Is ‘American Horror Story: NYC’ Based on a True Story?
American Horror Story Season 11, titled NYC, documents a frightening time for the LGBTQ community in New York City: A mysterious disease runs rampant, and a serial killer takes multiple lives while police do little to stop them. American Horror Story is known to take inspiration from real-life events, but is NYC based on a true story? Here’s what we know.
[Spoiler alert: The following story contains spoilers for American Horror Story: NYC Episodes 1 and 2.]
‘American Horror Story: NYC’ features a serial killer in the Big Apple
The first two episodes of American Horror Story: NYC, which premiered on Oct. 19, set the stage for a big mystery in 1981. The bodies of multiple gay men are found throughout New York City and Fire Island. While hiding his identity as a gay man himself, an N.YP.D. detective named Patrick (Russell Tovey) investigates the string of murders. Unfortunately, the department doesn’t take it very seriously, so journalist Gino (Joe Mantello) takes matters into his own hands.
Adam (Charlie Carver), whose roommate disappeared, claims that a muscular man wearing a leather mask — known as “Big Daddy” — is responsible for the murders. However, a more mild-mannered assailant who enjoys serving up drugged Mai Tais is also a suspect. Are there two separate killers on the loose or are they one and the same? Fans will have to keep watching to find out.
Is ‘American Horror Story: NYC’ based on a true story?
American Horror Story hasn’t been shy about incorporating real serial killers — Jeffrey Dahmer made an appearance in AHS: Hotel, while the Black Dhalia murders were addressed in Murder House. The killer(s) in American Horror Story: NYC is fictional, though.
Of course, it’s entirely possible that AHS: NYC has taken inspiration from a real-life killer. As Rolling Stone points out, the timeline and setting of this season align with the Last Call Killer, who targeted gay men in New York City in the ’80s and ’90s. Like the Mai Tai killer in AHS, the Last Call Killer lured men from piano bars. He murdered them and dismembered their bodies, leaving them in garbage bags dumped in New Jersey.
In 2001, a surgical nurse named Richard Rogers was arrested for the murders of Thomas Mulcahy and Anthony Marrero. He was also suspected of several other deaths in Pennsylvania, Maine, Connecticut, and Florida. Police reportedly did not give enough attention to the murders.
“The Last Call Killer preyed upon gay men in New York in the ’80s and ’90s and had all the hallmarks of the most notorious serial killers,” wrote journalist Elon Green in Last Call: A True Story of Love, Lust, and Murder in Queer New York. “Yet because of the sexuality of his victims, the sky-high murder rates, and the AIDS epidemic, his murders have been almost entirely forgotten.”
‘AHS: NYC’ ties in history with the start of the AIDS epidemic
Another aspect of American Horror Story: NYC is very true — the discovery of AIDS in 1981. In episodes 1 and 2, Dr. Hannah Wells (Billie Lourd) investigates a deadly virus spreading through the deer population in Fire Island. A few members of the LGBTQ community also begin to show signs of the disease that would eventually spark the AIDS epidemic. While there’s no indication that AIDS began with deer in real life, the virus did rapidly affect people in Fire Island. Additionally, the newspaper that employs Gino, The Native, was a real-life publication that covered stories about AIDS.
New episodes of American Horror Story: NYC air on Wednesdays at 10 p.m. and 11 p.m. ET on FX. Next-day streaming is also available on Hulu.
