Further Reading For Jeffrey Dahmer
A Father’s Story by Lionel Dahmer
My Friend Dahmer by Harry N. Abrams
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Ever since police arrested him and raided his apartment, finding a collection of body parts the name Jeffrey Dahmer has become synonymous with the absolute depths of human depravity. Active in Milwaukee, Wisconsin between 1978 and 1991, Dahmer slipped depper and deeper away from humanity, raping, murdering, dismembering, and in some cases, consuming the flesh of his victims. Dahmer was the American answer to Dennis Nilsen with shades of Ed Gein. Dahmer was a necrophile, withdrawn and unable to make an ordinary friendship. His cannibalism served to alleviate an intense loneliness that kept him alienated from the people around him.
Dahmer was drawn to death from a young age. He had a reputation for reclaiming roadkill and other sources of dead animals and watching the process of decomposition before collecting and using the bones to decorate his room. At the time of his arrest, he would be diagnosed with a handful of very serious mental illnesses that wired his brain’s need for companionship to the death drive and when the smoke had cleared and he was in prison, 17 men lay dead, many of them preserved or in various states of decomposition in Dahmer’s Milwaukee apartment.
A large part of the reason for Dahmer’s spree to last as long as it did was the fact that he and his victims were gay and an institutional homophobia among police made it so that no one wanted to look into Dahmer and the disappearances of local men. Once medicated, Dahmer seemed horrified by his behavior and provoked fellow inmates by what appeared to be a death wish. Dahmer was beaten to death in prison in 1994.
Episodes: 122-124
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