Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we are undertaking
a really deep and frankly quite difficult exploration
into the source material concerning Jeffrey Lionel
Dahmer, known around the world of course as the
Milwaukee Cannibal. Yeah. We're going to try
and chart the progression of this, this pathology
that spanned 13 years from 1978 right up to 1991.
And claimed the lives of 17 men and boys. It's
a very dark catalog of events we're looking at.
It really is. But our mission here, I think,
is clear. We need to synthesize the chronological
facts, the timelines, and the psychological insights
from the sources. Right. To try and understand
not just what happened, but maybe get closer
to the internal logic driving his actions. And
crucially, where the system, you know, where
intervention failed. Yeah, those missed opportunities
are key. And when you look at the specific nature
of these crimes, I mean, they really go beyond
typical predatory behavior, don't they? Absolutely.
The sources make it very clear, especially the
later murders. They were defined by this calculated
pathology. You see necrophilia, cannibalism,
and this almost scientific obsession with permanently
preserving body parts. Particularly the skeletons.
Exactly, the skeletons. And what's immediately...
Central, I think, to understanding Dahmer's case
is this profound paradox that came out during
his trial. The sanity question. Precisely. Clinically,
you had multiple experts diagnosing him with
severe mental illnesses. Borderline personality
disorder, schizotypal personality disorder, even
a psychotic disorder. A whole list. Serious diagnoses.
Very serious. Yet despite this extensive catalog
of, well, dysfunction, the jury ultimately found
him legally sane in 1992. Right. And that contrast,
the clear psychological brokenness versus the
legal finding of criminal responsibility. That's
the core analytical thread we really have to
keep coming back to, you know. OK, so let's unpack
this right from the beginning then. Jeffrey Dahmer,
born in 1960. The sources paint a picture of
a pretty volatile, maybe even chaotic early environment
driven by intense parental instability. That's
right. His father, Lionel, was a research chemist.
His mother, Joyce, taught teletype machine operation.
But the source material gets complicated right
away, even regarding his infancy. Oh, so? Well,
you have these conflicting accounts. Some suggest
he was really deprived of maternal affection,
you know, attention. But others claim he was
actually doted upon. Huh. How do you reconcile
two completely opposite accounts like that? Does
that contradiction itself maybe tell us something
important about the family dynamics or maybe
how they remembered things later? I think it
signals instability. Definitely. High tension.
Yeah. Which Donner himself actually confirmed
later. He remembered growing up amid constant
bitter fighting between his parents. Okay. His
mother, Joyce, struggled badly with hypochondria,
depression. It even culminated in a suicide attempt
involving a sedative, Equinel. Wow. Adamer later
recalled feeling from a really young age profoundly
unsure of the solidity of the family, that lack
of a firm foundation. That's critical context.
And the sources point to a specific physical
event, a surgery, that seemed to coincide with
a major behavioral shift. Yeah, it was quite
a sharp pivot. He was apparently an energetic
and happy child up until he had double hernia
surgery shortly before he turned four. After
that procedure, the descriptions change. He became
notably subdued, quieter. And this quietness
happened around the same time his father was
spending long hours away studying and his mother
was spending more and more time isolated in bed.
So he essentially retreated inward, losing that
early energy. And this is when the... The sort
of macabre curiosity started almost right after
that, beginning with his father finding some
old animal bones. The sources track this fascination
with death right back to age four. Incredibly.
His father was working under their house, found
some animal bones. Dahmer, apparently fascinated
by the rattling noise they made, was oddly thrilled
by these remains. He called them his fiddlesticks.
Fiddlesticks. Yeah. early exposure, it seems
to have established some kind of connection for
him between bones, discovery, and maybe a kind
of excitement. And that interest just grew, didn't
it? Especially when the family moved to Bathtownship,
Ohio. That gave him, what, one and a half acres
of woodland to explore? Exactly. And the location
offered immediate access for his developing,
well, pathology. He started small, collecting
large insects, things like that. But he quickly
moved on to skeletons of small animals, chipmunks,
squirrels. Okay. He stored them in a sort of
makeshift hut he built. Yeah. Sometimes preserving
remains in jars of formaldehyde. Formaldehyde,
wow. Yeah. But the real escalation, the sort
of crucial moment of instruction, seems to have
happened when he was about 10. Ah, that's when
he asked his father about bleach. What it would
do to a chicken bone. Precisely. And this, looking
back, is just a truly tragic miscalculation on
Lionel Dahmer's part. Yeah. He saw this curiosity,
maybe thought it was a potential sign of future
interest in science. So Weil took the opportunity
to actually teach Jeffrey how to safely bleach,
clean, and preserve animal bones. Instead of
maybe curbing the obsession, Lionel completely
unwittingly. gave him the technical manual for
the horrific cleanups and preservation rituals
that would define his adult crimes. And he didn't
just stick to chicken bones, did he? He immediately
applied this to roadkill. He did. Straight away.
Started collecting roadkill, dissecting the animals,
and using those preservation techniques his father
had shown him. Right. He'd dissect them. sometimes
placing the skulls on top of makeshift crosses
before burying the rest. It moved pretty quickly
from maybe a detached scientific curiosity to
something much more aggressive, darker. You really
see that in the 1975 anecdote about the dog carcass.
Yeah, that story is shocking. He wasn't just
dissecting anymore. He was putting it on display.
Right. At 15, he decapitated a dog carcass he
found, nailed the body to a tree, and then impaled
the skull on a stick. supposedly as a prank for
a friend to find yeah but it shows this early
establishment of ritual and display this desire
not just to engage with death privately but to
use the remains as some kind of statement maybe
an object of power even if just for himself and
this one friend So as he moves into high school,
these morbid interests start to intertwine with
his emerging sexual fantasies. The sources note
he realized he was gay, but given the times,
you know, in his own emotional isolation, he
kept it completely secret. And his fantasies
evolved quickly from just simple attraction to
this intense focus on complete dominance. Okay.
Okay. very dark drive and this internal chaos
it manifested outwardly too didn't it through
heavy drinking he called alcohol his medicine
alcohol was definitely his primary coping mechanism
he was known as an outcast at school but also
as the class drunk hiding liquor drinking during
the day right interestingly despite earning just
average grades school staff noted he was highly
intelligent the social masks he wore were kind
of famous These pranks involving bleeding like
a sheep or simulating seizures, they actually
became known as doing a dommer. Going a dommer.
Wow. Yeah. These were maybe attempts to get noticed,
even if it was negative attention, while still
maintaining this deep emotional distance. And
the first known attempt to actually act on these
domination fantasies happened when he was about
16. It was a failed attempt, but it's very illuminating.
He hid himself in some bushes with a baseball
bat. He was waiting to knock out an attractive
male jogger he'd seen, render him unconscious
so he could, you know, make sexual use of the
body. Gosh. The jogger didn't show up that day.
But it illustrates that even two years before
the first actual murder, the basic method was
already there. Capture, subdue, use the body
as a silent object. And all this instability,
this internal turmoil, it just culminated in
the summer of 1978. Three weeks after he graduated
high school, his parents finally finalized their
really bitter divorce. And they left him alone
in the family home in Ohio. Yeah, that lack of
parental supervision combined with what must
have been an extreme emotional void. Yeah. It
just created the perfect catalyst, it seems.
And that's when he picked up his first victim,
Stephen Hicks. Hicks was only 18. Hitchhiking
to a rock concert, Dahmer picked him up, promised
him a few beers. Dahmer admitted later that just
the sight of Hicks, who was bare -chested apparently,
stirred his sexual feelings immediately. They
spent hours together listening to music, talking.
Okay. But when Hicks started talking about girls,
Dahmer realized, you know, he wasn't interested
in them that way, that he'd be rejected. The
moment Hicks tried to leave, Dahmer just couldn't
allow it. That need to maintain control, possession
over the desired object. Yeah. It just trumped
everything else. The killing itself was sudden,
but the actions immediately afterward. They confirmed
the pathology we've been tracking since he was
a kid, didn't they? Completely. He bludgeoned
Hicks twice from behind with a 10 -pound dumbbell,
then strangled him with the dumbbell bar itself.
Oh, God. Then he committed sexual acts with the
corpse. Yeah. Stripped the body, masturbated
over it, exploring the chest and torso, those
exact fixation points from his adolescent fantasies.
Then he dragged the body down to the basement,
indicating an immediate shift into that preservation
and disposal phase. And the disposal of Stephen
Hicks' body. It wasn't amateurish at all, was
it? He immediately applied those techniques his
father taught him, but on this gruesome human
scale. It was incredibly meticulous, aphotical,
which suggests a chilling level of calculated
action immediately after the initial, maybe impulsive
murder. Over the following weeks, he dismembered
the body. Weeks. Yeah. He paired the flesh and
the bones, used acid to dissolve the flesh, which
he then flushed down the toilet. Oh, my goodness.
The sources state he then pulverized the remaining
bones with a sledgehammer before scattering them
in the woods behind the house. This wasn't panic.
This was forensic cleanup. It proved he understood
exactly how criminal his actions were and exactly
how to erase the evidence. Okay, so moving into
the next phase of his life, Dahmer tried and
failed repeatedly to establish any kind of normal
life in the years following that first murder,
right? The underlying pathology was just too
strong, it seems. And the alcohol dependency
was completely crippling. He enrolled at Ohio
State University, apparently hoping for a business
degree, but he's essentially quit studying almost
immediately. Attended only a few classes, failed
pretty much everything. Wow. He ended his first
term with a shocking .45 GPA. Dropped out entirely
due to alcohol abuse. So his father then convinced
him to enlist in the army as a medical specialist
in 1979. I mean, a combat medic position seems
wildly unsuited for someone with his background.
You'd think, wouldn't you? You might imagine
that exposure to the medical field could offer
some kind of professional redirection, maybe.
But his constant intoxication just undermined
any attempt at stability. Right. He served briefly
in West Germany. Apparently, he was average initially,
but his performance quickly deteriorated because
he was perpetually drunk. Drunk on duty. Eventually,
he was deemed unsuitable for military service
and received an honorable discharge in 1981.
It's this continuing pattern. High intelligence
completely thwarted by crippling dependency.
And this ongoing instability, it led to his father
and stepmother moving him to West Allis, Wisconsin.
They were hoping the influence of his paternal
grandmother, Catherine Dahmer, might finally
stabilize him. Catherine was perhaps the only
person Dahmer felt any real affection for, according
to the sources. They hoped her stricter but still
caring structure might help him. And initially,
it seemed maybe promising. Well, he held a job
as a phlebotomist for about 10 months, even attended
church with her sometimes. But then came two
years of unemployment, and the dark fantasy life
he'd maybe suppressed started to resurface. And
this is where we see that transition from purely
internal fantasy back to needing external objects
again, specifically the mannequin. Yeah, the
sources really highlight his need for a permanent,
silent object of desire. He stole a male mannequin
from a department store. Stole it? Yeah. Used
it for sexual stimulation until his grandmother
eventually discovered it hidden in a closet.
and made him get rid of it. That mannequin was
essentially a substitute for the controlled victim
he craved. A really clear warning sign that the
underlying pathology hadn't gone away. It had
just been temporarily managed, maybe. So once
the mannequin was gone, he shifted tactics again.
He transitioned to using sedatives to achieve
the same result, making human partners into objects.
Right. He started frequenting Milwaukee's gay
bars and bathhouses more. His primary frustration,
according to his own accounts, was the movement
and, well, the personhood of his partners. He
needed them to be completely static, completely
under his control. So, starting around 1986,
he began administering these high -powered sedatives,
Trazolem, Camazarpam, Alcyon, basically. He got
them by lying to doctors, claiming he needed
sleeping pills to adjust to a fictitious night
shift schedule. Wow. Calculated. Very. By lacing
drinks with these sedatives, he could ensure
his partners were unconscious and essentially
viewed as mere objects of pleasure, as he put
it, rather than individuals. And this practice
led directly to his first murder in Wisconsin,
didn't it? Stephen Tuomi, November 1987, at the
Ambassador Hotel. But Dahmer claimed he blacked
out during the actual killing. Dahmer's account
of this one is particularly chilling. He claimed
he literally woke up the next morning to find
Tuomi battered to death beneath him. His chest
was crushed in and black and blue, he said. And
he claimed to have no memory of delivering the
killing blow. Do we believe that? The blackout?
Well, whether it was true amnesia or some kind
of defensive mechanism, maybe psychological denial,
the result was the same. He immediately went
into action, transported the body in a large
suitcase back to his grandmother's house. And
this marked a pivotal moment, right, where his
cleanup and retention efforts became much more
ambitious. Yes. This was the first really extensive
dismemberment he performed in Wisconsin. And
he did it at his grandmother's house. In the
basement, presumably. Oh, gosh. He attempted
to preserve the head. He boiled the flesh off
the skull using this highly toxic mix of Soilax,
which is an industrial strength detergent used
for cleaning concrete and bleach. Soilax and
bleach. Yeah. It really highlights his comfort
level with using these harsh industrial chemicals
to erase human remains. The attempt actually
failed, though. The skull became too brittle
for display, so he had to pulverize it. And incredibly,
he used his grandmother's house for two more
victims. after Tuomi, James Dockstader and Richard
Guerrero, before the foul smells and his drinking
finally forced him out. That's right. His grandmother
eventually gave him an ultimatum in September
1988. She just couldn't handle the smell coming
from the basement and the garage and his constant
heavy drinking. Understandable. So he moved into
his own small apartment. But, tragically, just
two days after moving out, he was arrested for
sexually assaulting a 13 -year -old Laotian boy.
This seems like it should have been the major
intervention point. The system had him. He was
evaluated, diagnosed with serious issues, but
ultimately he was paroled relatively quickly.
It's a huge failure point in the timeline. The
psychological evaluations noted deep alienation,
impulsivity, a schizoid personality profile,
serious red flags. Despite pleading guilty but
insane initially, he later changed his plea.
He was sentenced to five years probation and
one year in the House of Correction in 1989 for
second -degree sexual assault and incising a
child. Critically, he served only about 10 months
and was paroled early. And he was required to
register as a sex offender. Yes. He was. Which
makes later events even more frustrating. This
was a massive missed opportunity to potentially
confine him long term based on clearly demonstrated
pathology and danger. And the tragic irony, the
absolute horror, is that between his conviction
for that assault and the actual sentencing, he
murdered again. Anthony Sears. Anthony Sears,
a 24 -year -old aspiring model, was murdered
in March 1989. And this was the first victim
whose body parts, specifically the head and genitals
Dahmer successfully managed to retain permanently.
How did he preserve them? He preserved them in
acetone, kept them in a locked wooden box, which
he then stored in his work locker at the chocolate
factory. The need for physical possession for
a permanent trophy had reached this new, horrifying
threshold. The secrecy around that box. It just
speaks volumes about his cunning, doesn't it?
It really does. There's an anecdote where his
father, Lionel, actually noticed the lockbox
at one point and, concerned, asked Jeffrey what
was inside. What did Dahmer say? He reacted really
defensively, angrily, claimed it just contained
pornography. Lionel, maybe expecting what he
saw as his adult son's privacy, backed off. didn't
push it wow that simple act of backing off allowed
the to remain concealed it just highlights the
level of calculated secrecy dahmer was capable
of in this calculated secrecy it allowed him
to eventually move into the oxford apartments
apartment 213 in may 1990 which became the setting
for the final darkest phase of his crimes right
he chose 924 north 25th street partly because
it was cheap but also because it was in a high
crime area he figured unusual activity might
be conspicuous there. Smart in a twisted way.
And he brought Anthony Sears' preserved remains
with him to the new apartment. This move marked
a dramatic, terrifying escalation. Twelve of
his 17 known victims were killed in that single
apartment over just a 14 -month period. Raymond
Smith was the first victim at the new address,
and this is where Dahmer introduced another element
to his ritual, the Polaroid photography. Yes,
he began taking pictures of the victims' bodies,
often posed in various suggestive post -mortem
positions. Why? Did he say why? He explained
it later as my way of remembering their appearance,
their physical beauty. It wasn't just about possessing
the physical body anymore, but also possessing
the memory and the image of the body permanently.
Raymond Smith's skull was the first one he successfully
spray painted, likely silver or gray, and retained
for his growing collection. His obsession with
retention, with keeping parts, led to some pretty
spectacular, though horrifying, failures, didn't
it? It really demonstrates his sort of DIY approach
to forensic preservation. Absolutely. It's bizarre.
After killing Edward Smith, he tried to freeze
the entire skeleton for months. He hoped this
would remove moisture and allow for permanent
preservation. Did it work? No. When freezing
proved ineffective, he actually tried to dry
the skull in the oven. In the oven? Yes, and
it exploded. He later confessed to feeling rotten
about this failure because he couldn't retain
any parts of Smith's body. It shows this profound
disappointment he felt when the ritual failed
to yield the desired object, the trophy. And
then came the shift into full cannibalism, starting
with Ernest Miller, the dance student he killed
in September 1990. Miller was killed by slashing
his carotid artery. After that, Dahmer moved
into actual consumption. He wrapped portions
of Miller's heart, liver, biceps, and thigh muscle
in plastic and put them in his freezer. And his
rationale for this? Initially, he described it
as just starting out of curiosity. But it quickly
evolved into this chilling belief that consumption
made the victims even more a permanent part of
me, a way to fully internalize them. And the
detail regarding the thigh muscle? It just illustrates
the utterly grotesque reality of what he was
doing. It does. The sources note he found the
thigh muscle so tough he could hardly chew it,
which forced him to start using commercial meat
tenderizer. Oh, my God. That level of, like,
culinary preparation? Yeah. It just underscores
the complete and utter dehumanization of the
victim. After this, he was finally successful
in boiling the remaining flesh off Miller's skeleton
using Soilax. He retained that first full skeleton
for what was becoming his grand project. That
grand project, this ultimate desire for a permanent,
silent, completely submissive partner. It led
him to that horrifying drilling experiment in
April 1991 with Errol Lindsay, right? This really
represents the absolute apex of his delusional
control fantasies. His goal here was incredibly
specific and terrifying. He didn't want to kill
the victim instantly anymore. What did he want?
He wanted to drill a small hole into the skull
and inject hydrochloric acid directly into the
frontal lobe. His aim was to induce a permanent,
unresistant, submissive state. He was attempting
literal surgical zombification, creating a living
doll. But the procedure, it proved instantly
fatal, didn't it? Or almost instantly fatal in
Lindsay's case. The instance with Errol Lindsay
is one of the most haunting details in the entire
source material, I think. Lindsay actually woke
up after the drilling procedure. He woke up?
Yes. Disoriented, he reportedly asked Dahmer,
I have a headache. What time is it? Oh, God.
Dahmer immediately had to drug him again and
scramble him. It proved his method was a fatal
failure, but not before providing this moment
of terrible, lucid horror for the victim. Just
unbelievable. However, maybe the most egregious
failure of intervention of the system followed
just a month later. The Conorac synthosomphone
disaster. This entire event. It's just a textbook
example of systemic negligence, arguably layered
with racial bias. Conorac sent this orphan who
was only 14 years old. He was lured back to Dahmer's
apartment, drugged, and then Dahmer performed
the drilling procedure on him. And crucially,
Conorac was the younger brother of the boy Dahmer
had sexually assaulted back in 1988. The same
family. Yes. A fact the police would have immediately
discovered if they had simply run a basic background
check on Dahmer, who, remember, was a registered
sex offender living at that address. Unbelievable
negligence. Conorax somehow managed to stumble
outside the apartment building. Naked, disoriented,
bleeding. Yes. Three concerned local women, all
black, found him in the street and called 911
immediately. Okay. Officers John Balcerzak and
Joseph Gabers responded. Dahmer quickly intercepted
them, lied smoothly, claimed Conorac was his
19 -year -old intoxicated boyfriend, gave a fake
name, John Henmung, and said they'd just had
a lover's quarrel. And the women who found him,
they tried to intervene. They tried desperately.
They pointed out that Conorac was clearly injured,
bleeding from the rectum, not just drunk. They
pleaded with the officers. But the officers...
They were convinced by Dahmer, by his composure,
and he showed them some photos. He showed them
two semi -nude Polaroids he had, supposedly proving
they were lovers. The officers bought his story.
They dismissed the women, with one officer harshly
telling them to butt out. Oh, come on. Officer
Gabers even noted later there was a strange scent
reminiscent of excrement coming from the apartment,
which was, of course, the decomposing body of
another victim, Tony Hughes, lying in the bedroom.
Did they even look inside? According to reports,
they merely peeked their heads around the bedroom
door. Didn't see anything amiss, apparently.
They then helped Dahmer escort the clearly incapacitated
boy back inside the apartment, telling Dahmer
to take good care of him. They left him there
with Dahmer. They left him there. And the subsequent
radio traffic just confirms the total callousness
and failure to follow basic procedure. What did
it say? The patrol unit radio dispatch, kind
of joking about the incident. said the intoxicated
Asian naked male was returned to his sober boyfriend.
And there was a quip about one partner needing
to get de -loused at the station. That's sickening.
The failure was absolute. Dahmer immediately
injected Conorac with more acid as soon as the
police left, which was fatal. He dismembered
both Conorac and Tony Hughes the very next day.
This case, understandably, later triggered a
huge public outcry about racial profiling and
police incompetence in Milwaukee. After this.
This disaster, Dahmer entered his final, almost
frenzied spree, didn't he? In July 1991, killing
four more men in rapid succession, including
Oliver Lacey and Joseph Braidhoft. It seems like
he was rushing towards some kind of culmination,
the construction of his final altar. He described
his state of mind at the time as being driven
by an incessant and never -ending desire to be
with someone at whatever cost. The final murders,
it seems, became the necessary sacrifices for
his ultimate vision. He was actively constructing
a private physical monument to his own power.
Can you describe this grand vision, the altar?
What did the sources say it looked like? In his
apartment, he was setting up this black table.
He adorned it with incense, a large blue globe
lamp he had. And on this table, he was arranging
an altar consisting of seven skulls and two complete
skeletons, those of Ernest Miller and Oliver
Lacey. Seven skulls and two skeletons? Yes. He
confessed that this entire structure was dedicated
to... Myself. He intended it as a place for meditation,
a source from which he believed he could draw
a sense of power and self -affirmation. Wow.
He told investigators chillingly, if this arrest
had happened six months later, that's what they
would have found, fully assembled. So if the
earlier killings were maybe attempts at possession,
finding the right method. The final few were
essentially just ritualistic steps to build the
self -affirming monument. Is that the idea? That
seems to be the core analytical point emerging
from the sources, yes. The murder, the mutilation,
the cannibalism. Those were the means. The construction
phase, if you will. not the ultimate end goal.
The final goal was this sanctuary, this physical
manifestation of his dominance, his power, and
his ability to transform human life into permanent
silent objects that affirmed his own sense of
self. The entire House of Horrors finally came
crashing down on July 20, 1991, and it was thanks
to the heroic actions of one man, Tracy Edwards.
Edwards, who was 32 at the time, accepted Dahmer's
offer of $100 to pose for nude pictures. But
as soon as he entered apartment 213, Edwards
immediately noticed the overwhelming foul odor.
He saw the 57 -gallon blue drum, bottles of hydrochloric
acid. Red flags everywhere. Big time. Dahmer
then placed one handcuff on Edwards' wrist, started
rocking back and forth, chanting something unintelligible.
Then he brandished a large butcher knife and
told Edwards he intended to eat his heart. That
final explicit threat, that must have been what
provided the terror, the adrenaline for Edwards
to act. It seems so. Edwards displayed incredible
presence of mind. He managed to trick Dahmer,
saying he needed to use the bathroom again. When
Dahmer momentarily looked away or was slightly
off balance, Edwards seized the chance. He punched
Dahmer hard. Good for him. And managed to get
out the unlocked front door, still wearing the
handcuff, and flagged down the first police car
he saw. Officers Ruth and Miller responded. When
they went back to the apartment with Edwards,
Mueller found the crucial piece of evidence,
didn't he? In the bedside dresser drawer. That's
right. Mueller was looking for the key to the
handcuff Edwards was still wearing. When he opened
the nightstand drawer, he found scores of explicit
graphic Polaroid photographs detailing the dismemberment
process, bodies posed, all taken right there
in that bedroom. Oh, man. He immediately showed
them to his partner, Robert Ruth, uttering that
now infamous line, these are for real. These
are for real? Yeah. When Domber realized the
photographs had been discovered, he apparently
fought the officers, lunged at them, but was
quickly overpowered and arrested. And the rest
of the crime scene discovery just confirmed everything
in the photos and everything we've been discussing.
The chief medical examiner, Jeffrey Jensen, later
stated this scene was more like dismantling someone's
museum than an actual crime scene. The inventory
was just horrifying. Four severed heads found
in the kitchen. seven bleached skulls in the
bedroom closet and on shelves, two human hearts
in the freezer, preserved penises in the fridge,
and three torsos actively dissolving in that
57 -gallon drum of acid in the corner of the
bedroom. It was essentially a factory of death
and preservation. Unbelievable. Dahmer confessed
almost immediately, didn't he? Over 60 hours
of interviews, waived his right to a lawyer.
He confessed readily. Said he wanted to put an
end to it. He detailed everything. The necrophilia
involving viscera sometimes. His explicit reasons
for cannibalism again to make the victims even
more a permanent part of me. He seemed almost
relieved in a strange way that it was over. He
was indicted on 15 counts of murder in Wisconsin
and eventually a 16th count for Stephen Hicks
back in Ohio, which led to the pivotal legal
event, the 1992 sanity trial, which centered
squarely on that paradox we discussed earlier.
Was he mentally ill beyond control, or was he
calculating insane? Exactly. Wisconsin law required
a separate trial phase to determine sanity, since
Dahmer pled guilty, but insane. The defense centered
its entire argument on the concept of irresistible
impulse stemming from profound clinically diagnosed
mental illness. Right. They argued that the sheer
overwhelming nature of his necrophilic drives,
his paraphilias and his compulsions meant he
simply could not conform his conduct to the requirements
of the law. Defense expert Dr. Fred Berlintz
specifically testified that Donner was legally
insane due to the extremity of his paraphilia
that he couldn't control the impulse to possess
and kill. And they leaned heavily on those existing
diagnoses. Borderline schizotypal. Absolutely.
Borderline personality disorder, schizotypal
personality disorder, conditions often involving
intense emotional instability, distorted thought
patterns, difficulty with reality testing. They
painted him as a victim of his own sickness.
a sickness he discovered, not chose, as one defense
attorney put it. But the prosecution, they focused
entirely on the cunning, the meticulous nature
of the cleanups, the secrecy. Prosecutor Michael
McCann hammered that point home. Describe Dahmer
as manipulative, calculating, fully capable of
controlling his actions when he needed to. Their
key witness, forensic psychiatrist Dr. Park Dietz,
presented what turned out to be the most compelling
counterargument, especially regarding the alcohol
use. What was Dietz's argument about the alcohol?
Dietz argued that if Dahmer had a true compulsion,
meaning an overwhelming, irresistible urge he
couldn't stop to kill, he wouldn't need to get
drunk first to follow through. Ah, okay, so the
drinking wasn't fueling the compulsion. Exactly.
Dietz successfully argued that Dahmer drank to
overcome his inhibition against killing, the
part of him that knew it was wrong. He knew the
difference between right and wrong. Look at the
evidence. All of these actions demonstrated a
clear understanding of criminality and a massive
calculated effort to avoid consequences. And
Dietz also brought up Dahmer's interest in certain
movie villains. Yes. Dietz noted that Dahmer
strongly identified with powerful evil figures
in films like The Exorcist III, specifically
The Gemini Killer and Emperor Palpatine from
Return of the Jedi. Dietz suggested this showed
a conscious identification with, and pursuit
of, power and control, rather than Dahmer just
being a passive victim of random, uncontrollable
impulses. And the jury... They ultimately agreed
with the prosecution, didn't they? Ruled him
legally sane. They did. On all 15 Wisconsin counts.
Though it wasn't unanimous initially, two jurors
dissented on every count during deliberations
before eventually agreeing. Right. He was subsequently
sentenced to 16 consecutive life terms, totaling
941 years imprisonment. At his sentencing, Dahmer
actually addressed the court. He stated he wished
for his own death, confirmed his murders weren't
motivated by hatred, and said he believed he
deserved the maximum sentence. So Donner was
sent to Columbia Correctional Institution in
Portage, Wisconsin. Initially, he was kept in
solitary confinement, mainly for his own safety,
right? But he requested a transfer after about
a year. That's right. He asked to be moved into
a general population work detail. He was assigned
work cleaning the prison toilet block and the
gym area. Okay. And during this period in prison,
he seemed to display a pretty marked psychological
shift. He became a born -again Christian, was
actually baptized in the prison whirlpool in
May of 1994. Baptized in the prison whirlpool.
Wow. He seemed to have sort of accepted his fate,
maybe even questioning his own right to continue
living. He often discussed death with the minister
who baptized him, Roy Ratcliffe, and also with
his mother, Joyce, who had reconnected with him
by phone. Apparently, whenever Joyce expressed
concern for his safety in prison, he'd dismiss
it. Say things like, it doesn't matter, Mom.
I don't care if something happens to me. He stated
in one prison interview that if a person doesn't
feel accountable to God, then what's the point
of trying to modify your behavior? It seems he
found some kind of peace, perhaps, in accountability,
even if that ultimately meant accepting death.
And death came. Brutally and abruptly, November
28, 1994. He was on that work detail in the prison
gym showers area with two other inmates, Jesse
Anderson and Christopher Scarber. They were left
unsupervised by guards for about 20 minutes.
Unsupervised? Yes. Christopher Scarber, who himself
suffered from schizophrenia and apparently believed
he was receiving divine commands, attacked both
Dahmer and Anderson. He bludgeoned them with
a 20 -inch metal bar he'd taken from the prison
weight room. inflicted extreme head trauma on
both. Dahmer was pronounced dead just an hour
later, wasn't he? And Scarver... Scarver immediately
returned to his cell after the attack, calmly
told a guard, God told me to do it. God told
me to do it. Scarver also later claimed that
Dahmer's final words, as Scarver approached him,
were, I don't care if I live or die, go ahead
and kill me, which suggests a kind of final,
complete resignation, if true. The reaction from
the victim's families was... Understandably mixed,
I suppose. Some celebrated the sort of vigilante
justice, others maybe didn't. His mother's reaction
was quite bitter, wasn't it? Yes. Joyce Flint's
reported reaction was simply, now is everybody
happy? A very bitter response to the news. The
fallout from his crimes beyond the immediate
horror really highlighted some major societal
issues, didn't it? Specifically, the racial tensions,
particularly brought to the forefront by the
police handling of the Conorac Synthesum phone
case. Absolutely. The vast majority of his victims,
14 out of 17, were ethnic minorities, with nine
being black men or boys. The catastrophic failure
of the Milwaukee police to properly investigate
when they had Conorac right there. It highlighted
and severely exacerbated the already significant
racial tension in Milwaukee, which was known
as one of the most segregated cities in the U
.S. at the time. And officers Belshazzar and
Gabrish, what happened to them? They were initially
fired after a public outcry and an internal investigation.
However, they later appealed and were actually
reinstated with back pay, though neither returned
to street patrol immediately. Wow. And the physical
evidence of his crimes, the apartment building
itself. It was systematically erased. The Oxford
Apartments building at 924 North 25th Street
was demolished just over a year after his arrest
in November 1992. The site remains a vacant lot
to this day. And his belongings, the tools, the
freezer, all that stuff. There was a concerted
effort by a local civic group, Milwaukee Civic
Pride. They raised funds, including a significant
$100 ,000 gift from a philanthropist named Joseph
Zilber, specifically to purchase all of Dahmer's
possessions that had been seized as evidence.
Why? To preserve them? No, exactly the opposite.
They bought everything, the tools, the freezer,
the infamous blue drum, even the photographs
specifically to ensure they were all destroyed
and buried in an undisclosed landfill. The goal
was to prevent any of it from ever entering the
macabre murderabilia collector's market. That
seems like a responsible move. And even after
his death, there was that final kind of gruesome
footnote, the dispute between his parents over
his brain. Yeah, it's quite something. Dahmer's
body was cremated according to his will, but
his brain was preserved for a time because his
parents disagreed vehemently about what should
happen to it. What was the disagreement? His
mother, Joyce. wanted the brain studied. She
hoped scientists could find some neurological
or biological explanation, some abnormality that
might explain his horrific pathology. And his
father? His father, Lionel, argued strongly against
it. He just wanted the entire chapter closed.
To cremate the brain, along with the rest of
the remains, put an end to it all. After about
a year -long court battle, the court ultimately
sided with Lionel's wishes. Dahmer's brain was
finally cremated in December 1995. So let's bring
it back then to that original fundamental question
that really defined his trial. If the prosecution
was correct, if Dahmer was fundamentally driven
by calculating control, how does that square
with his final elaborate project, that self -dedicated
altar he was building, intended as a source of
power and a place for meditation? Well, the initial
impulse to kill might well have been driven by
desire. by paraphilia, as the defense argued.
But the control argument, I think, is solidified
by everything that happened after the death,
the post -mortem ritual. The ultimate goal wasn't
just fleeting sexual gratification with a corpse.
That seemed almost secondary sometimes. The real
goal was the permanence of possession. And achieving
that required methodical cleanup, chemical preservation,
meticulous arrangement, and eventually display.
We saw him start trying this right from the pulverized
bones of Hicks, even the preserved dog skull
he called a prank. So the elaborate structure
of the altar, the seven skulls, the two complete
skeletons, the incense, dedicating it to... myself
it suggests that the entire sequence the murder
the mutilation the cannibalism it was all merely
the necessary ritualistic steps required to construct
that ultimate self -affirming structure and really
looks that way when you synthesize the sources
it wasn't just control over the victim in the
moment of death it was achieving permanent control
over their very essence transforming their physical
remains into components of a personal monument
to his own twisted pathology yeah if he viewed
himself as park died suggested as this powerful,
almost Sith Lord -like villain, then the altar
was his cathedral, his shrine. The chilling implication
then is that the horror wasn't just the act of
murder itself, but the meticulous, calculated,
almost industrial construction phase that followed.
All required, in his mind, to affirm his monstrous
identity. A truly profound and deeply disturbing
realization that the preservation the construction
was just as important, maybe more important to
him in the end, than the act of killing itself.
Thank you for guiding us through this incredibly
detailed and, frankly, very difficult source
material today. Thank you. Yeah, a necessary
deep dive, I think, into the anatomy of a truly
extreme obsession.