Jeffrey Dahmer: Serial Killer Or Insane?
Stephanie Rodriguez
Mr. Mitchell
Criminal Justice 5B
5 October 2014
Insane or Sane?
Jeffrey Dahmer is one of the most infamous serial killers of all time, having to do with murder, necrophilia, and cannibalism. Much is known about Jeffrey and why he has commited such murders that has ultimately gave media something to talk about. Serial killers have been an object of interest.
Born in West Allis, Wisconsin, young Dahmer is described as a model student, he had a few childhood friends and was raised somewhat normally in his childhood years. At age ten his mother was hospitalized, and the marriage of his parents was beginning to crumble. He often says that as his parents would fight, he would go to the backyard area and he would release …show more content…
his anger. This was the turning point of his childhood. He soon became accustomed to the constant bickering of his parents, making him rather lonely as his parents started paying less attention to him. As puberty struck, soon after kissing a fellow neighbor, he realized that he was in fact a homosexual. He also began having violent fantasies of men. Jeffrey also began dissecting animals finding their insides rather fascinating. “All I know is, I wanted to see what the insides of these animals looked like.” At age 16, he initially planned out and attempted to carry out a fantasy of his involving a local jogger. His plan was to wait for him in the bushes with a bat in hand and when he passes by put him in an unconscious state in which he would take advantage of and rape the jogger. On the day of the planning, the jogger didn’t pass that day and he never attempted a second try.
During Jeffrey Dahmer’s high school years he was known as an alcoholic outcast “freak”. His own thoughts scared him and he used alcohol to numb out his homosexual thoughts. His history teacher recounts asking him one morning what was in his cup and she recalled him saying while shaking his head over dramatically “It’s just my medicine.” He was also know for being a class clown. In his doing as clown, he would play many odd pranks such as faking seizures, bleating, and knocking over things at school and stores. Even making a name for his pranks and games, “Doing The Dahmer” He became less interested in school performance, and slipped away from social life. He didn’t make much effort to create relationships with people.
Following graduation, his father had left and his mother moved out with her youngest son leaving Dahmer alone in the house since he was 18 and no need of custodial considerations. Alone and lonely he stood in his house, not his mother or father helping his fight his demons. It was him and his fantasies clouding his judgment. During the summer of 78 which was right after his graduation at age eighteen he committed his first murder.
First victim’s name was a hitchhiking18 year old, Steven Hicks who was picked up my Dahmer who lured his to his place.
At his place they engaged in drinks, marijuana and listening to music. The initial idea wasn’t necessarily to kill at first, but when Hicks wanted to leave, Dahmer over reacted, grabbed a ten pound dumbbell and bludgeoned him, causing Hicks to become unconscious. Dahmer wasn’t done just yet, he strangled Steven with the bar of the dumbbell ensuring his death, and he stripped his from his clothes as he masturbated above his corpse. Thus being the reason to dispose the body the next day, by dissecting it, and dismembering parts, then putting all the parts in a grave that he dug out in his backyard. Getting rid of the body was a drive to an area where he would have bury the victim. Unfortunately for him his late drive there, he was stopped by a police officer, who flashed the light at the back seat of his car and saw trash bags. The officer asked what was in the bags and Dahmer calmly said “just trash I’m getting rid of. I couldn’t sleep so to keep myself busy.” The officer only let him go with a warning not knowing that he was transporting Hick’s body. First of many times he encountered an oblivious cop. A few weeks later to better be disposed of the remains, he dug out the grave and used a special acid to dissolve of the decomposing flesh which he dumped down the toilet. For the bones, he practically smashed them with a sledgehammer. This was his first …show more content…
victim, one that he will remember for years to come.
As time progressed, his alcoholic problem was getting worse. When his father arrived home month’s after, he realized that Dahmer was living by himself. In that following August his father encouraged him to enroll in Ohio State University, paying for two terms ahead, but Jeffrey’s problem with alcohol was taking the best of him leaving him unproductive. Just in three months he dropped out even though his father paid for two terms. Additionally to his father’s encouragement he joined the army and trained as a medical specialist at Fort Sam Houston who was later on deployed to West Germany. Due to his heavy drinking problem he was unsuitable for the job and was discharged from position. He had an opportunity to travel anywhere around the world, where he then traveled to Miami, Florida far away from his family. In Miami, he eventually got a small job just to have his check thrown away in alcohol leaving him broke and occasionally sleeping at the beach. As desperate times struck he called his father pleading to return to Ohio.
Upon his return to Ohio, in just a few weeks he lived with his dad and his stepmother, but because of his heavily drinking problem they found it rather hard to deal with Dahmer, and asked him to move in with his grandmother in West Allies, Wisconsin where he then moved. While living with his grandmother it seemed that Dahmer made a remarkable transformation, he began attending church and he had a rather stable job. However after receiving a sexual invitation from a stranger at the library, his fantasies only came back harder than before, awakening everything. He continued his fascination with dead animals, dissecting dead squirrels in the basement and dissolving them with chemicals. Around this time he started engaging in gay bars, gay bathhouses, and other places that might’ve had a more abundance of the gay community. Shortly after Dahmer’s grandmother started finding things in his room that made her uncomfortable. Things like, a mannequin he had stolen at a local store, and a .357 magnum.
Dahmer began to go to gay bathhouses and bars more often than ever, even up to finding peace in these places. He was considered a “hunny” in the gay community because of how attractive people perceived him as. Soon becoming frustrated with his partners because of their moving he began using sedatives (by putting it in the liquor) and engaging in sexual acts of their body. After so many instances he had his membership revoked. So he decided to continue his practice in other places.
His sexual frustration got so bad, that he happened to come across a funeral that was going on and the picture of the 18 year old seem to attract him. The idea of the copse was attracting to him, as far as even going to his funeral and quickly going to the bathroom and masturbating to the thought of an attractive corpse. Afterward he tried to dig out the grave but the soil was difficult to dig and he left.
Around August in 1986, he was arrested for masturbating in front of kids beside a river, and was officially charged for disorderly conduct on March 10, 1987 with one year of probation and counseling. No one ever knew that he had once murdered someone.
Steven Tuomi was 25 year old male that Dahmer met at a bar which would be his second victim.
Like I said previously he had found other ways to engage in sexual acts at other places. During this time he had rented a room at the Ambassador Hotel for a night. In his normal search from the perfect evening companion he came across Steven Tuomi. Jeffrey Dahmer had managed to lure Mr. Tuomi to his room. Dahmer recalls waking up the following morning, he awoke to find Tuomi lying beneath him on the bed, his chest "crushed in" and blood seeping from his mouth, with bruises on Dahmer 's own fists and one forearm. Even during the case he mentioned that he “couldn’t believe this happened.” He then went to buy a large suitcase to enclose Steven’s body, and took it to his grandmother’s house where he was staying at. Where he dismembered the head, arms, legs, hands, and torso. It took him a while to dispose of all the bodies, even to the point where he kept the skull to masturbate.
This being the second murder struck a need and an obsessive want to do so. After this murder he vowed not to contain his fantasies and emotions to himself. Following these murders came 15 more murders to come, and every murder committed became even more complex than the other. His ideal of a perfect partner consisted of a smooth muscular, long and lean male; color didn’t matter, nor did age. His most common killing grounds were in his apartment room
213.
Later on in his murders he became obsessed with the thought of “zombifying” a person to engage in sexual acts. Dahmer often said if he had ever obtained his goal that he wouldn’t have a need to kill anymore. Dahmer describes using acid to try and mummify his victims, but it never seemed to go his preferred way because his victim kept on dying. Dahmer would often drill holes inside the victims head and insert the acid, or he would inject them with acid. He was basically beginning to experiment with his victims with a sexual motive behind it. Another thing that was going on was cannibalism. Dahmer felt that if he eats his victims that they will forever be a part of him
Coming to the end of his killing frenzy, Dahmer was about to make a huge mistake. A mistake that would cost him his freedom. Tracy Edward had been an obvious target for Dahmer. He had managed to lure Edwards to Dahmer’ apartment, but that was just his luck. Soon enough after knowing what Dahmer’s plan was for him he escaped. From then on it all goes downhill. Edwards found the cops and explained to them what happen. Cops arrived at his place asking for the keys to handcuffs that Dahmer implemented on him but Dahmer never had the keys. He would take off the keys of his other victims when he cut their hands off. Cops also found the knife that the attacked described to him, this called for backup and more extensive searches of the apartment.
Along with what they already knew the house “revealed a total of four severed heads in Dahmer 's kitchen. A total of seven skulls, some painted; some bleached, were found in Dahmer 's bedroom and inside a closet. In addition, investigators discovered collected blood drippings upon a tray at the bottom of Dahmer 's refrigerator, plus two human hearts and a portion of arm muscle each wrapped inside plastic bags upon the shelves. In Dahmer 's freezer, investigators discovered an entire torso, plus a bag of human organs and flesh stuck to the ice at the bottom. Elsewhere in Apartment 213, investigators discovered two entire skeletons, a pair of severed hands, two severed and preserved penises, a mummified scalp and, in the 57-gallon drum, three further dismembered torsos dissolving in the acid solution. A total of 74 Polaroid pictures detailing the dismemberment of Dahmer 's victims would also be found.”
Dahmer soon confessed to all his crime because in the back of his mind he knew that there would be no way out of this one. Although he had confessed to the murders, during trial he was going for an insanity plea, but necrophilia and cannibalism wasn’t in the insane category, which was a battle in court. Dahmer was aware of all his actions, he wasn’t necessarily a crazy person speaking in terms of psychologically speaking. Dahmer was found guilty and sentenced to 975 years in prison without parole. Dahmer made a spiritual transformation while in prison, but was bludgeoned to death in prison.
There are many standpoints to the question of what was that influenced the killer.
Starting Psychologically, Dahmer suffered Borderline personality disorder which was “mental health condition in which a person has long-term patterns of unstable or turbulent emotions.” He also suffered from substance abuse because of his drinking problem.
Sociologically throughout his childhood, looking at nature and nurture, It was in his nurture that he was raised lonely and depressed, acting as class clown had only been a front to what he was actually feeling. It could so be that the terms he was raised in had something to do with who he grew up to be.
He also practiced necrophilia, cannibalism and the permanent preservation of body parts—typically all or part of the skeletal structure.
Works Cited
1. "A Victim Almost Escapes." Jeffrey Dahmer — — Crime Library. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Feb. 2014.
2. "Jeffrey Dahmer Biography." Jeffrey Dahmer. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Feb. 2014.
3. "Jeffreydahmer." Jeffreydahmer. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Feb. 2014.
4. "Cannibal and Serial Killer Jeffrey Dahmer Is Caught." History.com. A&E Television Networks, n.d. Web. 03 Feb. 2014.
Mr. Mitchell
Criminal Justice 5B
5 October 2014
Insane or Sane?
Jeffrey Dahmer is one of the most infamous serial killers of all time, having to do with murder, necrophilia, and cannibalism. Much is known about Jeffrey and why he has commited such murders that has ultimately gave media something to talk about. Serial killers have been an object of interest.
Born in West Allis, Wisconsin, young Dahmer is described as a model student, he had a few childhood friends and was raised somewhat normally in his childhood years. At age ten his mother was hospitalized, and the marriage of his parents was beginning to crumble. He often says that as his parents would fight, he would go to the backyard area and he would release …show more content…
his anger. This was the turning point of his childhood. He soon became accustomed to the constant bickering of his parents, making him rather lonely as his parents started paying less attention to him. As puberty struck, soon after kissing a fellow neighbor, he realized that he was in fact a homosexual. He also began having violent fantasies of men. Jeffrey also began dissecting animals finding their insides rather fascinating. “All I know is, I wanted to see what the insides of these animals looked like.” At age 16, he initially planned out and attempted to carry out a fantasy of his involving a local jogger. His plan was to wait for him in the bushes with a bat in hand and when he passes by put him in an unconscious state in which he would take advantage of and rape the jogger. On the day of the planning, the jogger didn’t pass that day and he never attempted a second try.
During Jeffrey Dahmer’s high school years he was known as an alcoholic outcast “freak”. His own thoughts scared him and he used alcohol to numb out his homosexual thoughts. His history teacher recounts asking him one morning what was in his cup and she recalled him saying while shaking his head over dramatically “It’s just my medicine.” He was also know for being a class clown. In his doing as clown, he would play many odd pranks such as faking seizures, bleating, and knocking over things at school and stores. Even making a name for his pranks and games, “Doing The Dahmer” He became less interested in school performance, and slipped away from social life. He didn’t make much effort to create relationships with people.
Following graduation, his father had left and his mother moved out with her youngest son leaving Dahmer alone in the house since he was 18 and no need of custodial considerations. Alone and lonely he stood in his house, not his mother or father helping his fight his demons. It was him and his fantasies clouding his judgment. During the summer of 78 which was right after his graduation at age eighteen he committed his first murder.
First victim’s name was a hitchhiking18 year old, Steven Hicks who was picked up my Dahmer who lured his to his place.
At his place they engaged in drinks, marijuana and listening to music. The initial idea wasn’t necessarily to kill at first, but when Hicks wanted to leave, Dahmer over reacted, grabbed a ten pound dumbbell and bludgeoned him, causing Hicks to become unconscious. Dahmer wasn’t done just yet, he strangled Steven with the bar of the dumbbell ensuring his death, and he stripped his from his clothes as he masturbated above his corpse. Thus being the reason to dispose the body the next day, by dissecting it, and dismembering parts, then putting all the parts in a grave that he dug out in his backyard. Getting rid of the body was a drive to an area where he would have bury the victim. Unfortunately for him his late drive there, he was stopped by a police officer, who flashed the light at the back seat of his car and saw trash bags. The officer asked what was in the bags and Dahmer calmly said “just trash I’m getting rid of. I couldn’t sleep so to keep myself busy.” The officer only let him go with a warning not knowing that he was transporting Hick’s body. First of many times he encountered an oblivious cop. A few weeks later to better be disposed of the remains, he dug out the grave and used a special acid to dissolve of the decomposing flesh which he dumped down the toilet. For the bones, he practically smashed them with a sledgehammer. This was his first …show more content…
victim, one that he will remember for years to come.
As time progressed, his alcoholic problem was getting worse. When his father arrived home month’s after, he realized that Dahmer was living by himself. In that following August his father encouraged him to enroll in Ohio State University, paying for two terms ahead, but Jeffrey’s problem with alcohol was taking the best of him leaving him unproductive. Just in three months he dropped out even though his father paid for two terms. Additionally to his father’s encouragement he joined the army and trained as a medical specialist at Fort Sam Houston who was later on deployed to West Germany. Due to his heavy drinking problem he was unsuitable for the job and was discharged from position. He had an opportunity to travel anywhere around the world, where he then traveled to Miami, Florida far away from his family. In Miami, he eventually got a small job just to have his check thrown away in alcohol leaving him broke and occasionally sleeping at the beach. As desperate times struck he called his father pleading to return to Ohio.
Upon his return to Ohio, in just a few weeks he lived with his dad and his stepmother, but because of his heavily drinking problem they found it rather hard to deal with Dahmer, and asked him to move in with his grandmother in West Allies, Wisconsin where he then moved. While living with his grandmother it seemed that Dahmer made a remarkable transformation, he began attending church and he had a rather stable job. However after receiving a sexual invitation from a stranger at the library, his fantasies only came back harder than before, awakening everything. He continued his fascination with dead animals, dissecting dead squirrels in the basement and dissolving them with chemicals. Around this time he started engaging in gay bars, gay bathhouses, and other places that might’ve had a more abundance of the gay community. Shortly after Dahmer’s grandmother started finding things in his room that made her uncomfortable. Things like, a mannequin he had stolen at a local store, and a .357 magnum.
Dahmer began to go to gay bathhouses and bars more often than ever, even up to finding peace in these places. He was considered a “hunny” in the gay community because of how attractive people perceived him as. Soon becoming frustrated with his partners because of their moving he began using sedatives (by putting it in the liquor) and engaging in sexual acts of their body. After so many instances he had his membership revoked. So he decided to continue his practice in other places.
His sexual frustration got so bad, that he happened to come across a funeral that was going on and the picture of the 18 year old seem to attract him. The idea of the copse was attracting to him, as far as even going to his funeral and quickly going to the bathroom and masturbating to the thought of an attractive corpse. Afterward he tried to dig out the grave but the soil was difficult to dig and he left.
Around August in 1986, he was arrested for masturbating in front of kids beside a river, and was officially charged for disorderly conduct on March 10, 1987 with one year of probation and counseling. No one ever knew that he had once murdered someone.
Steven Tuomi was 25 year old male that Dahmer met at a bar which would be his second victim.
Like I said previously he had found other ways to engage in sexual acts at other places. During this time he had rented a room at the Ambassador Hotel for a night. In his normal search from the perfect evening companion he came across Steven Tuomi. Jeffrey Dahmer had managed to lure Mr. Tuomi to his room. Dahmer recalls waking up the following morning, he awoke to find Tuomi lying beneath him on the bed, his chest "crushed in" and blood seeping from his mouth, with bruises on Dahmer 's own fists and one forearm. Even during the case he mentioned that he “couldn’t believe this happened.” He then went to buy a large suitcase to enclose Steven’s body, and took it to his grandmother’s house where he was staying at. Where he dismembered the head, arms, legs, hands, and torso. It took him a while to dispose of all the bodies, even to the point where he kept the skull to masturbate.
This being the second murder struck a need and an obsessive want to do so. After this murder he vowed not to contain his fantasies and emotions to himself. Following these murders came 15 more murders to come, and every murder committed became even more complex than the other. His ideal of a perfect partner consisted of a smooth muscular, long and lean male; color didn’t matter, nor did age. His most common killing grounds were in his apartment room
213.
Later on in his murders he became obsessed with the thought of “zombifying” a person to engage in sexual acts. Dahmer often said if he had ever obtained his goal that he wouldn’t have a need to kill anymore. Dahmer describes using acid to try and mummify his victims, but it never seemed to go his preferred way because his victim kept on dying. Dahmer would often drill holes inside the victims head and insert the acid, or he would inject them with acid. He was basically beginning to experiment with his victims with a sexual motive behind it. Another thing that was going on was cannibalism. Dahmer felt that if he eats his victims that they will forever be a part of him
Coming to the end of his killing frenzy, Dahmer was about to make a huge mistake. A mistake that would cost him his freedom. Tracy Edward had been an obvious target for Dahmer. He had managed to lure Edwards to Dahmer’ apartment, but that was just his luck. Soon enough after knowing what Dahmer’s plan was for him he escaped. From then on it all goes downhill. Edwards found the cops and explained to them what happen. Cops arrived at his place asking for the keys to handcuffs that Dahmer implemented on him but Dahmer never had the keys. He would take off the keys of his other victims when he cut their hands off. Cops also found the knife that the attacked described to him, this called for backup and more extensive searches of the apartment.
Along with what they already knew the house “revealed a total of four severed heads in Dahmer 's kitchen. A total of seven skulls, some painted; some bleached, were found in Dahmer 's bedroom and inside a closet. In addition, investigators discovered collected blood drippings upon a tray at the bottom of Dahmer 's refrigerator, plus two human hearts and a portion of arm muscle each wrapped inside plastic bags upon the shelves. In Dahmer 's freezer, investigators discovered an entire torso, plus a bag of human organs and flesh stuck to the ice at the bottom. Elsewhere in Apartment 213, investigators discovered two entire skeletons, a pair of severed hands, two severed and preserved penises, a mummified scalp and, in the 57-gallon drum, three further dismembered torsos dissolving in the acid solution. A total of 74 Polaroid pictures detailing the dismemberment of Dahmer 's victims would also be found.”
Dahmer soon confessed to all his crime because in the back of his mind he knew that there would be no way out of this one. Although he had confessed to the murders, during trial he was going for an insanity plea, but necrophilia and cannibalism wasn’t in the insane category, which was a battle in court. Dahmer was aware of all his actions, he wasn’t necessarily a crazy person speaking in terms of psychologically speaking. Dahmer was found guilty and sentenced to 975 years in prison without parole. Dahmer made a spiritual transformation while in prison, but was bludgeoned to death in prison.
There are many standpoints to the question of what was that influenced the killer.
Starting Psychologically, Dahmer suffered Borderline personality disorder which was “mental health condition in which a person has long-term patterns of unstable or turbulent emotions.” He also suffered from substance abuse because of his drinking problem.
Sociologically throughout his childhood, looking at nature and nurture, It was in his nurture that he was raised lonely and depressed, acting as class clown had only been a front to what he was actually feeling. It could so be that the terms he was raised in had something to do with who he grew up to be.
He also practiced necrophilia, cannibalism and the permanent preservation of body parts—typically all or part of the skeletal structure.
Works Cited
1. "A Victim Almost Escapes." Jeffrey Dahmer — — Crime Library. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Feb. 2014.
2. "Jeffrey Dahmer Biography." Jeffrey Dahmer. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Feb. 2014.
3. "Jeffreydahmer." Jeffreydahmer. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Feb. 2014.
4. "Cannibal and Serial Killer Jeffrey Dahmer Is Caught." History.com. A&E Television Networks, n.d. Web. 03 Feb. 2014.