Serial Killer: Jeffrey Dahmer (Part III)

Arrest

Capture

On July 22, 1991, Dahmer approached three men with an offer of $100 to accompany him to his apartment to pose for nude photographs, drink beer and simply keep him company.  One of the trio, 32-year-old Tracy Edwards, agreed to accompany him to his apartment. Upon entering Dahmer's apartment, Edwards noted a foul odor and several boxes of hydrochloric acid on the floor, which Dahmer claimed to use for cleaning bricks. After some minor conversation, Edwards responded to Dahmer's request to turn his head and view his tropical fish, whereupon Dahmer placed a handcuff upon his wrist. When Edwards asked, "What's happening?" Dahmer unsuccessfully attempted to cuff his wrists together and then told Edwards to accompany him to the bedroom to pose for nude pictures. While inside the bedroom, Edwards noted nude male posters on the wall and that a videotape of The Exorcist III was playing; he also noted a blue 57-gallon drum in the corner, from which a strong odor emanated.

Dahmer then brandished a knife and informed Edwards he intended to take nude pictures of him. In an attempt to appease Dahmer, Edwards unbuttoned his shirt, saying he would allow him to do so if he would remove the handcuffs and put the knife away. In response to this promise, Dahmer simply turned his attention towards the TV. Edwards observed Dahmer rocking back and forth and chanting before turning his attention back to him. He placed his head on Edwards' chest, listened to his heartbeat and, with the knife pressed against his intended victim, informed Edwards he intended to eat his heart.

In continuous attempts to prevent Dahmer from attacking him, Edwards repeated that he was Dahmer's friend and that he was not going to run away.  Edwards had decided he was going to either jump from a window or run through the unlocked front door upon the next available opportunity. When Edwards next stated he needed to use the bathroom, he asked if they could sit with a beer in the living room, where there was air conditioning. Dahmer consented, and the pair walked to the living room when Edwards exited the bathroom. Inside the living room, Edwards waited until he observed Dahmer have a momentary lapse of concentration before requesting to use the bathroom again.  When Edwards rose from the couch, he noted Dahmer was not holding the handcuffs, whereupon Edwards punched him in the face, knocking Dahmer off balance, and ran out the front door.

At 11:30 p.m. on July 22, Edwards flagged down two Milwaukee police officers at the corner of North 25th Street. The officers noted Edwards had a handcuff attached to his wrist, whereupon Edwards explained to the officers that a "freak" had placed the handcuffs upon him and asked if the police could remove them. When the officers' handcuff keys failed to fit the brand of handcuffs, Edwards agreed to accompany the officers to the apartment where Edwards stated, he had spent the previous five hours before escaping.

When the officers and Edwards arrived at Apartment 213, Dahmer invited the trio inside and acknowledged he had indeed placed the handcuffs upon Edwards, although he offered no explanation as to why he had done so. At this point, Edwards divulged to the officers that Dahmer had also brandished a large knife upon him and that this had happened in the bedroom. Dahmer made no comment to this revelation, indicating to one of the officers, Rolf Mueller, which the key to the handcuffs was in his bedside dresser in the bedroom. As Mueller entered the bedroom, Dahmer attempted to pass Mueller to himself retrieve the key, whereupon the second officer present, Robert Rauth informed him to "back off".

In the bedroom, Mueller noted there was indeed a large knife beneath the bed. He also saw an open drawer which, upon closer inspection, contained scores of Polaroid pictures—many of which were of human bodies in various stages of dismemberment. Mueller noted the decor indicated they had been taken in the very apartment in which they were standing. He walked into the living room to show them to his partner, uttering the words, "These are for real."

When Dahmer saw that Mueller was holding several of his Polaroids, he fought with the officers in an effort to resist arrest. The officers quickly overpowered him, cuffed his hands behind his back, and called a second squad car for backup. At this point, Mueller opened the refrigerator to reveal the freshly severed head of a black male on the bottom shelf.  As Dahmer lay pinned on the floor beneath Rauth, he turned his head towards the officers and muttered the words: "For what I did I should be dead."

A more detailed search of the apartment, conducted by the Criminal Investigation Bureau, 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, and 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 were found.  In reference to the recovery of body parts and artifacts at 924 North 25th Street, the chief medical examiner later stated: "It was more like dismantling someone's museum than an actual crime scene."

Confession

Beginning in the early hours of July 23, 1991, Dahmer was questioned by Detective Patrick Kennedy as to the murders, he had committed and the evidence found at his apartment. Over the following two weeks, Kennedy and, later, Detective Patrick Murphy conducted numerous interviews with Dahmer which, when combined, totaled over 60 hours.  Dahmer waived his right to have a lawyer present throughout his interrogations, adding he wished to confess all as he had "created this horror and it only makes sense I do everything to put an end to it."  He readily admitted to having murdered 16 young men in Wisconsin since 1987, with one further victim—Steven Hicks—killed in Ohio back in 1978.

Most of the victims had been rendered unconscious prior to their murder, although some had died as a result of having acid or boiling water injected into their brain. As he had no memory of the murder of Tuomi, he was unsure whether he was unconscious when beaten to death, although he did concede it was possible that his viewing the exposed chest of Steven Tuomi while in a drunken stupor may have led him to unsuccessfully attempt to tear Tuomi's heart from his chest.  Almost all the murders Dahmer committed after moving into the Oxford Apartments had involved a ritual of posing the victims' bodies in suggestive positions—typically with the chest thrust outwards—prior to dismemberment.

He readily admitted to performing necrophilia with several of his victims' bodies, including performing sexual acts with their viscera as he dismembered their bodies in his bathtub. Having noted that much of the blood pooled inside his victims' chest after death, Dahmer first removed their internal organs, then suspended the torso so the blood drained into his bathtub, before dicing any organs he did not wish to retain and paring the flesh from the body.  The bones he wished to dispose of were pulverized or acidified, with Soilex and bleach solutions used to aid in the preservation of the skeletons and skulls he wished to keep. In addition, he confessed to having consumed the hearts, livers, biceps, and portions of thighs of several victims killed within the previous year.

Describing the increase in his rate of killing in the two months prior to his arrest, he stated he had been "completely swept along" with his compulsion to kill, adding: "It was an incessant and never-ending desire to be with someone at whatever cost. Someone good looking, really nice looking. It just filled my thoughts all day long."  When asked as to why he had preserved a total of seven skulls and the entire skeletons of two victims, Dahmer stated he had been in the process of constructing a private altar of victims' skulls which he had intended to display on the black table located in his living room and upon which he had photographed the bodies of many of his victims.

This display of skulls was to be adorned at each side with the complete skeletons of Ernest Miller and Oliver Lacy. The four severed heads found in his kitchen were to be removed of all flesh and used in this altar, as was the skull of at least one future victim. Incense sticks were to be placed at each end of the black table, above which Dahmer intended to place a large blue lamp with extending blue globe lights.   The entire construction was to be placed before a window covered with a black, opaque shower curtain, in front of which Dahmer intended to sit in a black leather chair.  When asked in a November 18, 1991 interview who the altar was dedicated to, Dahmer replied: "Myself ... It was a place where I could feel at home." He further described his intended altar as a "place for meditation," from where he believed he could draw a sense of power, adding: "If this [his arrest] had happened six months later, that's what they would have found."

Indictment

On July 25, 1991, Dahmer was charged with four counts of first-degree murder. By August 22, he had been charged with a further 11 murders committed in the state of Wisconsin.  On September 14, investigators in Ohio, having uncovered hundreds of bone fragments in woodland behind the address in which Dahmer had confessed to killing his first victim, formally identified two molars and a vertebra with X-ray records of Steven Mark Hicks.  Three days later, Dahmer was charged by authorities in Ohio with the murder of Steven Hicks.

Dahmer was not charged with the attempted murder of Tracy Edwards, nor with the murder of Steven Tuomi. He was not charged with Tuomi's murder because of the Milwaukee County District Attorney only brought charges where murder could be proven beyond a reasonable doubt and Dahmer had no memory of actually committing this particular murder, for which no physical evidence of the crime existed.  At a scheduled preliminary hearing on January 13, 1992, Dahmer pleaded guilty but insane to 15 counts of murder.

Trial

Jeffrey Dahmer's trial began on January 30, 1992.  He was tried in Milwaukee for the 15 counts of first-degree murder before Judge Laurence Gram.  By pleading guilty on January 13 to the charges brought against him, Dahmer had waived his rights to an initial trial to establish guilt (as defined in Wisconsin law).  The issue debated by opposing counsels at Dahmer's trial was to determine whether he suffered from either a mental or a personality disorder:  the prosecution claiming that any disorders did not deprive Dahmer of the ability to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to deprive him of the ability to resist his impulses; the defense arguing that Dahmer suffered from a mental disease and was driven by obsessions and impulses he was unable to control.

Defense experts argued that Dahmer was insane due to his necrophilic drive – his compulsion to have sexual encounters with corpses. Defense expert Dr. Fred Berlin testified that Dahmer was unable to conform his conduct at the time that he committed the crimes because he was suffering from paraphilia or, more specifically, necrophilia. Dr. Judith Becker, a professor of psychiatry and psychology, was the second expert witness for the defense; Becker also diagnosed Dahmer with necrophilia. The final defense expert to testify, forensic psychiatrist Dr. Carl Wahlstrom, diagnosed Dahmer with borderline personality disorder, schizotypal personality disorder, necrophilia, alcohol dependence, and a psychotic disorder.

The prosecution rejected the defense's argument that Dahmer was insane. Forensic psychiatrist Dr. Phillip Resnick testified that Dahmer did not suffer from primary necrophilia because he preferred live sexual partners as evidenced by his efforts to create unresistant, submissive sexual partners devoid of rational thought and to whose needs he did not have to cater.  Another prosecution expert to testify, Dr. Fred Fosdel, testified to his belief that Dahmer was without mental disease or defect at the time he committed the murders. He described Dahmer as a calculating and cunning individual, able to differentiate between right and wrong, with the ability to control his actions.  Although Fosdel did state his belief that Dahmer suffered from paraphilia, his conclusion was that Dahmer was not a sadist.

The final witness to appear for the prosecution, forensic psychiatrist Park Dietz, began his testimony on February 12. Dietz testified that he did not believe Dahmer to be suffering from any mental disease or defect at the time that he committed the crimes, stating: "Dahmer went to great lengths to be alone with his victim and to have no witnesses."  He explained that there was ample evidence that Dahmer prepared in advance for each murder, therefore, his crimes were not impulsive.  Although Dietz did concede any acquisition of a paraphilia was not a matter of personal choice, he also stated his belief that Dahmer's habit of becoming intoxicated prior to committing each of the murders was significant, stating: "If he had a compulsion to kill, he would not have to drink alcohol. He had to drink alcohol to overcome his inhibition, to do the crime which he would rather not do."

Dietz also noted that Dahmer strongly identified with evil and corrupt characters from both Return of the Jedi and The Exorcist III; particularly the level of power held by these characters. Expounding on the significance of these movies on Dahmer's psyche and many of the murders committed at the Oxford Apartments, Dietz explained that Dahmer occasionally viewed scenes from these films before searching for a victim. Dietz diagnosed Dahmer with substance use disorder, paraphilia, and schizotypal personality disorder.

Two court-appointed mental health professionals—testifying independently of either prosecution or defense—were forensic psychiatrist George Palermo and clinical psychologist Samuel Friedman. Palermo stated that the murders were the result of a "pent-up aggression within himself [Dahmer]. He killed those men because he wanted to kill the source of his homosexual attraction to them. In killing them, he killed what he hated in himself." Palermo concluded that Dahmer was a sexual sadist with antisocial personality disorder, but legally sane.

Friedman testified that it was a longing for companionship that caused Dahmer to kill. He stated, "Mr. Dahmer is not psychotic." He spoke kindly of Dahmer, describing him as "Amiable, pleasant to be with, courteous, with a sense of humor, conventionally handsome, and charming in manner. He was, and still is, a bright young man."  He diagnosed Dahmer with a personality disorder not otherwise specified featuring borderline, obsessive-compulsive, and sadistic traits.

The trial lasted two weeks.  On February 14, both counsels delivered their closing arguments to the jury. Each counsel was allowed to speak for two hours. Defense attorney Gerald Boyle argued first. Repeatedly harking to the testimony of the mental health professionals—almost all of whom had agreed Dahmer was suffering from a mental disease—Boyle argued that Dahmer's compulsive killings had been a result of "a sickness he discovered, not chose."  Boyle portrayed Dahmer as a desperately lonely and profoundly sick individual "so out of control he could not conform his conduct anymore."

Following the defense counsel's 75-minute closing argument, Michael McCann delivered his closing argument for the prosecution, describing Dahmer as a sane man, in full control of his actions, who simply strove to avoid detection.  McCann argued that the act of murder was committed in hostility, anger, resentment, frustration, or hatred and that the 15 victims for whose murder he was tried "died merely to afford Dahmer a period of sexual pleasure." McCann further argued that by pleading guilty but insane to the charges, Dahmer was seeking to escape responsibility for his crimes.

On February 15, the court reconvened to hear the verdict: Dahmer was ruled to be sane and not suffering from a mental disorder at the time of each of the 15 murders for which he was tried, although in each count, two of the 12 jurors signified their dissent.  On the first two counts, Dahmer was sentenced to life imprisonment plus ten years, with the remaining 13 counts carrying a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment plus 70 years. The death penalty was not an option for Judge Gram to consider at the penalty phase as the State of Wisconsin had abolished capital punishment in 1853.

Upon hearing of Dahmer's sentencing, his father Lionel and stepmother Shari requested to be allowed a ten-minute private meeting with their son before he was transferred to the Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage to begin his sentence.  This request was granted and the trio exchanged hugs and well-wishes before Dahmer was escorted away to begin his sentence.

Three months after his conviction for 15 murders in Milwaukee, Dahmer was extradited to Ohio to be tried for the murder of his first victim, Steven Hicks.  In a court hearing lasting just 45 minutes, Dahmer again pleaded guilty to the charges and was sentenced to a 16th term of life imprisonment on May 1, 1992.

Imprisonment

Upon sentencing, Dahmer was transferred to the Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage, Wisconsin.  For the first year of his incarceration, Dahmer was placed in solitary confinement due to concerns for his physical safety should he come into contact with fellow inmates. With Dahmer's consent, after one year in solitary confinement, he was transferred to a less secure unit, where he was assigned a two-hour daily work detail cleaning the toilet block.   Shortly after completing his lengthy confessions in 1991, Dahmer had requested to Detective Patrick Murphy that he be given a copy of the Bible.  This request was granted and Dahmer gradually devoted himself to Christianity and became a born-again Christian. On his father's urging, he also read creationist books from the Institute for Creation Research.  In May 1994, Dahmer was baptized by Roy Ratcliff, a minister in the Church of Christ and a graduate of Oklahoma Christian University, in the prison whirlpool.

Following his baptism, Ratcliff visited Dahmer on a weekly basis up until November 1994. Dahmer and Ratcliff regularly discussed the prospect of death, and Dahmer questioned whether he was sinning against God by continuing to live.  Referring to his crimes in a 1994 interview with Stone Phillips on Dateline NBC, Dahmer had stated: "If a person doesn't think that there is a God to be accountable to, then what's the point of trying to modify your behavior to keep it within acceptable ranges? That's how I thought anyway."

In July 1994, a fellow inmate, Osvaldo Durruthy, attempted to slash Dahmer's throat with a razor embedded in a toothbrush as Dahmer returned to his cell from Roy Ratcliff's weekly church service conducted in the prison chapel.  Dahmer received superficial wounds and was not seriously hurt in this incident. According to Dahmer's family, he had long been ready to die and accepted any punishment which he might endure in prison. In addition to his father and stepmother maintaining regular contact, Dahmer's mother, Joyce, also maintained regular contact with her son (although prior to his arrest, the two had not seen each other since Christmas 1983).  Joyce Dahmer related that in her weekly phone calls, whenever she expressed concerns for her son's physical well-being, Dahmer responded with comments to the effect of: "It doesn't matter, Mom. I don't care if something happens to me."