Mother of Dahmer Victim Condemns Ryan Murphy's Netflix Series

"It didn't happen like that," she said.

Another relative of one of Jeffrey Dahmer’s victims has spoken out against Ryan Murphy’s hugely successful Netflix series on the killer.

Shirley Hughes, the mother of Tony Hughes, spoke to the Guardian about her feelings after watching part of the show. Her son Tony was a deaf, aspiring model and 31 years old when he was murdered by Dahmer.

“It didn't happen like that,” Hughes, who watched part of the show but hadn’t been able to finish it, said.

“I don’t see how they can do that,” she continued. “I don’t see how they can use our names and put stuff out like that out there.”

Rita Isbell, the sister of Errol Lindsey, another one of Dahmer’s victims, also criticized the show in an essay she wrote for Insider. Not only is her brother portrayed, but Isbell herself is portrayed giving an impassioned impact statement at Dahmer’s trial.

“I was never contacted about the show,” she said. “I feel like Netflix should've asked if we mind or how we felt about making it. They didn't ask me anything. They just did it.”

Eric Perry, a cousin of Errol Lindsey, has also spoken out on Twitter about the show.

“I’m not telling anyone what to watch, I know true crime media is huge rn, but if you’re actually curious about the victims, my family (the Isbell’s) are pissed about this show,” he tweeted. “It’s retraumatizing over and over again, and for what? How many movies/shows/documentaries do we need?”

Perry also emphasized that families of victims weren’t a part of Netflix’s production and that they only found out about the show after seeing previews and commercials for it. 

“So when they say they’re doing this ‘with respect to the victims’ or ‘honoring the dignity of the families,’ no one contacts them,” he wrote. “My cousins wake up every few months at this point with a bunch of calls and messages and they know there’s another Dahmer show. It’s cruel.”

Still, this hasn’t stopped viewers from watching. After three weeks of release, Dahmer: Monster has become Netflix’s second most popular series of all time, behind the fourth season of Stranger Things.

In its first three weeks, Dahmer has been watched for 701.37 million hours. Stranger Things 4 had 1.35 billion hours viewed in its first month.

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Mother of Dahmer Victim Condemns Ryan Murphy's Netflix Series