Fact-Checking the Most Controversial Moments From DAHMER

Rita Isbell’s testimony

The victim impact statement given by Isbell, played by DaShawn Barnes, at Dahmer’s trial in 1992 is re-enacted in the series, which has drawn criticism from Isbell’s cousin Eric Perry.

“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 Isbell’s) are pissed about this show,” he tweeted Sept. 22. “It’s retraumatizing over and over again, and for what? How many movies/shows/documentaries do we need?”

Perry posted his message above a side-by-side comparison of Isbell’s statement and the way it was played by Barnes on the show, and while Isbell’s real-life testimony was arguably even more dramatic, it’s a word-for-word re-telling.

Did Dahmer really serve human flesh sandwiches to his neighbor?

In the series, admitted-cannibal Dahmer is seen giving a suspicious “meat” sandwich to neighbor Cleveland. As revealed earlier, Cleveland didn’t actually live next door to Dahmer, so it’s probably all fiction, right?

Unfortunately, not so much.

As it turns out, Cleveland is really a conflation of two women: Cleveland and Pamela Bass, who actually lived next door to Dahmer in the Oxford Apartments. In a 2012 documentary called The Jeffrey Dahmer Files, Bass was interviewed and revealed that Dahmer did, in fact, once give her a sandwich. 

To put it bluntly, she said, “I have probably eaten someone’s body part.”