Who Is Jeffrey Dahmer - Research Paper Example

Jeffery Dahmer Roll No: No: Jeffery Dahmer Jeffery Dahmer, a frightening criminal was the resident of Milkwaukee, United States of America by birth. He was accountable for killing 17 young men successively, related to Asia and Africa in origin. He was caught after 13 years of committing heinous crimes on July 22, 1991 from his place of residence (David, 1991). Certain incidents of his life are in line to shape his personality as a murderer, however, it cannot be stated as the reason to give anyone freehand to do what he was up to. This paper will analyze the character of Jeffery Dahmer as a murderer who was involved in doing illicit homosexual activities and finally killing and humiliating the corpses of his victims during his criminal life. According to his parents stated opinion, Dahmer was initially cool minded and also had group activities with his friends and classmates but after his surgery of hernia when he was only six years old, his personality as a whole showed a number of transformations. Hernia surgery of Dahmer can be categorized as the first incidence of Dahmer’s life that brought some mental problems in his life as he shifted from being a normal child to a child showing abnormal traits. (Davis, 1991). Later on, he moved from his residential place to Bath Ohio that added to his seclusion, as he has to leave all his mates. He started showing interest in school newspapers giving criminal stories. He also developed a taste for drinking (Masters, 1993). As a student, he was not good and showed little concern towards his studies. The harsh realities of life distracted his father and mother. Their disconnection added fuel to his negative personality and his father was unable to show proper concern towards a son who started as being negative as a teenager. His mother left him and his father had to move from one place to another place in connection with the business besides developing an illicit relationship with another woman. After separation from his mom, he felt himself more insecure and abandoned. His being left friendless and abandoned compelled him to walk on a path, which was not at all tolerable for a society where moral values and ethics matter (Masters, 1993). His activities were totally against the moral values of a society having a motto “Live and Let Live”. During his studies at Ohio State University, unlike a student-like attitude, Dahmer showed no interest in his studies and was involved in massive drinking habits. University administration took him to the task many times for his indifferent attitude but their actions failed to put him on the right track. Under his father’s pressurized persistence, Dahmer joined the Army for a period of six years in the year 1979. His father considered that by joining the force, he would be able to rectify his personality and personal problems but his habits of drinking were uncontrollable. He was unable to continue his profession in Army and got out within a period of two years only. (Davis, 1991). After being discharged from Army, he was so mentally disturbed that he got involved in more drinking and establishing illicit and illegal relationship with his friends. One such initial incident that took place in his life was with a 19 years old boy named Steven whom he invited to his father’s home to drink and to have sex with him. He drank frequently during the sexual intercourse. Dahmer’s first kill was this boy as he was hit hard on his head for his struggle to leave Dahmer. Dahmer not only killed the boy but also chopped up his body into many pieces and put the pieces in plastic bags and put in the wooden box around his father’s property. After a considerable period of time, he opened up the wooden box and smashed bones and head of Steven for placing in the forest. This shows that Dahmer was mentally not absent minded, as he knew that he had to hide what he had done wrong. His age was 18 years when he murdered mentioned boy (Davis, 1991). Jeffery Dahmer continued to live with grandmother for tenure of six years and in these six years, he got arrested on the charge of revealing himself publically and then for committing masturbation in public as a result of which, he got imprisoned for a term of 10 months. These incidents took place in the year 1982 and 1986 respectively. He was arrested twice for his indecent appearance in public. After completion of his terms in jail, he assaulted a teenager sexually and the police put him behind the bars for 5 years on the directives of the competent court of law (Masters, 1993). The killing binge did not end here. It ended up with the murders of 17 young boys after committing sex with them. He was not only murderer of a number of people but harsh sex offender as well. All the murders took place in Wisconsin and Milwaukee (Masters, 1993). The last man that could be victim of Dahmer, was Edward, whom he wooed to his bed room and forced him for sex. On his refusal, he handcuffed Edward with tight ropes. Edward sensing the danger on looking at pasted pictures of killed youngsters on the wall and smelling of human flesh, he punched Dahmer on his face and kicked him on his stomach to get himself free from the clutches of Dahmer. He was successful in getting himself free and ran from the house despite he was handcuffed at the back. He ran on the road to seek help of mobile police. Luckily, he sought police help, which led to the arrest of Dahmer on July 22, 1991. The police found human flesh, parts of body and skull in the Fridge reserved for this purpose. Many corpses were found in the chemical to dissolve. The gruesome murders, that took place during 3 years, become headline news in the print and electronic media around the world. The news of such type of murderer, reported in the Media, had opened the mouth of many Americans wide in wonder (Davis, 1991). The investigators indicted him for 17 murders excluding attempt to murder case of Edward. He regarded himself mentally ill due to which, he pleaded not guilty in the court. The hearing of trial court lasted for two weeks. His case was proved with evidence and the trial court found him guilty. He was given 957 years of imprisonment. While spending his terms, in Correctional Institute Columbia where inmate prisoners attempted him twice to claim his life. In the initial attempt, he narrowly escaped from the injuries. However, the second attempt on his life and the friend of his life proved injurious. He died instantly. However, his friend Anderson died two days after his death due to head injuries (Masters, 1993). His murder made everyone happy except mother Joyce. His apartment located at 924 North, 25th street razed to the ground. However, plan to establish memorial garden on the vacant place could not be materialized due to public anger (Davis, 1991). An expert on human psychology of serial killers stated that we could not predict such sort of prediction ahead of time. Dahmer felt insecure and uprooted when his mother left him for good at the mercy of his father. Blaming parent on the misdeed of children would be wrong notion. Sigmund Freud the father of psychology was of the opinion that blaming everything bad thing done by would be unjustifiable. In the case under study, the culprit is Dahmer, neither his father nor his family members and the police. His fantasies were beyond his control. Had he been controlled his fantasies the situation would have been different (Pincus, 2002). The most serial killers took a little pause once the victim dies. Before killing the victim or victims, they tied them with ropes and make their escape impossible from the crime scene. They love if victims were crying for their lives. By this attitude, they seek pleasure and feel proud of their dominance over the helplessness of victims. The captor fun fare gained momentum when the victim died. This empowers him to lead a life full of fantasies, mixed of hatred and neglect. They translated their anger by killing the youngsters after raping teenaged female and perform act of sodomy to a young adult male (Pincus, 2002). This thought has been endorsed by Mr. Gale by saying that Dahmer’s perception that choosing too young a victim he did wrong and engulfed with problems. He appeared to be cooperative and more responsive. Below the surface indicates deep rooted anger. This uncontrollable deep rooted psychological problems, made him incapable to deal with. While in prison, another psychologist who examined Dahmer was found him a person having many faces in terms of manipulation, resistant and evasiveness. They all recommended him for hospitalization in order to have a better treatment. Dahmer was of the opinion that all his ills attributable to the habit of drinking alcohol. He admitted in his defense plea that what I had done was very serious which I had never been done in the normal circumstances (Davis, 1991). Ted Bundy, Carlton Gary and John, serial killers are the identical examples of Dahmer, serial killers who were found to be intelligent. The majority of serial killers had a distasteful taste of their broken houses. They were born and brought up in an ideal environment. Impairment in their personality started when their mother and father separated. They left alone by their parent. Nobody was there to take care of themselves. They felt themselves dejected and deprived. This had made them uncommunicative and unsocial (Pincus, 2002). They kept themselves aloof and made a distance with the people. They did not mingle up living around their place of residence. It is easy to understand his behavior rather than his modalities to be applied. Modalities can be changed by a killer Abuse or emotional isolation in childhood is the key factors of becoming serial killers. One such example is the mother of Henry, whose prostitute mother beating him for years and forcing him to witness her, having sex with other sex, who would be violent during intercourse. The case under discussion is an ample example of child hood indecent behavior and frustration. However, this cannot be taken for granted in all cases meeting the same fate as mentioned above. In many cases, however loss of parent or parental rejection counts in many ways (Pincus, 2002). Expert Biologist describes the formation of a person’s personality in which a persons has two segments of life. One is the fantasy of life where a child has complete control and the other one is the real world. The child is emotionally isolated with his or her fantasies. Under the mentioned scenario, Professor Hickey considers it trauma control model of a serial killer. Head injury and brain pathology as the case may be an earlier indication of would be offender who responds to trauma in the initial years. The negative way of having low self-esteem amounts to increasing violent fantasies. This is attributable to the experiences and feelings of a victimized person arising out from the past events. The offender then finds shelter in alcohol, drugs and seeking pleasure in pornography. At last, he commits murder after having sexual intercourse on a creature or creatures easy to access in order to regain control over them. The serial killer and sex offender Jeffrey Dahmer went to the bars located in the vicinity of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He picked up young men of Asian or African origin. He wooed them by posing himself a photographer of repute and brought them to his apartment with an offer of money to become his model. He would then dilute drugs in their drinks to fall prey his victims. It was the technique of Dahmer to entrap his victim. Modalities include selection of victim, criminal methods to overpower his victim, tools to be used, exact time and location where the crime carried out (Pincus, 2002). The first profiler on behavioral science at Federal Bureau of Investigation is of the view that the killers signature and sex offender with a better technique. However, the emotional reason for committing a crime does not change. The murder’s signature indicates the sadistic sexual satisfaction and control of living with victim bodies. In many cases, he found performing rude behavior such as engaging in sex with dead bodies, cutting up victim’s sensitive parts of body like heart, pulling muscles from the bones of victims for putting it on his own shoulders, painting the skulls for placing on his bed, and storing one victims head in the refrigerator (Pincus, 2002). A thorough study of the case under review and the cases of similar serial killers and sex offenders as identified above revealed that the persons in question were the fit cases of separation, neglect, deprivation and lack of care as a result of broken houses. These factors had pushed the inmates of cited houses fall prey in moral turpitude (Pincus, 2002). References Davis, Donald. (1991). The Jeffrey Dahmer Story: An American Nightmare (previously published as: The Milwaukee Murders, Nightmare in Apartment 213: The True Story). London: Macmillan. Masters, Brian. (1993). The Shrine of Jeffrey Dahmer. London: Hodder and Stoughton Limited. Pincus, Jonathan H. (2002). Base Instincts — What Makes Killers kill?. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. Read More