As an avid consumer of both scripted crime dramas and true crime documentaries, I’ve watched all three seasons of Ryan Murphy’s anthology series retelling the stories of infamous killers: Jeffrey Dahmer, the Menendez Brothers and most recently Ed Gein. 

Despite my issues with Ryan Murphy and his previous works, something in me is compelled to watch when each new season drops. This time, I wish I hadn’t. 

I have recently found myself thinking about discussions from my Race, Crime and Documentaries class while suffering through this series. The course is taught by Dr. Reginald Byron and the show reminded me about the dangers of scripted crime dramas, a frequent topic of class discussions. 

The Netflix series heavily fictionalized the lives of Ed Gein’s (played by Charlie Hunnam) real and assumed victims while creating a romanticized and sympathetic narrative centered on the killer himself. 

The shift in focus from vulnerable victims to the killer and made-up ties to his criminal streak reinforces harmful ideas about which victims deserve public sympathy. 

I understand Murphy’s attempt to critique famous retellings of Gein’s story, most notably “Psycho,” “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and “The Silence of the Lambs.” But he missed the mark. His execution was confusing, switching between his own inaccurate retelling and fake clips from the movies themselves. 

If he intended to show how many films were inspired by Ed Gein and twisted to appeal to the fetishization, why was his own version also false and dramatized? 

With my browser constantly pulled up to fact-check details, I discovered that most of the story was wrong. During the Menendez series, there were several factual parallels despite some stretched truths. But with Ed Gein, it was a shock when I would find something even remotely accurate. I’m not alone in my critique — the show scored a whopping 21 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. 

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Here’s a look into some of the most notable inaccuracies in the show.

Gein didn’t kill his brother Henry

Gein did not kill his brother Henry. In the first episode, Murphy shows Ed murdering Henry with a log, and then starting a fire to cover up his death. In real life, there was indeed a fire, but authorities ruled Henry’s death an accident caused by smoke inhalation and Gein never confessed to killing him. 

Gein never used a chainsaw on his victims 

In episode four, the show depicts Gein brutally murdering two hunters, Victor Travis and Ray Burgess, with a chainsaw. Gein’s real weapon of choice was a .22 caliber rifle, and although the two men depicted in the scene were real people whose bodies were never found, there is no proven tie to Gein. 

There was no romantic or sexual relationship with Bernice Worden 

Murphy invented a romantic and sexual relationship between Gein and a real victim of his, Bernice Worden, the hardware store owner. In reality, Gein admitted he’d never had a sexual experience due to his strict religious upbringing, making it highly unlikely he knew Worden intimately before killing her.

Gein didn’t help in the arrest of Ted Bundy

This was quite the stretch. In the final episode, Gein helps the FBI investigate Ted Bundy from the mental hospital he resided in, after being deemed legally insane. There’s no evidence Gein was ever interviewed by the FBI or contributed to Bundy’s capture. 

Evelyn Hartley’s disappearance was never linked to Gein 

Murphy also connected babysitter Evelyn Hartley’s disappearance to Gein, despite no proven link. While theories exist, it’s unfair to assume Hartley, whose body was never found, was killed by Gein. Now her name is forever tied to him, thanks to Murphy. 

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Even if Murphy claims his goal was to depict America’s birth of fascination with serial killers, he fed into the obsession in a twisted way. Intentional or not, he’s created what critics call sensationalism, rage bait and misinformation. 

While Gein’s story was definitely newsworthy, it received extensive media coverage, likely due in part to the fact that it occurred in a small, predominately white Wisconsin town. Meanwhile, in the 1950s during Gein’s killing and grave-robbing years, Black Americans in urban neighborhoods experienced significantly higher rates of violent crime, yet received far less attention. 

Obviously the disparities between a serial killer and intrapersonal violence explains part of the media coverage gap, both scenarios include the loss of life in devastating ways, and how we amplify those stories matter.

Ryan Murphy can’t trust that audiences will fact-check every detail like I do. And frankly, I think he knows that. His aim was to rage-bait and it worked. Hopefully, widespread criticism will ignite conversations about how we consume scripted crime dramas, which victims stories get told and how we glorify killers at the expense of those they harmed.