Ed Gein: How many victims did Netflix serial killer have and did he dig up bodies?

He is one of America's most notorious serial killers whose inspired Psycho and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre - and his horrific crimes are now being revisited in the new Netflix show'Monster: The Ed Gein Story'.

Ed Gein, also known as the 'Butcher of Plainfield' and the 'Plainfield Ghoul', was found guilty of the murder of two women, bar owner Mary Hogan and hardware store proprietor Bernice Worden, in 1950s rural Wisconsin. Both killings were tragic enough on their own, but it was his gruesome 'hobby' - snatching bodies from local cemeteries and fashioning the remains into household objects and a skinsuit - that made headlines around the world, shining a light on a dark depravity that shattered the era's deeply romanticised image of rural America.

Gein was born on August 27, 1906, in La Crosse, Wisconsin, and grew up in what has been described as a deeply dysfunctional family. His mother, Augusta, was a strict Christian who preached that women were evil and that the world was full of sin, while his father, George, was a violent alcoholic, dying when Gein was only a teenager.

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Ed and his older brother Henry were isolated from the outside world by his mother, and she refused to let them either of them have close friends or interact with women other than herself. It is thought that her death in 1945 began Gein's descent into violent, gruesome fixations, leading him to murder at least two innocent women and carry out barbaric mutilations of corpses.

For over a decade after his mother’s death, Gein lived as a recluse on a dilapidated house on the family’s 160-acre farm, keeping his mother's bedroom intricately preserved as a 'shrine'.

In November 1957, when Plainfield hardware store owner Bernice Worden, 58, disappeared, police found a receipt for antifreeze written in Gein’s name - and made a horrific discovery when they stepped into the home.

Ms Worden’s body was found hanging upside down, decapitated and mutilated "like a hunted deer", and further examinations of the property revealed chairs and lampshades made from human skin, skulls turned into bowls, a bin made of flesh, and a belt constructed from human nipples. All these items were photographed by detectives, but the images were later destroyed out of respect for the victim.

There were also nine masks made from human faces, kept by Gein as 'trophies'. Under questioning, Gein confessed not only to killing Bernice Worden but also to murdering Mary Hogan, a local tavern owner who had vanished three years earlier. He also admitted to robbing graves in local cemeteries, with many of the bodies he stole having only been buried several days earlier.

As well as turning them into keepsakes, he also stitched together the remains to create what he called a "woman suit", which he would wear to feel as if he could "become" his mother. Police found 10 bodies in total inside the home.

Details of his crimes made headlines in the US and around the world, with the Daily Mirror reporting on November 20, 1957 how detectives had used a lie detector test on Gein following the discovery of the "Horror House of Skulls". The story also detailed how police were looking for evidence of cannibalism, though this was never proven.

Reporters in the US meanwhile dubbed Gein the "Plainfield Ghoul" and the "Mad Butcher", giving Plainfield a macabre reputation that saw the town's population plummet in the years that followed.

Psychiatrists later diagnosed Gein with schizophrenia and psychosis. He was declared legally insane in 1958 and sent to the Central State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. While he was found competent to stand trial, he was judged not guilty by reason of insanity, and remained in institutions for the rest of his life until.

He died of respiratory failure in 1984, aged 77 at Mendota Mental Health Institute, and was buried in Plainfield Cemetery, the very same site he once singled out for desecrating the dead.

His twisted obsession with his mother, harrowing murders and twisted grave-robbing would go on to inspire Hollywood’s most infamous killers, including Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, Leatherface in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs. In the third series of Netflix show 'Monster', he is being played by British actor Charlie Hunnam.