viewers in the Netflix series is the depiction of Adeline Watkins (Suzanna Son), who is shown engaging in a romantic relationship with Gein despite knowing about his crimes.
In the first episode, we see Gein presenting Watkins with one of his victims - a strung up, nude and eviscerated dead woman - and, while Watkins is initially depicted as shocked, we later see her continuing to date the killer.
Wondering who the real Adeline Watkins was and where she is now? Read on for everything you need to know about the figure from Monster season 3.
Who was Ed Gein’s alleged girlfriend Adeline Watkins and what happened to her?
The real-life Adeline Watkins lived in Plainfield, Wisconsin, in an apartment alongside her widowed mother.
Shortly after Gein’s arrest in 1957, a then 50-year-old Watkins (making her older than the depiction we see in the series) told the Minneapolis Tribune that she had been in a relationship with Gein for over 20 years, and described him as “good and kind and sweet”.
Watkins’s mother also backed up her claims.
Watkins also told reporters that she and Gein shared a love of literature, and that the two often discussed crime in the news.
“I guess we discussed every murder we ever heard about,” she said. “Eddie told [me] how the murderer did wrong, what mistakes he had made. I thought it was interesting.”
Watkins went on to add that their last meeting was on 6th February 1955, more than two years before his arrest, when Gein proposed to her: “I turned him down, but not because there was anything wrong with him.”
She went on to say she didn’t feel she deserved him. “It was something wrong with me. I guess I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to live up to what he expected of me,” she said.
Watkins’s claims about a 20-year relationship with Gein became a media sensation, with many other publications running the story.
However, two weeks after the report was published, Watkins retracted her claims, telling the Stevens Point Journal that the story “was blown up out of proportion to its importance and containing untrue statements”.
She clarified to the publication that they had dated for less than a year.
Gein, who passed away in 1984, never publicly acknowledged Watkins.
Where is Adeline Watkins now?
Information is scarce surrounding what happened to Watkins after Gein’s case.
However, given Watkins was born in 1907, it’s likely that she is no longer alive.
Monster: The Ed Gein Story is now streaming on Netflix – sign up for Netflix from £5.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream.
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Authors
Molly Moss is a Trends Writer for Radio Times, covering the latest trends across TV, film and more. She has an MA in Newspaper Journalism and has previously written for publications including The Guardian, The Times and The Sun Online.
