Netflix Unveils the Monsters: Ed Gein and the BTK Killer
Explore the psychiatric differences between infamous serial murderers.
Posted November 11, 2025 | Reviewed by Margaret Foley
Monster: The Ed Gein Story , an eight-part series, and the docudrama My Father, the BTK Killer, about serial killer Dennis Rader, are currently streaming on Netflix. The juxtaposition of these two Netflix offerings provides an opportunity to consider the psychiatric differences between these murderers. Note that there is far more creative license in the eight-part series than in the docudrama, which uses primary sources.
The most significant difference between the two men is their primary, baseline psychiatric disorder.
A personality disorder is a chronic, long-standing, stable, and inflexible pattern of thinking and behaving— personality disorders that feature narcissistic and antisocial features and which can lead to violence.
A psychotic disorder , such as schizophrenia, has intermittent disruptions causing hallucinations and delusions. The nonpsychotic periods vary depending on the impact of the hallucinations and delusions. Schizophrenia generally does not make people violent.
Dennis Rader, a methodical serial killer and sexual sadist , murdered at least 10 females. Rader had a personality disorder with antisocial, narcissistic, and psychopathic traits. He led an undetected double life: father, husband, family man, and active, well-liked member of the community in Kansas, while simultaneously a well-organized murderer and rapist.
Exhausted from the details of such meticulous kills and double life, he paused his crimes and taunted the police with letters, taking credit for his crimes, referring to himself as "BTK," Bind, Torture, Kill. This self-applied nickname was adopted by the media and the police when referring to Rader, who terrorized the Wichita, Kansas, area between 1974 and 1991. His ongoing communications with both demonstrated his grandiosity, manipulativeness, and sense of superiority. Teasing the police as if it were a game showed his lack of empathy.
Ed Gein killed two women and robbed the graves of nine more. A necrophiliac psychotic, he dismembered their bodies using their skin and bones for sexual purposes. Also known as "The Butcher of Plainfield," he became the inspiration for the movie Psycho.
Unlike Rader, Gein grew up socially isolated. He underwent severe psychological and emotional abuse . A religious zealot, his mother hated anything that had to do with sex and constantly belittled him as a boy and a man. After she died of natural causes in 1945 (which, given his mental state, must have been unbearable for him), he kept her body intact, recreating her as if she were still alive, engaging in conversation with her. A necrophiliac, he used female body parts in his delusional efforts to become a woman, also due to his necrophilia. He was arrested in 1952 for killing a woman from the neighboring town.
Gein was diagnosed with schizophrenia and spent the rest of his life in a mental institution, as he was not competent by Wisconsin standards to stand trial and was deemed insane. Ten years later, in 1968, due to the introduction of antipsychotics and better psychiatric care, he was found competent to be tried yet not guilty by reason of insanity.
Bonn, Scott A. (2024). The Extreme Narcissism of Serial Killer BTK . Psychology Today.
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Joanne Intrator, M.D., is a practicing psychiatrist who researches psychopathy. She taught a popular course on psychopaths in film at the New School for Social Research. She was also a professor at Mount Sinai School of Medicine.
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This article is part of the Bringwise Psychology Journal — daily insights on human behavior, mental health, and personal growth.