Essay Sample on Serial Killer Jeffrey Dahmer

If less than 1% of the U.S. population is/are serial killers, why is there so much fear surrounding them? Now there might be a couple of answers to that paranoia, anxiety, etc, but the main reason I believe they are so feared and thought of is due to the amount of publicity certain cases have gotten. One of the definitions of the word “serial killer” is a person who commits a series of murders, often with no apparent motive. Agreed, that definition sounds terrifying to anxious ears, but times are different and it’s easier to catch and figure things out. If the definition scared you, wait till you hear just a few of serial killer characteristics. Characteristics of a serial killer include but are not limited to being charming but insincere, egocentric, having a lack of remorse, being apathetic, having shallow emotions, impulsive actions, poor behavior control, the demand for excitement or adrenaline, irresponsible, early behavioral problems, adult antisocial behavior, addictive personality/personalities, being narcissistic and or power-hungry. There are often two types of serial killers, they are separated into two categories the first being the organized type and the second being disorganized. The main difference between the two is often the crime scene. If the body seems to have been placed or propped in a certain position and there is little to no evidence near the body, and or the weapon is gone, that is more than likely an organized serial killer. If the crime scene is messy maybe even as if the crime was carelessly committed, the body is uncovered, the victim belongings are scattered, there is a trail near or leading from the body, and or if the weapon was improvised you’ve got a disorganized serial killer on your hands. With any knowledge you might have about the topic, you might be wondering why would anyone want to do something like this. There sometimes might not even be a motive but more often than not there is one. Said motives include but are not limited to lust, anger, financial seeking, sexual desires, thrill-seeking, attention-seeking, and sometimes their ideology or belief. 

However, it seems like more than one of those motives applied to Jeffrey Dahmer. Jeffrey Dahmer was a cannibal serial sexual killer active throughout a thirteen-year span from the years 1978 to 1991. All of his victims were males, between the ages of 14 and 28. Keeping some of the strangest souvenirs such as skulls or genitals and or polariod pictures during the murdering process to relive the experience. 

Jeffrey Dahmer was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin the 21st of May in 1960 to his parents Lionel and Joyce Dahmer. According to his parents, family, and friends up until the age of four Dahmer was a happy and active child. He did move around multiple times for a time period but his parents eventually settled. Dahmer graduated from Revere High School and from there went on to the Air Force to then be discharged soon after due to alcoholism. Even then he was a loner, his “hobbies” were examining dead animals and excessively drinking. At the age of four Dahmer had to go into surgery to correct a double hernia and after that, he just never seemed the same, things didn’t get any better when his brother David came into the picture when he was just five. Even at such a young age, his loner and reserved actions weren’t invisible to anyone. Including his first grade teacher who’d written something about his odd behavior on his report card. Into Dahmer’s early teen years he became noticeably increasingly withdrawn, disengaged, tense, largely friendless, and uncommunicative. 

Along with this Dahmer’s compulsion towards necrophilia and murder also started. He apparently placed a severed dog’s head on a stick in the forest behind his parent’s home. It didn’t help when his father asked him to help clean out dead animals from underneath their house. Serial sexual murder is often correlated with animal cruelty, so even if the animals were dead, it helped fulfill some of his thoughts and desires. His father Lionel was a writer who had taken chemistry in college, so he taught Dahmer how to dispose and or get rid of flesh on the bone and clean them. A skill that he would later use for most of the victims. His father wasn’t around much due to work, his mom had attempted to take her life and was hospitalized, and along with being gay at this time, it couldn’t have been easy for him mentally.  According to the forensic psychiatrist that evaluated and interviewed Dahmer, Carl Wahlstrom says that Dahmer at a very young age had a high libido, constant fantasies about killing men and having sex with their corpses ( which took up ⅔ of his day ). So much so that when he was about 16 he was actually going to go through with his plan, though he wasn’t successful. In his neighborhood there was a male jogger he had lusted for, so he hid in a bush with a baseball bat and waited. In addition to everything Wahlstrom said, he also stated that the breakdown of his parent’s marriage and their messy divorce was a catalyst for Dahmer’s dark thoughts. Though Dahmer disagrees with this and states that his parents were loving and thinking that they are to blame for what he became is far-fetched. Dahmer’s charges included rape, dismemberment, necrophilia, cannibalism, and some other things. During the trial Dahmer initially didn’t want to have a lawyer and was very remorseful towards his actions. Although Dahmer has borderline personality disorder, schizotypal disorder and psychotic disorder he was found to be sane at the trial. He even stated that he was aware of what he was doing and knew that he shouldn’t have been doing those things. The only reason Dahmer was even caught was thanks to who was going to be his victim Tracey Edwards. Dahmer had lured yet another guy into his home to give him a free “photoshoot.” He tried putting the Edwards in handcuffs, but Edwards said he’d only go through with it if the handcuffs were off. However that didn’t work so he convinced Dahmer that he wasn’t going to run, or fight. Once Dahmer let his guard down a bit, Edwards punched him and fled the apartment. Located 2 cops, whom which took him back to Dahmer’s house so that the handcuffs could be taken off and when they arrived they found everything a Dahmer was arrested on the spot.When he was arrested he didn’t really hesitate, he just went with it. He sat in trial hearing everything he did, head down and never denied any of his actions, though he did plead not guilty. He was charged with 15 consecutive life sentences, which added up to 999 years in prison, though he barely made it 3 years before he was murdered in prison. What seperates him from other serial killers is that he never denied his actions, openly discussed them with remorse. Dahmer didn’t try to impress or brag about his killings. He discussed things as if he didn’t do them and he was talking about someone else.