Source: Curt Borgwardt / Getty
The success of Netflix’s recent drama DAHMER has revived interest in infamous serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. And with Halloween 2022 fast approaching, there has also been a corresponding rise in costume sales of the “The Milwaukee Cannibal,” to the horror of the families of Dahmer’s victims.
“It’s already super triggering to see a hit Netflix series about the serial killer, much less folks dressing like the killer,” Shirley Hughes reportedly told TMZ. Her son, Tony, was deaf, non-vocal, and one of the 17 people murdered by Dahmer. Per a 1992 article from the Associated Press, Dahmer picked up Tony at a gay bar, drugged him, and cut his body into pieces — but kept the skull.
According to TMZ, Hughes also said that Dahmer was “pure evil,” she cannot fathom “how the folks who choose to dress like him can sleep at night,” and that all the advertising for Halloween costumes of him “should be taken down … or at the very least, give the profits to the families.”
Systemic racism has been offered as a reason why Dahmer went undetected for so long by Milwaukee police, and Tony Hughes was Black, as were 10 of the other Dahmer victims. Even rapper Boosie BadAzz has spoken out against Black people giving any more attention to the Netflix project as well.
“Us as Blacks, we need to ban this Jeffrey Dahmer movie,” he said in a video posted on Twitter last month. “This is some sick sh*t what he did to our race, this is some sick sh*t. We need to boycott this damn movie off Netflix… The victim’s family should be getting paid off of every dollar Netflix made. We need to ban this.”