As subscribers of the popular streaming platform know, Netflix is dedicated to their true crime fans. The production company is no stranger to serial killer documentaries, horror films, or a suspenseful mini-series.
With the controversy surrounding the most recent Netflix original series, Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, let’s take a look at all the things the uber-popular miniseries got wrong, as per a true crime reporter.
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“Dahmer” hit Netflix on September 21 and has already become a true crime fan favorite.
The show stars Evan Peters as the titular Dahmer and Niecy Nash-Betts as the killer’s real-life neighbor, Glenda Cleveland.
Dahmer is largely told from the perspective of the victims which helps differentiate it from most other true crime TV content.
With that being said, the show has been called out for its controversial nature.
Understandably, family members of those who lost their lives at the hands of this serial killer found the show to be incredibly upsetting.
In addition to the critiques of the victim’s families, true crime reporter Anne E. Schwartz is also speaking out about what the show didn’t get right.
In addition to being a reporter, Anne wrote the 1992 book “The Man Who Could Not Kill Enough: The Secret Murders of Milwaukee’s Jeffrey Dahmer” and its updated 2021 version, “Monster: The True Story of the Jeffrey Dahmer Murders.”
Basically — she knows what she’s talking about.
Anne was working for the Milwaukee Journal at the time of Jeffrey Dahmer’s arrest and recently spoke with “The Independent” about the show’s validity.
“When people are watching Ryan Murphy’s Netflix series and saying, ‘Oh my God, this is terrible.’ I want to tell them it didn’t necessarily turn out that way.”
While working as a crime reporter, she recalled receiving a tip from a police source that a human head and body parts had been discovered inside an apartment.
After arriving at the scene of the serial killer’s apartment, she recalled the smell.
“I was a crime reporter for five years so I know what it smells like when you walk into a building with a dead body or a decomposing body. This was not that. This was a very chemical smell,” she told the publication.
Another issue she took with the series is the depictions of the police working in the Dahmer case as being racist and/or homophobic.
“I’ve spent a lot of time with them, interviewing the people who were at the scene. Again this is a dramatization, but at a time when it is not exactly easy for law enforcement to get trust and buy in from the community, it’s not a very helpful representation,” she says.
Another inaccuracy the show portrays regards the neighbor, Glenda Cleveland, who was played by Niecy Nash.
Anne explained that Glenda wasn’t actually the killer’s direct neighbor — she lived in a separate building next door.
According to an obituary published by USA Today back in 2011, Glenda and her niece had spotted 14-year-old Konerak Sinthasomphone fleeing the serial killer’s apartment in a nearby alley.
“In the first five minutes of the first episode you have Glenda Cleveland knocking on his door. None of that ever happened,” the author explained to the outlet.
“I had trouble with buy-in, because I knew that was not accurate. But people are not watching it that way, they’re watching it for entertainment.”
h/t: The Independent
