Featured Image Credit: Netflix / Tony Hughes
Topics: Netflix, True Crime, Crime
Anna Verdon
The mother of one of Jeffrey Dahmer’s victims has hit out at the new Netflix show – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.
She said that the show isn’t an accurate portrayal of what happened in the death of her son, Tony Hughes.
Tony Hughes was one of Dahmer’s 17 victims. The evil serial killer took the lives of boys and men in Milwaukee between 1978 and 1991.
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As well as their murders, Dahmer also committed crimes including rape, necrophilia, dismemberment and cannibalism, earning him the nickname the Milwaukee Monster and the Milwaukee Cannibal.
Tony Hughes was Dahmer’s 12th victim. His mother Shirley Hughes, 85, says in the show’s episode ‘Silenced’, which focuses on Tony’s story, it doesn’t accurately depict her son’s death and what happened in the aftermath.
“It didn’t happen like that,” she told the Guardian.
“I don’t see how they can use our names and put stuff out like that out there.”
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Tony, who was also deaf, met Dahmer at a gay bar in 1991. But after Dahmer took him back to his house, he drugged and dismembered him, according to the Associated Press.
In the Netflix series, Dahmer, played by Evan Peters, was seen donating money to help in the search to find Tony, before it then shows him cooking and eating his liver.
At the time Tony’s mother, Shirley Hughes, said: “When it first happened, I thought I would lose my mind.”
And Elder Durain Hughes, a Pentecostal minister, who was working with the families during the trial said the horrific crime 'literally tore her to pieces'.
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“I’ve never seen anybody so emotionally and spiritually wounded as Miss Hughes,” he added.
But Tony Hughes’ mother isn’t the only relative of Dahmer’s victims speaking out against the show.
Eric Perry, cousin of Errol Lindsey, also said the series is 'retraumatizing' his family.
He wrote on social media: “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 Isbells) are pi**ed about this show.”
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Errol’s sister, Rita Isbell, also said that the show bothered her.
“When I saw some of the show, it 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 told Insider.
She added: “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.
“It's sad that they're just making money off of this tragedy.”