Law&Crime Sidebar - What Netflix's Jeffrey Dahmer Series Got Wrong and Left Out

Episode Date: September 30, 2022

Is Netflix’s Jeffrey Dahmer show accurate? What does it get right and what does it get wrong? Decider and New York post writer Kayla Cobb explains.GUEST:Kayla Cobb: https://twitter.com/KaylCobbLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergVideo Editing - Michael Deininger & Logan HarrisGuest Booking - Alyssa FisherSocial Media Management - Kiera BronsonSUBSCRIBE TO OUR OTHER PODCASTS:Court JunkieObjectionsThey Walk Among AmericaCoptales and CocktailsThe Disturbing TruthSpeaking FreelyLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Is Netflix's Jeffrey Dahmer show accurate? What does it get right? And what does it get wrong? Decider, a New York post writer, Kayla Cobb, explains. It's how you act when you are out of control. Now, I don't want to ever have to see my mother go through this again. Never, Jeffrey! Jeffrey!

I hate you! We wanted to continue our conversation regarding Netflix. show Monster, the Jeffrey Dahmer story. This 10-part miniseries was focusing on the notorious serial killer that murdered and mutilated the bodies of 17 people. It's a series that really everyone is talking about right now. It's so popular that it's been reported to have the best opening week of any new show on the streaming service, which again is pretty incredible. But one of the reasons that the show is making headlines is because of all the controversy surrounding it. As we discussed on a previous episode of Sidebar, the family members of the victims

took particular issue with the show and criticized it for dramatizing these real-life moments that the producers, the creators of the show, didn't even consult with them beforehand. There have been accusations that it's re-traumatizing these families. Members of the LGBT community have taken note of this and said, we don't even want to be tagged in this. We don't want to even be associated with it. There's a former Jeffrey Dahmer prosecutor who's criticized the series for creating what he said was a false impression of racism in the police department at the time.

So we thought one of the best ways to really get to the bottom of all this and to understand what's happening is to think about, well, what is true in this show and what is not true? I mean, how accurate is this show? So we're joined right now by a very special guest, Kayla Cobb, who's a writer-reporter for Decider and the New York Post, who wrote the article entitled Dahmer, maybe one of the most accurate true crime dramatizations brought to television. Kayla Cobb, thanks for coming on Sidebar. Hey, thanks for having me. That's quite an article. That's quite a headline. So you believe that.

This is one of the most accurate true crime dramatizations brought to television. How come? I do. I've been writing for Decider for about six and a half years now. And my focus has normally been on kind of true crime dramatizations and true crime TV projects in general. I've watched a ton of these shows. This is one of the few examples where the embellishments, where we're kind of morphed just a storytelling perspective. So almost everything I saw in the show, I would like look up, do a little

fact check, and there was normally a news story associated with every single part. And really why I wrote the article and why I believe that this is like fairly accurate dramatization is that one of the aspects that most like shows and documentaries about Jeffrey Dahmer overlook is the role that racism and homophobia played in his reign of terror. There were multiple times where he could have been stopped. He was not a very sneaky serial killer. Almost everyone around him kind of flagging down that something was wrong with him. His neighbor, Glenda Cleveland, was one of the loudest of these voices. She repeatedly called the cops and complained to her landlord as well as authorities that there were screams coming from her neighbor's apartment,

that she smelled disturbing smells, that something was wrong. And she even took it up to the FBI at one point. And she was repeatedly ignored. I will cushion this by saying, I'm a TV critic, first and foremost, a TV critic entertainment reporter. So I'm not a true crime expert. I'm not an expert on this case.

But from what I was able, from the research I've done, from what I've seen, it seems fairly accurate. I can't recall if the exact homophobic remark was de-lousing, but after the police brought Conorac Sinsifim back to Jeffrey Dahmer's apartment, who again, he was a 14-year-old boy, they did make homophobic comments to their dispatcher. And Dahmer was known for repeatedly using his identity as a gay man to kind of like avoid the police. He was known for saying like, oh, we're just like,

like what he said with Conorac is we're partners. This is just what gay men do. And that was completely incorrect on every level. But within the hour, it is known that within the hour that these officers returned this boy to Jeffrey Dahmer's apartment where he was eventually murdered and dismembered. Within that hour, they were making homophobic jokes to their dispatcher. This is a part of the story. Yeah. And I think there's certain aspects of it that the series maybe took a little bit of liberties with that certain officers, you know, in the show that said that they received officer of the year. But in reality, they didn't receive officer of the year. They might have actually been, they might have not received that kind of commendation, but

we're enlisted. But you talked about embellishments in the show. What kind of embellishments are there? Yeah, that's a great example of an embellishment. As you said, they were not given officer of the year, but one of the officers, Officer Bolserac, he eventually became the president of the Milwaukee Police Union. And both were reinstated and given $55,000 in back pay a few years after they were fired for this. I struggle to say incident because it's so much more disturbing than that, but mistake. Other kind of embellishments. So for example, the finale claims that John, Wayne Gacy was executed on the same day that Jeffrey Dahmer was baptized. There's no proof that that is actually the case. It happened on the same month, so could not find big news stories that showed that the media was really, that this was like a really big thing that people were talking about at the time. So that's a little suspect. There are smaller things where also, I think it's the second to last episode shows Dahmer's

death. He was murdered by an inmate, Christopher Scarver. And in the show, he's murdered second. And another inmate is murdered first. The order was flipped in real life. And actually, not murdered, but he was attacked and later died of his injuries. There are like little details like that, which to me, as someone who watches a lot of these projects, they're just storytelling embellished just to kind of build tension. At the end of the day, this is a TV show. And it is designed to entertain people. So unfortunately, these things crop up a lot. But the crime scenes, Dahmer drinking blood, maybe the way that they portrayed the victims, which is tough because, you know, you don't have the victims to come forward and say this is what happened. To the best that you've

seen, is this accurate? This is accurate to the best I've seen. And also, like you just mentioned, it's really, really tough to say exactly how accurate it is. There have been many, many interviews with Dahmer when he was alive. Once he was properly medicated and almost honestly as soon as he was arrested, he was pretty vocal about everything he did. He pretty much confessed to all of his crimes right away and he seemed happy to cooperate with police and tell like his side of the story. Of course, we can never know if everything he said is accurate. We will never know any of these things because his victims have died. But he seemed to be pretty like up front about everything. And like a lot of his stories checked out with evidence that was found. So it's largely based on his testimony,

which is inherently problematic. But he did seem, I don't want to say honest, but he did not seem to sugarcoat most of what he did. This is an interesting criticism because my understanding is there's a part in the series where the family members are providing testimony in court. You know, they're providing victim impact statements. and those were taken word for word from the actual court transcripts. But again, as I said, the victim's family members are, I mean, some of them have come forward, have said, you didn't even consult us on this. I had to rewatch an actor playing this part.

But that was accurate, right? What they said in court. You could find those testimonies online. There's a lot of videos. This was like a huge case at the time. So almost all of those are word for word accurate. There's also a scene in, I believe it's episode two. where Glinda Cleveland, played by Nisi Nash, has a conversation with a police officer,

and that is a word-for-word transcript of what happened that's just reenacted. It's interesting because the camera kind of, like, cuts to black, and you just see the words appear on screen. It really tries to, like, drill home that this was a real conversation that happened. So, yeah, this is the most accurate I've seen. All right. That's good to know. I don't know if that helps the conversation, if it helps the controversy with it,

but I think it's better, in my opinion, that they were as accurate as possible and getting this story out there than in taking complete liberties and changing the whole story. I don't know. I think that would have been better. I'll give you about, you know, 30 seconds to respond to that if you agree with me. Yeah, no, I agree. I mean, these stories are really, really difficult to talk about and think about, mostly because as we've, as you've mentioned, they do affect the victims.

They re-traumatize people. So should we even have them? Should we even portray them? I honestly do not know. I do not have the answers to this. I do think that if these stories are to re-examined and re-dramatize, then they need to be as accurate as possible, and they need to point out the larger systematic problems

that led to things like Jeffrey Dom are happening. And Kayla Cobb will be watching these shows to see how accurate. accurate they are and keep them to accountability. Kayla, thanks so much for coming on. Thanks for having me. And everyone, thanks so much for joining us here on Sidebar. Please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcast.

I'm Jesse Weber. We'll speak to you next time. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.