Netflix is OK with spotlighting Jeffrey Dahmer. EBay is not

Right now, eBay buyers can get their hands on a Joe Exotic/”Tiger King” costume. You can bid on Jack the Ripper outfits including top hat and cape. Or any number of “sexy” versions of fictional murderous characters. There are even costumes for a fictional “Night Stalker,” though they don’t resemble Richard Ramirez at all.

What they can’t do is bid on a Jeffrey Dahmer Halloween costume — not the glasses, not a wig — no matter how much they loved Netflix’s hit miniseries Dahmer. Not even a gray hoodie, tan jacket, or striped shirt when advertised in relation to the cannibalistic serial killer.

eBay, which did not immediately respond to The Times request for comment Thursday, has removed all articles citing Dahmer from its site, according to BuzzFeed News.

“Items closely associated with, or benefiting from, violent criminals, their acts or crime scenes over the past 100 years” are prohibited on the auction site in accordance with eBay’s Violence and Violent Criminals Policy.

(This is the same policy that governs the sale of “[f]Films, images, or devices that contain or purport to contain actual acts of violence, rape, executions, torture, crime scenes, morgues, dead bodies or body parts.” So – it’s a good thing.)

Dahmer was sentenced to 15 consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole in 1992 after pleading guilty to the murders of 15 young men and boys whom he had lured to his Wisconsin residence. He would drug his victims and then kill them, butcher them and have sex with the corpses. He ate some body parts.

Dahmer confessed to killing 17 people between 1978 and his July 1991 arrest – one in Ohio, the rest in Wisconsin. A Wisconsin judge dismissed his plea of ​​insanity before sentencing him. Dahmer later received a 16th life sentence for the Ohio murder. There was insufficient evidence to prosecute any of the Wisconsin murders.

Dahmer was beaten to death by another prison inmate in November 1994 at the age of 34.

Netflix’s Dahmer: Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, which premiered in September, is the streamer’s second-most-watched English-language show, behind sci-fi/horror juggernaut Stranger Things. Conversations With a Killer: The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes, a documentary about the murders, is also available on Netflix.

So if you just can’t make it through Halloween without dressing up as a Dahmer, you’ll need to shop elsewhere for your spooky 1980s aviator goggles.

However, if they want an “if you can’t hit them, eat them” shirt with the killer’s face on them, they were still available on eBay as of Thursday.