Jeffrey Dahmer: Serial Killer

The case study of Jeffrey Dahmer

The crime and criminal

Are serial killers born or made? The phenomenon of serial murder has always received a considerable amount attention from both the media and the public, despite the high level of interest, very little known about the serial killers and few theoretical explanations have been of interest by academia (Lee & Choi,2014). Jeffrey Dahmer also known as Milwaukee Monster was an American serial killer and sexual offender through the years of 1978-1991. His victims were usually drugged, raped, strangled and dismembered, his murders also include necrophilia and cannibalism (Purcell and Arrigo, 2006). As a child it was reported that Dahmer displayed an interest in dead animals as well as with their

deteriorating remains (Purcell & Arrigo,2006). It was found that in the Dahmer household there was a persistent family arguments and martial strife, eventually his parents divorced by the time Jeffrey was 16. His mother, who suffered from occasional depression and frequent suicidal thoughts was very self-involved. It was reported that Jeffrey was occasionally isolated and was regarded by other children as odd and bizarre. Throughout his teen years, Dahmer seemed uninterested to having relationships with females. It was reported that he struggled with his sexual identity, often feeling that his homosexual impulsions were wrong. Dahmer admitted he also developed increasingly violent sexualized fantasies and in some cases this was necrophilia (Purcell and Arrigo, (2006).

Dahmer committed his first murder in 1978 at the age of 18 whilst home alone, according to Dahmer’s account he lured a young man named Steven Hicks (Masters,1993) into his empty home with the idea of the pair drinking alcohol. When Steven wanted to leave Dahmer struck him with a barbell on the head strangled him then masturbated over the corpse before dissecting Hicks’s body in a crawl space then burying him in his back yard. The next three years Dahmer was arrested a number of times for indecent exposure and also masturbating in front of two 12-year-old boys. By 1985 he frequently used hotel rooms for sexual encounters with young men, however Dahmer reported that he became unsatisfied at partners moving during sexual intercourse, for this reason he began to administer sleeping pills to partners to make sure they were unconscious before having sex (Backderf,2012)

The next murder of Dahmer’ was September 1987 of Steven Tuomi, Dahmer reported remembering nothing of the murder until he woke up lying naked on top on Tuomi’s body.

Jeffrey then destroyed the body parts, he done this by crushing the bones with a hammer and bleaching his skull (this would then become a regular pattern for the discarded of future victims). Dahmer continued to lure victims into is apartment by offering them money for sex or nude photographs (Stubel,2007). He would then drug his victims, engage in sexual intercourse then kill them by strangulation. Dahmer’s fantasies then progressed into necrosadistic behaviour by 1988 as he would kill his victims then participate in necrophilia sex. He would then mutilate their corpses, Dahmer would also save the remains of his victim’s body parts as souvenirs such as save genitals of victims, scalps and skulls (Purcell and Arrigo, (2006). Collecting these items allowed to him masturbate up to the point of orgasm and relive the paraphilia experience Dahmer reported. Dahmer also engaged in cannibalism as as in his words a way remembering the victim, it was also reported that this was sexually arousing to Dahmer. Over a period of 13 years Jeffrey killed 17 young males all with a similar organised pattern, the case of Jeffrey Dahmer will be assed below aiming to establish reasons for why he committed such extreme

crimes.