Serial Killer's Soul

by Herman Martin

  At 11 a.m., officers brought our mail. Stacks of mail, all for Dahmer, filled one entire table in the cafeteria.

  At 11:30 a.m., lunch was served. Jeff ate everything on his tray.

  After lunch, the psychologist came to talk to Dahmer. He told him that they’d be setting up a regular weekly visit.

  Between noon and 2:30 p.m., inmates received items they had ordered from the prison store. When you’re in Desegregation Unit 2, you can only order items from the canteen on Fridays, and since Dahmer came to the unit on Monday, he had to wait all week for that privilege.

  We watched TV for the rest of the afternoon, with the exception of Dahmer, who wasn’t allowed any electronics. In this unit, the only hope you had of leaving your cell during the day was if you had a scheduled appointment or a visitor.

  There was the usual security shift change at 2:30 p.m., the 4 p.m. inmates’ standing count, followed by supper. While collecting the supper trays, an officer brought Dahmer his medication. Once again, I saw that Dahmer had eaten everything on his tray. The man had an appetite. I, on the other hand, did not. I couldn’t bring myself to eat much. A lot was going through my mind and my appetite suffered.

  At 8 p.m. an officer brought requested supplies to the tier. He also collected any letters the inmates needed mailed. At 9 p.m. there was another standing count.

  That night when things were quiet, I decided to ask Dahmer more questions. There was just so much I wanted to know and I couldn’t help but ask him. There were many things about him I actually understood, like compulsion, anger, and addiction. I understood fear, hate, and desire. I knew there were similarities between us, similarities between all the inmates here. Every inmate, in my opinion, gave in to our desires; we all had a general lack of self restraint. But there were so many other things he did that were beyond my level of comprehension. Things he did were downright disturbing and gruesome and criminal, even from a criminal’s standpoint.

  It wasn’t that I just wanted to pick his brain and ask about his crimes or try to examine his psyche. I also wanted to ask him about other things, like his interests and hobbies and all of the other things that make us “human.”

  And, of course, I wanted to talk more about the scriptures and see if I could bring more of the word of God into his life. If Jeff saw and understood God, I believed it would change him. He could let go of his hate and his fear and open himself up to love and forgiveness.

  That night, I asked Jeff about his interests. He told me he liked cars and traveling. He said he loved sports and his favorite sports teams were the Green Bay Packers for football, the Milwaukee Bucks for basketball, and the Milwaukee Admirals for hockey. He also said he enjoyed drinking Ole English 100 in fortyounce bottles. He was open about the fact that he really liked smoking pot and drinking.

  I wanted to avoid sounding like an interrogator, so I asked all my questions calmly and casually. I let my general curiosity flavor the questions because I knew he would “hear” it in my tone. Finally, I asked, “Why did you take photographs of your mutilated and dismembered victims?”

  Jeffrey answered in an equally casual tone, as if we were talking about pictures of sunsets or family vacations. “Like I said before, I like to look at pornographic pictures to get myself aroused. Then I’d want to hurt someone and victims weren’t readily available, but I always had pictures of my previous victims to get off with. I was mystified by the look a person got in their eyes when they knew they were going to die.”

  The statement confused me. Dahmer testified in court that he drugged all his victims and they were unconscious when he killed them. If they were drugged, would they be coherent enough to feel the fear associated with knowing death was looming? I had an urge to ask, but I didn’t feel like going into that subject anymore with him.

  I was suddenly glad there was a thick cement wall separating us. My relationship with Dahmer, if you can call it that at this point, was confusing. I was obsessed with curiosity surrounding who he was and how he could do the vile things he did. Conversely, picturing him hovering over his victims, aroused by his own acts, and watching them die, disgusted me.

  Jeff continued, making sure to pepper his statements with some racist comment here or there to provoke the other inmates, “The pictures of the dead bodies were my tokens to prove that I did attempt to rid this earth of niggers, gooks, and spicks. I did my best.”

  No Jeff, I said to myself, you took those pictures because you’re insane. At that time, I believed he truly was insane. He had to be insane. What kind of sane person would do those things?

  Now, when I look back on our conversations and letters and everything I read about him, I don’t believe he was insane at all. I’m sure there was a sickness of some sort in his brain, but he wasn’t insane. Jeff knew exactly what he was doing and he knew it was wrong. He just didn’t care. He also didn’t understand the power of God’s forgiveness and that he could have started his life over at any time, if he had just turned his life over to God.

  The questions burned on my tongue now. “Why did you photograph the men and boys nude before you killed them or performed the various sex acts?” I asked.

  Dahmer’s voice was flat and matter of fact. “I used the photographs as a personal means of sexual enticement, just as any straight man would want pictures of females. I’d get completely aroused by them.”

  I assumed that Jeff had heard that type of question a lot since his arrest, so he was probably used to answering it. It bothered me that he didn’t seem remorseful whatsoever about his crimes. It was as if he had no emotional connection to what he had done, he was completely removed from any sort of empathy for the lives he stole and the families he’d destroyed.

  I decided to change the topic to something more helpful to Jeff and more important to my final hope for him, so I asked him, “Did you know Satan is a liar and a murderer? He wants to kill us, to deceive us, and he whispers false witness to us. Satan causes us to make bad decisions. Satan destroys our power to witness to God. He makes us ineffective Christians while putting us in bondage.”

  I felt excited as I said it, as though God was there helping me find the right words, giving me courage and strength. I thought about Levy and how he must have felt when he was teaching me about God and forgiveness.

  Jeff was quiet, but I knew he was listening, so I continued. “Demons are fallen angels who joined forces with Satan. They’re full of misfortune. They are nothing more than creatures that follow a merciless master with no purpose. They have no place to call home and therefore just wander the earth trying to get us into trouble. Demons are everywhere, Jeff, tempting us every day. We have to fight their temptations.”

  Then Jeff spoke up, but quietly this time, almost as if he wasn’t even talking to me, but to himself. “Man, why are you preaching to me? Why do you care whether or not I know about this stuff? What difference does it make to you or to me?”

  I could tell that Jeff was trying to say that he thought his soul was lost … a lost cause. He probably believed that men like him didn’t deserve heaven and definitely wouldn’t end up going to heaven. Jeff probably thought no one cared about him now.

  “Jeff,” I answered, “although I haven’t been a Christian for long and I don’t know everything there is to know about how to be a good Christian, I do know that it is important to help people, to find the good in others and help them see that goodness inside of them. What I’ve learned about God is that He is forgiving and loving, even when men go astray. As long as you believe and turn to God, He has the power to save any man. Learning about our Lord has changed my life and made me into a better person, and I think that if you learn and see, He can help you, too.”

  Jeff and I remained silent for awhile. I wanted Jeff to know that I cared about his soul, that I wasn’t just there to question the horrible crimes he committed or try to find some grand epiphany to explain his actions. I wanted him to know that I could help him find the good person hidden inside of him. I prayed for a momen
t, asking God to give me strength.

  Finally, I asked Jeff to open his Bible and read Luke 11:24-26 and Mark 5:10-13. I waited. I knew he hadn’t moved, and for a moment, I thought he was ignoring me. Then I heard him search for his Bible. He opened it and began slowly flipping through the wispy pages. I smiled to myself. I wanted him to read about how the demons in this world can possess men and women, and how they can even inhabit other living things. I believed Satan possessed Jeff and just never let him go.

  When a demon is cast out of a man, it goes to the deserts, searching there for rest; but finding none, it returns to the person it left, and finds that its former home is all swept and clean. Then it goes and gets seven other demons more evil than itself, and they all enter the man. And so the poor fellow is seven times worse off than he was before. (Luke 11:24-26, TLB)

  Then the demons begged him again and again not to send them to some distant land. Now as it happened there was a huge herd of hogs rooting around on the hill above the lake. “Send us into those hogs,” the demons begged. And Jesus gave them permission. Then the evil spirits came out of the man and entered the hogs, and the entire herd plunged down the steep hillside into the lake and drowned. (Mark 5:10-13, TLB)

  Jeff and I continued to talk through the vents in our cells. We talked late into the evening. Finally, I still had some letters to write, I said good night.

  I prayed for his soul again before drifting off to sleep and I hoped he was thinking about those demons that had entered his heart, mind, and soul.

  I wondered if Jeff understood what I had told him or any of the scriptures I’d read or asked him to read. More so, I wondered if he even cared.

  During the next few days, as our conversations continued, it was more evident to me that Dahmer’s personality was weak. He was easily intimidated and fear seemed to fill his soul.

  Although protected in his cell, I could tell the other inmates seemed daunting to him, especially the ones who were so radical in the way they ridiculed and swore at him. His fear seemed to frustrate him. Many times daily, especially when they were passing by his cell, inmates would threaten him or spit on his window. They never let up.

  I could easily imagine that Jeff hated every minute of their jeers and threats, although most of the time he didn’t say a word. As the days passed, his anxiety grew and so did his anger. I tried to convince the other inmates to let up so Jeff would know I was someone he could talk to and trust. More than anything, I wanted him to listen when I spoke about the word of God and how Jesus Christ provides the answers to all our problems.

  I prayed that his tortured soul would find peace in the knowledge that Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins … for all of our sins, even his.

  Thirteen

  Is Your Soul Dead?

  “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to have you, to sift you like wheat, but I have pleaded in prayer for you that your faith should not completely fail. So when you have repented and turned to me again, strengthen and build up the faith of your brothers.” Simon said, “Lord, I am ready to go to jail with you, and even to die with you.” (Luke 22:31-33, TLB)

  Wednesday, March 4, 1992.

  We were still on lockdown. Some inmates on our tier had ninety minutes of recreation three times a week. Dahmer, however, had to remain in his cell. I could have gone to recreation that day but didn’t want to.

  As the inmates returned, they slowed at Dahmer’s cell and it was the same old thing–abusive, threatening language hurled at him. I don’t know how Jeff could stand it every day. Abusive words filled with hate were something I couldn’t tolerate, regardless if they were aimed at me or at someone else.

  Mail call at 11 a.m. was more of the same, hundreds of letters for Dahmer. Since he could only have twenty-five in his cell at a time, he probably only saw one-tenth of his mail. Officers let him scan the envelopes and choose those he wanted to read.

  At noon, I heard an officer talking to Jeff about his mail.

  “Who writes to you, anyway?” I asked after the officer left, thinking about the piles of letters that went unopened.

  “Various people from all over the country,” he replied. “I get a lot of mail from people in Canada, Germany, Great Britain, and Africa, too.”

  “Do they ask you questions?”

  “They ask me things like, ‘How did you cook the human flesh?’ and ‘Did you use any seasoning?’” he said, amused. “Some also tell me they think I got a raw deal. Some ask about prison, ‘What’s in your cell?’ and others merely want my autograph.

  “I get a lot of mail from white-supremacist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, the Aryan Brotherhood, and the Skinheads. I also get letters from women who send me their pictures. Some of them ask me to marry them from prison. Can you believe that? I don’t even bother to answer most letters.”

  I began wondering if Jeff thought he was a normal, sane person. Did he realize that he had a problem? At the time, I knew my answer to that question, but I wondered what he thought.

  I asked Jeff, point-blank, “Do you think you’re suffering from a mental illness?”

  “I’m just as sane as the next person,” he casually responded. “I knew exactly what I was doing then and now.”

  “But why did you do it, do all of it?” I asked, speaking about the murders. What Jeff did went beyond just killing people; it was ritualistic, sadistic, and more than strange.

  He didn’t respond.

  Remembering what he had said on a previous day, about how he didn’t understand why I was talking to him about God, I asked, “Do you think your soul is dead?”

  Jeff remained silent. Perhaps he was really thinking about what I had asked. Finally, he said, “After my first killing in Ohio, I started drinking heavily. I knew then that my spiritual soul had died. At times, I felt nothing. At other times I felt like a time bomb of destruction.”

  I didn’t know what to say. Jeff, no doubt, suffered from so much pain that he couldn’t understand it, deal with it, rationalize it, or likely even feel it. It was as if he had gone numb and empty, pushing God, and good, out and letting Satan in.

  At 4:30 p.m., we had supper. After each meal when officers collected the trays, they gave Dahmer his medication as usual. He always had to open his mouth, showing the officer he swallowed the pills.

  After supper, we could shower, but Jeff declined. I think he was still afraid of the other prisoners. He didn’t want to give them any additional opportunity to berate him.

  As I passed his cell, I saw that he was reading his letters with his glasses on, animatedly chewing gum. Reading letters and chewing gum … that was the extent of his life in prison. At least the letters gave him something to do, but they probably didn’t make him feel any better. I’m sure they only reminded him of the awful things he had done. Of course, there’s a good chance that he liked being reminded about what he had done.

  I remember thinking about my own situation. Sometimes I’d get depressed and brood about how I could be in prison for ten years and how dark and dismal my future looked. Then I’d think about Jeff’s situation–his crimes and fifteen consecutive life sentences with no hope of parole, ever. When I compared his life to mine, I always felt better.

  During and after showers that night, the inmates started again with their threats and jokes. Jeff never said a word in response to them. His silence made the guys mad, so they’d yell angry, vile curse words.

  Jeff still didn’t respond.

  When things finally got quiet that night, Jeff and I again talked through the air vents.

  I asked Jeff why he decorated the bedroom wall in his apartment with skeleton drawings and photos.

  “Well, I couldn’t exactly have the full skeletons of my victims hanging around,” he said, “so I had pictures. I’d fantasize that the pictures were pictures of all my victims. I’d look at them and masturbate.”

  My disbelief never seemed to wear off; I couldn’t get used to his answers. His new responses shocked me just as much as the ones prio
r. He didn’t have any remorse at all; nothing in his words suggested that he felt what he did was wrong.

  As usual, I didn’t let my shock stop my curiosity. I asked him about eating human flesh. He said he really only did that one time. He told me how he ate part of the biceps of one of his victims. He had tried to eat it raw at first. “It had a rough, salty taste and it wasn’t very pleasing because it was tough. Cooked, it was better.”

  That comment made me sick. I tried not to get visuals in my head about all the things Jeff told me, but it was sometimes unavoidable. As our time together continued, I still had no appetite. Many times food, especially meat, looked really unappetizing. I made a mental note never to ask Jeff questions about his crimes around mealtime.

  Once again I told Jeff to read the ninth chapter of Matthew, about how Jesus delivered the people of the country of the Gadarenes who were possessed by devils. I had just told him to read that same verse the day before but I wanted him to read it again because I felt it was something important that Dahmer should read, remember, and try to understand.

  A herd of pigs was feeding in the distance, so the demons begged, “If you cast us out, send us into that herd of pigs.” “All right,” Jesus told them. “Begone.” And they came out of the men and entered the pigs, and the whole herd rushed over a cliff and drowned in the water below. (Matthew 9:30-32, TLB)

  Then I told him that the Bible said that demons are organized into a body of people, classified according to rank or authority, like a military command.

  There were times during our conversations that Jeff told me he did accept the Lord as his savior. I wanted to believe him, but I just wasn’t sure if he understood the power of God’s love and forgiveness. I wondered if Jeff really believed he could be forgiven for his sins.

  That night, after sitting and thinking for quite awhile, I wrote Jeff a letter. I tried to get my feelings about his soul and his need for redemption on paper. I believed I could organize my thoughts more clearly and explain it better on paper than I could while standing on a sink, talking through air vents.