The character was loosely inspired by Ed Gein, a real serial killer and grave robber from Wisconsin who dug up corpses and used their bones and skin to make everything from clothing to furniture and even silverware.
—
Keith Langston,
PEOPLE,
25 Oct. 2025
And the mass graves of corpses evicted from San Francisco cemeteries a century ago.
Other than Hogan and Worden, Gein’s subjects were all exhumed cadavers, though he is suspected to have been involved in the disappearance of additional women and girls from the area.
—
Andrew McGowan,
Variety,
3 Oct. 2025
The authors argue that those features, the intact, hyper-flexed skeletons and the absence of the disarticulation expected after ordinary decay, indicate bodies had been desiccated before burial rather than interred as fresh cadavers.
The decaying carcasses would have been covered by a film of bacteria, which can electrostatically attract clay found in the surrounding sediment.
—
Amanda Schupak,
CNN Money,
23 Oct. 2025
Sereno proposes that the creatures’ carcasses were first desiccated in a drought before suddenly being engulfed by sediment—likely brought on by a flood.
—
Andrea Tamayo,
Scientific American,
23 Oct. 2025
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