Who was Adeline Watkins? Inside Ed Gein’s alleged girlfriend who called him ‘So Nice’

It’s been nearly 50 years since Ed Gein’s horrifying crimes were exposed, but new attention is now on the man behind the horror and the woman who claimed to love him, Adeline Watkins.

Netflix revisits a dark chapter

Monster: The Ed Gein Story is the third season of Ryan Murphy’s Netflix anthology series. This time, the focus is on Ed Gein, one of America’s most notorious criminals. 

Known as the “Butcher of Plainfield,” Gein was a 1950s serial killer and grave robber who murdered at least two women and dug up graves to use body parts for furniture and clothing, turning his Wisconsin farmhouse into a “house of horrors.”

In 1957, after hardware store owner Bernice Worden went missing, police arrested Gein and uncovered a gruesome collection of human remains inside his home. His crimes shocked the world and inspired horror classics like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Psycho and The Silence of the Lambs.

The woman linked to Ed Gein

In the new series, actress Suzanna Son plays Adeline Watkins, who once described Gein as “good and kind.” In November 1957, just after Gein’s arrest, the 50-year-old Watkins told the Minneapolis Tribune that she had dated him for 20 years.

Watkins lived with her widowed mother, who also spoke highly of Gein, calling him a “sweet, polite man” who always had her daughter home by 10 p.m, as Watkins said that their dates usually involved watching movies or visiting local taverns, though Gein didn’t enjoy drinking.

“I would almost have to drag Eddie into a tavern,” she said. “He would much rather have gone to a drugstore for a milkshake.”

Watkins said that they often talked about books. “Eddie and I discussed books,” she said. “We never read the same ones, but we liked to talk about them anyway.” Gein liked reading about animals, Africa, and India.

They also discussed murders they heard about. “I guess we discussed every murder we ever heard about,” Watkins said. “Eddie told me how the murderer did wrong, what mistakes he had made.”

On their last date, Gein proposed. “I turned him down, but not because there was anything wrong with him,” she said. “It was something wrong with me...I loved him and I still do.”

Changing her story

Days later, Watkins retracted her claims, telling the editor of the Plainfield Sun that there was “no 20-year romance.” She said they were just friends who sometimes went to the theater, but she maintained that he was “quiet and polite.”

Onscreen portrayal

Suzanna Son called playing Watkins “a dream role,” adding, “I can’t explain what I’m attracted to, but I always follow that feeling when I have it.”