The man who would become the Collector was the son of a museum owner and entomologist. One day, the father went insane due to digesting chemicals meant for taxidermy and killed his family, stuffed them, and then placed them at the table on Thanksgiving and ate with them as though they were still alive. Only his son survived, but the experience warped his mind.
Later on in life, the Collector would himself become a licensed entomologist and presumably led a legitimate life, but underneath this was a murder and kidnapping operation, in which the man, called "the Collector" by the authorities and his victims, would target whole families and kill all but one member, who would have the misfortune of becoming a part of his "collection", and would either be killed through gruesome experiments (after which his/her body parts and bones would be reassembled to look like insects) or driven completely insane. The collection was kept at an abandoned hotel, which was rigged with traps to kill off any would-be escapees and intruders.
