Jeffrey+Dahmer

 Jeffrey Dahmer by Kaitlin Quinn  One of the most infamous serial killers ever to have lived is Jeffrey Dahmer. He killed 17 men and younger boys between 1978 and 1991. Jeffrey is known for his very sick ways. Dahmer would kill boys and would rape them. He was a necrophilia meaning he was attracted to dead bodies. He also was known for dismembering the body and saving body parts such as skulls as trophies. Dahmer also practiced cannibalism. Something that I found extremely interesting is that Jeffrey would make a stew out of the left over body parts. How did Jeffrey Dahmer become so screwed up you might wonder? Lets look at his childhood and find out.  Jeffery Dahmer was born on May 21, 1960 in Milwaukee Wisconsin. When he was eight years old, his family moved to Bath, Ohio. As a child, he was always painfully shy and had a very low self-esteem. Something that probrobly really messed Dahmer up is the fact that a neighbor as a young boy molested him. After this event, his father left the home and eventually divorced his wife. His mother decided to take Jeffery’s brother leaving the father with no choice but Jeffery. He felt like no one wanted him and felt rejected.  As his childhood progressed, he began to do disturbing things. For instance, Jeffery would go outside and search for dead animals or bugs. He impaled their heads and put them on stakes. He started to have necrophilia desires. His step mom said, “ When he was young, he liked to use acid to scrape the dead meat off animals”. One day his father noticed a horrible stench coming from the basement and went down to investigate. He found bones and residue in containers and Jeffrey told him what he had done to the animals.  As Jeffrey became a teenager, he began to have fantasies of killing and mutilating men. Once he graduated high school at 17 years of age, he was left home alone with no food or money. Some people think that him being abandoned and his mental illness gave him reason to commit these murders. Jeffrey Damher was 18 years old when he committed his first murder in Bath Township, Ohio. Damher killed a young hitchhiker named Stephen Hicks with a barbell and smashed his bones into pieces with a hammer because he didn’t want him to leave.  Jeffery eventually went to college and was not successful. His dad encouraged him to join the military, but he was later kicked out for drunkenness. Dahmer then lived with his grandmother for six years until he found a job in a factory. Soon after, he discovered gay bars and would soon find his next victim, Steven Touri in 1987. Then in 1988 he was arrested for sexually fondling a 13-year-old boy. He served 10 months incarcerated and was forced to register as a sex offender. Some people believed that Jeffrey Dahmer lacked a conscious. A typical murder of Jeffrey Dahmer would include going to a gay bar and offering money to men if they posed for him or offered to drink a beer with him at his house. When the men agreed, Jeffrey would take them back to his house and drug them so they would fall asleep. He strangled them and then had anal sex with the dead body. He dismembered the body and drilled a hole into there skulls and poured acid down it. The victim would live in a zombie state for several days Dahmer said. Jeffrey Dahmer used to say that human flesh “tasted like beef” and he would make soup out of the dead body. This is called cannibalism.  On May 27th, 1991, three police officers arrived and saw an Asian boy running around bleeding. His name was Konerak. He did not speak English so when the police questioned him he did not know what to say. They returned him to Dahmer’s apartment and Jeffrey told the cops he was a 19 year old lover, and they were just having a lovers quarrel. The police believed Dahmer and left Konerak with Jeffrey even though the two ladies called the police and were very concerned. All the police had to do was run an identity check and they would have at least known a little bit about Dahmer and could have seen that he was a sex offender. But the police did not catch him this time. However, on July 22, 1991, the cops were driving in Dahmer's neighborhood and happened to notice an African American with a single handcuff on his wrist. The black man told the cops that he was watching a video with a “weird dude” and was drugged and threatened with a knife before his escape. The cops knocked on Dahmer’s door and he let them in. The police immediately noticed the horrible stench of death and rotting flesh. They found dismembered bodies and skulls. They also found pictures of all of his victims, before and after death.  Psychology plays a role in Jeffrey Dahmer's life because of his horrible childhood. He never had a loving mother or father and never made any friends. He could not learn through association because he had a problem where he didn’t know how to be social. As a child, Jeffrey was abused, had bad parenting, suffered fetal alcoholism and drug addiction. His first murder occurred because he was with a guy and he was about to leave his house and his whole life people had been leaving him. The only thing he knew how to do was be violent.  I found this project really interesting because I have always been fascinated with serial killers and wondered what made them do these horrible things. I feel bad for Jeffrey because of all of his problems he had in his childhood. I found many of the things he did very interesting. Like the fact he made soup out of the humans flesh and actually enjoyed eating it! Also the fact that he was stupid enough to keep pictures and dead bodies in his apartment. I thought it was weird to keep certain body parts as trophies such as skulls and penises. I really liked his speech he made to the court "'Your Honor:  "'It is now over. This has never been a case of trying to get free. I didn't ever want freedom. Frankly, I wanted death for myself. This was a case to tell the world that I did what I did, but not for reasons of hate. I hated no one. I knew I was sick or evil or both. Now I believe I was sick. The doctors have told me about my sickness, and now I have some peace. I know how much harm I have caused... Thank God there will be no more harm that I can do. I believe that only the Lord Jesus Christ can save me from my sins... I ask for no consideration. While most people believe this is just his manipulative side talking to get him out of trouble, Id like to believe he really meant it. He was found sane however and sentenced 957 years in prison. I found it kind of sad that his inmate killed him. Jeffrey had a horrible life and was very sick. Know I understand a little more why serial killers are serial killers. They are mentally ill and most of them have a bad childhood.