Was The Trawler A Real Serial Killer? How Much of Ryan Murphy’s The Shards Is True

While FX’s The Shards might purport to be an autobiographical story, the teen thriller from producer Ryan Murphy has an elastic relationship with reality. Ryan Murphy is no stranger to bending the truth in service of a good story. While Monster: The Ed Gein Story was rightly reviled by critics for taking absurd liberties with the real life story of its subject, many of Murphy’s earlier shows, including various seasons of American Horror Story and Monster, were similarly loose with their approach to historical truth.