Netflix has produced its fair proportion of true-crime dramas all through the years, however nothing has been fairly as chilling as “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story,” which paperwork the lifetime of the notorious serial killer via intimate vignettes of his troubling life. The ten-episode collection, starring Evan Peters, provides viewers a way of what it was like for Dahmer’s household, his victims, and even his neighbors — Glenda Cleveland and Pamela Bass — to observe as his grueling crimes unfolded.
Whereas the present has garnered controversy for glorifying Dahmer’s crimes and exploiting the trauma his victims endured, as of Sept. 27, the present is presently Netflix’s most-watched title, amassing greater than 196 million viewing hours prior to now week, per CNN. The hype behind “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” aligns with the precise hysteria that possessed Individuals when Dahmer’s story was first revealed.
However how a lot of the present is rooted in reality? As chilling as it’s, the reply is most of it. Maintain scrolling for a deep dive into what was fictionalized and what truly occurred due to the heinous killer.
Was Jeffrey Dahmer Really Arrested?
“Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” begins the place Dahmer’s rampant killing spree ends: when he’s lastly arrested for the tried homicide of Tracy Edwards. The truth of Dahmer’s arrest just isn’t a lot totally different than the collection’s first episode, which exhibits Edwards escaping Dahmer’s house and flagging down native authorities. Just like the occasions depicted within the collection, the Milwaukee Police Division discovered Edwards working half bare with handcuffs on following his escape. Edwards then led the authorities again to Dahmer’s house, the place they uncovered the crime scene of 15 murders that yr.
Towards the tip the collection, Edwards testifies in opposition to Dahmer in his case in opposition to the state of Wisconsin, which additionally occurred in actual life. Edwards was instrumental within the prosecution of Dahmer and gave a ugly testimony of the person who lured him again from a bar underneath the false pretenses of watching “The Exorcist” earlier than making an attempt to drug, sexually assault, and homicide him. “[Dahmer] underestimated me,” Edwards mentioned, based on ABC. “God despatched me there to maintain the state of affairs.”
Did Jeffrey Dahmer Really Go 9 Years With out Killing After His First Sufferer?
Dahmer’s first sufferer was a hitchhiker in Cleveland. In episode three, titled “Doin’ a Dahmer,” we see the serial killer decide his first sufferer, Steven Hicks, proper off the road. Hicks was hitchhiking in Akron, OH, when Dahmer lured the 18-year-old again to his childhood dwelling, the place his household used to depart him alone for months at a time. When Hicks tried to depart, Dahmer struck him from behind with a barbell and strangled him to demise. In comparison with real-life occasions, this depiction can be pretty correct. Within the present, Dahmer takes a nine-year hiatus from killing after murdering his first sufferer. In actuality, Dahmer killed his second sufferer, Steven Tuomi, solely 4 months after Hicks. He detailed his first killing, and the regret he felt thereafter, in a jailhouse interview with Inside Version in 1993.
Who Had been Jeffrey Dahmer’s Victims?
Whereas “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” would not go into element about each homicide he dedicated, it paints a vivid image of the rituals the killer relied on to successfully prey on the younger, native, BIPOC, and LGBTQ+ neighborhood. By zooming in on the backstory of some of Dahmer’s victims, like his romantic relationship along with his boyfriend and eventual sufferer Tony Hughes, who was additionally part of the deaf neighborhood, the present tries to pay homage to the toll these murders took on his victims’ households. Nonetheless, there’ll by no means be sufficient justice delivered to the households who misplaced their family members to Dahmer’s violence.
Forward, see a timeline and breakdown of all of the victims Dahmer confessed to killing through the years:
- Steven Hicks, 18, murdered on June 18, 1987
- Steven Tuomi, 24, murdered on Nov. 20, 1987
- Jamie Doxtator, 14, murdered on Jan. 16, 1988
- Richard Guerrero, 25, murdered on March 24, 1988
- Anthony Sears, 26, murdered on March 25, 1989
- Raymond “Ricky Beeks” Smith, murdered on Might 20, 1990
- Edward W. Smith, 28, murdered in June 1990
- Ernest Miller, 22, murdered in September 1990
- David C. Thomas, 23, murdered on Sept. 24, 1990
- Curtis Straughter, 18, murdered on Feb.18, 1991
- Errol Lindsey, 19, murdered on April 7, 1991
- Anthony “Tony” Hughes, 31, murdered on Might 24, 1991
- Konerak Sinthasomphone, 14, murdered on Might 27, 1991
- Matt Turner, 20, murdered on June 30, 1991
- Jeremiah Weinberger, 23, murdered on July 5, 1991
- Oliver Lacy, 23, murdered on July 15, 1991
- Joseph Bradehoft, murdered on July 19, 1991
- Tracy Edwards, 32, escaped tried homicide on July 22, 1991, resulting in Dahmer’s life sentence in jail
Was Jeffrey Dahmer a Cannibal?
A few of the most ugly scenes in “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” contain Dahmer’s cannibalistic tendencies, and sadly, these tendencies are additionally an correct depiction of his real-life habits. In an interview for Inside Version in 1993, Dahmer advised the platform that his urge to eat individuals stemmed from the will to have full and complete management over them. The killer by no means went into immense element in regards to the variety of victims he truly consumed. So whereas we do not know the precise quantity, the assassin has been open about consuming human organs.
Did Jeffrey Dahmer Die in Jail?
Within the collection’s last episode, “God of Forgiveness, God of Vengeance,” Dahmer is crushed to demise by a fellow inmate on the Columbia Correctional Institute. The scene is rewarding as an outsider who watches Dahmer get away with a number of crimes earlier than his incarceration. It is also a full-circle second contemplating he killed his first sufferer with a barbell. Like a lot of the different placing moments on this collection, the small print of Dahmer’s demise are additionally precisely portrayed on display. Dahmer died two years into his lifelong sentence in 1994 at age 34, based on The New York Instances, in the identical approach his last breaths have been depicted within the present.
