The sister and cousin of one of Jeffrey Dahmer’s victims are blasting Ryan Murphy’s “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story,” which stars Evan Peters as the serial killer, for “retraumatizing” them and never even notifying them that the Netflix series was in the works.
Eric Perry, a cousin of Dahmer victim Errol Lindsey, tweeted last week, “I’m not telling anyone what to watch, I know true crime media is huge [right now], but if you’re actually curious about the victims, my family (the Isbell’s) are pissed about this show. It’s retraumatizing over and over again, and for what? How many movies/shows/documentaries do we need?,” asked. He quote tweeted side-by-side videos of Errol’s sister Rita Isbell in court in 1992 next to the actress who plays her in “Monster.”
“Like recreating my cousin having an emotional breakdown in court in the face of the man who tortured and murdered her brother is WILD. WIIIIIILD,” wrote Perry.
In a later tweet, he added, “No, they don’t notify families when they do this. It’s all public record, so they don’t have to notify (or pay!) anyone. My family found out when everyone else did.”
In a first-person essay for Insider, Rita Isbell wrote, “I was never contacted about the show. 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.”
Peters is the latest actor to take on the role of the gruesome cannibal killer: Jeremy Renner played Dahmer in the 2002 film “Dahmer” and former Disney Channel star Ross Lynch portrayed him in Hulu’s “My Friend Dahmer” in 2017. There have also been countless documentaries and docuseries about Dahmer, including 2012’s “Jeff” and “Conversations With a Killer: The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes.”
Reps for Netflix did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment on Monday.
