Regarding Serial Killer Jeff Dahmer – and Including the Three Part Dahmer Series on Dr. Phil
The parents of Jeff Dahmer say they always called him “Jeff,” not “Jeffrey,” as the media always did, so I’ll try to remember to call him “Jeff” too.
I was in college, a 20-something college student, when news of police having found human remains in Dahmer’s apartment first broke.
I watched days of unfolding TV news coverage about Dahmer, as well as read about the case daily in the printed news paper of the city I lived in at the time.
(I was a little kid when the John Wayne Gacy story broke – I was a kid watching daily news coverage of that story.)
I’ve always been interested in psychology on and off over my life, and I took psychology courses when I was a college student (though I went on to get a degree and career in a totally different field).
I’m interested in learning why people behave as though they do, and with serial killers, that’s no exception.
When television shows and documentaries began airing again the last several months about Dahmer, I watched a lot of them.
I also watched all of the Netflix dramatization about Dahmer starring Evan Peters. I watched it twice.
The NetFlix show either omitted a few details here or there, and conflated a few real life people into one or two fictional characters, but the show, the overall picture it painted of Jeff, was pretty accurate – I think the show maker was striving combine being factual with being entertaining, or using art to make a point, so maybe a few details here or there were wrong, but my sense is that the overall story was fairly accurate.
I am not claiming to be a Jeff Dahmer expert, but I’ve read enough about the guy (including first-hand, 1990s era police, psychiatry examination, or court documents in pdf format), and seen enough news coverage (both then and now) to get an idea.
I’m not an expert on the matter, but I am also not an un-educated dunce.
Some of the newer Dahmer documentaries I’ve seen via streaming services, many of which seem to be British-produced, contain errors, as do some recent American internet based articles.
A few days ago, Dr. Phil, of the Dr. Phil television program, did a three part series about Jeff Dahmer on his show, and clips of most of those are on Dr. Phil’s You Tube channel, such as (Link): here, Dr. Phil Interviews Jeffrey Dahmer’s Father – Full Interview (14 minutes long).
There are more video clips than that on Dr. Phil’s You Tube from his Dahmer series, but I don’t feel like linking to them all right now.
Steven Hicks, Dahmer’s First Victim, Was Not Homosexual
One falsehood I keep seeing repeated on these documentaries and some of the online articles is that Dahmer’s first victim, Steven Hicks, was either a homosexual or willingly participated in homosexual sex acts with Dahmer.
Both claims are false.
Hicks was not homosexual, and he did not engage in consensual sex acts with Dahmer.
Dahmer even said, during the interview process (with either one of his defense attorneys or the police detectives, I don’t recall which), that in the course of getting to know Hicks, he clearly learned that Hicks was a hetero guy, which Dahmer said disappointed him, but even though Hicks was hetero, he was going to get what he wanted from Hicks regardless.
In some other interview or line of questioning, I remember Dahmer saying his obsession got to the degree he no longer cared if a man he found physically attractive was hetero-sexual or homo-sexual.
Even if a man was hetero, Dahmer said he didn’t care, that he would still try to drug the guy, knock him out through drugs, and fondle him.
But I periodically see recent Dahmer documentaries or online articles state that Hicks was gay – Hicks was NOT gay.
The only “sex” Dahmer had with Hicks was after Dahmer murdered Hicks – Dahmer admits after killing Hicks that he stood over Hicks’ body and masturbated to the sight of the dead body.
I don’t recall after that if Dahmer committed more sex acts with Hicks’ corpse or not, but regardless, Hicks was DEAD after Dahmer did anything sexual to him.
You can read a little more about Hicks here, if you like.
I am not saying it is acceptable for Jeff Dahmer to have killed homosexual men (which he did in fact later go on to do), because quite obviously, that was not okay or moral behavior.
I just cringe at inaccurate reporting about this topic (or any other topic). Journalists and television producers should get their facts correct, even if it’s merely a schlocky, cheaply made documentary they’re contributing to.
No Animal Abuse or Animal Cruelty
Some documentaries, shows, or online articles incorrectly state that Dahmer abused or tortured animals, which is false.
Some shows – such as Dr. Phil’s recent three part Dahmer series – implied at one point that Jeff Dahmer killed a dog and put the dog’s head on a pike.
That is false.
Unless Jeff was lying about the incident to police and later to his father, he did not kill the dog and then decapitate it;
he found the dog already dead and then decapitated it – which still is disturbing and disrespectful behavior, but he didn’t kill the dog in order to dissect the animal, which is the point.
Dahmer is the rare serial killer (similar to Dennis Nilsen) who apparently did not torture or hurt animals.
(I am open to new information on this topic, but again, from what I have read and seen over the years, Dahmer was not known to have engaged in torturing animals or killing them.)
However, Dr. Phil and his guest on the show, a lady (I forget her name) who is an ex psychiatric nurse and ex FBI profiler, kept incorrectly referring to Dahmer as having the Dark Triad (read more about that on Wikipedia) and as having the Macdonald triad.
Cruelty to animals is one of the three traits in the Macdonald triad, but Jeff did not abuse or torture animals, so it was erroneous or sloppy for Dr. Phil and the ex-nurse to suggest that of Jeff. I’ll address some of this more below.
From what I’ve read (in more accurate sources) the only animals Jeff dissected or dissolved in acid were carrion – road kill – these were animals that were already dead from having been hit by vehicles that he found along the rural Ohio area, on the streets, he lived around as a child and pre-teen.
Again, that is still disturbing behavior, disrespectful to the animal, and weird, but Dahmer at least was not killing them to dissect them.
Periodically, though, I see online articles, shows, or documentaries that state outright or imply that Jeff Dahmer killed or tortured animals. He did not, according to reputable sources I’ve heard and read.
Blaming the Parents for Jeff Dahmer’s Actions
This is a tough topic for a few reasons.
One of which is that Jeff’s father, Lionel Dahmer, seems to contradict himself on a few points in various printed material and televised interviews I’ve seen.
Some of this pops up in “dramatized” (ie, the NetFlix series) show, but I don’t know how accurate those dramatized shows are.
Lionel Dahmer claims that he had NO IDEA that his son Jeff, when he was a child, was dissecting dead animals in the backyard or backwoods of their Ohio home. Lionel claims he didn’t learn about this until at the trial. He said he learned many things for the first time at the trial….
And yet, on Dr. Phil’s show, Dr. Phil keep shaming and victim blaming Lionel to the audience by mocking how “naive” Lionel was, and saying how can you think it’s normal or okay behavior for your 12 year old son to collect carrion (dead animals) and dissect them, stick his hands in them, etc?
Well, Dr. Phil, Lionel ALREADY SAID on your show he did not know at the time Jeff was dissecting carrion! How can you blame a parent for not knowing until two decades later? That made no sense to me.
Where it gets strange or confusing is that according to some of the dramatizations, the father was aware, or aware of the behavior at least when Jeff was younger but not older.
In the dramatized NetFlix series, starring Evan Peters as Jeff Dahmer, it was the father who showed Jeff, via carrion, how to dissect an animal and bleach its bones or dissolve it in acid, on their Ohio property when Jeff was a little kid.
In either that show or the “My Friend Dahmer” movie (based on the graphic novel by a guy who used to go to high school with Jeff Dahmer), there’s a scene where the Dad (Lionel) gets so fed up with Jeff retreating into his own little world, of dissolving dead animals in jars of acid in a shack on their property, that the Dad tells Jeff to knock it off, and the Dad starts smashing the jars filled with dead animal parts and acid on to the ground.
Later in the NetFlix series, when Jeff is around age 29 or 30 and living with his grandmother, there’s a scene where the Dad (Lionel) has Jeff unlock part of the grandmother’s basement to investigate the foul odor.
In that scene, the Dad expresses amazement at how bad the basement smells, asks him about a glass jar containing murky liquid on a work table, and asks Jeff what is going on.
Jeff replies that gunk in the jar is a dead animal part he has in acid, as one of his experiments.
The Dad buys that excuse but tells Jeff to stop messing up grandma’s basement.
(In reality, Jeff had been taking some of his already-dead victims to his grandmother’s basement to have sex with their corpses and/or to dissect their dead bodies.)
I don’t know how much of that content in those movies and shows was accurate and how much was poetic license.
On the one hand, Lionel claims he did not know that Jeff was running around from age 12 – 16 or whatever teen age range collecting dead animals and mutilating their dead bodies, but according to these dramatizations, which are quasi- realistic, the dad saw, over the years, that Jeff was still experimenting on dead animals, or claiming to.
It’s not altogether clear to me how much the father knew and at what stages of Jeff’s childhood and young adulthood.
If Lionel was telling the truth and did not know that Jeff was collecting dead animals to dissect when Jeff was a pre-teen, I see no good reason for Dr. Phil to keep acting incredulous, to keep acting as though Lionel was incredibly stupid not to have known his kid was doing this.
I do think that parents can play one role in how a person turns out as an adult, but it’s up to the adult to make the right choices later in life.
I think this show, and with all due respect, some of the living victims that were on the show, are too hard on the parents.
I can see how the parents made mistakes, but to blame them for the entirety that is the trainwreck seems unfair.
Other than emotional neglect by both parents, I think the Dad was in denial.
I think along the way, Lionel Dahmer could see or strongly suspected, that Jeff had problems, and he did try to get him help (in counseling sessions, writing letters to judges, getting him into college and then the military).
The one comment I do agree with from the ex-psychiatrist nurse on the show – when she said, “The reason the dad did not want to open the box [which we all later found out had a decapitated human head in it, from someone Jeff killed] is because he did not want to know.”
I do agree with that. I think deep down that Lionel Dahmer sensed something was very wrong with Jeff but pushed it down or aside, because he did not want to know the severity of it.
That’s the impression I’ve gotten from watching several televised interviews he’s given, and it’s a point that the NetFlix show brings up a few times in a few scenes.
But… I do think that the victims and Dr. Phil and some of the general public are way too hard on Jeff’s biological parents. The parents made mistakes, that’s for sure, but they can’t un-do the past.
It was Jeff’s responsibility in adulthood to make the right choices as he went through life, and to get psychiatric help before he spiraled down further.
The 1970s
As for Dr. Phil acting stunned that Lionel did not know about Jeff collecting dead animals off the streets around Ohio when he was an adolescent in the 1970s…
Let me tell you, as a person who was a child in the 1970s (Jeff was a teen back then), you had, in some regards, a lot more freedom than children and teens today,
especially if your father – like Jeff’s and mine – took a “hands off,” dis-interested, un-emotional, non-sentimental approach to fatherhood,
unlike today’s parents, who are way over-involved
and who do things like track their kids every moment of the day with GPS in cell phones and schedule out every blessed moment of their kid’s life, with too many after-school activities, such as ballet or soccer practice.
In the 1970s, we didn’t have cell phones.
When your Dad got home from work in the 1970s, he would either argue like cats and dogs with your Mom (in Jeff’s case), or drink a beer, or watch TV news (in my Dad’s case) – your dad would usually not take an active interest in YOU.
Even though my 1970s era mother took more an interest in me, after so many minutes of me spending time with her when I was a kid, she’d encourage me to run out into the yard and play or go ride my bike, all to get me out of her hair so she could finish doing housework, or start prepping dinner, or whatever.
All of which 1970s parental behavior left YOU, the 1970s era kid, with plenty of leisure time to ride your bike all over the neighborhood, skip stones in local ponds, and so forth.
So yes, I can totally see a teen or pre-teen Jeff Dahmer riding his bike casually up and down rural streets, collecting dead possums, and then taking his time dissolving them in jars of acid in his heavily wooded back lot, while his parents sat inside bickering constantly.
I can totally see that happening and the parents not knowing.
That is actually NORMAL for that time period – the parents not being fully aware of everything their 12 or 15 year old kid is doing every moment of the day.
I am incredulous that Dr. Phil acts incredulous that a 1970s era kid or teen would be able to do things like that and not be found out by a parent.
Did Dr. Phil just skip the 1970s?
But where I do get confused is where these docu-series seem to show that Lionel did later see or find out that Jeff was supposedly still dissecting dead animals.
But if Lionel told the truth and didn’t know that Jeff was doing this around junior high or early high school age, and didn’t learn about that episode of time until Jeff’s court dates when Jeff got to around age 31 or so, where does Dr. Phil get off lambasting the guy for something he didn’t know?
Jeff Dahmer is ultimately responsible for Jeff’s own choices and actions in life, which is true, so I partially get uncomfortable with the amount of victim blaming of the parents by Dr. Phil and whomever.
On the other hand, I can see how his parents played one role in pushing Jeff down his serial killer path.
I think there were a confluence of factors that led Jeff to be a serial killer as well as a sexual pervert (he would masturbate in public, for one thing), and I believe some of those factors may have been in-born, but some were due to his upbringing.
I don’t think Jeff adequately got his emotional needs met, which was likely a factor of several that later drove him to do what he did.
His parents met his physical needs, but it looks like they were each wrapped up in their own personal issues and fighting with each other, that they were negligent in paying attention to Jeff.
When Jeff’s kid brother David was born, by all accounts, the parents doted on the kid brother and just sort of ignored Jeff.
By the time Jeff was around age 18, his parents were divorcing, which led to an incident where his Dad moved into a motel down the street, his Mom took his kid brother David out of state, leaving Jeff by himself for weeks in a row.
According to some sources, the mother made Jeff promise to NOT tell his father, Lionel, that she was leaving… so the father did not know that Jeff was alone in the house for several weeks until later.
I suppose the father was just assuming that the mother was there and had no reason to not think that.
I do think the mother was flakey, irresponsible, and insensitive to leave an 18 year old alone in the house in the boonies (wooded area) for several weeks – was it three months in total? I think the electric went out at one point, Jeff didn’t have money, and he ran out of food.
I don’t know about the father in that scenario, but the mother absolutely dropped the ball in the parenting department in that specific incident.
The biological mother also spent a lot of time passed out due to drugs (from various sources I’ve seen), or just “zoning out” and not parenting Jeff because she had depression.
So, even though the mother was physically present at home, she was usually emotionally absent – Jeff was, in a sense, on his own even when his mom and/or dad were there.
Being left completely alone for weeks at a time, and at age 18, had to have some kind of negative emotional impact on the guy.
He was emotionally abandoned by his parents repeatedly.
I also cannot help but notice how un-emotional Jeff’s father is.
Every interview I’ve seen with the guy (Lionel Dahmer), he has flat affect and seems almost embarrassed or ashamed to have or express emotion and he seems to think it’s a duty to be stoic, since he worked as a scientist, and scientists are supposed to only ever be rational and never show emotion.
Jeff had that same tendency, the subdued demeanor, a lack of emotion, which I bet he got from his dad, and that probably played a role, no matter how small, in driving his behavior or psychology later.
It appears to me that Jeff’s emotional needs were not met as he was growing up.
Does that make it okay for Jeff to later murder people and have sex with their corpses?
No, of course not – but it helps to understand why he did what he did.
I feel kind of bad for the parents, the dad in particular.
I think he is brokenhearted by his oldest son. I don’t think the guy knew what to do when Jeff was younger, and once he suspected something was very wrong with Jeff, he vacillated between trying to get the guy help and going into denial.
I’m not sure what else or what more the father could’ve done. I think a lot of people in his position would’ve made similar decisions. It’s easy for all of us to cast stones at him now and play armchair quarterback.
So I’m kind of put off by surviving victims (the two guys who served with Dahmer in his military days) or people like Dr. Phil who like to kick the man.
NetFlix Series
The NetFlix series merely laid out Jeff’s background, upbringing, and consequent crimes, which can maybe aid in our understanding of what drove Dahmer to do what he did.
Showing or explaining something is not necessarily the same thing as approving of it or glorifying it.
I do not know why so many of the family members of Dahmer’s victims, as well as two surviving victims, kept saying on Dr. Phil’s show, among other venues, that the Net Flix series “glamorized” Jeff Dahmer or his actions.
It did no such thing.
Showing possible reasons or explanations for why Jeff Dahmer became a serial killer is not the same thing as celebrating or approving of his evil and illegal acts.
If anything, the NetFlix series repeatedly hit home how often the authorities – court systems, police, and judges – kept failing Jeff and society, how they kept missing the signs, or excusing the signs they did see, which only enabled Jeff to go on to murder even more people.
Dr. Phil and the Ex Psychiatric Nurse
Returning to the three day Dr. Phil special covering Jeff Dahmer.
As I said before, Dr. Phil and the nurse suggested that Jeff had the MacDonald Triad..
However, Jeff did not abuse animals, I’ve never once heard that Jeff was a chronic bed-wetter, and he wasn’t into pyromania, so I have no idea where either one gets the idea that the MacDonald triad fits Jeff.
I even did a search for “bed wetting” and “bed wetter” in Lionel Dahmer’s book, “A Father’s Story” on Amazon’s site, and nothing turned up for that. (I do not own a print or digital copy of that book.)
There is one home movie of Jeff as a kid waving some fourth of July sparklers around, which I believe Dr. Phil aired on his program, but please!
I think the sparkler waving shot was aired as Phil and the Nurse Lady were talking about how fire starting is one of the signs of the MacDonald Triad.
I too waved sparklers around as a kid, but I did not grow up to be a fire-starter or a serial killer!
There was a home movie scene of Jeff cuddling his pet dog, Frisky. Jeff looked pretty young in that home movie scene, around age five or so.
Again, from what I’ve read, Jeff Dahmer was not an animal abuser or animal killer; he only dissected animals that were already dead, that had been hit by cars.
But during this Dr. Phil show, after footage aired of child Jeff cuddling his pet dog Frisky, and even though Lionel SAID, “Jeff loved Frisky the dog,” (and I’ve seen Lionel say in other interviews that Jeff loved the dog and he never saw Jeff hurt the dog), Dr. Phil says after that segment something like, “I don’t know about you, but it disturbs me and creeps me out to see how Jeff was handling that dog!”
And the ex-nurse lady seemed to nod her head in agreement with Dr. Phil’s assessment.
Er, say what?
I just watched the SAME home movie, 1960s era footage of child Jeff cuddling the dog that you did, Dr. Phil, and I did not see anything sinister about it.
It was just a kid holding and hugging his pet dog, and holding the dog up for the camera, because he was happy to be with the dog and that they were on video.
Just because the kid holding the pet dog later went on to become a serial killer doesn’t mean you have to look back at every event from said person’s life and read evil intent, weirdness, or maliciousness into anything and everything the guy ever did. Talk about paranoia.
I thought that was over-reach on Dr. Phil’s part. That may say more about Dr. Phil than it did about Jeff Dahmer.
Psychopathy and Sociopathy
The ex-nurse (I forget her name) suggested or said outright, I forget which it was, during this Dr. Phil special, that Jeff Dahmer was either a psychopath or a sociopath.
I disagree for a few reasons.
One reason I disagree, is based on the diagnosis given Dahmer by the psychiatrists who actually spoke with him back in the day.
Jeff Dahmer was not diagnosed by psychiatrists who interviewed him with sociopathy or psychopathy, but he was diagnosed with BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder), Alcohol dependency (I forget what clinical term they used for that), Schizotypal personality disorder, and a psychotic disorder.
Many serial killers I’ve read about have been diagnosed with psychopathy or sociopathy; I believe serial killer Ed Gein was diagnosed with Schizophrenia.
Sociopaths and Psychopaths do not have consciences.
It is possible to have empathy and a conscience and yet still commit violent acts against others, however. This is a reality that a lot of people do not want to admit to themselves.
A person with normal empathy and a conscience can temporarily tone down or repress either one in order to do bad things.
Sometimes, such can be the case, where, for instance, if one is serving in the military, one may have to tamp down or ignore one’s conscience and empathy, to shoot and kill an enemy combatant. One’s empathy can be turned off or down at will.
Psychopaths and Sociopaths lack conscience, and pathological Narcissists lack empathy or have very impaired empathy.
Jeff stated (and I have no reason to believe he was lying about this) that his end goal was not murder.
He said murder was a means to an end – he wanted to have sex with dead (unresponsive) partners, but murder is how he would have to accomplish that. He said the actual murdering and physical assault did not bring him pleasure, so he was not sadistic.
Years prior, he stole a mannequin from a store to fulfill his wanting to have companionship or sex with a submissive, unconscious partner (his family made him get rid of the mannequin later after his grandmother found it in his room).
After he was caught, Jeff told cops that years before, he was going to go dig up the grave of a dead young man he saw in the newspaper (but he could not go through with it because the ground was frozen solid at the time)
– meaning, his goal was to have sex with a passive partner. This is prior to him murdering a lot of people.
It sounds to me as though if Jeff could’ve been able to carry out his weird sexual fantasy of having a totally silent, unmoving sex/romantic partner who would never leave him, that would’ve been sufficient for him, so it was not that he wanted to murder people.
He initially started out drugging his partners (homosexual guys in bath houses), and he would leave them (alive) after fondling them as they were passed out from drugs.
The cops acknowledged that before most of his murders, he’d have to get very drunk – because he had a repulsion, apprehension, and reluctance to murder. He did not like murdering people.
Jeff said he’d drug his victims first before killing them, because he didn’t want them to suffer.
None of that – the mannequin, drugging, trying to dig up a dead guy to fondle, having to get drunk before violent acts – indicates to me that the guy truly enjoyed or wanted to murder.
He did want a passive romantic or sex partner, but I don’t think he got his jollies from the actual strangling or throat slashing, which would differentiate him from many of the other famous serial killers.
Empathy Vs. People as Objects
In one or two interviews, Jeff said maybe he had problems with empathy and didn’t know how to love, but he also said he had to stuff down any empathy he did have and train himself to view people, at least those whom he targeted, as objects
– if someone is a psychopath or sociopath, they won’t have to train themselves or force themselves to tamp down empathy or to view people as objects, because they already view other people as objects and they already lack empathy.
That is another clue to me that Jeff Dahmer was not a psychopath or a sociopath, regardless of what Dr. Phil and his ex-nurse lady friend think.
Honesty
One of the police detectives who spent hours and hours interviewing Jeffrey Dahmer with his detective partner said that Dahmer was very honest.
At points, the detectives knowingly inserted false details and false narratives and wrong information to see how Dahmer would react…
And the detective said no matter how much he and his partner tried to trip Dahmer up, Dahmer never lied.
Any time the detectives intentionally made an error in relating a detail on the crimes to Jeff, Jeff would correct the detectives on it and give them the real information and the correct data.
Jeff also admitted to two murders that he did not have to admit to, the first one the cops knew nothing about (Steve Hicks).
As to the second, he un-intentionally killed his second victim, Steven Tuomi, but that case went unsolved for years. Jeff did not have to admit to those murders, but he did.
The police detective came to the conclusion that while Dahmer was one disturbed, sick person, he wasn’t a liar. That has been my conclusion as well.
Contrary to all the theories out there, I do not think that Jeff Dahmer murdered Adam Walsh while he was living in Florida.
I know one FBI guy or Florida cop believes that Jeff inadvertently admitted to it by saying if he did do it, he couldn’t admit to it, because he’d for sure be killed off by another inmate. The LEO believes that was an admission in a round about way that Dahmer was admitting to it – I do not.
Dahmer told them that first of all, Walsh was around 6 years old, and he wasn’t attracted to 6 year olds, that he believed his youngest victims (around age 13 or 14) were older than they were (he felt they looked 18), and most of his victims were age 18 on up to their early 30s or so.
I do not think that Dahmer murdered Adam Walsh because…
Dahmer admitted to two murders to cops he did not have to admit to (there was no reason for him to lie about Walsh; if he admits to two you didn’t even know about, why bother lying about a third? Makes no sense);
Dahmer was not attracted to little kids (and even said so when cops showed him the photo of Walsh, who was around age 6),
and Dahmer was known to keep the severed heads of his victims, not throw them away (Walsh’s decapitated head was found in a Florida ditch).
Dahmer either kept skulls of his victims, or, if he had to get rid of a human head (after it began to go mummified), he’d typically pulverize it in some fashion later on – he was not known to just cut a head off, and within days, leave it around in public somewhere, as was the case with Adam Walsh’s remains.
God bless little Adam Walsh, by the way. Such a sad story.
The Occult
It is strange and troubling that off and on in his life, Dahmer dabbled in the occult.
He had a Satanic type altar in the guest bedroom he was staying in at his grandmother’s house, and he later watched The Exorcist III a lot. He was obsessed with that movie.
He later told cops or journalists that for a time, he related to the demon possessed character in The Exorcist III and he sort of admired the evil Emperor in the Return of the Jedi – he was impressed by the control the Emperor had on other people.
A girl Jeff took to the prom said that shortly after high school ended, she was invited to a small party at Jeff’s house and while there another, mutual friend of hers and Jeff, initiated a seance, where one of the kids tried to contact a former, by that time deceased, resident who used to live in Jeff’s house.
Jeff was definitely intrigued with and by Satanic and occultic garbage off and on in his life.
I may have issues with the Christian faith these days, but I am no atheist, and I do think there is a demonic realm, and once you open yourself up to it, via seances and so on, you’re asking for trouble.
Who knows how much, if any of that, occultic dabbling influenced Dahmer’s serial killing?
Surviving Victims
Two of Jeff Dahmer’s victims were interviewed on Dr. Phil’s show.
These two guys were stationed with Dahmer when Dahmer was in the military. One was named Bill, and I forget the other guy’s name, sorry.
Both of these guys think that Jeff Dahmer was lying in interviews, but given what I’ve learned about him, I don’t think so.
Even when given the opportunity to lie or not confess to murders, the cops said Dahmer would correct them when they tried to trip him up, and while he didn’t like to volunteer information, if asked, he would confess and offer the truth.
Dahmer said in interviews he did not select black men as targets out of racism.
I believe him on that point – but one of the survivors thinks Jeff is lying about that.
In other coverage I’ve seen, including news pieces I saw in the 1990s, I remember the police detective said when interviewing Jeff, he never once saw Jeff get or act angry until he suggested that the reason Jeff picked black men as targets was due to racism.
He said Jeff got very angry and told the detectives that hatred of black people was not the motive.
Dahmer repeatedly said he picked men who he felt were physically attractive and/or who were victims of opportunity, which included black and brown men.
Dahmer’s first two victims were WHITE GUYS, which so many want to ignore – like they don’t matter, because it does not fit the “Jeffrey Dahmer was a racist” narrative.
Jeff also stated that he chose to live at the Oxford apartments because it fit his budget,
and it was close to his job at the Ambrosia chocolate factory (it was within walking distance),
but I’ve seen so many people blurt out they think he chose the area because it was predominantly black, and he wanted to prey on black men and felt the cops wouldn’t care.
I don’t agree that’s why Dahmer chose the living space he did.
I think this is another case of too many people (like Dr. Phil) wanting to slant and color and perceive any and all choices Dahmer made through a lens of suspicion.
Side Note: The Lava Lamp
I even saw one guy interviewed (either a journalist or a cop who had to go to the apartment in the 1990s?) who said he found Jeff Dahmer’s lava lamp in his den of his Oxford Apartment “creepy.”
Dahmer had problems, obviously, but there’s nothing creepy about a lava lamp. A lava lamp is just a lava lamp, even if it was in Dahmer’s den.
Jeff Dahmer also had pet fish in his aquarium in his apartment. Are pet fish creepy?
In the crime scene photos, one can see that Dahmer had Arm and Hammer baking soda in the fridge, I think some French’s Mustard, too… are baking soda and mustard “creepy” too?
Just because Serial Killer Dude owned mustard, a lava lamp, pet fish, a VHS copy of the movie “Return of the Jedi,” and baking soda doesn’t make those things inherently creepy, wrong, suspicious, or evil.
(One item I did find a little creepy in Jeff’s apartment (other than human remains, of course) was the huge – is it Dali? – print on the den wall, only because the big, red splotch in the middle of the canvas reminds me of a blood stain, which then reminds me of WHAT Jeff Dahmer was doing in that apartment to his victims.)
Dahmer was undoubtedly sick and disturbed, but I don’t think he’s guilty of every thing everyone has accused him of.
Jeff was known to have a change in personality after drinking.
Hyde and Jekyll and Alcohol
One of his diagnoses by psychiatrists was an over reliance on alcohol, a disorder.
Jeff himself said drinking would cause him to black out and do things he didn’t remember when he came to.
After he was in prison, he said in interviews not having access to alcohol was a help.
These former military guys who served with Jeff suggested that he’s one person in public and one in private – one of them said that Jeff broke his (the military guy’s room mate’s) hand a few times and a foot? when they were alone together – but I don’t know how calculated any of that was.
If Dahmer was drunk on those occasions, in private, that could explain the Jekyll and Hyde behavior.
I do believe most of what these two former military co-workers of Jeff’s had to say.
However, I did have one or two doubts, and I did not agree with a few or their opinions or observations.
Conclusion 1.
I don’t think the NetFlix show “glamorized” Jeff Dahmer; it merely showed his upbringing and adult life, which can help in understanding how he turned out as he did, and actually highlighted how inept so many judges and police were.
I do remain annoyed at how even current day online articles or documentaries on streaming services keep making errors in their coverage – Steven Hicks was not homosexual, did not consensually enter into sex acts with Dahmer, and Dahmer did not abuse or kill animals.
Conclusion 2, the Fan Girls (Yes, Dahmer Has Fan Girls)
There are wacked out Jeff Dahmer fan girls on You Tube who splice together news coverage of Dahmer, which they set to pop songs or love songs, and a lot of other fan girls leave comments below each video saying what a dream-boat Dahmer was.
Do these idiots not realize that Dahmer has been dead since 1994, he was homosexual, and he not only murdered people, but he sometimes dissected their dead bodies, ate their body parts, and kept and bleached their skulls and skeletons?
He also admitted in interviews with one of his defense lawyers that he’d make a slit in the torso of some of his dead victims to insert his penis into it to “have sex” with the internal organs. NASTY. GROSS.
These fan girls who are fan girling over Dahmer are weird, their behavior is distasteful, and it shows a level of ignorance on their part.
It’s also, again, unrealistic:
The guy has been dead for over 20 years, and he was HOMOSEXUAL – he wouldn’t want to date you, little Fan Girl, even if he were alive today!
He would want to date YOUR BROTHER (if you have one), NOT YOU.
The dude would be 60-something today and probably have a receding hair line – he was kind of getting a bald spot back in the day, if you observe the news footage of him.
He is not a sexy boy band member, he was a deeply disturbed, self absorbed deviant. This is not a guy to fantasize about.
Your love, attention, or devotion cannot and would never “cure” someone with those deep psychological disorders that he had. Get over your fantasy, it’s gross.
And to make things a little more relevant to my usual blogging themes here:
Did being raised in a Nuclear Family, one that was middle class, make Jeff into a godly, more loving, ethical or caring person? Did it keep him from murdering people, having sex with their corpses, and eating their livers? No, it sure did not.
Oct 26, 2022
A neuroscientist is arguing notorious US serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer is not a psychopath because he showed ’emotional empathy with people’.
Professor James Fallon, 74, a physciatrist at the University of California, Irvine argues that Dahmer’s behavior matches more that of someone with borderline personality disorder (BPD).
It is a condition where a person suffers an impacted ability to regulate their emotions and from poor impulse control.
Dr Fallon believes the killer, who has recently risen to fame once more as a result of a hit Netflix series, is suffering from the condition because of his unstable childhood.
Many believe that Mr Dahmer and others like him are psychopaths, misusing the term as a catch-all for any erratic or dangerous behavior.
Psychopaths are people who lack empathy, are manipulative and often have a total disregard for the consequences of their actions.
The killer – recently the topic of a Netflix drama – murdered 16 men and boys in the US between 1978 and 1991.
The infamous murderer was diagnosed with BPD before his 1992 murder trial.
Fallon argues that because of Dahmer’s substance addictions, unusual sexual behaviors and inability to control his anger, he likely has BPD.
Each of those are traits more associated with the condition than they are psychopathy.
‘Jeffrey Dahmer was not a psychopath. His characteristics all point to BPD,’ James said.
‘It was never confirmed he was a psychopath but everyone assumed for simplicity’s sake that a bad person is a psychopath.
‘He showed emotional empathy with people and many psychopaths don’t have that.’
Dr Fallon has studied the brain imaging of psychopaths – particularly those of murderers and serial killers – since 1989.
He also researched several other personality disorders, including BPD.
BPD is characterized by extreme emotional instability, impulsive behavior, intense and unstable relationships and disturbing patterns of thinking.
Dr Fallon believes this is what Mr Dahmer had rather than psychopathy – because he had too much fear of abandonment to fit the tropes of a psychopath.
The doctor said there are certain aspects of Dahmer’s behavior that didn’t fit into the tropes of psychopathy.
He highlighted how the serial killer showed emotional empathy and developed connections with people in a way a psychopath wouldn’t – because his crimes appeared to be motivated by intense fear of abandonment.
He said: ‘A common thing with people with BPD is that they have these crazy fears of being abandoned.
‘Jeffrey Dahmer seemed to fear this all the time – when the men he met tried to leave him, he would kill them so they couldn’t.’
Dr Fallon added that even Dahmer’s most infamous behavior – eating his victims which earned him the nickname ‘the Milwaukee Cannibal’ – can be attributed to this.
He said this cannibalism likely stemmed from a desire to make someone be a part of you forever – so they can’t leave you.
‘A lot of people feel this with babies or puppies, like ‘I love this baby so much that I want to eat it’ – that’s actually an impulsive take on an otherwise normal way of thinking about ingesting someone,’ he said.
‘Dahmer took it to extremes because he needed that feeling that the person would always be with him and he’d never be abandoned.’
Other key behaviors which James said indicates he had extreme BPD include his unusual sexuality – recklessly engaging in often unsafe sex.
He also highlighted self-destructive behaviors such as putting himself in risky situations which could have endangered him, as well as his notorious substance abuse – both more common of BPD than psychopathy.
Dr Fallon concluded: ‘When you think of the famous serial killers, Dahmer included, everyone loves to think for simplicity’s sake that they’re all the same.
‘It’s never been fully confirmed Dahmer was a psychopath but it does keep coming up.
‘But his characteristics don’t agree and I don’t believe he was.
‘We’ll never know for sure because we can’t see his genetics or brain images, but I feel he was more like someone with BPD.’
Related Links, Off Site:
(Link): on You Tube: Dr. Phil Interviews Jeffrey Dahmer’s Father – Full Interview
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