 Buffalo Bill is the combination of three real life serial killers:  Ed Gein (qv), who skinned his victims; Ted Bundy (qv), who used  the cast on his hand as bait to make women get into his van; and  Gary Heidnick (qv), who kept women he kidnapped in a pit in his  basement. Gein was only positively linked to two murders and  suspected of two others. He gathered most of his materials not  through murder, but grave