The serial killer that I chose to profile is Jeffery Dahmer. Dahmer brings both horrifying, yet amazing qualities to the table in the respect that he terrorized people, not only those that were his victims, but also people that lived both near and those around the country. Section I: Overview
- Jeffery Dahmer
- Born on May 21, 1960, at Evangelical Hospital in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
- Jeffery Dahmer was found beaten by fellow inmates on the morning of November 28, 1994, as was pronounced dead at
9:11 a.m.
- Was given life imprisonment on 15 counts of murder committed in Wisconsin and one committed in Ohio, for which he was tried separately. He was sentenced to fifteen consecutive life terms for a total of 957 years in prison.
- Jeffery Dahmer was always seen as very shy and isolated at an early age. Dahmer had fantasies about killing men and having sex with the corpses. Despite the early tendencies of his childhood, Dahmer didn’t act on any of these sexual fantasies until after he had graduated from highschool in June of 1978. Dahmer picked up a hitchhiker by the name of Steven Hicks, and eventually Hicks would be the first victim of Dahmer. Dahmer then enrolled at Ohio State University, only to flunk out within one semester. Next, Dahmer joined the army at the end of 1978, but was discharged for alcoholism and went to live in Florida before returning to Ohio. Dahmer was then arrested in October of 1981 for drunken and disorderly conduct, so his father sent him to live with his grandmother in West Allis, Wisconsin. Dahmer had a couple of sexual legal incidents, then kept cool for about four years. In 1987, Dahmer killed his second victim, Steven Toumi, and would go on a ravenous murder spree after that. - Victims were mainly homosexual men, mostly African-American
- Dahmer was active from June 1978 to July 22, 1991
Section II: Childhood
Dahmer was born on May 21, 1960, to Lionel and Joyce Dahmer. Dahmer was wanted and loved despite Joyce’s problems in pregnancy. Dahmer was a normal, healthy child that showed no signs of mental problems. When Dahmer was four, Lionel was sweeping under the house for small animals that had been killed by civets. As Lionel gathered the bones Dahmer was fascinated with the bones of the dead animals. When Dahmer was six, he suffered from a double hernia and needed surgery to correct the problem. After the surgery, Dahm...
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...s of animals to the sexual, as well as violent fantasies, that led to the spree of killings that he committed. I think that Dahmer had a very big problem with the isolation that he faced at an early age in life. Dahmer saw that his parents were never happy, and maybe that’s why he had homosexual tendencies. Dahmer was continuously consumed with necrophilia, which is the fetish with the dead. He not only collected the bodies of dead animals at an early age, but also he had fantasies about killing people and then having sex with the corpses. I think that you have to put Jeffery Dahmer in a class all his own, because of the fascination that he had with the corpses, and the power that they gave him once he had killed them. A lot of serial killers were more worried about what would happen to them, and they would get rid of the bodies of the people that they had just killed. Dahmer used his own body as a temple to take control of the lives of the victims that he had. Dahmer was very remorseful for the crimes that he had committed, and was very cooperative with the authorities and with the families of his victims. This is not usually seen as a common attribute among serial killers today.
Adnan Syed, was arrested for the crime, and within a year, he was convicted and
He was living in Miami Beach at the time Adam was murdered, and two eyewitnesses placed him at the shopping mall on the day Adam was abducted. One of the witnesses claimed to have seen a strange man walking into the toy department where Adam was abducted. The other said that he saw a young, blond man with a protruding chin throw a struggling child into a blue van and sped off. Both witnesses recognized the man they had seen as Dahmer when pictures of him were released in the newspapers after his arrest. Reports showed that the delivery shop where he worked had a blue van at the time. He preyed on young men and boys (the youngest being eight years older than Adam), and his modus operandi included severing his victims’ heads. When interviewed about Adam in the early 1990s, he repeatedly denied involvement in the crime, even stating; “I’ve told you everything- how I killed them, how I cooked them, who I ate. Why wouldn’t I tell you if I did someone else?” After this rumor surfaced, John Walsh stated that he had “seen no evidence” linking his son’s kidnapping and murder to
Jeffrey Dahmer carried out his task in a more drawn-out process, as opposed to Grendel’s simpler, less systematic mode of operation. Dahmer, for the most part, would go to gay clubs, public baths, or other places his sort of victim would frequent so he could pursue and allure them. From there, he’d bring them to his apartment with promises of sexual favors, drinks, pictures, or just plain hanging out. Then, after getting drunk, he’d crush up a small handful of sleeping pills to render his prey unconscious, following this with either fulfilling his own urges or by strangling them. He’d then rape many of the resulting corpses, dismember them, occasionally eat some flesh, and soak the body in acid to liquefy the flesh. He’d occasionally preserve heads, limbs, or bones and keep them around the apartment to eat and pleasure himself to later. All of this, in total, would be a several-week-long process. Grendel, conversely, took the more expeditious approach. He’d simply wait for the warriors to fall asleep after their partying, sneak in, smash or throw people around the mead hall, and quickly leave. As shown above, Dahmer took the more elaborate, twisted approach to his slayings, while Grendel wanted to get his kills done and over
Driven by his sexual fantasies, Jeffrey Dahmer is one of the most infamous examples of a hedonistic killer. Participating in cannibalism, Dahmer claims these acts were attempts at becoming closer to his victims.
Dahmer was a pretty normal, but very lonely kid. His loneliness followed him throughout the course of his life. Never having an intimate friendship or relationship, along with being consumed with confusion over his own sexuality eventually led him to become the household name he is today. From 1978 to 1991, Dahmer murdered 17 boys and men. Not only is he considered a murderer, but he committed (on several occasions) rape and dismemberment. After his later murders, he was found guilty of necrophilia, cannibalism, and permanent preservation of body parts. He is arguably the most well known, gruesome, and intriguing criminal in American history.
were also very hard for the Dahmer family to deal with. To many it was
Trying to help his son, Lionel assisted Jeffrey get into the University of Ohio. But it was already too lateJeff Dahmer made his first killing at age 17, when he picked up a hitchhiker , brought him home, murdered him, and scattered the bone fragments in the woods behind the Dahmer home.
...nd Dahmer”, Jeff Dahmer would go to school noticeably under the influence, yet somehow go by “unnoticed”. If the teachers were aware of Dahmer’s state, they never took any form of action to discipline him, question him, or be worried with his condition at all. Not once throughout the entirety of the graphic novel does a teacher, student, or parent seem remotely concerned with Dahmer’s well-being. Dahmer fought off the urge to kill many times and did it with the help of no one and nothing other than his own twisted mind, so there is reason to believe any type of assistance from an adult could have been detrimental in the process of Dahmer overcoming his violent urges. Unlike Benjie, Dahmer had no one to look up to and admire. Benjie was eventually able to appreciate and respect Butler Craig as a man who cared enough about him to put Benjie’s life above his own.
At 10 years of age, Kemper began showing signs of true violence. He was sent to live with his father after his mother found the remains of their two pet cats in his closet, one decapitated and the other cut into pieces, from the use of a machete. Once in his father’s care, he ran away and was then quickly shipped off to live with his paternal grandparents on a remote California ranch. At this point in Kemper’s life he was a young teen that stood six feet four and weighed well over 200 pounds. Not only dealing with the strict rules and dysfunctional lifestyle at home, Kemper also endured teasing and torment from peers at school. Most days he would sit and daydream about killing everyone in the world. Kemper later described himself as a “walking time-bomb” (Ramsland, 2006a).
Dahmer was fascinated and did not hesitate to touch or pick them up. According to Lionel Dahmer, he was "oddly thrilled by the sound they made. His small hands dug deep into the pile of bones.” At the age of six, it was discovered that he needed surgery to fix a double hernia. Following his surgery, which coincided with the birth of his brother,there was a drastic change in the once happy, bubbly, outgoing child. Lionel Dahmer states "he seemed smaller, somehow more vulnerable... he grew more inward, sitting quietly for long periods, hardly stirring, his face oddly
Lionel and Joyce Dahmer gave birth to their first born, Jeffrey Dahmer, on May 21, 1960 in Milwaukee. Despite Joyce experiencing a difficult pregnancy, Dahmer was a healthy child who was wanted and adored by both his parents. However, his mother did start to become distant to him as she refused to breast feed him and started demonstrating unstable behavior along with substance abuse. Meanwhile, his father was pursuing his doctoral for chemistry in Iowa which limited the time Lionel had with his family. At age five, Dahmer’s little brother was born and that was when the feeling of neglect set in him. For the first time, the little attention provided from his parents had to be shared with his brother David. Dahmer began displaying extreme shyness but also severe tantrums. During the ages of six and seven, Dahmer “was regarded by other children as odd and bizarre (Martens, 2005).” Even though he did not show any interest in developing genuine social relations, Dahmer did demonstrate a fascination with bug and animal dissections. When Dahmer was six he had “undergone hernia surgery, when he woke up from the anesthesia he was worried someone could have cut his genitals, the pain lasted for one week and after a long recovery period his parents remember he turned to be very loner (Giannetakis, n.d.).” It is believed that at age eight Dahmer had been sexually abused by a boy in his neighborhood (Hickey, 2013). If this event did occur, it could explain why he developed destructive sexual fantasies at the young age of twelve. Despite him being aloof, it has been reported that he would seek attention by faking epileptic seizures at school and local shops. By his adolescent years, he developed compulsive masturbation which would eventually lead to legal trouble (Silva, 2002). At the age of fourteen, Dahmer turned to alcohol abuse in order to overcome his feeling of despair and compulsive thoughts of sexual violent acts.
Print. The. “Dahmer, Jeffrey Lionel.” The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Life. Ed.
During Dahmer’s psychiatric evaluation, Dr. Wahlstrom concluded, “Jeffrey was suffering from a mental illness never cured for” (FBI 1992). This leads me to perceive that Dahmer must have been displaying psychotic traits that went unnoticed and undocumented during his early lifetime. I can only speculate that this uncured mental illness lead Dahmer to develop and refine his inability to empathize with society; which in turn, lead him to engage in cruelty without mentally comprehending the victim’s suffering. Although the causes for psychopathy are unclear, some suggest that psychogenic aspects can outline abnormalities which may be present in psychopaths (Schmalleger 2014). When looking at Dahmer’s distant relationship with his parents early on in his childhood, I became conscious of the fact the lack of affection from his parents which may have lead him to develop twisted views on how one should display affection to others, thus prompting him to show psychotic behavior later on in life (The profile of Jeffrey Dahmer 1996). Even though the letter of the law fails to describe Dahmer and even if he was not fit to stand trial, I believe the court would have declared him fit for trial due to the brutality of the
Data has been collecting reporting that “31% of people who had both a substance abuse disorder and a psychiatric disorder (a "dual diagnosis") committed at least one act of violence in a year, compared with 18% of people with a psychiatric disorder alone. This confirmed other research that substance abuse is a key contributor to violent behavior” (Harvard Health Publishing). This can be applied to Dahmer’s case. It is said that after getting hernia surgery when he was four, Dahmer was never the same. He went from a regular playful child to a distant anxious one. When becoming an adolescent, one will develop an interest in concepts and hobbies. For Dahmer it animal carcasses. He would find roadkill, “dissect and dismember them. He explained that he wanted to know how each animal "fitted together"(Cahill). This could come off as creepy and off-putting, but he was not hurting anyone. It is believed that his parents’ constant fighting and moving was the catalyst in making his obsession with carcasses into a dangerous one. “Children from broken homes are nine times more likely to commit crimes than those from stable families” (Bloxham). His drive to kill could quite possibly be linked to the fact that he simply linked to his familial issues. These problems in the family are definitely linked to his drinking problems as well. Dahmer’s
According to Hochschild, “attitudes toward men’s and women’s roles have been referred to as gender ideologies” (as cited in Helgeson, 2012, p. 68). There are currently three different gender role ideologies that can be measured through the Attitudes Toward Women Scale (ATWS). The three ideologies include egalitarian, the belief that men and women should equally share in both household and workforce duties, traditional, the belief that women only do housework and men only are in the workforce, and transitional, the belief that it is okay for women to enter the workforce, however, they still do proportionally more household duties. Cultural differences also affect individuals’ gender role attitudes, depending on how “expectations for men and