'Dahmer': Ryan Murphy Responds to Accusations Show Ignored Victims' Families

By Andrew Roberts

Ryan Murphy is speaking out amid the backlash to his Netflix hit, Dahmer-Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story. The series, starring Evan Peters as the titular killer, has been a hit on the streamer and created plenty of controversy along the way.

A big issue was outrage from people associated with the victims of Dahmer and how they were portrayed on the show. The backlash was strong when the show first premiered, especially after it reached the top ten on Netflix.

For Murphy, he finally spoke out and defended the show's production methods and the research that went into the show. "It's something that we researched for a very long time," Murphy said at an event for the series at the DGA Theater in Los Angeles. According to Entertainment Tonight, Murphy even claims to have reached out to the family and friends of the victims.

"We reached out to 20, around 20 of the victims' families and friends trying to get input, trying to talk to people and not a single person responded to us in that process," Murphy added, noting the three-and-a-half years they worked on crafting the series. "So, we relied very, very heavily on our incredible group of researchers who...I don't even know how they found a lot of this stuff. But it was just like a night and day effort to us trying to uncover the truth of these people."

Dahmer was active for a 13-year stretch, starting in 1978 and eventually getting captured in 1991. His final total was 17 men and teenage boys, with much of the horror occurring in his apartment, including cannibalism and body harvesting.

When the series premiered, several names connected to the case spoke out about how the show portrayed the killer and covered the victims. Errol Lindsey's sister, Rita Isbell and a cousin named Eric Perry claimed to feel "retraumatized" by the series.

Isbell penned an essay in Insider that addressed the series and the way the series recreated "word-for-word" her victim impact statement. She wrote that what she watched of the Netflix hit "bothered me, especially when I saw myself – when I saw my name come across the screen and this lady saying verbatim exactly what I said. It brought back all the emotions I was feeling back then."

Victim Tony Hughes' mother Shirley also expressed her dislike for the series, speaking with The Guardian. "I don't see how they can use our names and put stuff out like that out there," she told the outlet, later hanging up after revealing her difficulty in talking about her son's murder.

Did Murphy and company do enough to flesh out the series and be respectful to the victims? Michael Ross and Jeff Conner represent the victims who did speak to the camera and said the need to humanize the victims was important. "Recognizing that each one of those young men had a mother, a father, had sisters and brothers that loved them and still miss them," Ross said in the docuseries.

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