The True Story of Ed Gein: The Butcher Who Inspired Psycho and Texas Chainsaw Massacre The terrifying true story behind Netflix’s Monster Season 3. Ed Gein — known as The Butcher of Plainfield — horrified America in the 1950s with crimes that inspired Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and The Silence of the Lambs. After murdering Bernice Worden and desecrating graves, Gein was declared insane and lived out his final years in a psychiatric hospital. He died in 1984 at age 77 — but even his gra