Jeffrey Dahmer
Jeffrey Dahmer felt he had gotten a bad rap from the start.
Insane or Not?
When it came
to Dahmer, a strange thing happened in the eyes of former FBI
profiler/agent Robert Ressler. According to Ressler, Jeffrey
Dahmer was indicative of a whole new "breed" of serial
killers, for in Dahmer, the former agent saw more traits of
serial killer behaviors rolled into one person than he had ever
seen before. The examples he sites in his book Whoever Fights
Monsters (St. Martin's True Crime Library 1992) are: Richard
Denton Chase, John Gacy, Ted Bundy and Ed Kemper. Ressler came to
this conclusion after interviewing Dahmer for 2 days straight.
Ressler also came to the conclusion that Dahmer was insane and
testified to this at Dahmer's trial. As a matter of fact, Mr.
Ressler, by the time the interviews were over, states in his book
that, "I felt only empathy for the tormented and twisted
person who sat before me."
However, profiler John Douglas, co-author of Mind Hunter, felt
the complete opposite. He did not consider Dahmer insane at all.
Some history regarding Jeffrey Dahmer
Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer
grew up in Bath, Ohio, which is near Akron. His parents were
termed as "middle class." As a boy he was intelligent,
but did not live up to his potential. Instead, he would disrupt
class in a clownish way rather than pay attention to his school
work.
When he was 16, he had
already become an alcoholic and showing signs of what his future
would hold. He had an intense interest in chemistry and in
torturing and dismembering animals.
When Dahmer was 18 years old, he committed his first murder. He
picked up a hitchhiker and killed him rather spontaneously in
June of 1979. Relevant or not, the year before his parents
divorced.
For the next 9 years, his
fantasies built up, until in 1981, fantasies became reality. Like
other serial killers, Dahmer's victims grew in number as he got
more "comfortable" with killing--1 in '87, 2 in '88, 1
in '89, 4 in '90, and 8 in '91--until he was caught. In fact, the
last few killings were only days apart.
Dahmer was a cannibal--consumed human flesh and blood. He kept
body parts (including skeleton and skulls). He preferred sexual
acts with dead and dismembered bodies. *Some people do not
consider Dahmer a cannibal because he only
"tasted" flesh a time of 2. This should be your own
decision.
Jeffrey Dahmer's fall began on July 22, 1991, when officers found in Dahmer's apartment a butcher knife and some Polaroid's of men in homosexual activity. Some of the pictures were also of dead men. In many of the pictures, the corpses had been dismembered and mutilated in other ways. As Officer Mueller looked around the room, he realized the pictures had taken place in that very room.
As the officers continued to search the place, they found horror everywhere. A human head in the refrigerator, hands in a cooking pot, 3 heads in a freezer, and a total of 5 skulls in a box and filing cabinet.
As if that weren't enough,
there was a drum, the size of those used for industrial purposes,
which was filled with chemicals and the remains of 3 bodies.
There were tools--in particular, a chain saw, which is apparently
what Dahmer dismembered his victims with. There were also
chemicals such as chloroform and formaldehyde.
When no food and only condiments were found in the apartment,
officers began wondering: is he also a cannibal? It was later
revealed that he also drank the blood.