‘It’s Retraumatizing Over and Over Again’: Family of Jeffrey Dahmer Victim Slams Controversial Netflix Series

The viewers of true-crime shows on television seem to have an insatiable thirst, but the victims of these crimes have have had enough.

Eric Perry, who is the cousin of Jeffrey Dahmer victim Errol Lindsey, took to Twitter to convey his displeasure with the new Netflix franchise “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story,” which stars Evan Peters as the notorious serial killer. The series was created by Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan.

“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 wrote.

“Recreating my cousin having an emotional breakdown in court in the face of the man who tortured and murdered her brother is WILD.”

Perry further said that the makers of real crime programs are not compelled to contact the families of the victims they represent since the murders are already documented in public records.

According to Perry, no one from “Monster” contacted his family, and they learned about the program at the same time as everyone else did.

“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.”

The production team for the show has tried to defend the undertaking by saying that the intention was never to humanize Dahmer but rather to show the viewpoints of the victims and explain the ways in which race and sexuality informed the murders.

“We had one rule going into this from Ryan [Murphy], that it would never be told from Dahmer’s point of view,” Peters stated in a promotional video for the show. “It’s called ‘The Jeffrey Dahmer Story,’ but it’s not just him and his backstory: It’s the repercussions, it’s how society and our system failed to stop him multiple times because of racism, homophobia. It’s just a tragic story.”

Despite this, Perry is not convinced that those efforts were sufficient to warrant the continuation of the program. “It’s retraumatizing over and over again, and for what?” he wrote. “How many movies/shows/documentaries do we need?”