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Jeffrey Dahmer

Netflix goes all in on Jeffrey Dahmer with new 'Conversations With a Killer' documentary

Chris Foran
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, the subject of popular Netflix drama "Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story" is also the focus of a new true-crime documentary series out Oct. 7. 

The three-part "Conversations With a Killer: The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes" tells the story of Dahmer's arrest and confession to a horrifying string of crimes, including murder, necrophilia and cannibalism. Sentenced to 15 life sentences — and then a 16th for a murder committed years earlier in Ohio — in 1992, Dahmer, 34, was beaten to death in prison in 1994. 

"The discovery shocked the nation and stunned the local community, who were incensed that such a depraved killer had been allowed to operate within their city for so long," the description of the series on Netflix's media site reads. "Why was Dahmer, who had been convicted of sexual assault of a minor in 1988, able to avoid suspicion and detection from police as he stalked Milwaukee’s gay scene for victims, many of whom were people of color?" 

More:Jeffrey Dahmer series is gruesome. It's also No.1 on Netflix. What does that say about us?

Jeffrey L. Dahmer enters a Milwaukee courtroom on Aug. 6, 1991. Dahmer, who murdered 17 men and boys over a 13-year period, is the focus of a new Investigation Discovery program, "Jeffrey Dahmer: Mind of a Monster."

Directed by documentary veteran Joe Berlinger, who also made the "Conversations" installments on serial killers Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy, the series features "never-before-heard" audio interviews between Dahmer and his defense team "answering open questions of police accountability through a modern-day lens."  

The description echoes "Monster," a dramatic series produced by Ryan Murphy ("American Horror Story") that tells the Dahmer story largely from the point of view of his victims, with a focus on the role of the police in Dahmer's ability to commit his crimes for as long as he was able to.

One of the series' lead characters is Glenda Cleveland, a neighbor of Dahmer's who tried to intervene after teenage boy Konerak Sinthasomphone was returned to Dahmer by police after he'd been seen fleeing Dahmer's apartment. (The police took Dahmer's word that the two were lovers; Dahmer later confessed to killing Sinthasomphone.)    

Evan Peters plays Dahmer, with Niecy Nash as Cleveland, and Richard Jenkins and Penelope Ann Miller as Dahmer's parents.

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