Netflix’s Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story has been a success for the streamer, but it hasn’t come without its share of controversy. The series, co-created by Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan, has been accused of re-traumatizing the victims’ families through its graphic retelling of their murders. Several family members have spoken out about not being contacted regarding the series.

Per The Hollywood Reporter, Murphy discussed outreach to the victims’ loved ones during an event for the show at the DGA Theatre in Los Angeles on Thursday, stating that contact was attempted:

Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story is one of the year’s most talked-about shows. On Netflix, it scored the highest debut since Stranger Things and reached the number one spot during its release week. It is now close to 1 billion hours streamed. The series stars Evan Peters as serial killer Dahmer, who was convicted of murdering and dismembering men and boys between 1978 and 1991. Most of Dahmer’s victims were African Americans, and he would often meet his targets in places were gay men were known to frequent. Dahmer was sentenced to 941 years in prison in 1992 but was murdered while incarcerated in 1994.

“It’s something that we researched for a very long time. And we, over the course of the three, three and a half years when we were really writing it, working on it, we reached out to 20, around 20 of the victims’ families and friends trying to get input, trying to talk to people and not a single person responded to us in that process. So we relied very, very heavily on our incredible group of researchers who… I don’t even know how they found a lot of this stuff. But it was just like a night and day effort to us trying to uncover the truth of these people.”

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During the event, Murphy argued that the series was more adamant about exploring social issues than highlighting Dahmer’s life:

Paris Barclay, who directed two episodes of the series, was also in attendance and added:

“Something that we talked a lot in the making of it is we weren’t so much interested in Jeffrey Dahmer, the person, but what made him the monster that he became. We talked a lot about that… and we talked about it all the time. It’s really about white privilege. It’s about systemic racism. It’s about homophobia.”

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During the event, Niecy Nash, who plays Dahmer’s neighbor Glenda Cleveland in the series, wondered why a memorial for Dahmer’s victims did not exist. Murphy chimed in, saying that he would fund it himself before adding:

“We really want it to be about celebrating these victims. When Tony writes ‘I won’t disappear’ on that last card, that’s what this show is about. It’s about making sure these people are not erased by history and that they have a place and that they’re recognized and that they were important and that they lived full lives. And they came from all sorts of different places, but they were real people. They weren’t just numbers. They weren’t just pictures on billboards and telephone poles. They were real people with loving families, breathing, living, hoping. That’s what we wanted it to be about.”

Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story is not the only recent series to explore the story surrounding Dahmer and his victims. The third installment of Joe Berlinger’s Conversations With a Killer features never-before-heard interviews between Dahmer and his legal team. Berlinger recently told Entertainment Tonight that his crew had not heard back from the families they contacted for their docuseries, but that he hopes that if they watch, they will feel like they “treated their loved ones with respect.”

“I do think there should be something. And we’re trying to get a hold of people to talk about that. I think there’s some resistance because they think the park would attract people who are interested in paying homage to the macabre… but I think something should be done.”