Edward Theodore Gein's Wisconsin farmhouse became one of the most infamous crime scenes in American history when police discovered furniture upholstered in human skin and skulls used as bowls. This film traces Gein's isolated upbringing under a domineering mother, his grave-robbing habits, and the 1957 investigation that connected him to the deaths of Bernice Worden and Mary Hogan. Interviews and archival material lay out how investigators pieced together the extent of his crimes from the remains found in his home, and how the case's details, distorted and amplified, fed directly into horror cinema, shaping characters like Norman Bates in Psycho and Leatherface in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. The film keeps its focus on the factual record of the investigation and Gein's psychology rather than dwelling on shock value, using period photographs and courtroom material to track how a quiet, reclusive farmer came to commit acts so disturbing they redefined a genre of film.