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Unit 6 Learning Activity

CJ-102 E05

April Wesley

March 7, 2006

Jeffery Dahmer was born on May 21, 1960, to Joyce and Lionel Dahmer in

Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His life would eventually come to be evil and twisted, and cause

irreparable damage to so many other lives. Many people say he must have been insane,

but that is not so true. Jeffery Dahmer was fairly intelligent and rational, but manipulative

and calculating. His shy charm helped him to lure 17 men to their deaths, making him

one of the most horrifying and sadistic serial killers of our time. How can someone be so

sick? I think the answer lies in his genes, or at least that is where it started.

Dahmer was off to a rocky start in the womb. His mother had a difficult pregnancy.

She threw up constantly, and would have fits of rigidity all over her body. She also had

fits of hysteria, and psychosomatic illnesses. Lionel Dahmer, Jeffery’s father, stated that it

was as if Joyce’s body was trying to reject the life inside her. That seems ironic now.

Jeffery had to have an operation for a double hernia when he was only four years old.

It was at that point that his development took a different turn. His father recalls that his

son who had been normal before seemed to have what is known as flat affect, or lack of

emotional responses. It can also be characterized by inappropriate emotional responses.

He also noticed that Jeffery’s blond hair started turning darker, his eyes grew deeper and

darker, and he seemed to grow inward, becoming more shy and awkward. He eventually

became so intimidated by the presence of other people that they would have to be dead in

order for Jeffery to feel comfortable. All this was going on around the age of four. This
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development is not normal for this age at all. Neither was Jeffery’s fascination with death

and bones. It would come out later that Jeffery had killed and tortured animals when he

was a child. That behavior, if it had been discovered, would have been a warning sign

that something evil was lurking in the deep recesses of Jeffery’s mind.

Jeffery’s father, Lionel, was never worried much about Jeffery’s odd fascinations.

After all, these interests could mean that he would grow up to be a coroner, doctor,

medical examiner, or even something like an archeologist or paleontologist. He never

imagined it leading to something sinister. Besides that, he thought that Jeffery’s curiosity

was healthy; a sign of high intelligence. He never even gave one thought to his own

childhood disturbances or what genes he may have passed to his son, and never did until

he learned of Jeffery’s horrible crimes.

As Jeffery got into his late teens, he was struggling with homosexuality, alcoholism,

low self-esteem, and his parents’ divorce which also cost him his brother since he left

with their mother. It was also alleged that Jeffery was molested by a neighbor in the years

prior. He was attempting to overcome these problems and trying to be “normal.” He

started college, but soon left since he did not do well. He later joined the military as an

army medic. Still, he could not make it. He just didn’t seem to fit anywhere, and he failed

at every attempt he made. Then, in 1978, at the age of 18, he killed his first victim. Why?

He stated that he only killed this guy because he did not want him to leave. The victim’s

bones were eventually recovered at his father’s home.

Despite his attempts to be or at least seem normal, he just was not. Finally, in 1988, he

was arrested and convicted for sexually fondling a 13-year old boy and forced to register

as a sex offender. He was becoming less and less able to control his genetic impulses, and
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they were only getting stronger with time. I believe that something was encoded in him

that he could not fight, or in the end, just chose not to. Still the same, though, it appeared

that he was rejecting a part of himself for all of his life, but he started giving up after

failing at college and military. I believe that when he killed in 1978, his urges and

fantasies became reality, where he may have only seen it in his mind before. Once he lost

control of his urges that first time, it didn’t take much longer to completely give up the

fight against them.

There are solid reasons for my belief that Dahmer became a victim of his genetics. His

father, Lionel, also had some issues as a child, but never thought about it until he found

out what Jeffery had done. Lionel was fascinated by fire as a child, and one of his hobbies

was making home made bombs. He also remembers a particular incident that happened

when he was 13 years old. Lionel attempted to cast a spell on a little girl so that he could

have complete control of her. He never said why he wanted the control, but it really hit

him hard when Jeffery spoke of wanting to control his victims. Jeffery achieved this by

drugging instead of spells. Lionel Dahmer started to think that maybe he shared some

horrible gene with his son that made him the way he was.

There could be many reasons that Jeffery turned into a monster, but all arrows point to

something genetic. The gene itself did not make him what he was, but gave him the

genetic foundation, or the instinctual urges to become a killer. Jeffery Dahmer did not

want his victims to leave him. He had a fear of abandonment, loss, and rejection. Maybe

it was this compounded with the genes that caused him to kill. On top of that, I believe

that Jeffery turned to cannibalism as a way to keep a part of each victim alive inside him.

If he ate them, technically, they never left him. Like most serial killers, I believe that
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Jeffery Dahmer’s motives were psychological, and that in some twisted, sick way, that he

actually cared for his victims. He even built shrines to them. He dismembered them and

kept certain parts for eating while disposing of other parts. He also kept parts for the

shrines, like the skulls. He wanted to keep these men forever. In his mind, he had found a

way to do that; when he ate them he ingested a part of their souls.

I truly believe that genetics played a big part in the crimes of Jeffery Dahmer,

however, it was not the one factor that made him do it- it just made him genetically

predisposed to violence. I am convinced that several other things put on top of that

genetic instinct caused his urges. If the gene itself had caused the lack of self-control,

then surely Jeffery’s father would have been a murderer, too. Something, somewhere in

Jeffery’s life, caused this bad gene to become his driving force instead of an odd

fascination in the back of his mind. As with all serial killers, the urges get stronger and

stronger, and they just don’t fight them anymore. They are not crazy. They can plan

murders that often go undetected for some time, while covering all their tracks to keep it

secret from neighbors, friends, co-workers, and even family members. I think it is just

difficult for any person in society to accept that a person who murders and eats people

and then has sex with their dead bodies is not crazy. We would rather believe that he

looks like a monster, and that we would be afraid of him if we saw him on the street. We

don’t want to believe that a Jeffery Dahmer could just seem to be a regular person just

like us. He could be our neighbor. It’s just unexplainable unless he is crazy. What is even

scarier is that this was not an isolated incident. Dennis Nilsen was a serial killer who also

dismembered, ate, and had sex with his dead victims in London, England. He made this
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very disturbing comment; “A mind can be evil without being abnormal.” I’m not sure if I

believe that. Maybe Dennis Nilsen had a gene like Jeffery Dahmer’s.

Jeffery Dahmer pled not guilty by reason of insanity at his 1991 trial. The court

rejected his plea, and sentenced him to 15 life terms, or 936 years in prison. There was no

capital punishment in Wisconsin. If anyone needed the death penalty, Jeffery Dahmer was

the poster child for it. He started serving his sentence on February 17, 1992, but was

brutally murdered by another inmate on November 28, 1994. Even though I believe that

he had a gene causing his horrific behaviors, I do believe he should have been separated

from society and never released back into it. We can feel sympathy for someone who

must fight with his own DNA. However, we should not allow this sympathy to cause us

to endanger ourselves on his behalf, and we should never forget all the lives that he

destroys.