Netflix has produced its justifiable share 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 by means of intimate vignettes of his troubling life. The 10-episode sequence, 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 look at as his grueling crimes unfolded.
While the present has garnered controversy for glorifying Dahmer’s crimes and exploiting the trauma his victims endured, as of Sept. 27, the present is at the moment Netflix’s most-watched title, amassing greater than 196 million viewing hours up to now week, per CNN. The hype behind “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” aligns with the precise hysteria that possessed Americans when Dahmer’s story was first revealed.
But how a lot of the present is rooted in actual fact? As chilling as it’s, the reply is most of it. Keep scrolling for a deep dive into what was fictionalized and what truly occurred due to the heinous killer.
Where Is Lionel Dahmer, Jeffrey Dahmer’s Father, Now?
Was Jeffrey Dahmer Actually 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 actuality of Dahmer’s arrest will not be a lot totally different than the sequence’s first episode, which exhibits Edwards escaping Dahmer’s residence and flagging down native authorities. Similar to the occasions depicted within the sequence, the Milwaukee Police Department discovered Edwards working half bare with handcuffs on following his escape. Edwards then led the authorities again to Dahmer’s residence, the place they uncovered the crime scene of 15 murders that 12 months.
Toward the tip the sequence, 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 grotesque testimony of the person who lured him again from a bar below the false pretenses of watching “The Exorcist” earlier than trying to drug, sexually assault, and homicide him. “[Dahmer] underestimated me,” Edwards mentioned, according to ABC. “God despatched me there to care for the state of affairs.”
Did Jeffrey Dahmer Actually Go 9 Years Without Killing After His First Victim?
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 residence, 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 dying. Compared to real-life occasions, this depiction can be pretty correct. In 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 Edition in 1993.
Who Were Jeffrey Dahmer’s Victims?
While “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” does 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+ group. By zooming in on the backstory of some of Dahmer’s victims, like his romantic relationship together with his boyfriend and eventual sufferer Tony Hughes, who was additionally part of the deaf group, 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.
Ahead, see a timeline and breakdown of all of the victims Dahmer confessed to killing over time:
- 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 May 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 May 24, 1991
- Konerak Sinthasomphone, 14, murdered on May 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?
Some of essentially the most grotesque 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 Edition in 1993, Dahmer advised the platform that his urge to eat folks stemmed from the need to have full and whole management over them. The killer by no means went into immense element concerning 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 Prison?
In the sequence’s closing episode, “God of Forgiveness, God of Vengeance,” Dahmer is crushed to dying 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’s additionally a full-circle second contemplating he killed his first sufferer with a barbell. Like many of the different putting moments on this sequence, the small print of Dahmer’s dying are additionally precisely portrayed on display. Dahmer died two years into his lifelong sentence in 1994 at age 34, in accordance with The New York Times, in the identical means his closing breaths have been depicted within the present.
