Locals upset with 'Village of the Damned' TV series

DRYDEN, N.Y. (AP) - Residents and officials in a picturesque upstate New York town aren't pleased with the way their community is portrayed in a cable television series titled "Village of the Damned."

Dryden was the scene of a string of unrelated slayings in the late 1980s and mid-1990s.

It started in December 1989, when four members of the Harris family were slain inside their home. The suspect was later shot to death by state police trying to arrest him.

Five years later, the coach of the Dryden High School football team was shot to death by his daughter's ex-boyfriend.

In 1996, two high school cheerleaders were slain and dismembered by a man who later killed himself in his jail cell.

The three-episode "Village of the Damned" airs on Investigation Discovery. A local official has called the series "sloppy sensationalism."