American Horror Story Characters Who Are Based On Real People

American Horror Story has spent eight bloody seasons on F/X tantalizing and terrorizing audiences in equal measure. Alongside shows like AMC's The Walking Dead, it was a progenitor for something of a horror television revolution. The anthology series takes on a new concept and new characters with each season (though they increasingly overlap), and features a rotating cast of killers and the victims unfortunate enough to cross their paths. 

The resulting stories are horrifying, and made even more chilling when you consider that many are drawn from the real-life murders, both solved and unsolved, that populate American history. Though the show has certainly taken a few drastic liberties with the facts, it's truly disturbing how close some elements of its most outlandish terrors are to reality. We've rounded up a list of the historical facts behind these killer figures that have stalked across our television screens in Ryan Murphy's American Horror Story.

The second episode of the Murder House season depicts a terrifying home invasion that threatens the lives of Vivien and Violet. Ben works as a psychiatrist, using the house as his office. While Dr. Harmon is away, his patient Bianca returns to the home. It turns out her need for treatment was merely a ruse to allow her, and several friends, to reenact the murders of some nursing students that occurred in the 1960s.

These murders were based on an even grislier series of murders that actually occurred in Chicago in the summer of 1966. Richard Speck, a drifter with a history of violence, gained entry to a residence hall that housed nine nursing students and held them captive. He murdered eight of them (one managed to escape by hiding under a bed) one by one over a period of several hours. Gloria Davy was the last to be killed, and was also sexually assaulted by Speck. He was later caught and incarcerated for his crimes, and died in prison in 1991.

Another of Briarcliff's unlucky patients is Grace Bertrand (Lizzie Brocheré), a woman accused of brutally killing her father and stepmother. After bonding with Kit, she admits she did murder her family after enduring years of sexual abuse from her father that was sanctioned by her stepmother.

Lizzie Borden's 1892 murder charge and subsequent trial is remembered in an enduring children's rhyme: "Lizzie Borden took an axe/And gave her father forty whacks/When the job was neatly done/She gave her mother forty-one." Lizzie's story was the basis for Brocheré's AHS character. The actual murders came closer to a total 30 whacks of an axe, and Borden was put on trial. She was acquitted of the charges, which mostly amounted to circumstantial evidence. Her testimony was noted for the lack of emotion it displayed, and along with her tense relationship with her parents, it's led the public to question whether she was indeed responsible for the killings to this day.

On AHS, Marie Laveau is a powerful, immortal Voodoo Queen played by Angela Bassett, whose desire for revenge against Madame LaLaurie leads her to form her own cult of followers. In the modern-day timeline of Coven, she alternately makes and breaks alliances with the coven of witches lead by Fiona Goode, descended from the victims of the Salem Witch Trials.

Confirmed details of the life of the real Marie Laveau, a free black woman born to a creole mother and white father at the turn of the 19th century, are scant. The woman herself, a catholic who wove threads of African and Native-American traditions into her religious practice, was reluctant to tell her own story, according to her 1881 obituary in the New York Times. What is known is that Laveau worked as a hairdresser, a detail represented in her AHS counterpart, and that this work informed her role as a spiritual adviser to the wealthy and powerful people of New Orleans, who flocked to her for guidance in matters both personal and professional.

He terrified the streets of New Orleans on AHS with multiple murders before being trapped by Fiona's coven of Salem descendants, only to be later resurrected and given physical form by the modern-day witches of that same coven. The Axeman of New Orleans later helped the witches enact vengeance against an order of witch hunters who threatened the coven's existence.

The real-world Axeman killed his first victim in 1911, then lay dormant for six years before committing the series of murders that made him famous. Beginning in 1918, the Axeman invaded the homes of over half a dozen people and used their own tools, most frequently an axe, as his murder weapon. The murders targeted Italian immigrant grocers specifically, leading modern historians to theorize that the Axeman was a white laborer who felt threatened by the influx of immigrants to New Orleans at the turn of the century. A letter like the one featured on AHS, supposedly authored by the Axeman, was published in local papers in March of 1919. The murders ended some months later and were never solved.

Jimmy Darling is popular with the ladies, but it's his hands that make him truly remarkable. Born with ectrodactyly, which causes the central fingers to be fused, this malformation earned him the moniker Lobster Boy. A staunch defender of his fellow performers, Jimmy also earns money using his hands to satisfy the sexual needs of bored housewives before losing them to a con-artist who sells them to a museum.

Grady Franklin Stiles, Jr., known as the Lobster Man, was a real carnival attraction whose ectrodactyly condition also affected his feet. His father had the same condition, and brought his young son into sideshows alongside him. The children of Stiles Jr. were also born with ectrodactyl features, and their father followed in his namesake's footsteps by making his children a part of the family business. Together they toured as "The Lobster Family." Unlike Jimmy, though, Stiles Jr. is described by his son Grady Stiles III as a racist and an abusive father who was convicted in 1979 of murdering his daughter's fiance. He died in 1992, himself a victim of murder at the hands of a family friend with ties to organized crime.

Edward Mordrake creeps through several episodes of the series, commanding the various Freak Show performers to reveal the darkest parts of their personal histories so that his spirit can choose one of them to join his supernatural freak show. A second face on the back of Mordrake's head ultimately decides which carnival star is selected. Though real within the world of Freak Show, in reality Edward Mordrake exists only as a hoax, albeit one that managed to fool the public when originally documented in 1896.

Among other hoaxes such as that of a fish-woman and a human crab, Mordrake's tale was printed in the pages of The Boston Sunday Post. Described as a wealthy 19th century man, Mordrake's second face was said to speak to no one but him. The hoax report was later printed in a somewhat reputable medical journal, which lent it credibility. It still managed to fool Facebook users in 2018, when an image that claimed to be of Mordrake's skull circulated online. It was actually just an artist-created sculpture.

James March built the Hortel Cortez, where the bloody events of AHS: Hotel take place. He married Elizabeth, who delighted in the many murders March enacted on its grounds. March designed the place around his violent tendencies, fashioning rooms that enabled him to commit any number of killings within its walls.

March is clearly modeled on real life serial killer H.H. Holmes, who did build a hotel designed for murder. It featured gas jets, which turned guest rooms into deadly chambers, and a wooden chute that allowed for bodies to be swiftly disposed of in an incinerator. His "murder hotel" claimed the lives of many young women who visited there in connection with the 1893 Chicago World's fair. When he was finally caught, Holmes confessed to the murders of 30 people, though authorities believe he may have been responsible for nearly 200 deaths. He was hanged for his crimes in 1896. His hotel was later intended to be remodeled as a "Murder Castle" attraction but was destroyed by fire before it's opening.

Mrs. Evers, the laundress for the Hotel Cortez, relates a sad story while the murderous dinner party takes place. She explains that her son Arthur was abducted and murdered on Halloween, lured away from her by a hooded figure. He was later found dead, his body disposed of along with other young victims on a chicken ranch owned by his killer. 

The details of Mrs. Evers' tale echo the facts of the Wineville killings, also known as the Chicken Coop Murders. In the 1920s, Gordon Stewart Northcott admitted to killing at least five boys and hiding their bodies beneath his chicken coop. Northcott covered their bodies in quicklime to accelerate decomposition, and even enlisted his mother's help in killing one of his victims. Like Mrs. Evers' son Arthur, Christine Collins' son Walter went missing in 1928. Though his body was never found, he's thought to have been one of Northcott's victims. A boy claiming to be Walter was found by police, but Christine was adamant it was not her son. Police had her committed to a psychiatric hospital, and during her confinement the boy admitted he was actually an impostor named Arthur.

One of the more disturbing ghosts terrorizing the group at Roanoke House is that of a man wearing the decapitated head of a pig. Believe it or not, this isn't just a random image cooked up by AHS producers to give the audience nightmares. The Pigman is a real legend connected to the town of Angola in New York, where the Derreck family lived in the woods around Holland road. Legend has it they removed several railroad ties from the tracks near their home, which later caused the Angola Horror: a deadly train derailment.

Locals claimed Loring Derreck was responsible for the incident, bringing a curse upon himself that led his son William to be born with facial deformities. While there is absolutely no evidence to support the tale, locals claim that William is the Pigman: a butcher who would mount the heads of pigs on stakes nearby to indicate his work wasn't to be disturbed. Allegedly, some teens decided to test this theory and ended up with their heads mounted outside his workshop near Holland road. Legend has it the road is still haunted by the Pigman. It's possible this tale is actually a composite of several legends from the area.

The 2016 U.S. Presidential election gave AHS plenty of fuel for the story of Cult, their seventh season. In the turbulent post-election times, a cult forms in a small town in Michigan. One of its leaders reveals she had a love affair with none other than Valerie Solanas (Lena Dunham). Solanas is the woman who shot Andy Warhol, the famous pop artist and leader of the studio known as the Factory, which drew artists and luminaries of all kinds to congregate and experiment.

In the AHS universe, Solanas was also responsible for the Zodiac killings. In reality, that series of murders was carried out by an unknown person in the Bay area who taunted police with a series of cryptic messages sent to local newspapers in the late '60s. Solanas only attempted to kill Warhol and Mario Amaya, an art dealer. Both men lived, but Warhol had to wear a surgical corset for the rest of his life. The crime saw Solanas sentenced to three years in prison. She suffered from Schizophrenic paranoia that complicated her rehabilitation, and died in a welfare hotel in San Francisco in 1988. 

It might seem that after eight seasons of murder and mayhem, AHS: Apocalypse would be a fitting end for the series. It features the return of many characters not seen since Murder House, and the title literally signals the end of the world. But it's not the end, says Murphy, who has announced that seasons nine and ten have been approved.

Apocalypse explores a post-nuclear world in which groups of survivors cling to life at various outposts. One such person is CoCo St. Pierre Vanderbuilt, the daughter of a billionaire who has inherited more than a trust fund: she's a witch who studied at the same academy as the members of Fiona Goode's coven from season three of AHS. Actor Leslie Grossman has said in interviews that she very deliberately patterned her character after Tinsley Mortimer, the well-known socialite and star of The Real Housewives of New York City. "I don't see Tinsley as ruthless as Coco is," Grossman told TV Guide, "but just the sort of adult woman who still lives like kind of a little kid."