Dahmer Victim’s Mother Blasts Netflix Series After Actor Wins Golden Globe—Latest Family Member To Speak Out

TOPLINE

The mother of one of Jeffrey Dahmer’s victims spoke out against the hit Netflix series Dahmer—Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story after its lead actor won a Golden Globe this week, saying the depiction of murderers in pop culture “keeps the obsession” with killers going, making her the latest family member of a Dahmer victim to criticize the series.

KEY FACTS

Shirley Hughes, the mother of Tony Hughes, whose murder by Dahmer in 1991 was depicted in the Netflix series, told TMZ that “sick people thrive on the fame” and added it’s “a shame that people can take our tragedy and make money.”

Actor Evan Peters—who played Dahmer—should have used his Golden Globes acceptance speech to recognize the serial killer’s victims and their families, Hughes told TMZ, although she added that he shouldn’t have accepted the role in the first place “out of respect for the families still living with heartbreak from losing loved ones.”

Rita Isbell, whose 19-year-old brother, Eric Perry, was killed by Dahmer, called the show “harsh and careless” last year. (Isbell gave a victim impact statement at Dahmer’s 1992 trial that was dramatized in the Netflix series.)

Isbell wrote in a September essay for Insider that she wishes some of the show’s profits had been donated to the children of Dahmer’s victims, saying it’s “sad” the streamer is “just making money off of this tragedy. That’s just greed.”

Perry’s daughter, Tatiana Banks—who was born six months after her father’s murder—told Insider in October the series’ renewed interest in her father’s killer has opened old wounds, saying that “chapter of my life was closed and they reopened it, basically.”

Multiple family members of victims have claimed they were never contacted about the Netflix series before Dahmer began streaming last year, which has sparked criticism from people like Perry, who said they should have been notified as “people who are actually still grieving from that situation” (a claim the show’s creators have denied).

CRUCIAL QUOTE

“We’re all one traumatic event away from the worst day of your life being reduced to your neighbor’s favorite binge show,” Eric Perry, whose cousin Errol Lindsey was killed by Dahmer in 1991, told the Los Angeles Times in September. Perry added that if a company like Netflix is “going to create something that uses real-world people and experiences, you should at minimum contact those people out of respect.”

CONTRA

Creator Ryan Murphy denied claims that no one from the Dahmer team reached out to the families, saying during an October Directors Guild of America event in Los Angeles that his team contacted about 20 friends and relatives of victims and that “not a single person responded to us in that process,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.

TANGENT

During his acceptance speech, Peters said the series “was a hard one to make” and “a difficult one to watch,” but added “I sincerely hope some good came out of it.” Dahmer was nominated for four Golden Globes, but only took home Peter’s win for Best Performance by an Actor in a Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television.

BIG NUMBER

962.4 million. That’s how many hours the Netflix audience spent watching Dahmer last year after its September premiere. It was the third most popular series on the platform, following only Stranger Things and Wednesday.

KEY BACKGROUND

Between 1978 and 1991, Dahmer murdered 17 men and boys, the vast majority of who were people of color or LBGTQ. Dahmer also performed cruel experiments on his victims and committed necrophilia and cannibalism. The Netflix series shows how Milwaukee authorities ignored and downplayed concerns about Dahmer raised by members of the Northside community, a part of the city that is predominantly Black. After being convicted, Dahmer was sentenced in 1992 to 15 consecutive life sentences. He only served three years before he was bludgeoned to death in 1994 by another inmate.