Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén - Jeffrey Dahmer Special Pt. 3

Episode Date: December 23, 2019

While on probation after an early release from prison in March of 1990, Jeffrey Dahmer continued his wave of sadistic violence. A chance event would finally lead to his arrest, and a media spectacle would bring Dahmer to the masses. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is California's number one entertainment destination for today's superstars. Catch the Jonas Brothers return to the Yamava Theater stage on April 30th, the powerful vocals of Demi Lovato on May 17th, and the signature Southern Country Rock of Eric Church on July 19th. Tickets on sale now at Yamavah Theater.com,

only at Yamava Resort and Casino, celebrating its 40th anniversary. You in? Must be 21 to enter. Due to the graphic nature of this killer's crimes, listener discretion is advised. This episode includes discussions of murder, torture, sexual assault, necrophilia, cannibalism, and violence against children that some people may find offensive. We advise extreme caution for children under 13. In May 1991, 25-year-old Dean Vaughn was found strangled in his own home at Milwaukee's Oxford Department.

The building had a locked entrance, so every tenant immediately became a suspect, including the quiet man in Unit 213. Jeffrey Dahmer. When Dahmer opened his door to see a detective on the other side, he panicked. He had a closet full of skulls, organs in the freezer. His latest victim's flayed skin was still soaking in a barrel of saltwater. water. He was sure he was about to be arrested. He tried to remain calm as the detective asked him about a recent homicide, a black male, mid-20s, named Dean Vaughn.

The tension lifted. Domer didn't have anything to do with that murder. He gave an honest statement, provided an alibi, and the cop was on his way. Domer may not have killed his neighbor, Dean Vaughn, but he had already killed 11 other people, and by the end of the month, he would kill two more. None of these homicides would ever be investigated by the Milwaukee police. Hi, I'm Greg Poulson. And I'm Vanessa Richardson. Every Monday, Vanessa and I co-host serial killers, a podcast original. This is the final episode of our special on Jeffrey Dahmer, the Milwaukee Cannibal.

At Parcast, we're grateful for you, our listeners. You allow us to do what we love. Let us know how we're doing. Reach out on Facebook and Instagram at Parcast and Twitter at Parcast Network. And if you enjoy today's episode, the best way to help us is to leave a five-star review wherever you're listening. It really does help. In the past two episodes, we discussed Dahmer's evolution from troubled child to necrophilic murderer. After killing five men and assaulting dozens more,

Dahmer's spree came to a pause in 1989 when one of his victims got away. He was convicted of sexual assault, but in March 1990, he was released two months early. In this episode, we'll look at the spiral of violence that occurred while Dahmer was out on probation. We'll also look at the chance event that finally led to his arrest. and the media spectacle that followed. Jeffrey Dahmer walked out of prison on March 2, 1990, feeling like his actions would never have consequences. In the past few years,

the 29-year-old serial rapist and murderer had committed an untold number of felonies. He'd only ever been convicted of one, and for that he only spent 10 months behind bars, on daily work release nonetheless. He was still technically on probation, but as usual, he was able to game that system. As a maximum supervision client,

his probation officer, Donna Chester, would typically have to make a home visit at least once every 30 days. The total number of home visits Chester made was zero. Chester determined that Dahmer was a lower-risk sex offender because the crime he'd been convicted of wasn't overtly violent. She submitted a request to waive the home visits and her supervisor approved it.

If she had bothered to stop by his new apartment, even once, she would have seen evidence of overtly violent crimes. After his release, Dahmer moved into the Oxford Apartments in central Milwaukee, taking his skull in a box with him. And with his own abode, he had the prime. to commit more murders than ever before. In May 1990, just two months after his release from prison, Dahmer met 33-year-old Raymond Smith outside Club 219.

He offered him $50 to come home with him. Within 30 minutes, Smith was drugged and strangled. Then it was time for Dahmer's new favorite hobby, photography. He'd used a photo session as a ruse to lure in his previous victim, 13-year-old Somsox in Fossampong. This time, the photos fit a different purpose. He posed Smith's corpse in a variety of positions and took Polaroids to serve as mementos. The bodies themselves had to be disposed of pretty quickly, but a picture is forever. The Polaroids, along with the skulls, let him relive the experience.

in the time between kills. Regarding the skulls, now that Dahmer had his own place, he had his sights on a DIY project. He'd acquired a long black table and a statue of a griffin, the mythical winged creature that often symbolizes the devil. Dahmer said he bought the griffin because it represented how he felt, evil. Once he was done with Raymond Smith, he would have two skulls to add to the decision. display. This would be his altar, a monument to his victims. He explained, if I couldn't keep them there with me whole, at least I felt that I could keep their skeletons. Of course, a table full of skulls

was bound to get him in trouble. So we went to the craft store and bought an off-white paint to cover the skulls, so they would look less realistic. If anyone asked, he'd say they were just props. But he still had to dispose of the rest of the body. His old process of using a sledgehammer to grind up the bones wouldn't fly in an apartment complex, and leaving the remains in the community dumpster was risky, to say the least. Instead, he bought an 80-gallon steel kettle, boiled the flesh, and dissolved the bones with acid. Once it was liquefied, he simply poured it down the toilet. Less than a week after Raymond Smith's murder,

Dahmer was ready to kill again. His timeline was escalating severely, but his success rate was falling due to his own bungling incompetence. In late May, Dahmer brought a victim home, mixed the sleeping pills into a drink, and accidentally took the wrong glass

drugging himself instead. He woke up disoriented, missing $300, and a watch. On June 23rd, he tried again. 27-year-old Eddie Smith was lured in by Dahmer's claim that he was a movie producer. Eddie agreed to go home with him and pose for pictures. None of the photos Dahmer took of Eddie, either dead or alive, turned out well.

And his experimental attempt to dry the skull by heating it in the oven failed spectacularly. The skull exploded and there were. were no relics left of the crime. Dahmer recalled that this was one of the only murders he felt bad about because it was a waste. It was one thing to kill for a purpose, even if that purpose was adding another skull to the collection. But since nothing tangible had come from the murder, he felt that the suffering he'd caused Eddie was all for nothing. On July 6th came Luis Pinae. took photos, had sex, and fell asleep together. All night, Dahmer kept waiting for Penae to say he was going home. That was his cue to offer one more drink. But the moment never came.

Penae was the first person to stay until morning and agree to see him again. Domer was so surprised he let him leave in peace. But he couldn't let the good one get away. The next night, the two met up again and went back to Dahmer's apartment. Dahmer happened to be out of sleeping pills, so in a pinch, he snuck up behind Pinae with a giant rubber mallet and hit him over the head. In Dahmer's words, obviously he got upset about that. Fistakuffs ensued.

But the men were evenly matched in strength, so there was no easy winner. After a few minutes, they were both worn out and agreed to a truth. Once they had both calmed down, Dahmer gave a half-baked excuse for why he'd hit Penae with a mallet. Penae apparently accepted the apology because the two spent the entire rest of the night talking. At a certain point, Dahmer came to the realization that I just didn't have the ability to do him any harm. At about 7 a.m., Penae promised he wouldn't tell anyone what happened, and Dahmer walked him to the bus stop. Penne broke that promise and went to the police. But the story was so bizarre, they simply didn't believe him.

This strange saga is telling when it comes to Dahmer's motivations and mental state. At a certain point, back when he'd killed Stephen Hicks, he was motivated by loneliness, a need for a partner who wouldn't reject him and wouldn't leave. Finally, he had that in Luis Penae. If they'd met a few years earlier, perhaps. would have seen this as the beginning of a normal relationship. But as biographer Brian Masters writes, by 1990, Dahmer was incapable of such normal reasoning because the partner was not at that stage a person to him at all, but a putative object,

a thing to stimulate his fantasy. During the course of their night-long discussion, the object gradually took on being. The fantasy dissolved, and Dahmer found himself face to face with a human being. The encounter apparently threw him off his game, because it was two months before he lured in another victim. In early September, 23-year-old Ernest Miller became the third skull on Dahmer Shrine. This time, he also kept a few limbs and organs for another purpose. He started with the bicep, beating him. it with a meat tentarizer and frying it up in a pan of Crisco.

In a bizarre way, he thought of cannibalism as honoring his victims, not degrading them. Dahmer explained, I suppose in an odd way, it made me feel as if they were even more a part of me. This was the ultimate in togetherness. They were literally inside of him, and in death, they nourished his life. Over the coming months, Dahmer's fridge would fill with several more victims. On September 24th, he met 23-year-old David Thomas at the mall and offered him money to come back to his apartment and pose for photos. After drugging him, Dahmer suddenly changed his mind and decided Thomas wasn't his type. But he realized Thomas would inevitably wake up and be pissed off at him.

So he killed him anyway. February 18th, 1991. 17-year-old Curtis Stratter was approached at the bus stop with the same offer. By this point, the routine becomes tedious. He was drugged, strangled, dismembered, and disposed of. His skull, hands, and genitals were kept as souvenirs. April 7th, 19-year-old Errol Lindsay struck up a conversation with Dahmer outside a local gay bookstore.

After Lindsay was strangled, Dahmer flayed the skin from his entire body and attempted to preserve it in saltwater. The experiment failed. May 24th, 31-year-old Tony Hughes met Dahmer Outside Club 219. Tony was deaf, and as his two friends drove the group home from the club,

he and Dahmer sat in the back seat scribbling notes to each other. Tony's friends dropped him off at Dahmer's apartment and never saw him again. In the course of a year, Dahmer had killed seven people and attempted to kill several more, but no one seemed to notice the wave of disappearances. At least in part, this was due to the transient nature of the gay community at the time. A bartender at a Milwaukee gay club commented, many people don't use their real names.

They don't have close contact with their families. We have a hard time keeping track. Additionally, this was during the height of the AIDS epidemic. Around 150 Wisconsin residents died of AIDS in 1991, and the majority of them were gay and bisexual men living in Milwaukee. With so many healthy young men suddenly dropping dead, the extra disappearances didn't raise any eyebrows. That's doubly true.

because Dahmer's past seven victims were all part of the most at-risk demographic for HIV in Milwaukee, black men. This was also the demographic least likely to be investigated by the reportedly prejudiced Milwaukee police in the early 90s. Of all the men Dahmer would eventually kill, all but two were people of color. It's hard to say what to make of this. Criminologists Jonathan James and Jean Prue found that 80s, 86.8% of serial sexual murderers target victims who are the same race as themselves, and half of them searched for new victims who resembled their previous victims. So going after a wide range of white, black, Latino, and Asian victims is highly unusual.

Dahmer insisted that he chose his victims based solely on attraction and opportunity. Since the area he lived in was heavily black, his victims skewed that way as well. He emphatically denied any racial motivation, although how much we can trust Jeffrey Dahmer's word is anyone's guess. Furthermore, some of Dahmer's acquaintances recalled him making racist comments in daily conversation. We can't ignore the possibility that, at least on some level, he mainly chose people of color because he felt less empathy for them. The race of the victims may have helped keep them under the police's radar, but the murders didn't escape the notice of Dahmer's neighbors.

During the spree of killings, the property manager confronted Dahmer several times about the terrible smell coming from his apartment. The first time, he explained that his freezer had broken and some meat had spoiled. The story was accepted. But when the smell didn't go away, Dahmer got another visit.

This time he insisted that his tropical fish tank had malfunctioned, and a few of the fish died. He even showed the property manager the large barrel in the closet, where an unidentifiable mass was decomposing in muriatic acid. Dahmer promised to get rid of the barrel, and he made good on that promise. But that meant that after he killed Tony Hughes, he had to leave the body lying out in the open until he had the time and energy to dispose of him. Naturally, this led to more complaints about the odor. This carelessness with the disposal process was a sign that Dahmer was devolving.

Over the coming months, his crimes became more and more reckless. On May 27th, just a few days after he killed Tony Hughes, Dahmer found his next victim outside the Grand Avenue Mall. He had no idea who the boy was, but he guessed he was in his late teens. and probably East Asian in heritage. He was actually 14 and Lauschen. His name was Konarak Simphassampone, the younger brother of Somsak.

After this, we'll look at Dahmer's most notorious run-in with the Milwaukee police. Now back to the story. On Sunday, May 27, 1991, Jeffrey Dahmer picked up 14-year-old Konarok Synthosompone at the local mall. He offered him $50 to come to his apartment and pose for some photos, and Konarok agreed. He apparently didn't know that, less than three years earlier, his older brother Somsak had been lured in with the exact same ruse.

Somsak, of course, escaped before the sleeping pills. kicked in, leading to Dahmer's arrest for sexual assault. Dahmer was totally unaware that the two were related. He commented, if I'd known who I was dealing with, I sure as hell wouldn't have bothered asking him back. That's for sure. They went back to Dahmer's apartment, where Tony Hughes' body was still decomposing in the bedroom.

Unlike his brother, Konarok fell unconscious before he realized anything was wrong. Then he became the next subject of an experiment Dahmer had tried on a few other victims with no success. The main problem with corpses is that they have to be disposed of quickly. That's why Dahmer kept photos and skulls to tide him over between kills. But he recalled, I didn't want to keep killing people and have nothing left except the skull. He wondered if there was a way to keep someone alive, but in a permanently subdued, compliant state.

To that end, he purchased a power drill and a marinate injector. Once Konarok had passed out, Dahmer drilled a small hole into the top of his head, aiming for the frontal lobe, which controls speech, motor skills, and decision-making. He then filled the hole with muriatic acid. If all went as planned, Konarok would become something of a zonel. zombie, fully conscious, but unable to communicate or physically resist. At about 1.30 in the morning, Dahmer left the unconscious boy in the living room and went out for a beer. He planned to come back soon to check on the progress. But while he was gone, Konurak woke up.

He could barely walk, but he managed to stumble out of the apartment and down the street, naked and disoriented. Most passers-by assumed he was just drunk, but eventually three women stopped to help him. He couldn't speak coherently, but it was obvious he was in trouble. Just then, Dahmer rounded the corner to see Konorak talking with the women.

This was bad. He hurried over and threw an arm around Cornerock's shoulder, pretending he was his drunk friend. He promised the women he'd take care of him, and tried to drag him back to the apartment. But Konorak fought back. He managed to form one coherent word. No.

Dahmer twisted him into a full headlock and pulled the naked boy down the street as the women shouted after him. Pretty soon a crowd had gathered to watch the spectacle and then a police car arrived. The two officers who stepped out were white men. The three women screaming at Donner, Dahmer were black.

What happened next was perhaps inevitable. Dahmer calmly explained that Konarok was his boyfriend. He'd had a little too much whiskey that night, and he always pulled these kind of hijinks when he was drunk, running through the streets naked. He didn't have any identification for his boyfriend here, but he provided his own correct name and address, cooperating fully.

The three women kept loudly insisting that, This was clearly a child, not a 20-year-old adult, as Dahmer claimed. One of the officers replied that they should shut the hell up and stop telling him how to do his job. Konurak did look like he might be older. According to police records, the officers and observers estimated his age as anywhere between 13 and 20. Dahmer explained this by saying that Asian people, quote, look young. It's hard to tell their age. We can imagine the officers thought the same way.

Taking a massive gamble, Dahmer invited the police back to his apartment, where he had the photos he'd taken earlier that night, photos where Konarok was awake, cooperative, and in his underwear. In a tragic twist, those photos would support the story that they were in a consensual relationship. Conorak sat compliantly on the couch while the police examined the photos. His consciousness was waning, and he'd stopped fighting. The officers accepted that this was a domestic incident, and given the department's contentious history with the LGBT community,

they decided it was best to stay out of it. They were about to leave when one of the officers noticed a strange smell coming from the bedroom. Tony Hughes, decomposing corpse. The officer briefly poked his head into the unlocked bedroom but didn't bother to turn on the light. He decided it wasn't any of his business. The pair of officers left telling Dahmer, well, you just take care of him.

Within an hour, Konorak was dead. If the police had bothered to run a background check, they would have found out that Dahmer was on probation for the sexual assault of Konarok's brother. But of course, they did not. The same day Konorak was killed, probation officer Donna Chester sent Dahmer for a psychiatric evaluation. The doctor concluded he had no serious mental disorders

and wasn't a danger to himself or others. He was fooling everyone, even as his life spiraled further out of control. On June 30th, he made. 20-year-old Matt Turner after a gay pride parade. Turner's head and organs ended up in Dahmer's freezer. A week later, 23-year-old Jeremiah Weinberger met the same fate. Once again, Dahmer tried drilling a hole in his skull,

filling it with boiling water instead of acid this time. Weinberger lived for two days before eventually dying. His head was tossed in the freezer, and his body was left in a bleach solution in the bathtub. Eight days after that, on July 15th, Dahmer brought home 24-year-old Oliver Lacey. Weinberger's body was still decomposing in the bathtub because Dahmer hadn't had the time to dispose of it.

Once Lacey was subdued, he called into work and asked for a personal day. Unfortunately, he'd taken so many days off in the pen. past year for the sake of disposing of bodies, that his supervisor wouldn't take it anymore. He was fired for poor attendance. It was obvious even to Dahmer that he was in way over his head. He recalled, if I'd been thinking rationally, I would have stopped. It was almost like I wanted it to get to a point where it was out of my control and there was no return.

The very next day, July 16th, Dahmer called it. his probation officer to apologize for missing an appointment on July 10th. He told Officer Chester that he'd recently lost his job. They met on the 18th, and Dahmer confessed that he was seriously contemplating suicide. Officer Chester sent him for another psychiatric appointment that same afternoon. The doctor prescribed him an anxiety medication and made no recommendations for further action to the probation office. His way home from that appointment, Dahmer approached another man and invited him back to the apartment. He turned him down.

Less than 24 hours later, on July 19th, Dahmer picked up 25-year-old Joseph Bradoft at a bus stop. Due to the stress of the past couple of weeks, Jeremiah Weinberger's headless body was still in the bathtub. Oliver Lacey was piled on top of him, and once charged, Joseph Bradoft was dead. His body had to be left on the bed. By July 21st, the corpse was covered in maggots. Dahmer woke up late on July 22nd. He hadn't showered in a while because of the bathtub situation.

Leaving his den of human remains, he staggered out for a beer. The property manager once again accosted him in the hallway and warned him if that smell coming from his unit didn't immediately, he'd be evicted. That was the least of his problems. With no job, he wouldn't be able to make rent the next month anyway. After he'd had a few beers, Domer wandered the city trying to pick up another victim. He approached men at the bus stop, at the mall, in public restrooms. It was a Monday afternoon, and no one was rearing to follow this drunk, smelly man home for $50. Eventually he gave up and sat down on the mall food court with a slice of pizza and a beer.

At about 5 p.m. he saw three men hanging out near the entrance, and one of them he recognized. A few days earlier, 32-year-old Tracy Edwards had encountered Dahmer at the bus stop and asked him for a cigarette. They made small talk for a while before going their separate ways. They'd run into each other again a couple of days after that. This third meeting seemed like fate. Dahmer went over to Edwards and his friends and started up a conversation. He told them that he was bored, and he'd give them each $100 if they came back to his place. Naturally, one of them asked if sex would be involved, and Dahmer said that part wouldn't be necessary.

All he really wanted was to handcuff someone. Tracy took him up on the offer. The moment they got to Dahmer's apartment, Tracy realized he'd made a mistake. There were multiple locks on both the inside and outside of the door and an alarm system that had to be disengaged before they could enter. Inside, the living room was fairly clean and orderly, but there was a terrible stench and a vaguely unsettling energy.

There were artistic photos of nude men on the walls. Two gargoyle statues adorned the long, black table in the living room. There was an aquarium full of exotic fish, kept in perfectly neat condition. Exorcist 3 was playing on the TV in the bedroom. And in the kitchen, there were four big boxes of muriatic acid. Something was definitely off. Edwards wandered over to get a closer look at the fish tank. Dahmer went into the kitchen and started mixing some Roman coax. While his back was turned, handcuffs clinked around Tracy Edwards left wrist. Edwards asked what was happening. Domer led him into the bedroom and said,

I won't hurt you if you let me handcuff you and take some pictures. Then he pulled out a knife. Realizing how precarious the situation was, Edwards decided to cooperate. He complied with the command to take off his shirt. They sat down on the bed and watched the movie on the TV. Then, Dahmer lowered his head to Edward's chest and listened to his heartbeat. Dahmer was clearly losing his grip on reality. Not only did he fail to drug or fully handcuff Edwards before threatening him with the knife, he left his unrestrained victim alone while he went to the fridge to grab a beer. Unsurprisingly, Edward's, used the opportunity to make a dash for the door.

It was 11.30 at night. Down the block, Milwaukee police officers, Rolf Mueller, and Robert Roth were making their rounds when they saw Edwards running down the street with a handcuff hanging from his wrist. Edwards flagged down the squad car and asked them if they could remove the handcuff. He didn't tell them anything else about what had happened.

His only goal was to get the handcuffs off and get out of there. But when the police couldn't open the line, lock, he begrudgingly agreed to lead them back to Dahmer's place to retrieve the key. When the police knocked on the door, Dahmer realized it was all over. He later recalled, obviously a power higher than myself had been fed up with my deeds and decided it was time for me to be stopped. So he stepped aside and invited them in. When Officer Mueller stepped into the bedroom. The first thing he noticed was the knife lying just under the edge of the bed.

Then he saw the open drawer full of Polaroids of naked men. Upon closer inspection, some of the photos weren't entire bodies. They were severed heads and limbs. And they were all taken in that same bedroom Officer Mueller was standing in. Mueller called his partner over and showed him the pictures. Domer remained calm until he heard one of the officers mutter, cuff him. Finally, snapping back to reality, Dahmer began to struggle. The two officers wrestled him to the ground and slapped the handcuffs around his wrists.

Officer Roth kept him pinned to the floor while Mueller searched the rest of the apartment. Opening the fridge, he saw a cardboard box on the bottom shelf containing a severed head. Looking up from the floor, Dahmer told him, for what I did, I should be dead. After this, we'll look at the aftermath of Dahmer's arrest. Now the conclusion of our story.

13 years after committing his first murder, Jeffrey Dahmer was finally apprehended on July 22, 1991, at the age of 31. His killing spree had gone completely unnoticed by the Milwaukee police, who didn't even realize they had a serial killer on their hands until they walked into Dahmer's home. The local and national media descended upon the Oxford departments almost immediately, capturing footage as the police lugged boxes full of body parts out of the building. The scant details that leaked to the press were shocking,

a local TV news report described decapitated heads in a refrigerator freezer and a psychotic mass murderer who neighbors never suspected to be a killer. Regarding Dahmer himself, they reported all we really know about him is that he is 31 years old. Who is Jeffrey Dahmer?

Would be the question of the year. The Milwaukee Journal estimated that 400, 150 reporters came to Milwaukee to cover the case. Many debated whether he was a man or monster. Comparisons to the Silence of the Lambs, which had just been released six months earlier, were frequent. The Associated Press went to Bath Township, Ohio, to interview everyone from his childhood neighbors

to his high school prom date, who helpfully commented, he didn't even kiss me good night. The Milwaukee police came under close-examination, as well. The Synthosampone family was horrified to learn that their missing son's remains were found in Dahmer's apartment. He'd been killed by the same man who assaulted their older son just three years earlier. Even more horrifying was the fact that police had hand-delivered the boy back to Dahmer's doorstep after he tried to escape. Due to the public uproar, the officers who

responded to the call were fired, but they were later reinstated. The Synthasimpones sued the city of Milwaukee for blatant misconduct and eventually won an $850,000 settlement. As for the other grieving families, all they could hope for was closure and justice. The quest to identify Dommers' victims was led by the killer himself. Once he was taken into custody, he spent two weeks dictating what his attorney called the longest confession in the history of America. His initial interview lasted from 1.30 a.m. to 7.15 a.m. in the early morning hours after he was arrested. During that time, he drank four or five cups of coffee, two cans of Coke, and confessed to 15 murders, even though police had only charged him with 10.

Once he'd signed a statement, he asked the detectives if they would just sit in the interview room and talk with him so he can have a couple of cigarettes, some coffee, and think as to what had occurred. Over the next two weeks, the interrogation room became his personal therapy session. He confessed to two more murders that he'd forgotten to mention in the first interview. He talked about his childhood. He confirmed that he knew the crimes he was committing were wrong, and that he drank excessively to try to forget the nightmare he felt he was living.

He even told them about the time he'd gone bar hopping, blacked out, and woke up hogtide in a strange man's apartment, with a candlestick and a part of his body where he didn't want it to be. Nothing was off the table now. Dahmer stated that he realized it would be impossible to make amends, for his crimes, but that maybe by telling the truth he could start to make things right. The only way he could start to change himself was to admit exactly what he had done, to state that he was sorry for what he had done,

and to swear that he would try to change his life in the future. Naturally, one has to wonder how sorry a serial killer can be, but from the matter-of-fact tone of the confession and the wide range of horrendous, He said, it's hard to detect any hidden agenda. If he was trying to make himself look sympathetic, he probably wouldn't have led with the fact that he'd eaten a human bicep. And if he was trying to brag, he wouldn't have mentioned the countless victims that got away, or shared so many embarrassing details about his personal life.

We're left to assume then that Dahmer really was telling the truth, or his version of it. version of it. What we get is a chillingly honest look at the thought process of a murderer. Even though he was aware that his crimes were horrifying, it didn't seem to fully register for him on a personal level. Over the years, killing had become mundane, to the point where chipping frozen organs off the bottom of the freezer fell under cleaning the fish tank on his weekend to-do list. His final self-assessment, while speaking with a court-appointed psychiatrist was, I should have gotten a college degree and gone into real estate

and got myself an aquarium. That's what I should have done. Dahmer's frankness sets him apart from most other serial killers, from Ted Bundy, who denied all the charges against him until after his trial, to the self-aggrandizing BTK killer, Dennis Rader, whose sentencing statement was compared to an Academy Awards acceptance, speech. And while his honesty didn't win him any favors from the courts, it did add an interesting dimension to the media coverage of his case. A Vanity Fair article mused that Dahmer's distress about

his crimes compounds the mystery by lifting him from the simple category of a monster, whom we can view from a fascinated and safe distance, into an uncomfortably recognizable human being. This conflict coalesced on the first day of his insanity trial in January 1992, when he strode into the courtroom wearing a white button-down shirt, khakis, and a brown suit jacket, looking more like a timid high school teacher than a mass murderer. Despite believing that there was no hope for his defense, Dahmer's attorney convinced him to try an insanity plea. For the next two weeks, a parade of his defense,

A parade of psychiatrists would debate two legal questions. Did Dahmer have the capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct? And was he capable of conforming his conduct to the requirements of the law? The first question was a non-starter, since Dahmer readily admitted that he knew his crimes were wrong. The real debate was whether he was capable of controlling his behavior. This is a tricky question. The fact that he kept killing, even as he lost everything in the process, suggests that no, he wasn't able to stop himself. On the other hand, the nine years between his first and second murders proves that, at least at one point in time, he was able to control himself.

For the defense, the argument was that Dahmer's violent thoughts were compulsive, and without proper treatment, he had no hope of controlling them permanently. Dr. Fred Berlin testified that Dahmer's necrophilia was a cancer of the mind. He couldn't choose to have those thoughts, and he couldn't stop them from coming. Their next expert, Dr. Carl Wallstrom, pointed out that Dahmer had a long history of serious mental illness, which was essentially untreated, leading to bizarre, delusional ideas, like using a power drill to turn a person into a zombie. By Wallstrom's analysis, Dahmer's condition requires continuous treatment. And without it, he couldn't have possibly pulled himself out of his psychotic state on his own. On the prosecution side, the star witness was Dr. Park Dietz,

who had recently gained fame for consulting on John Hinckley Jr.'s trial. Dietz argued that even though Dahmer's necrophilic thoughts weren't a choice, he did make a choice to give in to them. He said, most paraphiles never act on their parapheria in a criminal way. The paraphile is as free as any other human being to choose whether to commit a crime to gratify his wishes. He pointed out the premeditated nature of Dahmer's murders. With the exception of the first two, careful planning went into every step of the process. These were not crimes of impulse or compulsion.

If he was ever mentally unable to control his behavior, it was because of his alcohol abuse, not his necrophilia. This sounds logical, but it may not be medically correct. In 1990, sexologist John Money explained that paraphylia affects the brain's limbic system, which is responsible for sexual drives as well as aggression, pleasure, repetitive behaviors, and forming memories. While there's no clear answer on what causes this to happen, in patients with parapheria, an error in the brain's pathways caused sexual arousal signals to be mixed up with other, often aggressive, brain signals. On a neurological level, this bears a close resemblance to temporal lobe seizures in which

a person enters an altered state of consciousness without the convulsions typically associated with seizures. In that altered state, a person may engage in activities that appear to be purposeful and voluntary, but are actually involuntary. They might have no memory of what happened during the seizure or be only partially aware of what they're doing. Dr. Money suggested the same thing might happen during episodes of paraphylic behavior, like sexually motivated murders. This calls to mind Dahmer's first murder, in which he's.

said something just came over him that he couldn't control, as well as the second murder of Stephen Twomey, which he didn't remember at all. However, this research wasn't brought up at Dahmer's trial. Dr. Money points out that forensic sexology is a specialization that general forensic psychiatrists and psychologists often aren't familiar with. So instead of explaining the neurological workings of necrophilia, these offenders are often misrepresented as being, by their own choice, psychopathic or sociopathic deviates. While this paraphylic fugue state theory doesn't excuse violent behavior, morally or legally, it also doesn't help anyone to insist with no evidence that these offenders could just stop if they

tried to. Dommer tried a variety of tactics to prevent himself from killing, and it's abundantly clear that they didn't work. As for what else he could have done to stop himself, no one at the trial offered a suggestion. Of course, this loops back around to the question of responsibility, fugue state or no fugue state. Dahmer was fully aware that what he was doing was wrong. If he truly felt he couldn't stop himself,

he could have sought help by actually cooperating during his therapy sessions, or even by turning himself into the police. In the end, even Dahmer himself agreed. he was the only one to blame for his actions. On February 15, 1992, the jury concluded that he was legally sane and guilty of 15 counts of first-degree murder. He would be tried for Stephen Hicks' murder in Ohio at a later date, and he couldn't be charged for Stephen Tuomi's because none of his remains were ever found. In his final address to the court, Dahmer calmly accepted his 15.

life sentences. It is over now. This has never been a case of trying to get free. I didn't ever want freedom. Frankly, I want a death for myself. This was a case to tell the world that I did what I did not for reasons of hate. I hated no one.

I knew I was sick or evil or both. Now I believe I was sick. I know how much harm I have caused. I tried to do the best I could, after the arrest to make amends, but no matter what I did, I could not undo the terrible harm I have caused. I wanted to find out just what it was that caused me to be so bad and evil. But most of all, Mr. Boyle and I decided that maybe there was a way for us to tell the world that if there are people out there with these disorders, maybe they can get some help

before they end up being hurt or hurting someone. It was a moving sentiment, but in Dahmer's signature monotone, it didn't quite ring true to everyone. Once he was transferred to the Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage, Wisconsin, he spent a year in solitary confinement out of fear that he'd be assaulted by his fellow inmates. That fear was proven correct in November 1994 when another prisoner beat him to death. with a metal bar. At just 34 years old, Dahmer's life was brief but eventful. Nearly two decades after his arrest,

he's still a household name. He's been the subject of 10 books, four films, six documentaries, a comic book, and an experimental theater piece that uses him as a metaphor for governmental indifference

to the AIDS crisis. This media attention is a double-edged sword, On one hand, much of it focuses on the police misconduct, racism, homophobia, and lack of mental health services that led to Dahmer's multi-year killing spree. By bringing those issues to public attention, it's far more likely that we can prevent another Jeffrey Dahmer from happening. On the other hand, there's a fine line between understanding a criminal and glorifying them. By portraying their acts of violence as fascinating and attention-worthy, we unintentionally hold up the point of view that led them to kill in the first place,

that murder is a means of gaining power. It's an ironic twist that Dahmer himself became a victim of murder, and his killer, Christopher Scarver, became something of a folk hero as a result. As recently as 2015, Scarver has made international human. headlines with lurid new details about Dahmer's murder. The cycle of violence and sensationalization keeps turning, and in some ways this podcast is a part of it, but it can be argued that the benefits of understanding a criminal outweighs the danger of dwelling on them. In the words of Dahmer's attorney, Gerald Boyle, if we can illuminate the

condition which afflicts people like Jeffrey Dahmer, we might have done some little thing for humanity. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, check out the Parcast original Serial Killers, which you can listen to for free on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. To stream serial killers for free on Spotify, just open the app and type Serial Killers in the search bar. And don't forget to follow us on Facebook and Instagram at Parcast and Twitter at Parcast Network

We'll see you next time. Dahmer is a special Parcast Studios original episode, created by Max Culler. It is executive produced by Max Cudler, sound design by Russell Nash, with production assistance by Ron Shapiro, Carly Madden, Freddie Beckley, and Joel Stein. This episode was written by Kate Gallagher, with writing assistance by Drew Cole, and stars Greg Paulson and Vanessa Richardson. Ryan Reynolds here for MintMobil. I don't know if you knew this, but,

Anyone can get the same premium wireless for $15 a month plan that I've been enjoying. It's not just for celebrities. So do like I did and have one of your assistants assistants to switch you to MintMobile today. I'm told it's super easy to do at mintmobile.com slash switch. Up front payment of $45 for three month plan equivalent to $15 per month required. Intro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. Default terms at mintmobile.com.

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