WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.800 You know, there's a specific kind of fear that 00:00:01.800 --> 00:00:04.099 comes from the unknown, the monster under the 00:00:04.099 --> 00:00:06.700 bed, the shadow in the alley, the thing that 00:00:06.700 --> 00:00:11.500 jumps out at you from the dark. But looking at 00:00:11.500 --> 00:00:15.099 this absolute mountain of documents we have on 00:00:15.099 --> 00:00:17.539 the desk today, the psych reports, the trial 00:00:17.539 --> 00:00:20.539 transcripts, the witness statements, I think 00:00:20.539 --> 00:00:23.500 there's a much deeper, more unsettling fear we 00:00:23.500 --> 00:00:25.179 need to talk about. It's the fear of the known, 00:00:25.280 --> 00:00:27.179 isn't it? Exactly. It's the fear of the monster 00:00:27.179 --> 00:00:29.039 who isn't hiding under the bed, but the one standing 00:00:29.039 --> 00:00:31.010 in the living room. The one who waves to you 00:00:31.010 --> 00:00:32.969 in the hallway. Yes, holding a bag of groceries. 00:00:33.689 --> 00:00:37.369 The one who is polite. We are talking, of course, 00:00:37.369 --> 00:00:39.890 about Jeffrey Dahmer. The Milwaukee cannibal. 00:00:40.450 --> 00:00:42.549 The Milwaukee monster. And you're right. The 00:00:42.549 --> 00:00:44.670 terror here isn't just the gore. And believe 00:00:44.670 --> 00:00:47.509 me, there is plenty of that. It's the dissonance. 00:00:47.670 --> 00:00:49.869 It is. If you look at the FBI profiler notes 00:00:49.869 --> 00:00:51.570 or, you know, the interviews with his neighbors 00:00:51.570 --> 00:00:54.509 that we've pulled, nobody described a raving 00:00:54.509 --> 00:00:57.049 lunatic. They described a man who was quiet. 00:00:57.289 --> 00:01:01.520 A man who was normal. Until he wasn't. And that 00:01:01.520 --> 00:01:04.540 is exactly our mission today. We are not just 00:01:04.540 --> 00:01:06.760 recounting the crimes. I think everyone has seen 00:01:06.760 --> 00:01:09.819 the headlines of the Netflix series. We are taking 00:01:09.819 --> 00:01:12.959 this stack of source material to answer a different 00:01:12.959 --> 00:01:16.099 question. How does that transition happen? How 00:01:16.099 --> 00:01:19.019 do you go from a shy boy collecting animal bones 00:01:19.019 --> 00:01:22.260 in the woods to a man building a literal altar 00:01:22.260 --> 00:01:25.959 of human skulls in a downtown apartment? We're 00:01:25.959 --> 00:01:28.299 looking for the progression. And to do that, 00:01:28.299 --> 00:01:30.879 we have to look at the failures, not just his 00:01:30.879 --> 00:01:33.260 internal psychological failures, but the external 00:01:33.260 --> 00:01:36.140 ones, the family, the school system, the army, 00:01:36.319 --> 00:01:39.299 and maybe most importantly, the police. Oh, absolutely. 00:01:39.640 --> 00:01:41.920 Because when you read these transcripts, specifically 00:01:41.920 --> 00:01:45.040 the police logs from 1991, you realize Dahmer 00:01:45.040 --> 00:01:46.900 didn't just slip through the cracks. The cracks 00:01:46.900 --> 00:01:48.799 were canyons, and he was practically waved through 00:01:48.799 --> 00:01:50.819 the gates. Before we open the first file, we 00:01:50.819 --> 00:01:52.939 do need to be very clear with you listening right 00:01:52.939 --> 00:01:55.379 now. The source material we are covering today 00:01:55.379 --> 00:01:58.480 involves extreme sexual violence, dismemberment, 00:01:58.480 --> 00:02:01.040 and cannibalism. It is graphic. It is. We are 00:02:01.040 --> 00:02:03.239 going to treat this with the analytical distance 00:02:03.239 --> 00:02:06.079 it requires, but the facts themselves are brutal. 00:02:06.280 --> 00:02:08.840 If you are not in the headspace for that, this 00:02:08.840 --> 00:02:11.580 is your warning. It is heavy, but it's necessary 00:02:11.580 --> 00:02:14.039 context if we really want to move beyond the 00:02:14.039 --> 00:02:16.400 sensation and understand the pathology. Okay, 00:02:16.439 --> 00:02:18.620 let's start where the psychiatrists started during 00:02:18.620 --> 00:02:21.900 the trial. The origin story. Nature versus nurture. 00:02:23.209 --> 00:02:26.969 Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer, born May 21, 1960, in 00:02:26.969 --> 00:02:28.949 Milwaukee. Yeah. You look at the early reports, 00:02:28.990 --> 00:02:32.189 and honestly, it seems confusing. Was he neglected? 00:02:32.409 --> 00:02:35.159 Was he loved? the sources seem to argue with 00:02:35.159 --> 00:02:37.460 each other they do and that contradiction is 00:02:37.460 --> 00:02:40.039 actually the first key insight we have reports 00:02:40.039 --> 00:02:42.319 from neighbors saying he was a beautiful energetic 00:02:42.319 --> 00:02:45.020 child but then we have later accounts specifically 00:02:45.020 --> 00:02:47.539 from his father lionel describing a household 00:02:47.539 --> 00:02:49.919 that was just thick with tension right his mother 00:02:49.919 --> 00:02:52.479 joyce is described in these psychiatric evaluations 00:02:52.479 --> 00:02:55.280 as a hypochondriac someone and this is a quote 00:02:55.280 --> 00:02:58.560 greedy for pity greedy for pity that is a very 00:02:58.560 --> 00:03:01.599 specific very loaded phrase it paints a picture 00:03:01.599 --> 00:03:03.810 of a woman who needed constant emotional validation. 00:03:04.169 --> 00:03:06.270 It suggests a home environment where emotional 00:03:06.270 --> 00:03:08.650 energy was a finite resource and the mother was 00:03:08.650 --> 00:03:11.409 consuming most of it. Lionel was a chemistry 00:03:11.409 --> 00:03:14.150 student studying at Marquette. Often gone. So 00:03:14.150 --> 00:03:17.050 he wasn't really present. Not consistently. So 00:03:17.050 --> 00:03:19.370 you have a young Jeffrey Dahmer in a house that 00:03:19.370 --> 00:03:22.210 feels unstable. He later told psychologists, 00:03:22.349 --> 00:03:24.090 and this is in the Prinke and Burgess reports, 00:03:24.370 --> 00:03:27.569 that he felt unsure of the solidity of the family. 00:03:27.889 --> 00:03:30.689 Wow. That is a profound thing for a child to 00:03:30.689 --> 00:03:33.050 sense, that the ground beneath them isn't solid. 00:03:33.469 --> 00:03:36.110 But plenty of kids grow up in tense households 00:03:36.110 --> 00:03:38.610 and don't become serial killers. Yeah. There's 00:03:38.610 --> 00:03:40.490 a specific medical event in the timeline that 00:03:40.490 --> 00:03:42.250 keeps coming up as a turning point. Yeah. He 00:03:42.250 --> 00:03:44.569 was four years old. Just before his fourth birthday, 00:03:44.689 --> 00:03:47.909 a double hernia surgery. Now, we have to contextualize 00:03:47.909 --> 00:03:51.349 this. In 1964, pediatric anesthesia and pain 00:03:51.349 --> 00:03:53.310 management, well, they weren't what they are 00:03:53.310 --> 00:03:55.610 today. Not at all. But it's not just the physical 00:03:55.610 --> 00:03:58.469 pain. It's the psychological impact. Before the 00:03:58.469 --> 00:04:00.830 surgery, teachers and parents say he was happy, 00:04:00.949 --> 00:04:04.020 energetic. After. It's like a switch flipped. 00:04:04.099 --> 00:04:06.419 How so? What was the change? What do the reports 00:04:06.419 --> 00:04:10.900 say? He became timid, subdued. One of his teachers 00:04:10.900 --> 00:04:12.520 actually wrote a note, we have it here in the 00:04:12.520 --> 00:04:15.219 school records, mentioning signs of neglect or 00:04:15.219 --> 00:04:17.939 abandonment. So he felt abandoned by being left 00:04:17.939 --> 00:04:20.959 at the hospital. Exactly. He felt that by being 00:04:20.959 --> 00:04:23.459 left there, even if it was for his own good, 00:04:23.660 --> 00:04:26.100 he had been discarded. And when he came back, 00:04:26.279 --> 00:04:28.500 he didn't trust the world anymore. It's interesting 00:04:28.500 --> 00:04:31.180 you use the word discarded because... That theme 00:04:31.180 --> 00:04:33.459 of abandonment seems to drive everything that 00:04:33.459 --> 00:04:35.800 comes later, that fear of people leaving him. 00:04:36.120 --> 00:04:38.060 Precisely. And what does a four -year -old do 00:04:38.060 --> 00:04:40.740 when he feels the living world is unreliable, 00:04:40.800 --> 00:04:43.980 when people leave? He turns to things that can't 00:04:43.980 --> 00:04:46.339 leave, things that are static. Which brings us 00:04:46.339 --> 00:04:48.759 to the fiddlesticks. When I read this in the 00:04:48.759 --> 00:04:51.300 notes, the hair on the back of my neck stood 00:04:51.300 --> 00:04:53.800 up. It's such an innocent -sounding word for 00:04:53.800 --> 00:04:57.779 something so morbid. It is. And it shows that 00:04:57.779 --> 00:05:00.160 his pathology was sensory from the very beginning. 00:05:00.649 --> 00:05:02.470 He's four years old, playing under the porch, 00:05:02.589 --> 00:05:05.009 and he sees his father pulling out these old 00:05:05.009 --> 00:05:07.589 animal bones that had accumulated there, probably 00:05:07.589 --> 00:05:10.970 from civet cats or raccoons. Most kids would 00:05:10.970 --> 00:05:13.110 be grossed out. Jeffrey was thrilled. But not 00:05:13.110 --> 00:05:15.230 just by seeing them, right? It wasn't visual 00:05:15.230 --> 00:05:17.709 for him. No, it was auditory. It was the sound. 00:05:17.910 --> 00:05:20.709 He took these bones and rattled them in a bucket. 00:05:20.850 --> 00:05:24.069 He loved the clatter. He called them his fiddle 00:05:24.069 --> 00:05:26.949 sticks. He told a therapist years later that 00:05:26.949 --> 00:05:30.050 the sound gave him a feeling of power and solidity. 00:05:30.430 --> 00:05:33.750 I see. Living things are unpredictable. They 00:05:33.750 --> 00:05:38.170 are soft. They leave. Bones are hard. They are 00:05:38.170 --> 00:05:40.269 permanent. They make a sound you can control. 00:05:40.529 --> 00:05:42.990 That is a fascinating psychological distinction. 00:05:43.750 --> 00:05:45.949 So he wasn't attracted to the violence at that 00:05:45.949 --> 00:05:48.569 age. He was attracted to the permanence. Exactly. 00:05:48.790 --> 00:05:50.870 And this obsession, it escalates. He's not just 00:05:50.870 --> 00:05:52.850 finding bones anymore. He's looking for them. 00:05:52.990 --> 00:05:55.709 He's exploring roadkill. He wanted to see, in 00:05:55.709 --> 00:05:58.350 his own words, how they fit together. So it was 00:05:58.350 --> 00:06:00.410 a curiosity about the mechanics of it all. It 00:06:00.410 --> 00:06:02.250 was. This is a crucial distinction we need to 00:06:02.250 --> 00:06:04.970 make. He wasn't a sadist at this age. He wasn't 00:06:04.970 --> 00:06:07.230 torturing animals for pain. He wasn't the kid 00:06:07.230 --> 00:06:10.269 pulling wings off flies. No. He was a necrophile 00:06:10.269 --> 00:06:13.009 in the making. He was interested in the objectification. 00:06:13.129 --> 00:06:16.250 of the body, the mechanics of it. He wanted to 00:06:16.250 --> 00:06:18.550 know how the machine worked once the life was 00:06:18.550 --> 00:06:21.170 gone. There's a story here involving a dinner 00:06:21.170 --> 00:06:23.189 table conversation that I think perfectly illustrates 00:06:23.189 --> 00:06:26.490 the tragedy of his upbringing. The chicken bone 00:06:26.490 --> 00:06:29.569 incident. It reads like a dark comedy sketch, 00:06:29.829 --> 00:06:32.329 but it's real life. It really does. You have 00:06:32.329 --> 00:06:34.949 Lionel, the father, who is a chemist. He loves 00:06:34.949 --> 00:06:37.170 science. He's been distant, you know, studying 00:06:37.170 --> 00:06:39.350 for his PhD, and he wants to connect with his 00:06:39.350 --> 00:06:43.019 strange, quiet son. A chance to bond. He sees 00:06:43.019 --> 00:06:45.680 an opening. So Jeffrey comes up to him one night 00:06:45.680 --> 00:06:48.480 after dinner and asks, Dad, what would happen 00:06:48.480 --> 00:06:50.800 if I put these chicken bones in bleach? Then 00:06:50.800 --> 00:06:53.939 Lionel lights up. Exactly. He thinks, my God, 00:06:54.079 --> 00:06:56.459 finally, the boy is showing an interest in science. 00:06:56.480 --> 00:06:59.480 He's curious. So Lionel takes him to the garage. 00:06:59.759 --> 00:07:01.939 He teaches him the proper chemical mixtures. 00:07:02.079 --> 00:07:04.259 He shows him how to bleach bones to preserve 00:07:04.259 --> 00:07:06.459 them. He thinks he's raising a biologist. And 00:07:06.459 --> 00:07:08.620 Jeffrey is learning taxidermy for his future 00:07:08.620 --> 00:07:10.439 trophies. It's just a heartbreaking disconnect. 00:07:10.800 --> 00:07:13.339 The father is teaching methodology. The son is 00:07:13.339 --> 00:07:15.839 feeding a pathology. Wow. And Jeffrey started 00:07:15.839 --> 00:07:18.240 collecting roadkill, bleaching the bones. And 00:07:18.240 --> 00:07:20.560 this is where it gets ritualistic. He started 00:07:20.560 --> 00:07:22.819 mounting. skulls on makeshift crosses in the 00:07:22.819 --> 00:07:24.939 woods behind their house. That's moving beyond 00:07:24.939 --> 00:07:28.199 curiosity. That is worship, or at least creating 00:07:28.199 --> 00:07:31.120 a sanctuary. It was his world. He had no friends. 00:07:31.259 --> 00:07:33.220 The family was shouting at each other inside 00:07:33.220 --> 00:07:35.819 the house. So he went into the woods, surrounded 00:07:35.819 --> 00:07:38.420 himself with death that he had cleaned and controlled, 00:07:38.680 --> 00:07:42.220 and he felt safe. Let's jump forward to adolescence. 00:07:42.639 --> 00:07:46.819 The family moved to Ohio Bath Township. Jeffrey 00:07:46.819 --> 00:07:50.220 is in high school. Now, usually this is where 00:07:50.220 --> 00:07:52.879 the loner narrative kicks in. But Dahmer wasn't 00:07:52.879 --> 00:07:54.720 invisible, was he? He actually made a spectacle 00:07:54.720 --> 00:07:56.879 of himself. This is the mask we talked about. 00:07:56.980 --> 00:07:59.139 By high school, he realized he was different. 00:07:59.259 --> 00:08:02.000 He was realizing he was gay, which in rural Ohio 00:08:02.000 --> 00:08:04.740 in the 1970s was a source of massive internal 00:08:04.740 --> 00:08:07.560 shame. A huge secret to carry. A huge secret. 00:08:07.660 --> 00:08:10.079 And he knew he had these dark thoughts. So he 00:08:10.079 --> 00:08:12.620 created a character, the class clown. The source 00:08:12.620 --> 00:08:15.430 material calls it doing a Dahmer. Right. It was 00:08:15.430 --> 00:08:17.129 a performance. He would go into the hallways 00:08:17.129 --> 00:08:19.410 or the cafeteria and fake epileptic seizures. 00:08:19.589 --> 00:08:21.889 He would comport his body, make groaning noises, 00:08:22.050 --> 00:08:24.410 pretend to have cerebral palsy. And people laughed. 00:08:24.550 --> 00:08:26.089 They laughed, but it was that uncomfortable, 00:08:26.310 --> 00:08:29.310 nervous laughter. You know, he was the court 00:08:29.310 --> 00:08:31.189 jester. He would do it at the local mall. He 00:08:31.189 --> 00:08:33.070 would do it in class. It was a way to get attention, 00:08:33.330 --> 00:08:36.750 but it was also a barrier. How so? If everyone 00:08:36.750 --> 00:08:39.669 is looking at the clown, nobody is looking at 00:08:39.669 --> 00:08:41.649 the person underneath. Nobody asks the clown, 00:08:41.789 --> 00:08:44.429 hey, are you okay? There is one anecdote from 00:08:44.429 --> 00:08:47.710 a school trip to Washington, D .C. in 1977 that 00:08:47.710 --> 00:08:50.929 honestly blew my mind. It suggests a level of 00:08:50.929 --> 00:08:54.429 confidence or maybe sociopathy that doesn't fit 00:08:54.429 --> 00:08:57.509 the shy boy profile at all. The vice president 00:08:57.509 --> 00:09:00.460 prank. It is legendary in the source material. 00:09:00.740 --> 00:09:03.299 He's on a class trip. He bets his classmates 00:09:03.299 --> 00:09:05.220 that he can get a private tour of the White House. 00:09:05.440 --> 00:09:08.340 He finds a phone, calls up the vice president's 00:09:08.340 --> 00:09:10.419 office, Walter Mondale at the time. Walter Mondale, 00:09:10.440 --> 00:09:12.259 right? And he claims to be a journalist or a 00:09:12.259 --> 00:09:14.440 student representative. He talks his way past 00:09:14.440 --> 00:09:16.600 the secretaries with pure confidence. And it 00:09:16.600 --> 00:09:19.899 worked. He got the tour. He walked out and showed 00:09:19.899 --> 00:09:22.870 his classmates the souvenirs. It proves that 00:09:22.870 --> 00:09:25.389 he had a chameleon -like ability. He could mimic 00:09:25.389 --> 00:09:28.190 authority. He could mimic charm. He could look 00:09:28.190 --> 00:09:30.649 you in the eye and lie so convincingly that you 00:09:30.649 --> 00:09:32.649 would open the door for him. And that skill becomes 00:09:32.649 --> 00:09:35.049 deadly later on. Absolutely deadly, especially 00:09:35.049 --> 00:09:36.929 when he's dealing with the police. While he's 00:09:36.929 --> 00:09:39.590 pulling these pranks, he's chemically unraveling. 00:09:39.669 --> 00:09:43.210 The drinking started early. Very early. age 14, 00:09:43.470 --> 00:09:45.789 and we aren't talking about sneaking a beer at 00:09:45.789 --> 00:09:49.090 a party. We're talking about hiding liquor in 00:09:49.090 --> 00:09:51.769 his jacket lining during school hours, drinking 00:09:51.769 --> 00:09:54.669 scotch in first period. In school. In school. 00:09:55.240 --> 00:09:57.860 He told a classmate once when he was caught sipping 00:09:57.860 --> 00:10:00.860 from a flask in history class, it's my medicine. 00:10:01.000 --> 00:10:03.360 Medicine. That implies he knew he was sick. He 00:10:03.360 --> 00:10:05.080 knew something was wrong. He was anesthetizing 00:10:05.080 --> 00:10:07.340 himself. He was trying to drown the fantasies 00:10:07.340 --> 00:10:09.200 because the fantasies were shifting. It wasn't 00:10:09.200 --> 00:10:11.740 just about attraction anymore. He was fantasizing 00:10:11.740 --> 00:10:14.600 about a partner who was unconscious, a partner 00:10:14.600 --> 00:10:17.600 who couldn't speak. He started fantasizing about 00:10:17.600 --> 00:10:20.240 dissection. And this brings us to the first time 00:10:20.240 --> 00:10:23.779 he tried to make the fantasy real. The jogger. 00:10:24.279 --> 00:10:27.039 This is a sliding doors moment. A real fork in 00:10:27.039 --> 00:10:29.899 the road. It is. He fixated on a male jogger 00:10:29.899 --> 00:10:32.480 who ran past his house every day. He found him 00:10:32.480 --> 00:10:35.000 attractive. But Dahmer didn't want to ask him 00:10:35.000 --> 00:10:36.960 on a date. He took a baseball bat and hit him 00:10:36.960 --> 00:10:39.200 in the bushes. Oh, wow. He waited for hours. 00:10:39.519 --> 00:10:41.720 His plan was to knock the man unconscious and 00:10:41.720 --> 00:10:43.639 drag him into the woods. But the jogger never 00:10:43.639 --> 00:10:46.340 came. Not that day. He changed his route or took 00:10:46.340 --> 00:10:49.129 a day off, and Dahmer went back inside. But the 00:10:49.129 --> 00:10:51.509 intent was locked in. The psychological barrier 00:10:51.509 --> 00:10:53.950 had been crossed. He was ready to hunt. He just 00:10:53.950 --> 00:10:56.610 needed a target. And then the environment collapses. 00:10:57.289 --> 00:11:01.190 1978, the year he graduates, the year his parents 00:11:01.190 --> 00:11:03.269 divorced. It was a nuclear divorce. It was bitter. 00:11:03.309 --> 00:11:06.070 It was loud. Lionel moved out to a motel. Joyce, 00:11:06.190 --> 00:11:07.990 the mother, won custody of the younger brother, 00:11:08.110 --> 00:11:10.730 David, and moved back to Wisconsin. And in the 00:11:10.730 --> 00:11:12.809 chaos, they essentially forgot about Jeffrey. 00:11:13.029 --> 00:11:15.669 They just left him. He had just turned 18. So 00:11:15.669 --> 00:11:19.070 legally, he was an adult. But functionally, he 00:11:19.070 --> 00:11:21.690 was a spiraling alcoholic with untreated psychosis. 00:11:21.730 --> 00:11:24.330 And they left him alone in a big house in the 00:11:24.330 --> 00:11:26.309 middle of the woods with a stocked liquor cabinet 00:11:26.309 --> 00:11:29.730 and no supervision. It's a powder keg. And the 00:11:29.730 --> 00:11:33.190 fees lit just three weeks after graduation. June 00:11:33.190 --> 00:11:37.169 18th, 1978. Stephen Hicks. Stephen Hicks was 00:11:37.169 --> 00:11:40.519 a tragedy of... Wrong place, wrong time. He was 00:11:40.519 --> 00:11:43.340 18, just like Dahmer. He was hitchhiking to a 00:11:43.340 --> 00:11:45.820 rock concert. Now, you have to remember, in 1978, 00:11:46.240 --> 00:11:48.200 hitchhiking was common. Yeah, people did that. 00:11:48.320 --> 00:11:50.559 Dahmer pulls over. Now, at this point, Evian 00:11:50.559 --> 00:11:52.940 suggests Dahmer doesn't have a plan to kill him. 00:11:52.960 --> 00:11:55.159 He just sees a guy he's attracted to. He wants 00:11:55.159 --> 00:11:56.980 company. He invites him back to the house for 00:11:56.980 --> 00:11:59.440 a beer. And Hicks goes, why wouldn't he? It's 00:11:59.440 --> 00:12:02.840 a pier. A guy his age. A nice house. They hang 00:12:02.840 --> 00:12:05.580 out. They drink. They listen to music. But eventually, 00:12:05.860 --> 00:12:07.960 Hicks wants to leave. He has a concert to get 00:12:07.960 --> 00:12:09.879 to. And this is the trigger we talked about earlier. 00:12:10.720 --> 00:12:12.379 Abandonment. He didn't want him to leave. That's 00:12:12.379 --> 00:12:14.460 what he said. He wanted to leave and I didn't 00:12:14.460 --> 00:12:17.200 want him to leave. That is the core of it. Total 00:12:17.200 --> 00:12:20.340 control. If Hicks leaves, Dahmer is alone again. 00:12:20.580 --> 00:12:22.580 And that's when he attacks. Dahmer picks up a 00:12:22.580 --> 00:12:25.360 10 -pound dumbbell and strikes Hicks from behind. 00:12:25.679 --> 00:12:29.700 He strangles him. And then the transition is 00:12:29.700 --> 00:12:33.019 complete. The boy who collected roadkill takes 00:12:33.019 --> 00:12:36.690 over. The disposal of Stephen Hicks is horrifyingly 00:12:36.690 --> 00:12:39.210 efficient for a first -time killer. I mean, most 00:12:39.210 --> 00:12:41.330 18 -year -olds can't even clean their room, let 00:12:41.330 --> 00:12:43.690 alone dispose of a body completely. It's because 00:12:43.690 --> 00:12:46.429 he had practiced. He dissected the body. He buried 00:12:46.429 --> 00:12:48.929 the remains in the backyard. Later, he dug them 00:12:48.929 --> 00:12:51.870 up, crushed the bones with a sledgehammer, and 00:12:51.870 --> 00:12:53.909 scattered them in the ravine. With a sledgehammer. 00:12:54.070 --> 00:12:56.970 He dissolved the flesh with acid. He used the 00:12:56.970 --> 00:12:58.990 techniques his father taught him combined with 00:12:58.990 --> 00:13:01.190 the anatomy he learned on the animals. It was 00:13:01.190 --> 00:13:03.889 clinical. Now, usually in these stories, once 00:13:03.889 --> 00:13:05.690 the killer breaks the seal, they can't stop. 00:13:05.789 --> 00:13:09.850 The floodgates open. But Dahmer stops. There 00:13:09.850 --> 00:13:13.350 is a massive gap in the timeline here. Nine years. 00:13:13.590 --> 00:13:16.870 Why? It's what criminologists call failed normalcy. 00:13:17.149 --> 00:13:19.409 The murder of Hicks scared him. It really did. 00:13:19.450 --> 00:13:20.789 He didn't want to be a monster. He wanted to 00:13:20.789 --> 00:13:22.750 be normal. So he tried to do what normal young 00:13:22.750 --> 00:13:25.429 men do. He went to college. Ohio State University. 00:13:25.789 --> 00:13:28.809 How did that go? Disaster. Total disaster. His 00:13:28.809 --> 00:13:33.269 GPA was .45. He was drunk all the time. He failed 00:13:33.269 --> 00:13:37.289 every single class except riflery. Riflery. Riflery. 00:13:37.370 --> 00:13:39.690 So his father, trying to discipline him, says, 00:13:39.750 --> 00:13:42.190 join the army. And the army took him, even with 00:13:42.190 --> 00:13:44.990 that record. They did. And ironically, they trained 00:13:44.990 --> 00:13:47.649 him as a medical specialist. So now the government 00:13:47.649 --> 00:13:49.990 is formally training him in anatomy. He served 00:13:49.990 --> 00:13:53.649 in West Germany. And this period is... It's debated. 00:13:54.269 --> 00:13:56.490 Officially, he was discharged for alcohol abuse. 00:13:56.610 --> 00:13:59.129 His drinking was legendary, even by Army standards. 00:13:59.590 --> 00:14:01.629 But there were rumors. There were rumors, and 00:14:01.629 --> 00:14:03.769 later some unproven allegations that there were 00:14:03.769 --> 00:14:05.889 unsolved murders in his vicinity in Germany. 00:14:06.669 --> 00:14:09.090 But nothing ever stuck. Nothing ever stuck. So 00:14:09.090 --> 00:14:11.129 he's discharged. Discharged and sent home. A 00:14:11.129 --> 00:14:13.169 failure in college, a failure in the Army. He 00:14:13.169 --> 00:14:15.149 ends up in West Allis, Wisconsin, living with 00:14:15.149 --> 00:14:17.610 his grandmother. Catherine Dahmer. By all accounts, 00:14:17.669 --> 00:14:20.129 a sweet, religious woman. She's the only person 00:14:20.129 --> 00:14:22.470 Dahmer ever seemed to genuinely love. She took 00:14:22.470 --> 00:14:24.269 him to church. He tried to be a good grandson. 00:14:24.529 --> 00:14:27.190 He got a job at a blood bank. Then a chocolate 00:14:27.190 --> 00:14:29.509 factory, ambrosia chocolate. At the basement. 00:14:29.669 --> 00:14:32.210 The basement became his new woods. He started 00:14:32.210 --> 00:14:35.070 drinking again. And the fantasies came back darker. 00:14:36.049 --> 00:14:38.830 He stole a male mannequin from a department store. 00:14:39.009 --> 00:14:41.289 A mannequin? Think about the psychology of that. 00:14:41.370 --> 00:14:43.129 He brought it home and kept it in the closet. 00:14:43.309 --> 00:14:45.730 He wanted something that looked human but had 00:14:45.730 --> 00:14:49.309 no will, no voice, no ability to leave. The perfect 00:14:49.309 --> 00:14:51.850 compliant partner. The perfect partner. Grandma 00:14:51.850 --> 00:14:54.250 found it. She was terrified. She made him throw 00:14:54.250 --> 00:14:56.730 it out. But that didn't stop the urge. He started 00:14:56.730 --> 00:14:59.509 going to gay bathhouses in Milwaukee. And this 00:14:59.509 --> 00:15:02.149 is where he starts refining the method, the drugging. 00:15:02.169 --> 00:15:05.179 Yes. He realized he didn't have the social skills 00:15:05.179 --> 00:15:07.679 to keep people and he didn't want to negotiate 00:15:07.679 --> 00:15:10.659 with them. So he started crushing sleeping pills, 00:15:10.799 --> 00:15:13.740 Hellshawn, into drinks. He called it zombification, 00:15:13.879 --> 00:15:15.799 though at this stage it was just rendering them 00:15:15.799 --> 00:15:18.019 unconscious so he could use their bodies without 00:15:18.019 --> 00:15:20.019 them resisting. He's turning them into objects. 00:15:20.259 --> 00:15:23.399 Exactly. He said in his confession, I trained 00:15:23.399 --> 00:15:25.700 myself to view people as objects of pleasure. 00:15:25.940 --> 00:15:30.320 And in 1987, the dam breaks. Stephen told me. 00:15:30.399 --> 00:15:33.879 This is the blackout murder. Yes. Dahmer meets 00:15:33.879 --> 00:15:37.100 Tuomi at a bar. They go to a hotel. Dahmer had 00:15:37.100 --> 00:15:39.860 the drug drink ready, but he claims he drank 00:15:39.860 --> 00:15:42.399 too much himself. He says he blacked out and 00:15:42.399 --> 00:15:44.639 woke up the next morning and Tuomi was dead. 00:15:44.820 --> 00:15:47.799 His chest was crushed in. Did he intend to kill 00:15:47.799 --> 00:15:50.779 him? Dahmer claimed no. He claimed it was an 00:15:50.779 --> 00:15:53.320 accident of rough sex or a drunken rage he couldn't 00:15:53.320 --> 00:15:56.139 remember. But here is where the monster in the 00:15:56.139 --> 00:15:58.509 living room comes in. He didn't call the police. 00:15:58.669 --> 00:16:02.009 He bought a large suitcase. He folded Tuomi's 00:16:02.009 --> 00:16:04.789 body into it, took a taxi back to his grandmother's 00:16:04.789 --> 00:16:06.909 house, and dragged it into the basement. While 00:16:06.909 --> 00:16:09.230 his grandmother was upstairs making tea. Living 00:16:09.230 --> 00:16:11.590 her life. This is the horror of the West Allis 00:16:11.590 --> 00:16:14.970 years. He killed three men in that house. James 00:16:14.970 --> 00:16:18.309 Doxtater. Richard Guerrero. He was dismembering 00:16:18.309 --> 00:16:20.129 them in the basement sink, boiling the bones 00:16:20.129 --> 00:16:21.889 on his grandmother's stove, telling her it was 00:16:21.889 --> 00:16:24.669 taxidermy chemicals or work stuff from the chocolate 00:16:24.669 --> 00:16:27.920 factory. The deception is just... Staggering. 00:16:27.920 --> 00:16:29.639 And there was one moment where the two worlds 00:16:29.639 --> 00:16:33.179 collided. Ronald Flowers. This story gives me 00:16:33.179 --> 00:16:35.299 chills every time. This is one of the most chilling 00:16:35.299 --> 00:16:38.700 what -ifs. It is. He brought Ronald Flowers home. 00:16:38.779 --> 00:16:40.799 He drugged him. Flowers was groggy, basically 00:16:40.799 --> 00:16:43.539 helpless. But then Grandma Catherine comes down 00:16:43.539 --> 00:16:45.600 the stairs. She sees the man. She says, is that 00:16:45.600 --> 00:16:47.700 you, Jeff? She starts fussing over the guest. 00:16:47.879 --> 00:16:49.580 Ah, he doesn't look... Well, let me make him 00:16:49.580 --> 00:16:51.820 some coffee. She inadvertently intervened in 00:16:51.820 --> 00:16:53.960 a murder. She broke the spell. She stayed with 00:16:53.960 --> 00:16:56.480 them. Dahmer couldn't kill him with her watching. 00:16:56.639 --> 00:16:59.159 He let Flowers go. Flowers woke up later in a 00:16:59.159 --> 00:17:01.440 hospital groggy with no memory of how he got 00:17:01.440 --> 00:17:03.740 there. He actually reported it to the police, 00:17:03.759 --> 00:17:06.960 but without evidence. No physical injury, just 00:17:06.960 --> 00:17:08.799 a blackout. Nothing happened. It's amazing how 00:17:08.799 --> 00:17:11.619 many times he was almost caught. In 1988, he 00:17:11.619 --> 00:17:15.390 was caught. For molesting a child. The older 00:17:15.390 --> 00:17:17.789 brother of a future victim, tragically. This 00:17:17.789 --> 00:17:19.230 should have been the end of it. The system had 00:17:19.230 --> 00:17:22.970 him. He was convicted. But the judge, Judge William 00:17:22.970 --> 00:17:25.410 Gardner, gave him work release. Work release 00:17:25.410 --> 00:17:28.670 for a sex offense involving a minor. The judge 00:17:28.670 --> 00:17:31.390 felt Dummer was productive because he had a steady 00:17:31.390 --> 00:17:33.849 job at the chocolate factory. So he slept in 00:17:33.849 --> 00:17:35.890 jail at night, but during the day he was free, 00:17:36.049 --> 00:17:38.390 he could walk around, and once he was out on 00:17:38.390 --> 00:17:40.869 probation, he moved into the apartment. The Oxford 00:17:40.869 --> 00:17:45.619 Apartments. Apartment 213. May 1990. He moves 00:17:45.619 --> 00:17:48.859 in and he brings a box with him. Inside the box 00:17:48.859 --> 00:17:51.039 is the mummified head of one of his victims, 00:17:51.240 --> 00:17:53.500 Anthony Sears. He puts it in his new closet. 00:17:53.680 --> 00:17:56.559 He is now completely independent. No parents, 00:17:56.680 --> 00:17:59.920 no grandma. No rules. Let's describe this place 00:17:59.920 --> 00:18:01.480 because it becomes a character in the story. 00:18:01.579 --> 00:18:03.299 It wasn't a dungeon. It was a regular apartment 00:18:03.299 --> 00:18:06.180 building. It was a low -income housing unit in 00:18:06.180 --> 00:18:08.059 a predominantly African -American neighborhood. 00:18:08.700 --> 00:18:11.859 Dahmer was one of the few white tenants. The 00:18:11.859 --> 00:18:14.000 neighbors describe it as smelling terrible almost 00:18:14.000 --> 00:18:16.000 immediately. The smell of death. And chemicals, 00:18:16.160 --> 00:18:19.680 bleach, incense. He always had an excuse. My 00:18:19.680 --> 00:18:22.519 freezer broke and the meat spoiled. My tropical 00:18:22.519 --> 00:18:25.819 fish died. I'm doing varnish work. And because 00:18:25.819 --> 00:18:27.680 he was polite and because people generally don't 00:18:27.680 --> 00:18:29.039 want to confront their neighbors, especially 00:18:29.039 --> 00:18:32.220 a quiet, weird neighbor, they let it slide. And 00:18:32.220 --> 00:18:35.660 in 1991, the slide turns into an avalanche, a 00:18:35.660 --> 00:18:38.140 murder factory. It was a spree. He was killing 00:18:38.140 --> 00:18:41.160 almost weekly. He would go to a bar, lure a man 00:18:41.160 --> 00:18:43.700 back, drug him, strangle him, dismember him. 00:18:43.859 --> 00:18:46.980 He targeted ethnic minority men almost exclusively. 00:18:47.319 --> 00:18:49.799 Now Dahmer always claimed he wasn't racist. He 00:18:49.799 --> 00:18:52.180 did. He said he was just attracted to a specific 00:18:52.180 --> 00:18:54.079 body type. But we have to look at the results. 00:18:54.670 --> 00:18:58.430 A white man preying on black, Asian and Latino 00:18:58.430 --> 00:19:01.450 men in a marginalized community. It creates a 00:19:01.450 --> 00:19:04.069 dynamic where the police were less likely to 00:19:04.069 --> 00:19:06.170 investigate missing persons reports aggressively. 00:19:06.470 --> 00:19:10.130 Absolutely. It is the less dead phenomenon. It's 00:19:10.130 --> 00:19:13.529 a sociological term. Society cares less about 00:19:13.529 --> 00:19:16.809 certain victims. Cess workers, minorities, gay 00:19:16.809 --> 00:19:19.710 men in the height of the AIDS epidemic. Dahmer 00:19:19.710 --> 00:19:21.650 was swimming in a pool of victims that the system 00:19:21.650 --> 00:19:24.009 was already ignoring. He knew nobody was coming 00:19:24.009 --> 00:19:26.230 for them. And his methods. They weren't just 00:19:26.230 --> 00:19:29.369 killing anymore. He was experimenting. The drilling. 00:19:30.059 --> 00:19:31.980 I struggle to even say the words because the 00:19:31.980 --> 00:19:34.400 cruelty is so specific. This is where we see 00:19:34.400 --> 00:19:36.299 the depth of his loneliness and his madness. 00:19:36.480 --> 00:19:38.319 He didn't just want a dead body. A dead body 00:19:38.319 --> 00:19:40.819 rots. It can't hug you back. He wanted a living 00:19:40.819 --> 00:19:43.940 zombie. A living zombie. He drilled holes into 00:19:43.940 --> 00:19:46.339 the skulls of living victims, Errol, Lindsay, 00:19:46.519 --> 00:19:49.359 Conor X, and the Sumphone, and injected hydrochloric 00:19:49.359 --> 00:19:51.559 acid or boiling water directly into the frontal 00:19:51.559 --> 00:19:53.700 lobes of their brains. He was trying to lobotomize 00:19:53.700 --> 00:19:56.180 them. He wanted to white their will. He wanted 00:19:56.180 --> 00:19:58.440 to keep the motor functions, the breathing, the 00:19:58.440 --> 00:20:01.559 movement, but remove the person. He wanted a 00:20:01.559 --> 00:20:04.180 companion who would sit there, never leave, never 00:20:04.180 --> 00:20:07.039 judge, and never speak. It never worked. No. 00:20:07.160 --> 00:20:10.079 It killed them, usually slowly and painfully. 00:20:10.279 --> 00:20:13.119 And then he would consume them. He ate hearts, 00:20:13.359 --> 00:20:16.880 livers, biceps. He told the psychologist he wanted 00:20:16.880 --> 00:20:19.619 to make them a permanent part of me. So if he 00:20:19.619 --> 00:20:21.900 ate them, they couldn't leave him. It's a desperate, 00:20:22.039 --> 00:20:24.619 twisted attempt at connection. This leads us 00:20:24.619 --> 00:20:26.519 to the single most infuriating, heartbreaking 00:20:26.519 --> 00:20:29.759 moment in this entire case. The moment the system 00:20:29.759 --> 00:20:32.119 didn't just fail, but actively participated. 00:20:32.400 --> 00:20:37.829 May 27, 1991. This is the moment that haunts 00:20:37.829 --> 00:20:39.950 Milwaukee. It is the moment where the mask worked 00:20:39.950 --> 00:20:42.910 too well. Domerick goes out to buy beer. Conorac, 00:20:42.990 --> 00:20:45.230 who is only 14 years old, has been drugged and 00:20:45.230 --> 00:20:48.009 drilled. But he wakes up. He manages to stumble 00:20:48.009 --> 00:20:50.849 out of the apartment. He does. He's naked, bleeding 00:20:50.849 --> 00:20:53.569 from the head, unable to speak clearly. He collapses 00:20:53.569 --> 00:20:56.029 in the street. Two women, neighbors, find him. 00:20:56.089 --> 00:20:58.700 Sandra Smith and Nicole Childress. They are heroes. 00:20:58.839 --> 00:21:01.500 They call 911. They say, there is a child here. 00:21:01.619 --> 00:21:05.200 He is hurt. He is naked. The police arrive. Officers 00:21:05.200 --> 00:21:07.240 Belshazzar and Gabrish. And then Dahmer comes 00:21:07.240 --> 00:21:10.059 back. And he puts on the mask. He walks up, calm, 00:21:10.240 --> 00:21:13.039 cool, collected. He tells the officers, oh, I'm 00:21:13.039 --> 00:21:15.019 sorry. This is my friend. He's 19. He's just 00:21:15.019 --> 00:21:17.759 really drunk. We had a lover's spat. He's 14. 00:21:17.900 --> 00:21:21.220 He's bleeding. And the women are screaming this. 00:21:21.460 --> 00:21:23.319 The women are pointing out that the boy is bleeding 00:21:23.319 --> 00:21:25.940 from his rectum. They are shouting, he is a child. 00:21:26.319 --> 00:21:30.039 And the police. They ignore the black women. 00:21:30.160 --> 00:21:32.559 They listen to the polite white man. I can't 00:21:32.559 --> 00:21:34.319 believe it. They actually threatened to arrest 00:21:34.319 --> 00:21:36.539 the women for interfering with police business. 00:21:36.819 --> 00:21:39.799 And they take the boy back inside. They physically 00:21:39.799 --> 00:21:42.420 escorted Conorac's synthesis phone back into 00:21:42.420 --> 00:21:45.359 apartment 213. They walked him into the slaughterhouse. 00:21:45.539 --> 00:21:47.819 They stood in the living room. They even commented 00:21:47.819 --> 00:21:51.740 on the smell. Dahmer said, broken freezer. They 00:21:51.740 --> 00:21:53.940 bought it. They left the boy there and walked 00:21:53.940 --> 00:21:56.720 out. It makes you sick to hear it. to know that 00:21:56.720 --> 00:21:59.339 the officers were standing feet away from a decomposing 00:21:59.339 --> 00:22:02.079 body in the next room and they handed a living 00:22:02.079 --> 00:22:05.089 victim back to his killer. It gets worse. We 00:22:05.089 --> 00:22:07.369 have the transcripts of the police radio banter 00:22:07.369 --> 00:22:09.650 after they left. They were joking. They were 00:22:09.650 --> 00:22:11.869 laughing about delousing themselves because they 00:22:11.869 --> 00:22:14.049 had to touch the intoxicated Asian. They were 00:22:14.049 --> 00:22:16.390 joking about it. They made homophobic jokes about 00:22:16.390 --> 00:22:19.470 the lovers. It was racism and homophobia, clear 00:22:19.470 --> 00:22:22.529 as day. And because of that prejudice, Conorac 00:22:22.529 --> 00:22:25.309 died. Dahmer killed him minutes after the police 00:22:25.309 --> 00:22:27.410 left. And he went on to kill four more people 00:22:27.410 --> 00:22:30.490 after that. Four people who would be alive if 00:22:30.490 --> 00:22:33.029 those officers had done their job. Exactly. That 00:22:33.029 --> 00:22:36.049 was May. He wasn't caught until July. That's 00:22:36.049 --> 00:22:38.250 two more months of terror because of that failure. 00:22:39.089 --> 00:22:44.170 So how does it finally end? July 22, 1991. Tracy 00:22:44.170 --> 00:22:47.009 Edwards. Tracy Edwards was a survivor. He met 00:22:47.009 --> 00:22:49.069 Dahmer at a bar, went back to the apartment for 00:22:49.069 --> 00:22:51.950 money to take photos. Dahmer managed to handcuff 00:22:51.950 --> 00:22:54.109 one of his wrists, but Edwards got a bad vibe 00:22:54.109 --> 00:22:56.839 immediately. The smell. The smell hit him. He 00:22:56.839 --> 00:22:59.640 saw the boxes of acid, the blue drum in the corner. 00:22:59.839 --> 00:23:02.059 And Dahmer pulls a knife. He puts the knife to 00:23:02.059 --> 00:23:04.819 Edwards' chest. He's acting erratic. He's chanting. 00:23:05.099 --> 00:23:07.980 He puts on the movie The Exorcist III. He tells 00:23:07.980 --> 00:23:10.200 Edwards, I'm going to eat your heart. How did 00:23:10.200 --> 00:23:12.440 Edwards keep it together? He played the game. 00:23:12.660 --> 00:23:16.039 He saw that Dahmer needed reassurance. So Edwards 00:23:16.039 --> 00:23:18.259 said, it's okay, Jeff. We're friends. I'm not 00:23:18.259 --> 00:23:21.380 going anywhere. He kept him calm. He waited. 00:23:22.009 --> 00:23:24.809 And the moment Dahmer looked away, Edwards punched 00:23:24.809 --> 00:23:28.150 him in the face and ran. He got out. He flagged 00:23:28.150 --> 00:23:31.009 down a patrol car, officers Roth and Mueller. 00:23:31.210 --> 00:23:33.789 And this time, the officers didn't just walk 00:23:33.789 --> 00:23:36.670 away. Edwards led them back. They went up to 00:23:36.670 --> 00:23:38.509 the apartment to get the key for the handcuffs. 00:23:38.710 --> 00:23:41.250 Officer Mueller is standing in the bedroom. He 00:23:41.250 --> 00:23:43.609 looks under the bed and sees a knife. Then he 00:23:43.609 --> 00:23:47.609 sees an open dresser drawer. The Polaroids. Dozens 00:23:47.609 --> 00:23:50.950 of them. Dahmer documented everything. dismembered 00:23:50.950 --> 00:23:53.589 bodies, posed corpses, steps of the process. 00:23:54.009 --> 00:23:55.970 Mueller looks at them, walks into the living 00:23:55.970 --> 00:23:57.890 room, shows his partner one of the photos and 00:23:57.890 --> 00:23:59.890 says, these are for real. And the struggle begins. 00:24:00.170 --> 00:24:02.390 They tackle Dahmer, they pin him down, and then 00:24:02.390 --> 00:24:04.170 they start to open things. They open the refrigerator. 00:24:04.589 --> 00:24:06.630 A severed head on the bottom shelf. It was a 00:24:06.630 --> 00:24:09.410 house of horrors. Four severed heads in the kitchen, 00:24:09.650 --> 00:24:12.349 seven skulls in the bedroom, hearts in the fridge, 00:24:12.609 --> 00:24:16.089 a torso in the freezer, and that blue drum in 00:24:16.089 --> 00:24:19.079 the corner. It was filled with acid and three 00:24:19.079 --> 00:24:22.119 decomposing torsos. The medical examiner later 00:24:22.119 --> 00:24:24.359 said it was more like dismantling a museum than 00:24:24.359 --> 00:24:26.980 a crime scene. And that's a perfect segue to 00:24:26.980 --> 00:24:29.539 the shrine, because Dahmer confessed that he 00:24:29.539 --> 00:24:31.539 was building something specific. He had plans 00:24:31.539 --> 00:24:33.740 drawn up. We have the sketches here in the file. 00:24:33.920 --> 00:24:35.980 Describe it for us. What was he building? A black 00:24:35.980 --> 00:24:40.660 table adorned with skulls. Incense burners. He 00:24:40.660 --> 00:24:43.160 planned to paint the entire skeletons of two 00:24:43.160 --> 00:24:45.680 victims and place them on either side as sentinels. 00:24:46.380 --> 00:24:48.319 He had a special blue lamp. He's going to hang 00:24:48.319 --> 00:24:50.539 over it to create a mood. What was it for? What's 00:24:50.539 --> 00:24:54.019 the purpose? Meditation. He told police he wanted 00:24:54.019 --> 00:24:56.079 to sit in a black chair in front of it and draw 00:24:56.079 --> 00:24:58.960 power from them. He felt that if he was surrounded 00:24:58.960 --> 00:25:01.440 by their remains, he wasn't alone. He was the 00:25:01.440 --> 00:25:03.799 king of a silent kingdom. That is horrifying. 00:25:04.220 --> 00:25:06.240 He said if he had been arrested six months later, 00:25:06.319 --> 00:25:08.099 it would have been finished. It goes back to 00:25:08.099 --> 00:25:10.480 that idea of ownership. He was creating a world 00:25:10.480 --> 00:25:13.440 where he was the god, surrounded by his subjects. 00:25:13.920 --> 00:25:17.740 Precisely. So, the trial. 1992. The evidence 00:25:17.740 --> 00:25:19.640 is overwhelming. He confesses to everything. 00:25:19.859 --> 00:25:22.539 So the question isn't, did he do it? It's, is 00:25:22.539 --> 00:25:26.000 he sane? Guilty but insane. That was the plea. 00:25:26.279 --> 00:25:28.400 The defense had to prove that he had a mental 00:25:28.400 --> 00:25:30.819 disease that made him unable to control his actions. 00:25:31.180 --> 00:25:34.000 They brought in experts to testify about necrophilia, 00:25:34.160 --> 00:25:37.119 borderline personality disorder, schizotypal 00:25:37.119 --> 00:25:39.559 personality disorder. They painted him as a sick 00:25:39.559 --> 00:25:42.579 man, a passenger in his own body. But the prosecution, 00:25:42.920 --> 00:25:46.099 led by Dr. Park Deeds, had a devastating counter 00:25:46.099 --> 00:25:48.789 -argument, and it centered on the alcohol. This 00:25:48.789 --> 00:25:50.809 is the brilliance of the prosecution Dietz argued. 00:25:51.089 --> 00:25:53.609 If Dahmer was truly compelled by an unstoppable 00:25:53.609 --> 00:25:56.490 urge, why did he need to get drunk to do it? 00:25:56.509 --> 00:25:58.609 The evidence showed Dahmer would drink heavily 00:25:58.609 --> 00:26:01.589 before a murder. Liquid courage. Exactly. Dietz 00:26:01.589 --> 00:26:04.069 argued this was liquid courage. He was drinking 00:26:04.069 --> 00:26:06.470 to suppress his conscience. If he had to suppress 00:26:06.470 --> 00:26:08.410 his conscience, that means he had a conscience. 00:26:08.670 --> 00:26:10.730 And if he had a conscience, he knew it was wrong. 00:26:10.950 --> 00:26:13.230 That's a compelling point. He was choosing to 00:26:13.230 --> 00:26:15.950 kill. He was choosing to overcome his inhibition. 00:26:16.009 --> 00:26:19.289 That implies choice. The jury agreed. They found 00:26:19.289 --> 00:26:23.049 him sane. 15 life sentences. No death penalty 00:26:23.049 --> 00:26:25.970 in Wisconsin. He goes to prison. Columbia Correctional 00:26:25.970 --> 00:26:28.109 Institution. He was kept in solitary at first. 00:26:28.269 --> 00:26:30.690 But interestingly, he adjusted. He received fan 00:26:30.690 --> 00:26:34.069 mail. Money. And he had a religious conversion. 00:26:34.470 --> 00:26:37.230 A genuine one. It seems so. He met with a minister 00:26:37.230 --> 00:26:40.230 weekly. He is baptized in the prison whirlpool. 00:26:40.470 --> 00:26:42.849 He started questioning whether it was a sin for 00:26:42.849 --> 00:26:44.750 him to keep living. He seemed to be seeking an 00:26:44.750 --> 00:26:49.269 exit. And on November 28, 1994, he found it. 00:26:49.369 --> 00:26:52.029 Or it found him. He was on cleaning duty in the 00:26:52.029 --> 00:26:55.369 gym. The guards left him unsupervised for 20 00:26:55.369 --> 00:26:57.769 minutes. Just 20 minutes. He was with two other 00:26:57.769 --> 00:27:00.190 inmates, Jesse Anderson and Christopher Scarver. 00:27:00.230 --> 00:27:02.230 Scarver. Christopher Scarver was suffering from 00:27:02.230 --> 00:27:04.049 severe schizophrenia. He believed he was the 00:27:04.049 --> 00:27:06.509 son of God. He had a newspaper clipping of Dahmer's 00:27:06.509 --> 00:27:09.089 crimes in his pocket. He confronted Dahmer. He 00:27:09.089 --> 00:27:11.509 asked him, did you really do these things? Did 00:27:11.509 --> 00:27:14.579 Dahmer fight back? No. He didn't even yell for 00:27:14.579 --> 00:27:17.319 the guards. Scarver took a 20 -inch metal bar 00:27:17.319 --> 00:27:19.579 from the weight room. He bludgeoned Dahmer to 00:27:19.579 --> 00:27:22.799 death. Reports say Dahmer just accepted it. He 00:27:22.799 --> 00:27:25.660 effectively committed suicide by inmate. And 00:27:25.660 --> 00:27:30.000 his mother's reaction. Joyce Dahmer, it breaks 00:27:30.000 --> 00:27:32.339 your heart in a different way. She said, now 00:27:32.339 --> 00:27:35.140 is everybody happy. It was the bitter end to 00:27:35.140 --> 00:27:37.839 a bitter story. The victim's families finally 00:27:37.839 --> 00:27:41.349 had closure, in a sense. The monster was dead. 00:27:41.589 --> 00:27:44.029 The aftermath is just as messy. The building 00:27:44.029 --> 00:27:46.569 was demolished. The lot is still empty today. 00:27:46.849 --> 00:27:49.509 The victim's family sued. There was a horrible 00:27:49.509 --> 00:27:51.869 moment where they almost auctioned off Dahmer's 00:27:51.869 --> 00:27:54.410 possessions, his tools, his fridge, to pay the 00:27:54.410 --> 00:27:56.750 families. A market for murderabilia. Exactly. 00:27:57.480 --> 00:27:59.960 But a civic group raised money to buy the lot 00:27:59.960 --> 00:28:01.700 and destroy the items so they wouldn't end up 00:28:01.700 --> 00:28:03.599 on some collector's shelf. And even his brain 00:28:03.599 --> 00:28:05.680 was a point of contention. His mom wanted it 00:28:05.680 --> 00:28:07.720 studied by scientists to see if there was a biological 00:28:07.720 --> 00:28:10.720 cause for his evil. His dad wanted it cremated 00:28:10.720 --> 00:28:13.200 to put it all to rest. The judge sided with the 00:28:13.200 --> 00:28:15.680 father. It was cremated. So what does this all 00:28:15.680 --> 00:28:17.779 mean? We've walked through the timeline. We've 00:28:17.779 --> 00:28:20.420 seen the escalation, the fiddlesticks, the mask, 00:28:20.599 --> 00:28:23.339 the failures of the police. What is the takeaway? 00:28:23.619 --> 00:28:26.519 When you close that file, what stays with you? 00:28:27.000 --> 00:28:30.140 It's the invisibility. We like to think monsters 00:28:30.140 --> 00:28:32.579 look like monsters. We want them to have horns. 00:28:32.740 --> 00:28:36.019 We want them to be drooling maniacs. But Dahmer 00:28:36.019 --> 00:28:38.730 was the guy who helped jumpstart your car. He 00:28:38.730 --> 00:28:40.910 was the guy who politely explained to the police 00:28:40.910 --> 00:28:43.750 that his friend was drunk. He used our social 00:28:43.750 --> 00:28:45.750 contracts against us. He used our politeness 00:28:45.750 --> 00:28:49.029 against us. Exactly. The police officers at the 00:28:49.029 --> 00:28:51.130 Synthesum phone scene didn't want to be rude 00:28:51.130 --> 00:28:54.950 to the nice white man. That desire to be polite, 00:28:54.970 --> 00:28:57.710 to not pry, to respect privacy, that is where 00:28:57.710 --> 00:29:00.269 he hid. He hid in the blind spots of our civility. 00:29:00.470 --> 00:29:03.089 It makes you wonder, who are we standing next 00:29:03.089 --> 00:29:06.009 to in the elevator? And how much do we miss because 00:29:06.009 --> 00:29:08.470 we are afraid to ask the awkward question? And 00:29:08.470 --> 00:29:10.490 are we listening to the vulnerable people screaming 00:29:10.490 --> 00:29:12.589 for help or are we listening to the calm voice 00:29:12.589 --> 00:29:14.710 telling us everything is fine? That is a thought 00:29:14.710 --> 00:29:16.869 that will keep me up tonight. Thank you for walking 00:29:16.869 --> 00:29:19.569 us through this darkness today. Stay safe. We'll 00:29:19.569 --> 00:29:21.170 see you in the next Deep Dive.