The analysis of his psychological capabilities is rational and it has practical value because it helped to answer the question about insanity. It does not lead to the only possible conclusion. Non-scientific inquiry may use different assumptions and apply different rules for analysis. There is no assumption here that my conclusion will satisfy all perspectives or always satisfy scientific perspectives. Dahmer’s psychological disorders are rare and therefore not frequently examined. Ed Gein committed similar crimes in Wisconsin in the 1950s, while Dennis Nilsen committed strikingly similar crimes in the 1970s in London. Clearly, there is much more to discover about these individuals than is already known and, when more is known, perhaps proof of insanity will be available. Jeffrey Dahmer is now out of free society and confined in a community of serious criminals. We are safe from him but not from his psychopathology. Other similarly disturbed individuals will come. It is imperative that multidisciplinary lines of inquiry focus on people who commit such crimes. The insanity question does not appear to be anywhere near as important as understanding these individuals. To that end, Brian Masters has undertaken an important task in the preceding pages. His insights will encourage psychologists and psychiatrists to consider additional aspects of the complex personality of men like Jeffrey Dahmer.
Dahmer’s victims: (from top left) Steven Tuomi, James Doxtator, Richard Guerrero, Tony Sears, Raymond Smith, Eddie Smith, Ernest Miller, David Thomas, Curtis Straughter, Errol Lindsey, Tony Hughes, Konerak Sinthasomphone, Matt Turner, Jeremiah Weinberger, Oliver Lacy, Joseph Bradehoft.
Dahmer victim Steven Hicks. (AP)
Dahmer’s defence counsel, District Attorney, Gerald Boyle. (AP)
Prosecuting counsel, District Attorney, Michael McCann. (Milwaukee Sentinel)
(Above left) Dahmer’s mother, Joyce. (AP)
(Above right) Dahmer, aged seventeen, pictured in the Revere High School yearbook, 1977. (AP)
Dahmer, aged eighteen, with Bridget Geiger before the 1978 Revere Senior High School prom. (AP)
Lionel and Shari Dahmer, Jeffrey’s father and stepmother, awaiting the verdict. (AP)
Dahmer wearing handcuffs and leg irons was brought to court in a wheelchair each day during the trial.
After Dahmer’s arrest a crowd gathers outside the apartment block at 924 North 25th Street. (AP)
Police remove the refrigerator in which a human head and various body parts were found. (AP)
The interior of Dahmer’s apartment, showing the black table that was to become part of the ‘shrine’, and Dahmer’s fish tank.
(Above left) The 57-gallon blue plastic drum taken from Dahmer’s apartment and found to contain three human torsos.
(Above right) The freezer in which three human heads and a torso were discovered.
Dahmer in court. (AP)
Dahmer’s drawing of the ‘shrine’ produced for psychiatrists before his trial.
Bibliography
Books
Anthony, Sylvia, The Child’s Discovery of Death (Kegan, Paul & Co., 1940).
Clark, Tim & Penycate, John, Psychopath: The Case of Patrick Mackay (Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1976).
Davis, Wade, The Serpent and the Rainbow (Collins, 1986).
Derleth, August (ed.), Collected Ghost Stories (1952).
Frazer, J. G., The Golden Bough (Macmillan, 1975).
Freud, Sigmund, Collected Papers, vol. III (Leipzig, 1924).
Fromm, Erich, The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness (Jonathan Cape, London, 1974).
Krafft-Ebing, Psychopathia Sexualis, in the modern edition edited by Alexander Hartwich, Aberrations of Sexual Life (1951).
Michaud, Stephen G. & Aynesworth, Hugh, The Only Living Witness (1983).
Laing, R. D., The Divided Self (Tavistock Publications, 1969).
Levin, Jack & Fox, James Alan, Mass Murder: America’s Growing Menace (Plenum Press, 1985).
Maslow, Abraham, Motivation and Personality (Harper & Row, New York, 1954).
Masters, Brian, Killing for Company (Coronet Books, 1986).
Norris, Joel, Serial Killers: the Growing Menace (Arrow Books, 1990).
Prins, Hershel, Bizarre Behaviours: Boundaries of Psychiatric Disorder (Tavistock/Routledge, 1990).
River, J. Paul de, The Sexual Criminal (Charles Thomas, Springfield, Illinois, 1956).
Rosen, Ismond (ed.), The Pathology and Treatment of Sexual Deviation (Oxford University Press, 1964).
Shaffer, Peter, Equus in Three Plays (Penguin, 1976).
Schreiber, Flora Rheta, The Shoemaker (Allen Lane, 1983).
Stekel, Wilhelm, Auto-erotism (Liveright, New York, 1950).
Stekel, Wilhelm, Peculiarities of Behaviour, vol. I (Williams & Norgate, 1925).
Stekel, Wilhelm, Sexual Aberrations (John Lane, 1934).
Storr, Anthony, Human Destructiveness (Routledge, 1992).
Wertham, Frederic, Dark Legend: A Study in Murder (Victor Gollancz, London, 1947).
Wilson, Colin, A Casebook of Murder (Leslie Frewin, 1969).
Wilson, Colin, Order of Assassins (Rupert Hart-Davis, London, 1972).
Wilson, Colin & Pitman, Patricia, Encyclopaedia of Murder (A. Barber, 1961).
Journals
Blom, G. E., ‘The Reactions of Hospitalized Children to Illness’, Pediatrics, vol. 22 (1958).
Brill, A. A., ‘Necrophilia’, Journal of Criminal Psychopathology, vols. 2 and 3 (1941).
Brittain, Robert P., ‘The Sadistic Murderer’, Medicine, Science and the Law, vol. 10, no. 4 (1970).
Davenport, H. T. & Werry, J. S., ‘The Effects of General Anaesthesia, Surgery and Hospitalization upon the Behaviour of Children’, American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, vol. 40 (1970).
Levy, D. M., ‘Psychic Trauma of Operations’, American Journal of Diseases of Children, vol. 69 (1945).
Money, John, ‘Forensic Sexology: Paraphilic Serial Rape (Biastophilia) and Lust Murder (Erotophonophilia)’, American Journal of Psychotherapy, vol. XLIV, no. 1 (1990).
Pearson, Gerald H. J., ‘Effect of Operative Procedures on the Emotional Life of the Child’, American Journal of Diseases of Children.
Smith, Selwyn M. & Braun, Claude, ‘Necrophilia and Lust Murder: Report of a Rare Occurrence’, Bulletin of AALP, vol. VI, no. 3.
Symington, Neville, ‘Response Aroused by the Psychopath’, International Review of Psycho-analysis, vol. 7 (1980).
Teicher, Morton I., ‘Windigo Psychosis’, International Journal of Parapsychology (1962).
Other Documents
The State of Wisconsin vs. Jeffrey L. Dahmer, Criminal Complaint 2-291231.
Milwaukee Police Department, file 2472.
Conversations between Jeffrey L. Dahmer and Dr Kenneth Smail.
Notes
In the notes which follow, references to conversations between Jeffrey L. Dahmer and Dr Kenneth Smail are indicated by the initials J.L.D. and the date on which the quoted conversation took place.
1 The Charges
1 J.L.D., 7 and 14 Aug, 1991.
2 Milwaukee Police Department, file 2472.
3 Nilsen Papers, vol. VII, p. 1, quoted in Masters, Killing for Company.
4 J.L.D., 10 Aug, 1991.
5 R. D. Laing, The Divided Self, p. 25.
6 Colin Wilson, A Casebook of Murder, p. 23.
7 Erich Fromm, The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness, p. 340.
8 Neville Symington, ‘The Response Aroused by the Psychopath’, International Review of Psycho-analysis, vol. 7, p. 294 (1980).
9 Melanie Klein, Love, Guilt and Reparation, quoted in Symington, International Review of Psycho-analysis.
10 Colin Wilson and Patricia Pitman, Encyclopaedia of Murder, p. 22.
11 Letter to the author, 6 June, 1983, quoted in Killing for Company.
12 R. D. Laing, The Divided Self, p. 27.
13 J.L.D., 7 Aug, 1991.
14 Camille Paglia, Sexual Personae, p. 4.
15 J.L.D., 11 Aug, 1991.
2 The Child
1 J.L.D., 10 Jan, 1992
.
2 J.L.D., 6 Aug, 1991.
3 J.L.D., 6 Aug, 1991.
4 Flora Rheta Schreiber, The Shoemaker, p. 43.
5 Erich Fromm, The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness, p. 313.
6 R. D. Laing, The Divided Self, p. 133.
7 J.L.D., 26 Aug, 1991.
8 J.L.D., 6 Aug, 1991.
9 J.L.D., 26 Aug, 1991.
10 J.L.D., 14 Aug, 1991.
11 A. Hyatt Williams, A Psycho-analytic Approach to the Treatment of the Murderer, read at the 21st Congress of the International Psycho-analytic Association in Copenhagen, Denmark, July, 1959.
3 The Fantasies
1 J.L.D., 14 Aug, 1991.
2 Francisco Goya, Preface to Los Caprichos, quoted by Anthony Storr in Human Destructiveness.
3 Wilhelm Stekel, Auto-erotism, p. 66.
4 Colin Wilson, Order of Assassins, p. 61.
5 J.L.D., 26 Aug, 1991.
6 J.L.D., 11 Aug, 1991.
7 J.L.D., 2 Aug, 1991.
8 J.L.D., 26 Aug, 1991.
9 J.L.D., 2 Aug, 1991.
10 J.L.D., 26 Aug, 1991.
11 J.L.D., 26 Aug, 1991.
4 The Struggle
1 J.L.D., 25 Aug, 1991.
2 The State of Wisconsin vs. Jeffrey L. Dahmer, Criminal Complaint 2-291231.
3 J.L.D., 25 Aug, 1991.
4 Wilhelm Stekel, Sexual Aberrations, p. 33.
5 Krafft-Ebing, Psychopathia Sexualis.
6 J.L.D., 26 Aug, 1991.
7 J.L.D., 13 Aug, 1991.
8 Camille Paglia, Sexual Personae.
9 Anthony Storr, Human Destructiveness, p. 21.
10 Abraham Maslow, Motivation and Personality.
11 Letter to Wisconsin Correctional Service, 3 Oct, 1986.
5 The Collapse
1 J.L.D., 2 Aug, 1991; 3 Aug, 1991; 26 Aug, 1991.
2 J.L.D., 26 Aug, 1991.
3 J.L.D. in conversation with Dr Park Dietz.
4 J.L.D., 26 Aug, 1991. He was reading Leviticus at the time of this interview.
5 J.L.D., 11, 14, 25 Aug, 1991.
6 Robert P. Brittain, ‘The Sadistic Murderer’, Medicine, Science and the Law, vol. 10, no. 4 (1970).
7 Herschel Prins, Bizarre Behaviours, p. 35.
8 Joel Norris, Serial Killers, pp. 264-5.
9 Stephen G. Michaud and Hugh Aynesworth, The Only Living Witness, p. 288.
10 Confessions, Book V.
11 Brian Masters, Killing for Company, pp. 166-8.
12 A. Hyatt Williams, ‘The Psychopathology and Treatment of Sexual Murderers’, in The Pathology and Treatment of Sexual Deviation, ed. Ismond Rosen.
13 Frederic Wertham, Dark Legend.
14 J.L.D., 2 Aug, 1991.
15 J.L.D., 3 Aug, 1991.
16 J.L.D., 11 Aug, 1991.
17 J.L.D., 26 Aug, 1991.
18 J.L.D., 7 Aug, 1991.
19 J.L.D., 26 Aug, 1991.
20 J.L.D., 25 Aug, 1991.
21 J.L.D. to Judge William Gardner, 10 Dec, 1989.
22 Dr Lionel Dahmer to Judge William Gardner, 1 Mar, 1990.
6 The Nightmare
1 J.L.D., 3 Aug, 1991.
2 Milwaukee County Court, 12 Feb, 1992.
3 J.L.D., 26 Aug, 1991.
4 J.L.D., 3 Aug, 1991.
5 J.L.D., 5 and 11 Aug, 1991.
6 J.L.D., 22 Aug, 1991.
7 J.L.D., 13 Aug, 1991.
8 J.L.D., 1, 11, 22, 23 Aug, 18 Nov, 1991.
9 J.L.D., 5 Aug, 1991.
10 Dahmer’s confession, pp. 151, 158, in Police Report 2472, Section 5.
11 J.L.D., 19 Sept, 1991.
12 J.L.D., 11 Oct, 1991.
13 J.L.D., 5 Aug, 1991. Dennis Nilsen said he felt ‘unclean’ when talking about his crimes. See Brian Masters, Killing for Company.
14 Erich Fromm, The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness, p. 455.
7 The Frenzy
1 Erich Fromm, The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness, p. 449.
2 J. P. de River, The Sexual Criminal.
3 H. von Hentig, Der Nekrotope Mensch, quoted in Erich Fromm, The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness.
4 Ibid., p. 451.
5 Ibid., p. 450.
6 Selwyn M. Smith and Claude Braun, ‘Necrophilia and Lust Murder: Report of a Rare Occurrence’, Bulletin of AALP, vol. VI, no. 3.
7 C. M. Eddy, Jnr, ‘The Loved Dead’, in Collected Ghost Stories, ed. August Derleth.
8 A. A. Brill, ‘Necrophilia’, Journal of Criminal Psychopathology, vols. 2 and 3 (1941).
9 J.L.D., 19 Sept, 1991.
10 J.L.D., 19 Sept, 1991.
11 J.L.D., 22 Aug, 1991.
12 J.L.D., 25 Aug, 1991.
13 J.L.D., 11 Oct, 1991.
14 J.L.D., 14 Aug, 1991.
15 J.L.D., 7 Aug, 1991.
16 J.L.D., 14 Aug, 1991.
17 J.L.D., 14 Aug, 1991.
8 The Question of Control
1 Joel Norris, Serial Killers, p. 265.
2 J.L.D., 13 Aug, 1991.
3 A. Hyatt Williams, ‘Murderousness’, in The Pathology and Treatment of Sexual Deviation, ed. Ismond Rosen, p. 99.
4 William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act III, Scene iv.
5 Neville Symington, ‘The Response Aroused by the Psychopath’, International Review of Psycho-analysis, vol. 7 (1980), p. 291.
6 Tim Clark and John Penycate, Psychopath: The Case of Patrick Mackay, p. 101.
7 G. E. Blom, ‘The Reactions of Hospitalized Children to Illness’, Pediatrics, vol. 22 (1958); H. T. Davenport and J. S. Werry, ‘The Effects of General Anaesthesia, Surgery, and Hospitalization upon the Behaviour of Children’, American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, vol. 40 (1970).
8 Ibid.
9 Gerald H. J. Pearson, ‘Effect of Operative Procedures on the Emotional Life of the Child’, American Journal of Diseases of Children.
10 D. M. Levy, ‘Psychic Trauma of Operations’, American Journal of Diseases of Children, vol. 69 (1945).
11 Quoted in New Yorker, 2 July, 1984.
12 Jack Levin and James Alan Fox, Mass Murder, p. 199.
13 Ibid., p. 208.
14 Quoted in New Yorker, 2 July, 1984.
15 American Bar Association’s submission to the Congressional Committee convened in the wake of the Hinckley trial.
16 American Psychiatric Association Statement on the Insanity Defense, Dec, 1982.
17 Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act III, Scene ii.
18 J.L.D., Aug 10, 11, 13, 14, 23, 25, 26, 1991; Sept 18, 1991; Nov 18, 1991; Jan 10, 1992.
9 The Trial
1 Frederic Wertham, Dark Legend.
2 Wilhelm Stekel, Peculiarities of Behaviour, vol. I, p. 10.
3 John Money, ‘Forensic Sexology: Paraphilic Serial Rape (Biastophilia) and Lust Murder (Erotophonophilia)’, American Journal of Psychotherapy, vol. XLIV, no. 1 (1990).
4 Wilhelm Stekel, Auto-erotism, p. 185; Sexual Aberrations, p. 348.
5 A. Hyatt Williams, ‘The Psychopathology and Treatment of Sexual Murderers’, in The Pathology and Treatment of Sexual Deviation, ed. Ismond Rosen (1964).
6 Wade Davis, The Serpent and the Rainbow (1986). See also a brief discussion in Herschel Prins, Bizarre Behaviours.
7 John Money, ‘Forensic Sexology’, American Journal of Psychotherapy.
10 The Shrine
1 G. Morris Carstairs, in The Pathology and Treatment of Sexual Deviation, ed. Ismond Rosen, p. 428.
2 Sigmund Freud, Collected Papers, vol. III, and Sylvia Anthony, The Child’s Discovery of Death, p. 149.
3 J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough, pp. 497-8.
4 J.L.D., 11 Aug, 1991.
5 Frazer, The Golden Bough.
6 Morton I. Teicher, ‘Windigo Psychosis’, International Journal of Parapsychology (1962).
7 J.L.D., 18 Nov, 1991.
8 Peter Shaffer, Equus, Act II, Scene 35.
9 J.L.D., 18 Nov, 1991.
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