Offender Profiling – Jeffrey Dahmer

Updated 05 March 2020

Introduction
Jeffrey Dahmer was an American serial killer and sex offender, who preyed on boys and men he picked up as hitch hikers or in bars. Starting his attacks in 1978, Dahmer’s victims numbered 17 until 1991, when he was arrested by local police who were initially conducting an inquiry regarding threats he’d made to kill 25 year old Tracy Edwards (History, 2009).

Dahmer’s victims were reportedly raped and dismembered. He was also said to engage in necrophilia and cannibalism (Masters, 1993), although in almost all cases, he would engage in sexual activity before their lives ended.

On 15 February 1992, Dahmer was indicted on 15 of the 17 murders and sentenced to 15 consecutive terms of life imprisonment (Masters, 1993) equating to a total of 957 years in prison (Bardsley, 2008). Three months later, he was extradited to Ohio to face a count of murder for his first victim. In a court hearing that lasted 45 minutes, he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a 16th term of life imprisonment (Dahmer, 1994).

Two and a half years later, Dahmer was attacked by a fellow inmate whilst working in the shower blocks. Suffering severe head trauma and facial wounds, he was rushed to hospital but died on the way (TIME, 1994). His brain was initially kept for research and preserved in formaldehyde at the request of his mother, whilst his father wanted it to be cremated (Palin, 2017). A judge ruled in favour of his father and the ashes were split between both parents.

The purpose of this essay is to examine the psychological theories that may have contributed to Dahmer’s killing spree. By examining his life history from the course of his childhood to the time he was apprehended as an adult, it is possible to identify psychological theories that made him who he was. It is difficult to form a concrete analysis due to the conflicting information regarding his childhood and family upbringing.

It is possible that most people experience at least one of the traits in the psychological disorders forthcoming, without any formally diagnosis. Although in this case, having committed such heinous crimes, attributing psychological disorders to Dahmer may help us to understand his motives and behaviour.

Childhood
Dahmer was was reported to have experienced some significant events that influenced his later behaviour. His mother Joyce suffered from an unspecified mental illness, which saw her hospitalised on two occasions (Navin, 2019) and addicted to anti-anxiety drugs. Dahmer’s parents had a difficult marriage, dotted with regular fighting (Janos, 2019) before they divorced just after Dahmer’s 18^th birthday.  Growing up, Dahmer was said to have felt neglected, particularly due to the lack of attention received from either parent. This was made worse following the birth of his brother David (Martens, 2005: 300) when he was six.

At the age of four, Dahmer underwent surgery for a double hernia in his scrotum (Navin, 2019), although some reports state he was six years old (Bardsley, 2008). Either way, the experience was said to have left him emotionally scarred, something he never recovered from (10894, n.d.). His personality changed from friendly and outgoing, to shy and lacking self-confidence.

Before the age of eight, Dahmer’s family had moved three times. Perhaps it was around this time that Dahmer experienced increasing difficulty in maintaining social relationships. As a result, he reportedly felt outcasted from his peers and was described as “odd and bizarre” (Martens, 2005: 300).

Early traits of being withdrawn and uncommunicative began to reveal themselves further by the age of ten (Dahmer, 1994:76). This led him to engage in heavy drinking from the age of 13 (Jeffrey Dahmer, n.d.) and Dahmer was said to be an alcoholic by the time he graduated from highschool (Dahmer, 1994:82). “There is good evidence that most serious, persistent delinquency and crime patterns usually begin early and worsen with age” (Barton et al, 2011: 147). Dahmer was incapable of developing his limited social skills and feelings for others. Compounded with his impulsive behaviour, it led to his violent and sexual offending.

Dahmer would ride around the neighbourhood with a plastic bag, searching for deceased animals and road kill (Jeffrey Dahmer, n.d.) for his own personal cemetery (10894, n.d.). Stripping off the animal’s flesh, he would preserve the bones with bleach and on occasions, placed their head on a stake (Dahmer, 1994:80).

Early Adulthood
At the age of 17, Dahmer “entertained violent necrophilia, sexual fantasies, characterised by total, lustful control of another person, brought about by social and emotional frustrations and loneliness” (Martens, 2005: 300). These feelings were intensified after he stole a manequin from a shop window. He would lie in bed with it when his parents weren’t home, which helped him realise his homosexual fantasies.

A year later when Dahmer’s parents divorced, his mother and brother moved out of the family home. This exacerbated his depression and reliance on alcohol, which helped him subdue the lingering pangs of loneliness and isolation (Bardsley, 2008). He reported feeling emotionally empty.

Three weeks after his graduation in 1978, Dahmer picked up a 19 year old hitchhiker and invited him back to his home to drink beer. A few hours later when the man went to leave, he suffered a blow to the back of his head with a dumbbell, knocking him unconscious. Dahmer feared the idea of being abandoned and subsequently strangled him to death. The next day, Dahmer dissected the man in his basement before burying the remains in the backyard.

At the age of 23, whilst working at the Milwaukee Blood Centre, Dahmer took home a vile of blood and drank it (Jeffrey Dahmer, n.d.) He would also occasionally eat body parts (Turvey, 2010: 118), which enabled him to commemorate and preserve the presence of his victims “to keep them forever” (Suberize, 2011).

Criminal psychopaths have been described as “dominant, manipulative individuals characterised by an impulsive, risk-taking and antisocial lifestyle” (Porter et al, 2000: 220), obtaining their greatest thrill when engaging in sexual gratification. Dahmer’s crimes were sadistic and brutal, provoked by intoxication from his alcoholism, which is often seen as a trigger behind the violence perpetrated by criminal psychopaths (Barton et al, 2011: 179).

Continuous Offending
“The motives of many serial killers appear to be based in particular on some combination of psychological rewards” (Barton et al, 2011: 304), such as sexual excitement. This tends to place a higher value over something like material gain. Killing and sexually entertaining his fantasies, supplemented Dahmer’s lack of social acceptance and at the same time, the urges to continue this excitement. It motivated him to continue attacking his male victims to fulfil his emotional needs. Research examining the relationship between the effects of loneliness and sexual offending, tend to show strong links (Martens, 2005: 299), with intimacy proving to be the most important deficit (Seidman, 1994).

Dahmer was considered a careful killer, due to high levels of self-confidence and his tendency to plan every element of his killings, including rehearsing his dialogue and actions (Boal, 2006: 171). The trophies he kept including photographs of his victims to remember their appearance, as well as six of their skulls. Dahmer was said to relish the submissiveness of his victims, which he experienced as a result of drilling holes into their brains to inject acid into it, to liquefying their brain matter  (Martens, 2005: 301). He yearned for total control over them (Masters, 1993).

Psychological Theories
Dahmer was believed to have suffered from a borderline personality disorder (Suberize, 2011), which is described as a serious psychiatric illness consisting of a number of traits. These include, “a pervasive pattern of affective instability, severe difficulties in interpersonal relationships, problems with behavioural or impulse control  (including suicidal behaviours) and disrupted cognitive processes” (National Education Alliance, 2011).

With low self-esteem experienced for most of his childhood, Dahmer was unable to appropriately socialise with his classmates. This can be identified as an identity disturbance, another characteristic of the borderline personality disorder and tends to be associated with an unstable self-image. Dahmer also expressed feeling a chronic emptiness, which started soon after his operation for the double hernia. A feeling that never dissipated.

His fear of rejection and loneliness was compensated by corpses that couldn’t leave him or reject his advances (Suberize, 2011). Sadism is defined as behaviour “intentionally inflicted on a living, conscious victim for the purpose of achieving sexual gratification” (Turvey, 2010: 596). Although many reports stated Dahmer engaged in continuous necrophilia after intoxicating and strangling his victims, it’s believed he had sexual intercourse with them before they were completed deceased.

Antisocial behaviour is characterised by those who disregard and violate the rights of others, which usually begins in childhood or adolescence and well into adulthood (Turvey, 2010: 172). Dahmer engaged in violent and sexual activity, with whoever he chose as a victim. He enjoyed the power and control he wielded over them and continued this by consuming parts of their body to preserve their presence, particularly their hearts, biceps, livers or the fleshy parts of their legs (Clingan, 2018). Dahmer did not consider, let alone care, about the impact his actions would have on other people, particularly his victims. He was consumed with fulfilling his personal needs for selfish gratification.

Dahmer would retain their heads and bodies for months at a time, continuously photographing the corpses, despite the rapid stench. This could be interpreted as an indication of Dahmer enjoying the power and control he held over the victims, made worse with the so-called shrine he retained in his home.

It is difficult for society to understand the sadism involved in these brutal and violent murders, let alone how and what a person can gain from committing such heinous crimes.

It has been suggested that Dahmer also suffered from Asperger’s Disorder (Suberize, 2011), which is also known as Pervasive Developmental Disorder. This is characterised by “social isolation and eccentric behaviour in childhood” (Aspergers, 2010). After Dahmer’s father cleaned out the small rodents from under the house, it appears this may have sparked Dahmer’s fascination with dead animals. Together with his father, he learned to bleach “the connective tissue and the hair off rodents corpses” (Janos, 2019). Dahmer was left with a pail full of bones, which was likened to a personalised rattle. His family would call them his ‘fiddlesticks’. Some years later, he started riding around the neighbourhood to collect road kill.

Another trait of this disorder is delays in communication (Pervasive Developmental Disorder, 2011), which includes in Dahmer’s case, lack of eye contact and facial expressions (Suberize, 2011).

Serial killers and sexual psychopaths are rare but it’s believed there must be something wrong with them. They are insane. After pleading guilty to all 15 counts of first-degree murder, Dahmer maintained a defence of insanity (Dahmer, 1994). A trial took place to determine his potential diminished responsibility, despite Dahmer previously being diagnosed with a “personality disorder, schizotypal personal disorder and a psychotic disorder” (Clingan, 2018). Two weeks later, the jury returned a verdict on all counts that he was sane and wasn’t suffering from a mental disease. He was sentenced to 15 terms of life imprisonment, as the death penalty had been abolished in Wisconsin in 1853 (Bardsley, 2008)

Information again tends to differ, depending on what source is relied on. Some scholars argued that a variety of mental illnesses and psychiatric conditions were present at the times Dahmer offended, whilst others contend he was of a sound mind. A person capable of killing as a matter of choice.

Just like his childhood, which tends to be reported with conflicting information. Some describe his childhood as marked with a number of difficult experiences whilst others disagree, believing he was a normal, healthy child who just happened to take the wrong path in life.

There are many reports detailing Dahmer communication issues starting from an early age, particularly in social environments. It appeared to play with his emotions, setting in concrete a feeling of being a constant loner. Some psychopaths have been documented as having clear communication and social skills, complete with superficial charm and intelligence. This conflicts Dahmer’s personality in many ways.

The onset of his fascination with deceased animals should have sparked a concern for any parent. His collection of road kill, maiming the animals to investigate their bones and internal structures and even placing their heads on a stake, should have rang enough alarm bells to warrant some form of early intervention. Perhaps no one paid Dahmer any interest or notice.

Conclusion
It is difficult to diagnose a definite psychological disorder when relying on conflicting information and reports of his past behaviour and childhood experiences.

The borderline personality disorder appears to play a very important psychological role in understanding Dahmer’s emotional and mental stability. For a large part of his crime spree, instability as a key trait of this disorder could explain why Dahmer infrequently murdered a victim, only gravitating towards a high victim count towards the end. His lack of experience with interpersonal relationships meant he could substitute his intimate desires with corpses until he was satisfied.

References
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Janos, Adam. (2019). Jeffrey Dahmer’s Childhood: A Pail of Animal Bones Was His Toy Rattle. Retrieved from the A&E TV Real Crime Web site: https://www.aetv.com/real-crime/jeffrey-dahmer-childhood-serial-killer-cannibal-bones

Jeffrey Dahmer. [n.d.] Retrieved from the Radford University Web site: http://maamodt.asp.radford.edu/Psyc%20405/serial%20killers/Dahmer,%20Jeff.htm

Martens, W. H. J. (2005). Loneliness and Associated Violent Antisocial Behaviour: analysis of the case reports of Jeffrey Dahmer and Dennis Nilsen. International Journal of offender therapy and comparative criminology. 49(3), p. 298.

Masters, B. (1993). The Shrine of Jeffrey Dahmer. London: Hodder & Stoughton.

Navin, S. (2019). Jeffrey Dahmer: True Crime Background. Retrieved from the Serial Killers in Film Web site: https://scalar.usc.edu/works/serial-killers-in-film/jeffrey-dahmer

Palin, M (2017). When Killers Die ‘We Store Their Brains’. Retrieved from The Morning Bulletin Web site: https://www.themorningbulletin.com.au/news/what-happens-to-the-bodies-of-serial-killers/3280927/

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Suberize. (2011). A Breakdown of the Forensic Psychology of Serial Killer Jeffrey Dahmer. Retrieved from the Suberize Web Site: http://www.suberize.com/2011/09/breakdown-of-forensic-psychology-of-jeffrey-dahmer/ (UNAVAILABLE!)

TIME (1994) Dahmer Killer Charged. Retrieved from the TIME Web site: http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2606,00.html

Turvey, B. (2010). Criminal Profiling: an introduction to behavioural evidence analysis. London: Academic Press.