Netflix’s Monster: The Ed Gein Story introduces Adeline Watkins as a key figure in Ed Gein’s life, framing her as a neighbor with an on-and-off connection. But outside the show, the record around “Adeline Watkins” is thin and, where it does exist, often contradictory—making her one of the season’s biggest “fact vs. fiction” questions.
Who is Adeline Watkins in Monster: The Ed Gein Story
In the series, Adeline Watkins (played by Suzanna Son) is portrayed as someone unusually close to Gein—present through major moments and treated as emotionally significant to his day-to-day life. Netflix’s own Tudum coverage addresses the obvious viewer question (“Is Adeline real?”) and says the character is based on a real Plainfield resident, while acknowledging that verified information about her is limited.
What’s documented about Adeline Watkins in real life
Most reputable reporting traces the “girlfriend” narrative to statements Watkins made shortly after Gein’s 1957 arrest, when she told reporters she’d had a long connection with him and spoke warmly about him. People notes she was 50 at the time and that the story drew national attention because of how unexpected it sounded alongside the case’s notoriety.
The key detail many summaries miss: she later walked it back
A major reason the real-world picture stays murky is that Watkins later recanted the personal framing. Entertainment Weekly reports that by December 1957, she described earlier claims as exaggerated and clarified that their connection was not what the initial headlines suggested.
So… was she really his girlfriend
Based on the best-sourced modern write-ups, there is no solid evidence to support a decades-long romance as a verified fact. Several outlets characterize the “girlfriend” storyline as something Watkins claimed briefly, then retracted—leaving historians and journalists to treat it cautiously.
How much of the show’s version is dramatized
Multiple entertainment outlets say the series takes major creative liberties with Adeline Watkins—especially in how involved she appears in the story—and they stress there’s no credible documentation backing several of the show’s more dramatic choices about her.
Why the character is still central to the story Netflix is telling
Tudum frames this season as partly about how public fascination, headlines, and retellings shape the way notorious cases are remembered. In that context, Adeline functions as both a character and a storytelling lens—someone the show uses to explore themes of perception, myth-making, and what people choose to believe.
