Mind of a Serial Killer - Jeffrey Dahmer Pt. 3

Episode Date: October 14, 2024

Follow the twisted path of Jeffrey Dahmer as he evolved from a murderer to one of history's most notorious serial killers. Discover the disturbing motivations behind every sadistic act as his list of victims grew. Mind of a Serial Killer is a Crime House Original. Follow us on Instagram and TikTok @crimehouse for more true crime content. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is Crime House. and make us do things we might never normally do. Take, for instance, the Beanie Baby craze of the late 90s. Why on earth would people spend all their money on a bunch of little stuffed animals? But when you're sufficiently obsessed with something, you don't think about that. All you want to do is scratch that itch, find some way to fulfill that obsession. Tragically, Jeffrey Dahmer had an obsession too. And thanks to that obsession, almost 20 people lost their lives. The human mind is fascinating. It controls how we think, how we feel, how we love, and how we hate. And sometimes the mind drives us to do something truly unspeakable.

When that happens, people wonder, how could someone do such a thing? Well, on this show, that's what we're going to try and answer. This is Mind of a Serial Killer, a Crime House original. Every Monday, we'll be taking deep dives into the minds of history's most notorious serial killers and violent offenders. At Crime House, we want to express our gratitude to you, our community, for making this possible. Please support us by rating, reviewing, and following Mind of a Serial Killer wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback truly matters. And for ad-free and early access to Mind of a Serial Killer, plus exciting bonus content, subscribe to Crime House Plus on Apple Podcasts. Subscribe now

for instant access to all four episodes of our limited series on Jeffrey Dahmer. I'm Vanessa Richardson. And I'm Dr. Tristan Ingalls. As Vanessa takes you through our subject stories, I'll be helping her dive into these killers' minds as we try to understand how someone could do such horrible things. This is the third of four episodes on Jeffrey Dahmer, perhaps the world's most famous serial killer, who was responsible for murdering at least 17 people in Wisconsin and Ohio from 1978 to 1991. Last week, we examined the fallout of Jeffrey's first murder and his failed attempts to repress his murderous instincts. Today, we'll follow Jeffrey as he becomes increasingly violent and unhinged, leaving a trail of bodies in his wake. And as always, we'll be asking the question, what makes a serial killer?

In our last episode, we focused on Jeffrey Dahmer's shifting feelings after his first murder when he killed Stephen Hicks in 1978. Elation, arousal, and eventually guilt and fear. We talked about his attempts to push down those emotions, mainly through the abuse of alcohol. Although he was able to fight off his violent urges for a while, by the late 80s, he wasn't able to hold them back anymore. And on the night of November 21st, 1987, 27-year-old Jeffrey Dahmer killed his second victim, a young man named Stephen Twomey. After meeting at a bar, Jeffrey

convinced Stephen to accompany him to a room at the Ambassador, a seedy motel in downtown Milwaukee. As the night wound down, Jeffrey handed Stephen a drink laced with sleeping pills. He'd done the same thing to a lot of other men over the past few years or so, without killing them, and this time seemed to be going like all the others. After about a half hour, Stephen passed out on the bed, completely unconscious. Then Jeffrey cuddled up next to him, placing his head on Stephen's torso. A few minutes later, he was asleep. The next morning, Jeffrey woke up with a killer headache. The last thing he remembered was cuddling next to Stephen, stroking his chest. As he came to, Jeffrey realized he was still lying on top of Stephen, and he was dead. There was blood dripping out of Stephen's mouth, and his chest

was severely bruised. There was no questioning what happened. Jeffrey had killed him, but at least according to him, he had no memory of actually doing it. There's a lot of different reasons why that can occur. For some, it's due to a heightened state of psychosis or mania. A lot of times there's a loss of memory during those states just because you're disoriented, you're not in touch with reality. There's also reasons that can happen from substance use or misuse or dependence that can also create impairment in memory. And in some cases for people with long-term dependency on alcohol, there's a thing called Korsakoff syndrome, which can actually create an amnestic sort of process. I don't think that's what's happening here with Jeffrey. There's another aspect here of like a dissociative rage.

And I think that is what explains Jeffrey's behavior in this case, if he truly does not remember it. Is there a possibility that he could have just lied about not remembering? Yes. That's another thing. Like I said, if he truly doesn't remember it, it could likely have been a dissociative rage. But also, he's intentionally not wanting to remember it, intentionally or consciously or subconsciously repressing the memory because it's discomforting to him. If you think about defense mechanisms, repression is one of the defense mechanisms. And they do that because they're trying to avoid uncomfortable feelings. And what we know about Jeffrey, Jeffrey wants to keep people around.

He probably wasn't done with Steven yet. He wasn't able to do what he really wants to do with Steven yet. So there is a motive there, whether at a conscious or unconscious level, to intentionally not remember what happened. Whether Jeffrey actually remembered killing Stephen Twomey or not, he still had a big problem on his hands. What to do with the body again? Somehow he had to get it out of the hotel undetected, then figure out what to do with it from there. So he hung the Do Not Disturb sign on the door, then headed for the nearest department store and picked up the biggest wheeled suitcase he could find. When he got back to the hotel, he managed to cram the body inside, then waited until the middle of the night and called a cab.

Jeffrey didn't have a car of his own at this point, so he couldn't drive to the middle of nowhere and dump the remains. He had to take it home. And remember, he was still living with his 83-year-old grandmother, Catherine, at the time. Thankfully for Jeffrey, Catherine was fast asleep when the cab pulled up to her house, so he didn't have to answer any difficult questions. He lugged the suitcase inside, then dragged it into the cellar. Jeffrey's plan was to wait for another quiet evening, then cut the body into more manageable pieces. But there was just one hitch in that plan. Catherine wouldn't be going anywhere for the next few days because the whole Dahmer family was coming over for Thanksgiving. So for the next week, Jeffrey went about life as usual,

mingling with relatives during the day and going to his job as a mixer at a chocolate factory during the night. It was, in his words, anxiety-ridden. Luckily for him, there was no reason for anyone to go down to the cellar. Also, the suitcase he bought held in any bad smells from the decomposing body. His relatives left without incident, and late that Sunday night, it was finally time to get rid of the evidence. Once Catherine was asleep, Jeffrey tiptoed into the cellar and laid a plastic sheet on the floor. Over the next two hours, he butchered Stephen's body and split the remains into several garbage bags. Before the sun came up, he simply dropped the

bags into the trash, which was getting picked up in the morning. He kept one piece of the body, the head. But he wasn't ready to say goodbye to Stephen forever. One day, when Catherine must have been out of the house, he boiled the head in bleach and a detergent called Soilex, so he could keep the skull as a memento. He'd done something similar when he'd killed his first victim, Stephen Hicks, in 1978, but back then he'd only kept the head and had to throw it away. This time, he wanted something more permanent. Those mementos allow them to relive covertly the memories and the associated thrill of the crime. And with the first Stephen, he was not able to keep the head as long as he wanted to.

This time, he's now preparing it so that it can withstand a longer period of time with him. Do you think there's a reason that he chose the skull specifically? so that it can withstand a longer period of time with him. Do you think there's a reason that he chose the skull specifically? I think in the first case, it was chosen for sexual gratification, but also it represents the more personal aspect of the human body, of the person themselves. And in Jeffrey's case, probably represents more of a camaraderie, of a connection, of a companion than any other part of the body. Another difference between his first and second murders was that Jeffrey didn't feel any real

guilt or shame after killing Stephen Tuomi. He didn't bother trying to fight the urges that consumed him, although he was still drinking as much as ever. Killing Stephen Twomey reminded him of how pleasurable it was to live out his dark fantasies. Now, simply drugging other men and letting them leave in the morning wasn't enough. He had to have them forever. And if he had to kill them for that to happen, so be it. Now that Jeffrey was no longer trying to repress his dark urges, he went back to frequenting Milwaukee's gay bars looking for his next victim. And sometime around the night of January 17th, 1988, less than two months after he killed Stephen Twomey, Jeffrey laid eyes on James Doxtator. It was at a bus stop outside a bar called Club 219, and Jeffrey offered James $50

to spend the night with him. He had no idea that James was only 14 years old, but even if he did, there's no indication that he wouldn't have continued with his plan. The two of them jumped on a bus, then headed back to Jeffrey's grandmother's house. At first, Jeffrey brought James into the living room, but after about an hour, he suggested they move into the basement. Most likely, he was afraid Catherine would wake up, because what he was about to do next could possibly get very noisy. So one of the things I'd like to also point out about him moving to the basement, I think that's a pretty powerful move because he could have moved outside. He could have moved to his bedroom.

I do think, you know, there is a motivation of not wanting to wake up his grandmother. But also in the basement was where he kept his trophy of Stephen. So bringing him down there was much more powerful for him. I think that magnified what was going to happen next. Jeffrey and James spent another hour or two together at that point until about 4 a.m., at which point James said he would need to head home soon. It's unclear if Jeffrey was planning to hurt James before this, but as we've covered throughout this series on Jeffrey, we know that the fear of abandonment set something off in him. He convinced James to stay for one more drink, which of course was laced with several

sleeping pills. About a half hour later, James was fast asleep in Jeffrey's arms. Jeffrey cuddled him for a few minutes, then picked James up and laid him on a sheet on the ground. And then he strangled him to death and headed upstairs to have breakfast with his grandmother. This was a Sunday morning, so Catherine headed off to church after breakfast. Jeffrey had the house to himself, so he was free to do whatever he wanted. But he wasn't ready to get rid of James' body yet. He still had a horrifying fantasy to live out. Once Catherine was gone, Jeffrey went back into the basement, carried the body up to his room, and had sex with it. Firstly, necrophilia is not something that is very common. But in the case of Jeffrey,

this is the ultimate way for him to have sexual gratification with somebody who cannot reject him. That's the excitement for him. And just for me to clarify too, necrophilia is? The use of a corpse for sexual pleasure. It seems like this was the first time that Jeffrey Dahmer actually defiled one of his victims in this way. Why now? Why specifically this young boy? I think in this particular case, this was more premeditated and planned out, whereas the first Stephen, it happened a little bit quickly. He wasn't sure what to do after. He didn't really know what he was doing. With the second Stephen, he doesn't recall what happened, so he didn't have time to really plan accordingly. But now the more that

he's been thinking about this, obsessing about it, and he has been obsessing about this since he was a bit fixated on that jogger, he has time to really plan this out and to really think about what he wanted to do. So he knew his grandmother was going to be gone. He knew that he could take his time with this particular individual doing the things that he ended up doing. Now, before his grandma got back from church, Jeffrey returned James' body to the basement. He didn't seem worried that Catherine would go down there

because he didn't really try to hide it. And over the next few days, he continued to violate it whenever Catherine was asleep. But as the week came to a close, decomposition set in, and the body smelled so bad that the scent permeated the entire house. When Catherine said something about it, Jeffrey told her it was just the cat's litter box that needed cleaning, and he promised he'd get right to it. At this point, Catherine didn't have a reason not to believe him, so she took Jeffrey at his word for the time being.

And sure enough, by the following Monday morning, the so-called cat litter had been taken out with the trash, and the smell was fading. Of course, Catherine had no idea that the day before, while she was at church, Jeffrey had spent the morning dismembering James Dockstader's body and boiling his skull. At this point, Jeffrey had devised a system, and it was working. A couple months later, on March 27, 1988, he killed 23-year-old Richard Guerrero in the same manner he'd killed James Doxtater. The only difference was that since the next day was Sunday,

he immediately got rid of the body, instead of keeping it for a week and letting it fester. The only thing he kept was the skull, which he boiled to avoid decomposition setting in. But maybe because Jeffrey didn't get to spend enough time with the rest of the body, Jeffrey very quickly decided to seek out another victim. The next weekend, which happened to be Easter, Jeffrey went to his usual haunt, Club 219. While there, he struck up conversation with 25-year-old Ronald Flowers, whose car had broken down.

Jeffrey offered to help and suggested they grab a cab back to his house, then they could take Jeffrey's car back to the bar and he could give Ronald a jump start. Of course, that wasn't Jeffrey's plan at all. He was going to lure Ronald into his house, give him a drink laced with sleeping pills, then kill him. But this time, the night would not go like Jeffrey had planned. Hi there, Vanessa here. If you're enjoying crime house originals like Mind of a Serial Killer, then you'll love another crime house show called Money Crimes, hosted by best-selling author and entrepreneur Nicole Lappin. Money Crimes is all about the dark side of finance and how to protect yourself from it, especially when it ends in murder. From cunning Ponzi schemes to cutthroat politics and killer con artists, you'll learn that the finance world is more dangerous than you ever imagined.

Follow Money Crimes, a Crime House Studios original, now. New episodes drop every Monday. Again, that's Money Crimes. Follow now wherever you get your podcasts. And for early ad-free access, subscribe to Crime House Plus on Apple Podcasts. On the weekend of Easter 1988, Jeffrey Dahmer lured Ronald Flowers to his house under the guise of helping Ronald jumpstart his car. But in reality, he planned to do what he'd now done to three victims in the past six months. He would give Ronald a spiked drink, then once Ronald was passed out, Jeffrey would murder him. At first,

everything was going like Jeffrey expected. He invited Ronald into his grandmother Catherine's house. But the moment they stepped inside, something was off. For once, Catherine was still awake. As the two men walked through the door, Catherine called down to see if it was Jeffrey coming inside. He said yes, he was just going to make a cup of coffee. He didn't say anything about his companion. Ronald could tell something wasn't right. For one, Jeffrey had been acting strange the entire cab ride over, and Ronald hadn't seen a car in the driveway when they arrived, but he didn't have any way to easily get back to the car, so he let Jeffrey fix him a cup of coffee. The last thing he remembered was taking a sip of the drink and trying to figure out how to get out

of there. Then all of a sudden, Ronald was waking up in a hospital bed two days later. According to Brian Masters in the book The Shrine of Jeffrey Dahmer, the doctor told Ronald that on Easter morning, someone had found him unconscious in a field and called an ambulance. There were bruises around Ronald's neck, and when the doctor examined him, there was no sign of sexual assault, and there were no drugs in his system. But when Ronald got dressed, he noticed his underwear had been turned inside out, and there was a blonde hair on his clothes, the same color as Jeffrey's. Ronald didn't know what happened after he drank that coffee, but he knew Jeffrey was responsible, and he reported it to the police. Of course,

when they went to go talk to Jeffrey, he denied doing anything to Ronald. Catherine backed him up, saying that Jeffrey had made a bed for Ronald and that she'd seen Jeffrey walking him out of the house in the morning. Whatever Catherine did or didn't know, the police didn't pursue the matter any further, and Jeffrey escaped yet another close call. We'll never know what actually happened that night, but chances are Jeffrey tried to strangle Ronald while he was asleep, and thankfully, something went wrong. And even if Catherine thought Jeffrey was innocent of any wrongdoing, she asked him to move out. His constant drinking made him hard to live with,

and even though she had no idea Jeffrey was murdering people in her basement, she didn't like him bringing people over in the middle of the night. So in June 1988, Jeffrey, now 28, moved into a small apartment in downtown Milwaukee. He was back on his own, with nothing to stop him from becoming even more unhinged. For the next couple months, Jeffrey laid low. He didn't seek out any victims from the bars he usually frequented, probably because Ronald went to them too, and he didn't want to draw any attention to himself.

But by the fall, Jeffrey couldn't contain himself anymore, and he decided to try something new. On the afternoon of September 26, 1988, Jeffrey approached a 13-year-old boy walking home from school. His name was Somsak Synthasamphone, and Jeffrey was ready to make him his next victim. There are two kinds of pedophilia. There's pedophilia that are prepubescent, meaning that the individual's attraction falls for minors who are not quite in their puberty years. And then there's pubescent, the ones who have already gone through puberty. So I think Jeffrey

approaching Somsak is because he's an easier target. One, he's alone walking home from school. He's vulnerable. He's likely influential. He's going to be more easy to groom and he's easier prey for lack of a better word. But I don't necessarily think that he falls under pedophilia specifically. He definitely has some paraphilic disorder, but because he doesn't simply target minors, he's targeted people from all different ages. But I think now his focus on minors is simply because they're easier prey for him. So regardless of what Jeffrey's motivations for targeting Somsak were, he was throwing caution to the wind by approaching him in the middle of the day. He told Somsak that he'd just bought a new camera and wanted to practice with it.

He offered Somsak $50 to let Jeffrey take pictures of him for an hour. Somsak was rightfully wary of Jeffrey, but he still agreed to it. At first, everything seemed pretty normal, or at least as normal as it could be in a situation like this. Jeffrey snapped a few pictures, chatted with Somsak, then made him a cup of coffee. And at that point, the situation turned dangerous. After Somsak drank his coffee, Jeffrey tried to get him to take his pants off. When the boy hesitated, Jeffrey grabbed him and tried to do it himself. Somsak managed to wiggle away and bolt out of the apartment. Jeffrey didn't chase after him, maybe because it was the middle of the day. Luckily, Somsak had escaped before the sleeping pills in his drink could kick in,

but he started to feel the effects as he ran home. By the time he got through the door, he was extremely woozy, and his dad realized something was seriously wrong. He took his son to the hospital where they diagnosed the effects of drugs. After Somsak was recovered and could tell the doctors what had happened, the police came to get his story. This time, Jeffrey wasn't able to talk his way out of it. The police tracked him down at work and arrested him on the spot, charging him with second-degree sexual assault and enticing a child for immoral purposes.

While Jeffrey waited in jail, the police searched his apartment. They found the sleeping pills and some Polaroids Jeffrey had taken of Somsack, but there was one crucial piece of evidence they missed, the skull of the last person he murdered, Richard Guerrero. But as fate would have it, the skull remained hidden, and so did Jeffrey Dahmer's darkest secret. And even though what he was accused of doing to Somsack was truly horrible, it wasn't enough to keep him locked up until his trial. Jeffrey was released on bail, and his lawyer arranged for him to undergo psychological evaluation ahead of his next court appearance on January 30, 1989. It's based on what the psychological evaluation is for. If a lawyer is requesting it, it has to get the approval from the judge, and then it's appointed to myself or someone like myself. And a lot of those evaluations really are, are they competent?

Are they, is there criminal responsibility questions? Are they suitable for a mental health diversion program? And in some cases, they want to know what diagnosis, if any, you would give. So how I would handle that is based on what the evaluation request is for. But in terms of treating patients like this, I've had patients like this on my caseload when I worked in corrections. And boundary setting is extremely important when dealing with people like Jeffrey. I know we can't break doctor-patient confidentiality for specific cases, but as far as setting boundaries, how would you set boundaries with someone like Jeffrey Dahmer in this instance? I would expect that someone like Jeffrey is going

to be quick to value and devalue the evaluator, meaning that he's going to try to present favorably initially. And when and if that does not work to the way that he wants it to, he's going to go to immediate devaluing of the evaluator, which would include possibly anger outbursts, aggressive language, hostile behavior. And at that point, you have to set the boundaries so that the individual knows that that behavior is not going to get results. It's very important to make sure that they know that there are limits to how far they can push anybody and to not reinforce bad behavior. What's the difference between the psychological evaluation and, say, a regular therapy session?

Yeah, great question. A psychological evaluation really is a referral question that they want answered. So whether that question is stemming from the lawyer that's approved by the court, if it's stemming from the client themselves, if it's Jeffrey, sometimes clients in criminal proceedings

might ask to have an evaluation. It really is what is the referral question? And then it's assessing to provide the appropriate response to the court. Therapy is more of a prolonged experience where they're meeting with a mental health provider on a regular basis to treat the diagnosed condition. And when we're doing psychological evaluations, we are not doing any type of treatment. We're simply doing the evaluation to answer the referral question. Obviously, Jeffrey didn't confess to murder in these psychological evaluations, although he did admit to being extremely anxious and what he called in significant psychological

distress. But it doesn't seem like he was actually feeling guilty. He was just nervous about getting caught and going to jail. After all, if he really regretted any of the things he'd done, this was the perfect opportunity to get it off his chest. But when it came to his current situation, he knew there was no getting out of it so when he went back in front of the judge in january 1989 jeffrey pleaded no contest which means that he wasn't pleading guilty but he also wasn't contesting the facts in the case before the judge made a decision he wanted some time to consider the psychological evaluations Jeffrey had undergone. So he let Jeffrey remain a free man for the moment, at least until his sentencing hearing in May.

Now, you'd think Jeffrey would use this opportunity to be a model citizen and stay quiet. And maybe he really tried to. But two months later, on March 25th, he couldn't keep it in any longer. After going to his old haunt, Club 219, he ended up at another popular gay bar, and for once, someone approached him. 24-year-old Anthony Sears. Anthony came up to him outside the bar asking if he had any cocaine on him. They started chatting, and Anthony agreed to go home with Jeffrey, who had moved back in with his grandma, Catherine, after he was arrested. So around 3 a.m., one of Anthony's friends gave

them a ride to Catherine's house. This time, she didn't wake up when Jeffrey walked through the door. The two of them went up to Jeffrey's bedroom, and after a while, Jeffrey asked how long Anthony could stay. Had Anthony known what that question really meant, he would have promised to stay as long as Jeffrey liked. But instead, he said he had to leave soon, and this was probably just a one-time thing. So then Jeffrey just nodded his head, offered to make Anthony a coffee, and said he'd be right back. A half hour later, Anthony passed out, and Jeffrey strangled him to death. Shortly after, the sun came up and Jeffrey enjoyed his usual Sunday morning breakfast with Catherine before she headed to church. While she was out, he decided to dispose of Anthony's body immediately rather than let it start to decompose. Because Jeffrey had really enjoyed spending the night with Anthony, and this time he wanted an extra special memento.

After having sex with the body, Jeffrey hacked it into multiple pieces, keeping the head. He decided to keep something else, too. The genitals. Once the rest of the body was disposed of, Jeffrey called up a taxidermist under the guise of wanting to know the best way to preserve an animal. Following his advice, Jeffrey went out and bought a 10-gallon bucket that he hid in his bedroom closet. He dumped acetone in it, then placed his morbid mementos inside and sealed it. A week later, they were perfectly preserved and Jeffrey could do what he wished with them. I think it's pretty consistent with what's happened after each victim is that he needs to keep a piece of them with him forever. Something that's accessible, something that can withstand so that they're with him.

Why the change now in terms of what he keeps from his victims? Why the genitals? Well, there was one difference here with this particular victim, Anthony. Anthony approached Jeffrey. Jeffrey didn't have to approach Anthony. Jeffrey didn't have to groom or earn the trust to get somebody to come back to his home. Anthony was already a willing participant. He was already interested.

He was attracted to Jeffrey. That's the difference between Anthony and the rest of his victims. So that's what makes Anthony extra special in this case and why he would want to keep a little bit more of Anthony with him. A few days after Anthony was murdered, one of his friends went over to his apartment and realized he hadn't been home in a while. She reported him missing, and the police got in touch with the friend who had given Anthony and Jeffrey a ride to Catherine's house. He was able to give them a full description, but unfortunately, he didn't know the exact address because Jeffrey had asked him to drop them off a few blocks away. The police asked around a bit, but it doesn't seem like they put much effort into the case, so once again, Jeffrey escaped arrest by the skin of his teeth. But he wasn't out of the woods yet,

because he still had to be sentenced for what he'd done to Somsak's enthousmphone. On May 23, 1989, Jeffrey reported to the courthouse to receive his punishment. The judge had gone over his psychological evaluations, and they weren't exactly glowing. Multiple psychologists had examined him, and they all basically concluded that Jeffrey was a menace to society and was likely to commit more crimes. If the judge had any idea how horrific those crimes were, he surely would have put Jeffrey behind bars for as long as the law would allow. But instead, he was swayed by Jeffrey's promise that he would use this opportunity to turn his life around. Instead

of putting him in the maximum security prison where he surely belonged, the judge sentenced Jeffrey to a year in a minimum security county correctional facility and granted work release. For all intents and purposes, Jeffrey Dahmer was still a free man, and despite his promises to the judge, he wasn't going to change. If anything, he was about to become much, much more dangerous. After he was sentenced on May 23, 1989, Jeffrey Dahmer reported to the County House of Corrections to begin his year-long sentence. He'd been granted work release, which meant he could continue to work his overnight shifts at the chocolate factory. But he had to go straight back to the correctional facility right after, so he didn't have time to seek out any new victims. All in all, he'd escaped any real punishment. And with good behavior, he was released two months early

on March 20th, 1990. But instead of trying to turn his life around, Jeffrey immediately planned on resuming his life as a serial killer. I think Jeffrey has become emboldened. And I also think that a lot of racial disparities and social constructs that existed back then and still exist to this day also serve to embolden him. Because a lot of his victims were people of color or black, young black men. And he is a white, a judge, despite being told by psychologists who had evaluated him that he was, as you quoted, a menace to society, although I don't think we would put it in those terms these days, but he was driving under the influence and driving erratically leading up to this, it just served to embolden him even more that I can get away with this. I can talk myself out of it. I'm more privileged than others. After everything that had happened, Jeffrey's grandmother, Catherine, probably didn't feel comfortable with letting him back in. Jeffrey was back on his own. And even though he'd managed to escape any real attention

from the police for killing five people, he wanted to keep a low profile. He settled on a low-income neighborhood in downtown Milwaukee, where he figured the police would be so busy pursuing other crimes that they wouldn't pay attention to him. His building was the kind of place where everyone minded their own business and didn't pry into people's personal lives. Jeffrey could come and go as he pleased, at all hours of the night, without raising much suspicion. Once Jeffrey moved in, he didn't wait long to seek out another victim. On May 20th, less than a week after moving in, he headed to his favorite spot, Club 219. While he was there, he started talking to 32-year-old Raymond Smith, who had a reputation for engaging in sex work.

He gladly accepted $50 to head back to Jeffrey's apartment, but for Raymond, $50 only went so far, and he told Jeffrey he wouldn't be there very long. Obviously, Jeffrey didn't take that well. He offered to fix Raymond a drink, and within an hour, Jeffrey killed him. Now that Jeffrey was back on his own, he was eager to see how far he could push his twisted fantasies. But unlike what had happened with Anthony Sears, Jeffrey wasn't interested in keeping any part of Raymond as a memento. Although the pieces Jeffrey had preserved lasted a while, he still had to get rid of them eventually, except for some of the skulls. Now, he wanted to try something that would last him much longer.

With many of his victims, Jeffrey invited them over under the guise of wanting to take pictures of them. In those instances, it seemed like it was little more than an excuse to get them into his home. But in this case, he wanted to create a ritual around it. When Jeffrey moved in, he'd bought a long black table that he placed in his living room. In his mind, this table would serve as an altar to the men he killed. He placed the body on the table and placed it in various poses, snapping photos on his Polaroid. Looking at the pictures was extremely arousing for him. Finally, he had the control he'd been seeking, and he didn't have to worry about it not lasting. Once Jeffrey was done taking pictures of the body, he was faced with a new problem, getting rid of it. He was in a crowded apartment complex,

and even though people gave each other a wide berth, he had to do it as subtly as possible. Basically, he bought a giant 80-gallon pot and boiled the remains in Soilex until just the bones were left. Then he put those into a barrel full of acid. The only thing he kept was the skull to add to his collection. A week later, the remains had turned into a thick black slush that Jeffrey had poured into the toilet. He'd successfully pulled off a brutal murder in a packed apartment building, and he was ready to do it again.

About a month later, Jeffrey found himself at one of his regular spots, a place called the Phoenix Club. He lured a man named Eddie Smith back to his apartment, and a few hours later, Eddie was dead. It seems like Jeffrey thought this ritual with Raymond Smith went well because he did the same thing with Eddie's body. After taking pictures of it on his so-called altar, he eventually placed the remains in a trash can full of acid and waited for them to break down. In addition to his first murder back in 1978,

Jeffrey had now killed six other men in less than three years. It seemed like Jeffrey had fully settled into a macabre routine. But when he went out to find his next victim, something happened that he never saw coming. On the night of July 6th, Jeffrey noticed 15-year-old Luis Pinette at the Phoenix Bar. Jeffrey recognized him as a busboy at Club 219 and decided to say hello. Like he'd done with so many of his other victims, Jeffrey offered Luis money to come home with him, and he said yes.

It seemed like this night was doomed to go the same way as so many others. However, as their night wound down, something happened that truly surprised Jeffrey. Luis didn't try to leave. He fell asleep in Jeffrey's arms without the use of a sleeping pill cocktail. And in that moment, Jeffrey decided not to kill him. This is a pretty significant experience for Jeffrey because it's the first individual that he was able to bring back to his home who didn't want to leave the moment they got there.

Jeffrey just operates on this fear of real or perceived abandonment and rejection, which we've talked about throughout the episodes. And this is the first time that someone did not make Jeffrey feel rejected or abandoned. I don't think it was Mercy. I think Jeffrey was very curious about this and wants to see if he'd stick around even more. Do you think that Jeffrey was even capable of mercy at this point?

No, I think Jeffrey is just doing what Jeffrey wants to do. So despite letting Luis live, Jeffrey had no interest in stopping his murder spree. If anything, he only became more unhinged. And yes, that was somehow possible. He killed his next victim, Ernest Miller, in September 1990. After dismembering the body in his bathtub, Jeffrey tried eating some of the remains. And less than a week later, when he killed his next victim, David Thomas, Jeffrey added yet another element to his horrible ritual. After David was dead, Jeffrey spent two hours carefully flaying the skin from the body in one piece. After killing David Thomas, Jeffrey laid low for a while and didn't kill anyone from October 1990 to February 1991. But then, out of the blue, he decided to start

again. And on February 17th, he killed Curtis Strotter. Following that, he killed about one person a month, Errol Lindsay in April and Tony Hughes in May. By this point, Jeffrey had stopped being careful. He didn't really do anything to mask the smells coming from his apartment. And there were strange noises coming from it at all hours of the night. And after he killed Tony Hughes, the rest of his building finally spoke up. On multiple occasions, his building manager knocked on Jeffrey's door, asking what the horrible smell was. Every time, Jeffrey made some excuse. Spoiled meat, the fish in his aquarium had died, that sort of thing. And even though there was a lot of attention on him, Jeffrey never even

considered stopping. If anything, he was more determined to keep going. He was still desperate to find a way to keep his victims around forever. The preserved remains and perverse pictures weren't enough for him. And for his next victim, he devised a new plan that made everything he'd done so far pale in comparison. This is actually quite common with serial killers. They'll start small where they're maybe stalking or monitoring the comings and goings and then work their way up to their initial attack, their initial kill, their initial victim.

And then from there, it'll just get increasing in what they'll do, the extent of what they'll do, and the frequency of how they do it. So this is pretty characteristic, especially since he's never been caught. He's gotten away with quite a bit so far. And he has a sense of invincibility and almost like a fable. It it's his life. It's his fantasy. We're all just living in it. At this point, I'd be remiss not to mention this new thing that just happened. Cannibalism.

He has tried. He has eaten a piece of one of his victims. Why would he do that? So with Jeffrey, as we know, he wants people to stay with him forever. He wants the connections he makes to be with him forever. And eating a part of them is a very symbolic way for him to feel as if they're becoming part of him and therefore with him forever.

And the timing of this is quite interesting given that he's been a bit on law enforcement radar and just curtailed a lengthy jail sentence. So it might be amping up simply because of that potential risk of getting caught at some point. On May 27th, 1991, Jeffrey was out for lunch when he noticed 14-year-old Conorac Sintasimphone. Conorac happened to be the younger brother of one of Jeffrey's near-victims, Somsak. Now, Jeffrey didn't know that, but maybe Conorac reminded him of his failed attempt to kill Somsak, and he saw this as a second chance. So he approached the boy and, as usual, offered him money in exchange for photographs. And, just like his brother,

Conorac agreed. Once Conorac was passed out, Jeffrey decided to begin his gruesome experiment. He pulled out a drill and made a hole in the top of Conorac's head. Then he took a syringe of acid and injected it into Conorac's brain. Now, Jeffrey's intention here was to create a sort of zombie and basically turn Conorac into a human vegetable that he could use as a sex slave. While he waited to see if it would work, he headed out for a couple beers. Maybe even he realized how sick and demented this was and needed to step away for a minute. And whether this was some sort of moral dilemma or not, it ultimately kept Conorac alive for the moment. Somehow, he survived the attack and woke up while Jeffrey

was gone at around 2 a.m. Conorac had enough brain function to stagger out of the apartment and onto the street, naked and bruised. Three women saw him staggering down the road and stopped to help him. Conorac was completely incoherent at this point, and because his hair obscured the hole in his head, they just thought he was on drugs. While this was going on, Jeffrey was on his way home and noticed the commotion. He told the women he would take care of Conorac and tried to drag him back to his apartment,

but these helpful bystanders weren't buying it, and one of them called the police. A few minutes later, a squad car pulled up to the curb. Two officers stepped out and pulled Jeffrey away from Conorac. They sat Conorac on the hood of their car and wrapped him in a blanket. Jeffrey just stood there, dumbfounded. He'd been in hot water with the law before, but never like this. For the first time, he'd been caught red-handed, and he had no idea how he was going to talk himself out of it. Thanks so much for listening. We'll be back next Monday as we discuss the investigation into Jeffrey Dahmer. Mind of a Serial Killer is a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios.

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