Texas pizza restaurant sparks outrage with ‘Jeffrey Dahmer special’

A “disturbing” Jeffrey Dahmer prop at a Texas pizza restaurant is gaining a vehement pushback for a stunt that critics say is disrespectful to the families of the victims who were tortured and murdered by the infamous serial killer decades ago.

The storefront window of Capital Pizza in Lubbock began displaying the Dahmer-themed pizza – which they’ve aptly named, “Jeffrey Dahmer Special” – earlier this month to celebrate “spooky season”, as the store’s manager told EverythingLubbock in an interview.

“One of our waitresses came up with the idea and made the pizza and just put it up as a fun prop for Halloween,” said Kiefer Slusher-Davidson, emphasising that the team thought it would be a “fun” way to get the space decorated for Halloween while also capitalising on the popularity of the recent Netflix series, Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.

The pie, which isn’t edible nor listed on the menu as an option for customers to order, displays grotesque body parts – eyeballs, fingers and an ear – sticking out of the prop base with Ramen noodles encircling the outside to embody human intestines.

It’s topped, Mr Slusher-Davidson adds, with real pepperoncini, as all their pizzas are. But after the season wraps up, it’ll be moved into storage.

“Like I said, it’s a fun prop, I suppose will become either famous or infamous,” he said, presaging the online backlash that his establishment would be blasted with over the weekend.

Most online observers found themselves instinctively repulsed more than anything.

“There’s a pizza place in Texas that now has “The Jeffrey Dahmer Special” that literally looks so f***ing disgusting…whatever you’re picturing- I promise you this is worse,” wrote one user, while another described the joint’s “special” as simply “disturbing”.

More astute observers, however, felt moved to point out that the restaurant’s attempt to jump on the bandwagon of making light of a mass murderer’s actual victims was neither charming nor appropriate.

“The glorification of serial killers in this country is fuqin disgusting!! That whole case wasn’t too long ago and the families are still suffering from that situation!!” wrote one Twitter user in response to the tweets describing the infamous display.

Another user pointed out how the pizza-prop reflects a more perturbing trend playing out, which is how easily people seem to be able to “detach” themselves from the crimes Dahmer committed.

Between 1978 and 1991, Dahmer murdered and dismembered 17 men and boys, with many of his victims having family members who are still alive today and have vivid memories of what it was like to lose their relatives and later discover how they spent their final moments.

“Of course, it’s not real. but I really don’t like how people are so detached when it comes to the crimes he committed. I get that it can be intriguing because you don’t hear about people eating people everyday, but you also have to remember that this happened in real life,” described one Twitter user in a thread about the Texas restaurant’s Halloween stunt.

In the weeks since the Netflix series was released, family members and friends of the victims have begun airing their displeasure at the streaming giant for reopening the story of the infamous serial killer, with accusations that the new show is both “exploitative” and sensationalises his gruesome acts.

“I feel like Netflix should’ve asked if we mind or how we felt about making it. They didn’t ask me anything. They just did it,” wrote Rita Isbell, the sister of Dahmer’s 11th victim Errol Lindsey, in an essay with Insider.

The dramatised series – which has set a record for being the most-watched Week 1 Netflix release in the streaming platform’s history – probes the psyche of Dahmer from his beginnings as a tormented teenager with a dysfunctional family to his later years as a serial killer, in which it depicts how he hunted, tortured and murdered 17 victims over a 14-year period.