A new streaming series promises “never-before-heard” conversations between serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, “The Milwaukee Cannibal”, and his father, Lionel.

My Son Jeffrey: The Dahmer Family Tapes is streaming from Sept. 18 on Fox Nation, Fox News Channel’s subscription-based streaming service.

The four-part documentary series replays conversations recorded with Dahmer while he was in Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage, Wisconsin, serving 15 life sentences after confessing in 1991 to a string of crimes including murder, necrophilia and cannibalism. The recordings, made by Lionel Dahmer, have not been heard publicly before, according to Fox Nation.

The series also includes Dahmer family home movies, and interviews with a variety of others, including Mike Kukral, a high school friends from Ohio; Michael Prochaska, Dahmer’s college roommate; Ronald Flowers, the man who escaped after Dahmer had drugged, sexually abused and imprisoned him at Dahmer’s grandmother’s house in West Allis; and retired Milwaukee Police lieutenants Kenneth Mueller and Michael Dubis, who were on the scene the night of Dahmer’s arrest.

Dahmer was beaten to death in prison in 1994, but you wouldn’t know from watching streaming services. In 2022, Netflix went full Dahmer-mania, with Ian Brennan and Ryan Murphy’s dramatisation of the life and crimes called DAHMER: MONSTER – The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.   

“Monster” won a Golden Globe for best actor in a miniseries or TV movie for Evan Peters for his portrayal of Dahmer. The series received 13 nominations at the Primetime Emmy Awards, which drew some ire from Thomas M. Jacobson, the attorney who represented eight of the families of Jeffrey Dahmer’s victims. He told entertainment industry news site The Wrap that nominations for shows like that contributed “to glamorizing or desensitizing violence and crime in society.”

Netflix quickly followed up their re-enactment with Conversations with a Killer: THE JEFFREY DAHMER TAPES, a set of tapes made by his defence attorneys in which he made all sorts of fascinating admissions. At this point, there wasn’t much the keen true-crime aficionado didn’t know about Dahmer.

Actually, most of this information had long been out there. Plenty of evidence had been removed and studied after his arrest, including the fridge full of human body parts, several skeletons and the barrel of acid he used to dissolve unwanted flesh. Dahmer had spoken freely to his interrogators about the murders he had done, in graphic detail, all of which was revealed at trial. After his sentencing, and before he was killed (obviously), he gave interviews to news programs who could not believe their luck, and treated him like a celebrity.

Jeremy Renner had portrayed Dahmer when Netflix was still sending movies in the post, in a movie called Dahmer.

So what does this new Fox program hope to add (besides some sorely needed ratings)? FOX Nation President Jason Klarman said in a press release:

“The Jeffrey Dahmer case has captivated the public for over three decades and now with these exclusive tapes released for the very first time, viewers will hear from Dahmer in his own words and get insight into his relationship with his father”

Fox is featuring in the promos the fact that Dahmer was killing and pickling men back in the 1980s when he was living with his dear old grandma in Wisconsin. He had lured three men back to granny’s place and killed them, and kept mummified souvenirs in his room and in the basement.

The recording does not make clear to which victims the mummified remains belonged; Jamie Doxtator, Richard Guerrero and Anthony Sears were all killed at the location. Another victim, Steven Tuomi, was murdered by Dahmer in a nearby hotel but he kept those mummified remains in her basement as well. He told his father:

“Remember when you visited grandma? Remember that small, one-by-one square foot box? You know what was in it, don’t you? The mummified head and genitals of the last victim at the West Allis location”

Dahmer’s dad was presumably relieved to hear that it only had mummified body parts, because he was worried it was something naughty:

“It was wooden, but it had a metal covering, and you were very insistent that I opened that up because you thought I had pornography magazines”.

The show also plays up the fact that the dad, Lionel, admits to his son that he also had strange and disturbing thoughts in his youth, and perhaps actions too, since he expressed surprise that he had never been caught. He tells his son, “You’re just like me, Jeff”.

Showing audio on television is pretty dull so, like the Netflix tapes, it’s illustrated with lots of archive pictures. There are skulls, and meat from Dahmer’s fridge,

And his mug shot, which is actually a lot less terrifying than some we’ve seen recently.

It’s hard to imagine that the relatives of Dahmer’s victims, who objected to the Emmy nominations for the Netflix series, are going to be too thrilled at Fox Nation digging up the corpses again. But then, it’s Fox, and they love being on the edge.