'Dahmer': Ryan Murphy Reached Out to the Victims' Families and Friends But Says No One Responded

In one of the first times since Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story was released and became a massive hit on Netflix, co-creator Ryan Murphy is speaking out about the team's lengthy research and writing, which included outreach to many people associated with the victims of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. 

"It’s something that we researched for a very long time," Murphy said at an event for the true-crime series at the DGA Theatre in Los Angeles, according to The Hollywood Reporter. "And we, over the course of the three, three and a half years when we were really writing it, working on it." 

"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," he continued. "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."

During a 13-year-period between 1978 and 1991, Dahmer murdered 17 men and teenage boys before being arrested and eventually brought to justice. In the series, Dahmer is portrayed by Evan Peters, while Cameron Cowperthwaite, Dyllón Burnside and Shaun J. Brown appearing as some of his victims. 

The revelation that Murphy's team attempted to contact and get in touch with the victims' families and friends comes after there was significant backlash from those who felt "retraumatized" and exploited by the limited Netflix series. Within days of its release, Errol Lindsey’s sister, Rita Isbell, and a cousin named Eric Perry, were among the first to lash out against the production. 

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In an essay for Insider, Isbell, whose emotional victim impact statement was recreated word-for-word onscreen by actress DaShawn Barnes, wrote that what she saw of the series “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.” She explained that “it brought back all the emotions I was feeling back then.”

Perry, meanwhile, went viral on Twitter, when he posted that it was “wild” they recreated Isbell’s moment in court. “It’s retraumatizing over and over again, and for what?” he wrote. He also claimed that no one reached out to his family prior to the series' debut on Netflix. 

Additionally, Shirley Hughes, the mother of victim Tony Hughes, spoke out, telling The Guardian, "I don’t see how they can use our names and put stuff out like that out there."

On the show, she is portrayed by Karen Malina White while her son, a deaf and mute man, was portrayed by actor Rodney Burford. "I don’t see how they can do that," she said, with the outlet reporting that she explained "it was difficult to talk about Tony’s murder" before hanging up. 

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Burford, who is partly deaf and appeared on the Netflix reality series Deaf U before starring in Dahmer, was also at the same event as Murphy and spoke about bringing Hughes' story to the screen. "You see that Dahmer is just killing people left and right, with no feelings, no remorse," he said through an interpreter. 

"But then, however, Tony shows up. He’s deaf. He’s Black, like all odds are against him," the actor continued. "But yet, Jeff took a liking of him compared to other people, and they created a connection. I had Evan [Peters], and I had everyone supporting me, so seeing that reflected on Netflix was beautiful."

Murphy is not the only person the victims' families did not respond to. While working on the Netflix docuseries, Conversations With a Killer: The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes, director Joe Berlinger revealed to ET that "most either did not respond or declined, and I can understand why," adding that he respected their decision not to participate.

Two friends of the victims, however, did speak out on camera, with Michael Ross and Jeff Connor detailing their encounters with the serial killer, remembering the last time they saw their friends alive and explaining why it was important to "humanize the individuals" whose lives were lost. "Recognizing that each one of those young men had a mother, a father, had sisters and brothers that loved them and still miss them," said Ross, who was close with several of the men killed, including Hughes, Tony Sears, Ernest Miller and Eddie Smith. 

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