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The crimes of Jeffrey Dahmer
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made the world cringe.
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Seventeen murders
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Cannibalism
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Sex with the dead.
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A man who made is Milwaukee apartment
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into a violent and neurotic death chamber.
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"One thing led to another
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it took more and more deviant type
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of behaviors to satisfy
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My urges."
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Dahmer even tried to create living
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sex zombies by injecting acid into their brains.
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Jeffrey Dahmer it seemed, was a close to
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raw evil as the world had ever known.
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"Jeffrey thought he was the devil,
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Jeffrey thought he was so evil
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that he was equal to the devil."
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(music)
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The first child of Joyce and Lionel Dahmer
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was born in Milwaukee Wisconsin
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on May 21st, 1960, just before their first
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anniversary. His name was Jeffrey.
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"It was a very happy when Jeff
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was first born and for a couple of
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months it was like everything was brand new
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and very, very um enjoyable and happy.
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Looking forward to the future."
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While Jeff's father pursued his chemistry
degree,
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Jeff grew into a bright and loving child.
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"He was very exuberant, he liked to wrestle.
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He liked to run around and ham it up for the
camera.
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And he liked to play with kids,
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liked to get together with them.
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He was very outgoing."
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Jeff was also a very curious child.
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"He seemed to want to play with things
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and feel things and get to know their
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texture and he seemed to be very in tuned
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with what's around him. He just wanted
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to know what was going on."
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He had a fascination with animals
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as a youngster. Once, 4 year old
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Jeff watched his father collect the bones
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of small animals that had died under the house.
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"I had brought them out, put them in a metal
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pail just to collect them all in one place,
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and they had dropped in with sort of clanky
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noise and Jeff seemed sort of interested
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in that noise and he took a whole and let
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them drop too.
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You know, in retrospect, everything
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looks grim and dark and sinister,
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like you know could that be the start of
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something evil. Well, I have to admit,
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it's simply just the curiosity of a child."
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Lionel finished his schooling with a PhD
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in chemistry. The family moved to Ohio,
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relocating 3 times before settling down
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on a nearly 2 acre wooden lot in the town
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of Bath, an hours drive south of Cleveland.
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It was then that Lionel began to notice
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the previously gregarious Jeff
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had become shy and withdrawn.
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"He did seem to be awkward socially
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and just didn't feel comfortable."
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To take his mind off of the move,
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7 year Jeff was given a dog, Frisky,
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who he loved dearly.
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"With the people he new, or his new pet,
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um the next door neighbor boy, he was very
relaxed
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but there was this shyness and feeling of
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inferiority that we were concerned about at
that time."
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What the Dahmer's thought their son needed
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was to feel more involved, so they let
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Jeff choose the name of their second son,
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Jeff named his brother David.
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Lionel also encouraged his son to
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participate in activities that would include
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contact with other kids.
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"What we were trying to do was involve
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Jeff in those activities with the thought
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that involvement would lead to human involvement,
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forced almost, interaction."
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And on the weekends, father and son planted
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gardens and raised sheep for competitions
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at 4H fairs.
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To commemorate their gardening days,
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young Jeff gave his father a handmade card
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with a poem.
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"There's a picture of me eating
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an ear of corn on the front, and Jeff
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says 'the squash and the pumpkins
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can never compare to the dad that has curly
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hair.' and it says 'this poem is from Jeff
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and I love you to death.'"
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When Jeff was 10, his mother was hospitalized
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and treated for anxiety.
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From their, his parents marriage began to
fail.
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Jeff's fascination with nature and
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small animals continued into his teenage years
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where he became curious about what they
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looked like on the inside.
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For specimens, he collected road kill,
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riding around the country roads in Bath
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carrying garbage bags, Jeff searched
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for carcasses. Jeff brought road kill
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he found into the backyard of the house,
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and there in the secrecy of the woods,
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he dissected the animals.
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"I really have become convinced
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that was the starting point of this downward
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spiral of his. And it was associated
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with just puberty, and when you have
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hormones kicking into this, this
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terrible mixture, what he's doing,
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he's investigating insides of animals,
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and his sexuality was developing at the same
time."
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Teenage Jeff was discovering that he
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felt sexually attracted only to men,
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but the thoughts with sex with men
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became interlocked with fantasies of killing
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another men and dismemberment.
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The fantasies excited him, but were unspeakable.
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"I think it was around age 14 or 15
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I started to have obsessive thoughts
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of violence, intermingled with sex
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and it just got worse and worse,
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I didn't know how to tell anyone about it,
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so I didn't, I just kept it all inside."
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The fantasies included lying next to
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an unconscious man, for the first time,
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Jeff's fantasies crossed the line
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from his mind into action.
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He devised a plan,
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he would knock out a local jogger with a bat
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and lie next to him.
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On the day he opted to wait for his victim,
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the jogger didn't run by,
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he never attempted the clubbing a second time.
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As he entered high school,
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his sexual fantasies traumatized him.
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He began drinking. On the way to classes
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in the morning, he would fill a cup
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with hard liquor at a friend's house.
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"And I remember sitting next to him in
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um, first period, I believe history class,
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and he had a Styrofoam cup of scotch I believe.
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I remember saying, 'Jeff what is that?' and
he
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threw his head back and he said, 'It's my
medicine."
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But clearly, he was getting drunk at 8 o'clock
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in the morning."
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At home, Jeff was watching his parents
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marriage dissolve. When their bickering
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escalated to open fighting, he retreated
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to the forested backyard, slapping tree trunk
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with sticks.
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"I would leave the house, run out
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in the woods and sulk, wondering
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why they had to have such a rough relationship."
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He remained aloof with few interests and
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no close friendships.
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But he still seemed to have a sense of humor.
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On the high school tennis team,
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Jeff spent most of his time goofing around
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rather than playing a serious game.
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But more often than not, the jokes where
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at Jeff's expense. He gained a reputation
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as the class clown, acting out in a
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bizarre or unexpected manner became known
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as "doing a Dahmer."
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"All of a sudden you would be walking down
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the hall, and you would hear someone
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yelling or and hollering and running
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through the hallway and it's Jeff Dahmer
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in the middle of the day,
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running, flapping his arms, yelling
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'Hurrican drill, hurricane drill, everybody
hide.'
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At one point, Jeff collected money from
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classmates in exchange for a show at the mall.
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"And a woman is handing out samples of
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sunflower seeds, and Jeff is taking one
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and then another and then another,
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being very polite as he always was,
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and then just spits them out all over the
place,
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and starts yelling at the top of his lungs
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'I'm allergic, I'm alleric!' and runs away."
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During his junior high, Jeff went along
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on a school sponsored trip to Washington D.C.
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"And Jeff said, 'I have an idea, let's go
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see the Vice President.' And we all sort
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of laughed and said sure, the Vice President."
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Jeff went to a payphone, when he returned,
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he announced that they would be seen in the
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office of Vice President Walter Mondale in
2 hours.
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"He has explained that we were high school
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students from Ohio, working on our school
newspaper,
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and we were in town for a week and could
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we come and talk to someone in the Vice President's
office."
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His slick talking worked. Dahmer had
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gotten his classmates inside the executive
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office building to meet with Mondale.
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In the classroom, Jeff was something
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of a model student.
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"Very polite to adults, dressed very nice,
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very respectful to teachers, um
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did his work, he could be an "A" student
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if he wanted to. Other times he would fail
the
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class because he had no interest.
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He could be very polite with very good manners,
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'Yes sir, no sir' when he spoke with teachers."
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He was perfecting his ability to fool
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authority figures, but as time went on,
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Jeff became less interested with his
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performance at school.
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"No one really knew what was going on in his
mind,
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he didn't really open up to anybody
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he didn't have any close friends,
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and he had really slipped away from his
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social life. The older we got in high school."
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At the school near Bath, Ohio, Jeff
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remained an alcoholic outcast,
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his behavior was the subject of mockery
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from other students.
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"I don't think he connected, you know
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he didn't engage with people.
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So if you don't engage with people,
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you um, you know, give and take of conversation
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and feelings, you end up internalizing a lot
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you fantasize a lot and then the next step
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is to think that some of those fantasies are
real."
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A step Jeff was ready to make,
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he would kill his first victim just after
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high school graduation.
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For Jeffrey Dahmer, the summer of 1978
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started with high school graduation.
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It would be down hill from there.
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His parents, after years of open and bitter
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fighting, divorced.
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Jeffrey's father, Lionel, moved out of the
family's house
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in Bath and into this nearby motel
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unbeknownst to Lionel, Jeff's mother
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took younger brother David and moved to Wisconsin.
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Jeffrey found himself home lone.
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Jeffrey was 18, and like most teens his age,
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he had active sexual fantasies.
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But Jeffrey's deviated from the norm
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to include thoughts of killing his lover.
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Now the isolation of the empty family home
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gave him the opportunity to act out those
fantasies.
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Just weeks after graduation,
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Jeffrey picked up a hitch hiker along the
road.
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It was 18 year old Steven Hicks.
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"I wish I had just kept going, but I didn't.
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I turned around, picked up him, and
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that's when, that's when the nightmare
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became a reality."
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Jeffrey invited Hicks back to the house
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they drank beers, and spent a couple of hours
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just hanging out.
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Then Hicks said he had to go, but Jeffrey
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didn't want to be alone.
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He attacked Hicks, knocking him out
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with a barbell, and then he strangled him.
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Dahmer had fulfilled his fantasy,
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but he was lucid enough to know he
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had committed a murder. He quickly began
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to hide the evidence.
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He dismembered Hicks' body with a knife,
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a skill he had practiced as a younger teen
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with roadkill.
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He put the pieces into trash bags,
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and loaded them into his car in the middle
of the night.
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He was heading for a dump site
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when he was pulled over by the police
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for drifting over the center line.
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The officer asked Jeff what was in the bags
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and why was he out so late.
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Jeff was trapped for the first time,
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but he was ready with a lie.
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He cooly told the cops that he was troubled
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by his parents' divorce and couldn't sleep.
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So he thought a trip to the dump would
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take his mind off of things.
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The police let him go with a ticket.
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Jeffrey turned home, racked with guilt
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over the murder. He stashed the bones
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of Steven Hicks under the house for 2 weeks.
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Then he smashed them to bits with a sledge
hammer.
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Behind the house, Jeff spun in a circle,
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tossing the fragments among the leaves and
brush.
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In August, Jeffrey's father stopped by the
house.
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"I said, 'where is your mother? Where's
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Dave?' and he said 'they're gone.'
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I said, 'what do you mean?' 'They're gone
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they left.'
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Jeff's father moved back into the house
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he encouraged Jeff to find a job.
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But Jeff wasn't interested.
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He spent his days drinking,
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even getting himself arrested for
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public intoxication.
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Lionel took his son to Alcoholics Anonymous
meetings
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and psychological counseling sessions.
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They had little impact.
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Nothing could erase the violence and terror
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his first murder had imprinted on his mind.
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Only the alcohol seemed to provide relief.
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By the end of the summer,
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Jeff was still jobless,
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so Lionel suggested an alternative
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college.
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He enrolled Jeff at Ohio State.
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But Jeff spent the first quarter in
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a drunken state, selling his blood
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to plasma centers and spending the money
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on beer.
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Predictably, Dahmer flunked out and
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returned home
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"I said, Jeff the doors are closing
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um, I think perhaps the armed services
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might be something that you need."
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Like all the other choices that had been
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made for him, Jeff passively went along
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with his enlistment.
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After his basic training was complete,
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he left for an army hospital in San Antonio
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Texas, where he was given specialized
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instruction as a field medic.
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There, Dahmer learned more about
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human anatomy.
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For one of the first times in his life,
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he was excited about what he was doing,
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responding to instruction and discipline.
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After 6 months in the Army,
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his sluggish body had become lean and strong.
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Normally shy and reclusive,
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Jeff became outgoing, even smiling.
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But the mood swing was temporary.
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The Army sent him for a tour of duty
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in Germany, and there once again,
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Jeff emptied bottle after bottle.
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His superiors noticed and gave Dahmer
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an early discharge.
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He went directly to Miami Beach
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without contacting his family.
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He worked at a sandwich shop and lived
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out of a motel.
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When his booze bills exceeded the room cost
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Jeff took to sleeping on the beach.
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"He was terrified one night
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when a rat, big huge rat, came crawling over
him
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and he called us, he said he needs some money
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I said we won't send you money but
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we will send you a ticket.
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You can come home.
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So I met him at the airport,
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Cleveland Hopkins Airport and
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he had a smile on his face,
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but as I got closer, it wasn't a smile
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of happiness, it was a smile of
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Lionel tried for a year to help his
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inebriation. "
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alcoholic son, to no avail,
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Jeff was sent to stay with his father's
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mother near Milwaukee.
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There, he seemed to find some stability
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at last, making a concentrated effort to
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turn his life around. He stopped drinking,
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went to church with his grandmother,
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and he fought what he believed were
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immoral homosexual urges
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which eventually led to his inescapable
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fantasies about murder.
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Dahmer even found jobs, first at a blood bank
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and then working nights as a chocolate mixer
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in a candy factory.
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But the lifestyle of church going and right
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living as he called it
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didn't last. After 3 quiet years in his
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grandmothers home, Jeff came face to face
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with his fears.
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At the library, a man handed him a note
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offering sexual favors.
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Dahmer declined, but later would say
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the note was a turning point.
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He awakened sexual desires deep inside him
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specifically, he wanted the submissive
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company of another male,
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he wanted someone to fulfill his sexual needs
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but he didn't want to be burdened
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by anyone else's needs.
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Jeffrey started with a perfectly
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submissive partner.
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He stole a store window mannequin.
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He kept the plastic man in his closet
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bringing it out to masterbate to until
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his grandmother found it and insisted
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he get rid of it.
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On his free nights
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Jeffrey began exploring gay life in
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Milwaukee, browsing through porn shops
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and going to bath houses.
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The bath clubs catered mostly to men
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seeking anonymous sex.
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To make his partners there submissive
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Jeffrey gave them drinks laced with
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sleeping pills.
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When they fell unconscious,
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he would lie down next to them,
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listening to the sounds of their bodies.
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Their heartbeats, their stomachs,
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but the druging experiments, when one man
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over dosed and spent a week in a hospital.
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Jeff was asked never to return to the club.
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But he then discovered the gay bars and
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discos of Milwaukee.
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These would become the killer's favorite
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hunting grounds.
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By his late 20's, Jeffrey Dahmer
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was settled in Milwaukee,
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living at his grandmother's and
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prowling the cities gay scene.
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No one suspected that this reclusive loner
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with boyish good looks was on his way to
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becoming a psychopathic serial killer.
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"He did take pleasure in the fact
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that he was in control of his own
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little world. That nobody knew what
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was going on, that he was the master of it."
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"Dahmer could fit in any group
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and you wouldn't say oh he must be crazy
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or he must be a killer. That's why
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he was so successful.
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He wasn't a repulsive individual."
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Certainly not in Milwaukee's gay clubs.
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"We have it on good facts
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that he was considered somewhat of a honey
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in the gay community.
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That people found him attractive.
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Several people told us that he was
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the kind of guy you wanted to take care of
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you wanted to baby him."
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But Dahmer had very specific requirements
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for his men.
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"He chose a body style. He liked long
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lean smooth muscular body styles and it didn't
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matter if they were black, white, yellow
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or brown, if he found them attractive,
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he would try to get them."
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In November 1987, Dahmer met 25 year old
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Steve Toomey at a downtown club called 219
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after a few drinks they left the bar
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for a night at the nearby Embassador Hotel.
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Dahmer used an old trick to get Toomey
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into the submissive state he craved.
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"I put some sleeping pills in his drink
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to render him unconscious and um
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was just going to spend the night with him
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when I woke up in the morning, my
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fore arms were bruised
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and his chest was bruised and blood
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was coming out of his mouth,
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he was hanging over the side of the bed
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and um, I have no memory of beating him to
death.
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But I must of."
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But Dahmer didn't panic.
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He went out and bought the biggest suitcase
he could find.
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At the hotel, he crammed Toomey's body
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into the case, dragged it into a taxi,
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went back to his grandmother's house
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and dismembered Toomey in the basement.
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"That's when the obsession went into full
swing."
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"He decided after the second death
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he would no longer attempt to control
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his desires, that he would give full
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reign to them, yield entirely to them
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and after that his life became the
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pursuit of unmitigated sexual pleasure."
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Dahmer now decided to pursue his fantasies
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of ultimate control. It was no longer enough
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for his partners submissive just a night.
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He wanted to keep them that way forever.
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So with the intent to murder and then
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butcher the men he picked up,
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Dahmer returned to the clubs.
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At a bus stop outside 219,
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he met 14 year old James Docksdater.
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Dahmer offered him $50 to spend the night
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with him. They took the bus back to
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Dahmer's grandmothers while she
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slept, Jeff and Docksdater had oral sex
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then Dahmer drugged and strangled him
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his preferred method of killing.
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"He stated that in no way did he want to
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hurt anybody, as funny as it sounds,
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that is the reason why he killed everyone
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by strangling them, because not only did
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he get the power and the thill of
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committing the murder, but it was
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also the most humane way."
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With Docksdater, Dahmer further explored
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his dark fantasies.
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He hid the body in the basement for
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a week and continued to have sex with it.
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"Most serial killers are sexual deviants
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who are social and psychological
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sociopaths and sexual sexiopaths
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who kill people for their own sexual gratification.
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Dahmer was different than that.
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He was a true necrophiliac
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he was trying to have sex with an
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unconscious or dead person."
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Once Docksdater started to decay,
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Dahmer dismembered him near a floor drain
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just as he had with Toomey.
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Dahmer was now drinking heavily
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again, especially on the nights he
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planned to murder.
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By the time he killed he would be stoned drunk.
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"He drank because his conscious was
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so strong. This isn't a man that
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didn't know the difference of right
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from wrong."
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Two months after killing Docksdater
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Dahmer picked up 21 year old Richard Guierro
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from a Milwaukee bar,
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again offering him money to spend the night.
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In a familiar pattern,
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Dahmer drugged and strangled him.
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He spent a few hours with the corpse
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before dismembering it.
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He then placed the body parts
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into trash bags for the city
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garbage collection the next day.
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In the summer of 1988,
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Jeff's grandmother had asked him to move out.
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She had been troubled by Jeff's
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late hours, the mannequin in his bedroom,
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and now unidentified foul smells
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from the basement.
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He took an apartment on Milwaukee's
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west side, and immediately
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accelerated his downward spiral
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when he approached a 13 year old
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boy on the street and lured him
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into the apartment.
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Inside, Dahmer scared the boy by
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fondling him and the youngster ran
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from the apartment.
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Dahmer was convicted on 2nd degree
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sexual assault charges only.
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The murders were still his secret.
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He was sentenced to 1 year in a work
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release program, which required
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to spend his nights in a prison
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dormitory while he continued working
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at the chocolate factory.
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In the 10 days before he began
-
his sentence, Dahmer struck again.
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He met 26 year old, Anthony Sears
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at the gay club "La Cashe" and killed him.
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He mummified Sear's head and genitals
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and kept them inside his locker
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at the chocolate factory.
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Towards the end of the work release term,
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Jeff's father wrote to the judge
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and urged him to put Jeff in an
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alcoholic treatment program writing,
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I have tremendous reservations regarding
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Jeff's chances when he hits the streets.
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No program was ordered.
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Jeff was release 2 months early.
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He moved into another low income
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neighborhood in Milwaukee.
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The rent at the Oxford Apartments was cheap
-
and the location was close to the gay clubs.
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On his own again, he was free to feed
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his relentless sexual urges.
-
Within 3 weeks of his release,
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Dahmer began a 1 year killing frenzy.
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He would leave 13 more families
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most of them African American,
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searching for loved ones
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who had simply, disappeared.
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The police too searched in vain.
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"Once Jeff started on his killing spree,
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all his financial resources,
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all of his time, money, effort,
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desires, emotions, thoughts, went into
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his secret world of killing people and
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keeping them with him.
-
Many times he talked about trying to
-
fight it, even after he killed a
-
couple people saying how he wasn't
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going to do it again,
-
but within a month he would be out
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at the bars stalking."
-
One victim almost got away.
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Dahmer had drugged 14 year old
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Konerak Sinthasomphone.
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The brother of the boy Dahmer
-
had been jailed for molesting the year before.
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As Konerak slept, Dahmer went out
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to buy more liquor. But while he was gone,
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the teen woke up. He staggered out
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to the street naked.
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A concerned neighbor called 9-1-1.
-
Police arrived by this time Dahmer
-
had returned from his beer run.
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As he had with police in Bath Ohio,
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after his first killing,
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Dahmer smoothly lied.
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He told police that Konerak was
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his gay lover that simply had
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too much to drink.
-
He brought the cops into his apartments
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and showed them polaroids he taken
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of the teen. Proof of their relationship.
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The police believed the 14 year old
-
was of legal age and left him behind
-
with Dahmer.
-
They wrote the incident off as a
-
lover's quarrel.
-
Again, Dahmer had been slippery enough
-
to keep his killings a secret.
-
As soon as the cops left,
-
he murdered the boy.
-
Inside Dahmer's apartment,
-
the bodies started to pile up.
-
So he bought a 50 gallon sized drum
-
and he filled it up with
-
a powerful acid to dissolve
-
the dismembered limbs and torsos.
-
After weeks in the acid,
-
the remains of Dahmer's would be
-
lovers became slug which
-
he flushed down the toilet or
-
the bathtub drain.
-
For others, Jeffrey boiled
-
the skin off their bones on the stove.
-
A sweet bitter odor of death
-
began to infest the building,
-
and many tenants traced
-
the smells straight to Dahmer's door.
-
"It was awfully funny, whatever
-
Jeff was cookin'. Jeff never bought
-
no groceries, so what could
-
have been cookin'?
-
That smelled like chitlins.
-
Chitlins have very peculiar nasty odor to
them.
-
You know?"
-
Dahmer was pathologically lonesome,
-
not wanting his sexual partners to
-
leave him even after death.
-
He took keepsake photos while
-
removing their flesh and preserved
-
certain parts.
-
"And one thing led to another
-
it took more and more deviant type
-
behaviors to satisfy my urges."
-
He devised a plan to build a shrine
-
out of skeletons and skulls, but
-
he was still in search for the perfect
-
partner, one that was completely
-
submissive but alive and not prone to decay.
-
On a few still living victims,
-
Dahmer used a power drill to open small
-
holes in their skulls, then he
-
injected acid into their brains.
-
According to Dahmer, none of his
-
experimental zombies lived longer than
-
a day. And in perhaps the ultimate effort
-
to keep his victims with him,
-
Dahmer began eating their flesh.
-
"It made me feel like they were
-
permanent part of me.
-
Besides just curiosity of what it would
-
be like, it made them feel like
-
they were part of me and it gave me
-
a sexual satisfaction."
-
Throughout this year of ruthless killing
-
Dahmer still appeared outwardly normal.
-
In this video taken at his grandmother's
-
house on Thanksgiving, Dahmer
-
talked calmly with his father.
-
"Well, you are looking good."
-
"Thanks"
-
"Grandma was saying that she thought
-
that you got quite a bit thinner,
-
but you look fit, I don't know."
-
Well, I have been surviving mostly
-
on McDonald's food, so much
-
easier to just pop into a restaurant.
-
Like I said before it gets too expensive,
and
-
I have to start eating at home more."
-
"It's amazing how he could sit there
-
and appear like he's clean cut,
-
nice jacket on, and talking very
-
hopefully about his job. Intellegent.
-
It's amazing how much a human being
-
can hide from another human being."
-
But careful as he was, Jeffrey Dahmer
-
was about to run out of good lies.
-
In July, 1991, the city of Milwaukee
-
discovered a serial killer.
-
31 year old Jeffrey Dahmer.
-
One man, Tracy Edwards,
-
managed to escape from the horrors
-
of Dahmer's apartment and flagged down
-
a passing patrol car.
-
When the officer's entered the apartment,
-
they found 83 polaroids of bodies
-
in various stages of dismemberment.
-
There were more shocking discoveries in the
kitchen.
-
"There were 4 fully infleshed
-
skulls still there, sitting
-
in the refrigerator.
-
One officer said he opened the ice box
-
he heard a scream, it was only later that
-
he realized that it was he himself
-
that had screamed."
-
TV news cameras rolled as what
-
was left of the victims was carried out.
-
The 57 gallon drum that was filled
-
with the torsos of 3 men.
-
A freezer with dismembered limbs
-
and flesh, metal cooking pots
-
with mummified hands and genitals.
-
This time there was no lie
-
Dahmer could tell to save himself.
-
"He was walking at a pretty defeated manner
-
his shoulders were hunched, his head
-
was down, he was sweating perfusely.
-
He had a faint, kind of a whining,
-
like a baby crying noise about him."
-
At the police station, detectives
-
began a marathon interview with the
-
suspected killer.
-
Dahmer had first blamed the booze
-
instead of himself, saying he wouldn't
-
have been caught if he hadn't been so drunk,
-
but Dahmer was now clearly scared.
-
"The look of terror and almost hysteria
-
that he had on his face in the interrogation
-
room that first night as he was coming off
-
of the alcohol and he was realizing
-
that the gig was up, he was caught,
-
he did cry several times,
-
he went into a rage, besides
-
asking to kill himself,
-
he stood up and pounced around a couple of
times."
-
Once Dahmer sobered up,
-
no one could guess at the gruesome
-
details to follow.
-
"He made this statement when I tell you
-
what I am going to tell you, you
-
are going to be famous."
-
And I tried to say Jeff, there is nothing
-
you can tell me that is going to
-
freak me out. And he laughed at that.
-
He said you don't know, you don't
-
know what I have done."
-
Dahmer spent the next 6 weeks with the
-
detectives recounting the murders of 17 men
-
a 159 paged confession.
-
It seemed cathartic to Dahmer to
-
finally get the deeds of the last 13 years
-
off of his chest.
-
With the information from his confession
-
investigators went back to Dahmer's
-
childhood home in Bath Ohio.
-
They raked up the shattered bones
-
of Steven Hicks, Dahmer's first victim.
-
The Milwaukee county coroner started
-
matching skulls with torsos and the police
-
started the sad task of notifying
-
families.
-
Dahmer pleaded guilty but insane.
-
The issue of his sanity would be the sole
-
question before the jury.
-
"You know immediately that it's going
-
to be probably a sanity defense. What
-
can you argue, you can't claim self defense,
-
you can't say you don't know how those
-
bodies got there."
-
Wisconsin had no death penalty,
-
so if the jury found him sane,
-
he would spend the rest of his life
-
in prison. If they found him insane,
-
he would be prisoned in a mental facility.
-
Dahmer himself couldn't understand
-
why he enjoyed fantasizing about murder.
-
"Jeffrey thought he was the devil.
-
Jeffrey thought that he was so evil
-
that he was equal to the devil
-
and he knew there was something wrong with
-
him but he didn't know what it was but
-
he never categorized himself as being insane."
-
The man who entered the Milwaukee
-
County courtroom in January, 1992,
-
appeared completely normal. Until the words
-
of his confession were read in court by
-
Lt. Dennis Murphy.
-
"He said this was a person he really liked,
-
he indicated that he had fileted his heart
-
and kept it in the freezer, and he
-
also kept his bicep.
-
He indicated that he had eaten the
-
thigh muscle of this subject, but it
-
was so tough he could hardly chew it.
-
He then purchased a meat tenderizer and
-
used it on the bicep."
-
Dahmer's father, Lionel, sat in the courtroom
-
beside his second wife, Sherry,
-
stunned by what he heard.
-
"No one softened the blow for us,
-
no one told us, no one prepared us
-
with any of these details.
-
How could this be, how could I not know
-
about it?"
-
Dahmer's crimes seemed to be
-
devastating proof of insanity.
-
What else could explain the actions
-
of a man who had sex with the dead
-
dismembered their bodies,
-
preserved their skulls,
-
and ate their flesh,
-
all for sexual gratification
-
But the law has a very strict
-
interpretation of insanity
-
and Dahmer's defense team had to prove
-
2 things, 1, that he indeed suffered from
-
mental disease, and that it had kept him
-
from knowing right from wrong.
-
necrophilia, a compulsion to have sex
-
with the dead is recognized as a
-
sexual disorder, but it does not make
-
one legally insane.
-
"He argued that the necrophilic drive
-
was such that he could not control it, but
-
we don't accept that in the United States
-
as a defense, no more than we accept a
-
pediphilic drive of the man who wants
-
to have sex with children."
-
"Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury,
-
I understand that you have arrived
-
at a verdict in this manner....."
-
In a 10-2 decision, the jury found
-
Jeffrey Dahmer legally sane.
-
Some relatives of Dahmer's victims
-
sat quietly in court,
-
others cried.
-
Prior to his sentencing,
-
they were allowed to express themselves
-
before the judge.
-
"Jeffrey I hate you BEEP BEEP,
-
I hate you. This is out of control.
-
Don't BEEP with Jeffrey, I'll kill you
-
BEEP. I HATE YOU!!!"
-
Once order was restored,
-
Dahmer spoke publicly for the first time.
-
"I feel so bad for what I did to those poor
-
families and I understand their rightful
-
hate. I have seen their tears and if I
-
could give my life right now to bring
-
their loved ones back I would do it.
-
I am so very sorry."
-
Many questioned the emotional depth of
-
Dahmer's apology, whether a man who
-
killed so routinely, had the conscious
-
to feel remorse.
-
The judge sentenced Dahmer to a 937
-
year prison term, but it
-
would last only a few tormented years.
-
Jeffrey Dahmer's final home
-
was the Columbia Correctional Institution
-
in Portage, Wisconsin.
-
His former residence at the Oxford
-
Apartments in Milwaukee stood as a
-
painful reminder of the lives that
-
ended there so in November 1992,
-
it was demolished.
-
In his prison cell at the age of 32,
-
Dahmer's life became a conflicted introspection
-
trying to sort out the blame for his
-
killing nature and seeking devine
-
forgiveness for it.
-
He had spent time in church as a boy
-
and with his grandmother as an adult,
-
but had lost his religion during the murder
spree.
-
Dahmer placed the blame for the murders
-
on his atheist beliefs and the theory
-
of evolution.
-
"He said if it all happens naturalistically
-
what's the need for a god. Can't I set my
-
own rules. Who owns me? I own myself."
-
Yet Jeffrey was still a controdiction
-
for he was always quite willing to blame
-
the devil for taking over his soul.
-
The serial killer wondered now
-
what would happen to him when he died.
-
Dahmer decided he wanted to be baptized.
-
Evangelist Roy Ratcliff was called
-
by the prison minister to talk with the inmate
-
in April, 1994.
-
"He was a very congenial, likeable sort
-
of person. I always felt I was dealing with
-
a small boy in a grown up man's body.
-
He could get real excited and interested
-
and neat or cool things that a little boy
-
would get involved in."
-
One month later, Dahmer was taken to
-
the prison's medical center where
-
he was baptized in a whirlpool.
-
"The way we walked other prisoners with
-
mops and brooms and various cleaning supplies
-
and they would look up and the only one
-
they saw who they recognized was Jeff,
-
and they would call out in a very friendly
-
banter "Hey J.D. how's it going?"
-
He would call back, "I'm going to be
-
baptized this is great."
-
Dahmer appeared to be making a remarkable
-
transformation in prison.
-
"He would ask questions,
-
he would say but what about this
-
what about that, so uncharacteristic
-
of the earlier years, go back to senior year
-
in high school, you wouldn't get any of that.
-
He was so interactive, and so concerned
-
about our welfare.
-
He was reaching out, he was rehumanizing."
-
But those dark haunted fantasies
-
remained with Dahmer.
-
"I will probably have live with it for
-
the rest of my life. I wish it would go away
-
I wish I there was some way to completely
get
-
rid of the compulsive thoughts, the feelings."
-
Dahmer got another reminder of his past
-
when he was visited by Theresa Smith.
-
Dahmer had killed her brother, Eddie.
-
"First thing he did when he came in
-
was apologized for killing my brother.
-
I asked him why my brother and he
-
said he had seen the way he had danced
-
you know and he liked the way he looked
-
and he said I was just attracted to him.
-
He said he had strangle him and um,
-
then he was trying some new experiment or
-
something with preserving the skull and
-
the body and whatever and it didn't work.
-
So he had to destroy him."
-
Dahmer had spent his entire adult life
-
as the predator. But now in prison he
-
became the prey. The notorious serial killer
-
was a target for other inmates.
-
In August, 1994, he was attacked in the
-
prison chapel with a crudely fashioned knife.
-
He survived.
-
But on November 29th, 1994,
-
inmate Christopher Scarver, who called
-
himself Christ, bludgeoned Dahmer with a
-
metal rod from the prison gym.
-
Dahmer died on the way to the hospital.
-
Among his last wishes, Dahmer had asked
-
to be cremated. His ashes were split
-
between his mother and father.
-
"There are statements in his will and testament
-
that say I don't want a marker, I don't want
a grave,
-
I don't want a funeral, I don't want any kind
of
-
he's saying I want to be wiped out."
-
But the horrible questions that his
-
life of killing posed do continue
-
and they defy answers.
-
"There were mysteries of mysteries
-
that will never be solved. Even if he lived
-
I don't know that what he was all about
-
would ever be solved. Except maybes."
-
"It's hard when there is no explanations
-
sure there were red flags in Jeff's life
-
but no one knew about them.
-
He was so secretive and so careful."