Reading Blog Due Monday 1/23 @ midnight

Jeffery Dahmer was a disgusting human being in my opinion. In this chapter, I learned a lot more than I originally knew about him. I learned that he started killing men when he was seventeen, and that he continued killing, drugging, raping, and even sometimes eating his victims. I didn’t know that Jeffery Dahmer was struggling with his homosexuality, and I feel like that is one of the reasons that he started killing. One situation that I found shocking was when the police didn’t take more action when the neighbors called about the little boy who ran out of his house. They could have at least examined the smell. The police have the right to search property if they had reasonable suspicion. If they thought they smelled a decaying body than they had the right to check. I found this chapter hard to read at times because it is hard to imagine someone drilling holes into people’s skulls and pouring chemicals into them. I also found myself getting angry at the people who didn’t do more to try to find out what was happening with Dahmer. When reading this I was agreeing with the psychologists who thought that he wasn’t insane. I think that he knew what he was doing, and that it was wrong.

A lot of psychological aspects are used in Jeffery Dahmer’s case. One of the major aspects would be social psychology. I think that is the major one because of the fact that one of the major reasons he was committing these crimes was to have someone around. He was trying to turn his victims into zombies so that he would have friends. I would say that he had a personality disorder because of the fact that in his childhood he had issues with himself because he was gay. Also when his parents got divorced he really went off the deep end and committed his first murder and became an alcoholic. Clinical Psychology was used throughout all his trials to find out if he was insane or mentally ill. It seemed that half the psychologist believed he was insane while the other half didn’t think he was insane.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=onQxAAAAIBAJ&sjid=yRIEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3361,5923&dq=jeffrey+dahmer&hl=en

This article is about Jeffrey Dahmer saying that he has never been sexually assaulted as a child. Dahmer’s father believed that he had been sexually assaulted at age 8 by a neighbor, but Dahmer never admitted that it did happen.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=p3QxAAAAIBAJ&sjid=yRIEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3571,1231753&dq=jeffrey+dahmer&hl=en

This article is about twelve of Dahmer’s victims. This article is pretty cool because of the fact that it explains how they met, what they did, and what he did to their bodies. It is hard to believe that that many people would go willingly with a man. Some to take pictures others for sex.

http://www.nytimes.com/1994/11/29/us/jeffrey-dahmer-multiple-killer-is-bludgeoned-to-death-in-prison.html

This article is about the death of Jeffery Dahmer and how he was found. It also talks about how now his family has to go through the same feelings he caused other families to feel.

This chapter outlines the basis of Jeffrey Dahmer’s life from his childhood through death in prison and all of the crimes and trial in between. Dahmer was suspect to have been a victim of sexual assault as a child, though whether or not it actually happened is unclear. Dahmer exhibited traits as a child that are characteristic of many serial killers, such as starting fires and being cruel to animals. His first kill was at age seventeen, and from that point on his criminal activity continued to add up. He enjoyed luring young men into his home under the pretense of paying them to pose for pictures. Dahmer could have been sent to prison or mental institutions various times before committing many of his murders; however, he continually managed to slip through the grasps of the law as many people underestimated him. When Dahmer finally stood on trial after the discovery of many body parts in his home, psychologists and psychiatrists testified in court regarding his sanity. Even after extensive expert testimony, the jury found itself unable to determine whether or not Dahmer was sane at the time he committed the murders. In the end, Dahmer was found guilty of fifteen counts of murder and sentenced to 957 years in prison, though he was murdered within two years of serving his sentence.

I have read a lot about Jeffrey Dahmer in different books and what I found most interesting about this chapter was the focus the expert testimonies. I would have to agree with the experts who claim that he was sane at the time of the murders because of his calculating behavior, however at times it does become difficult not to sympathize with the possibility of him killing for companionship. Homosexuality is still a topic of distress for many people, and it would make sense if Dahmer was trying to kill the source of this, especially if he was assaulted as a child. In the end, I’m confident that he was suffering from some sort of mental illness in addition to his paraphilia; however, I believe he was completely aware of the severity of his actions.

The ease at which it seems Dahmer was able to continue his lifestyle after close encounters with the law never fails to amaze me. It is sad that he was able to continue killing people after a trial where the prosecution emphasized the likelihood that he would continue to prey on children. Even more upsetting than this, however, is the story of the young man who escaped Dahmer only to be sent back to his apartment by the police, even after the complaints of neighbors.

Dahmer is cited in various places in the text as suffering from multiple paraphilias. This means that he had sexual fetishes in which his gratification depended on participating in activities and behavior that are generally considered to be abnormal and fairly extreme. Many paraphilias are more common in men. The most common paraphilia is pedophilia, though the two paraphilias most present in Dahmer’s life were exhibitionism and necrophilia. Dahmer showed an inclination towards exhibitionism when he masturbated in front of children at the Wisconsin State Fair. It is likely that this form of paraphilia excited Dahmer because he was able to see the reactions of his victims. Necrophilia is a fairly rare form of paraphilia. It involves arousal from seeing or (especially in Dahmer’s case) having sex with a corpse. While the actual causes of paraphilia are unclear, it has been theorized that the individual suffering from it is reverting to sexual acts or habits from his/her early life. http://healthguide.howstuffworks.com/paraphilia-dictionary3.htm

Dahmer is quoted in an interview saying that his sexual excitement towards the fantasy of unconscious men began at the age of 14 or 15. It was at this time that he laid the groundwork for a plan to attack a jogger and lie next to his unconscious body. The plan fell through and Dahmer never tried to execute it again. Dahmer was around the age of 16 when he began drinking excessively. It was around this time that his life at home began falling to pieces. After his first kill, Dahmer’s urges subsided for nine years, but like many serial killers, his kills became more frequent over time. If you are to believe that Dahmer was a necrophile, it is possible to see that it could have stemmed from him wanting to play out the fantasy with the jogger that never actually occurred. The other events including his life at home may have and alcoholism likely contributed to an increase in his urges and desires to fulfill his fantasies. http://socyberty.com/crime/jeffrey-dahmer-the-truth/4/

Many believe that Dahmer’s actions were completely of his own doing, as if to say that the problem is all his own because he acted on his bizarre fantasies. Others, however, such as forensic psychiatrist Dr. George Palermo (also mentioned in the text) believe that Dahmer felt overwhelming hostility towards others because of being teased as a child and never defending himself. Palermo believes that Dahmer was unable to form relationships and this, combined with his homosexuality, led him to become a sadist. On the flip side, however, Palermo doesn’t believe that Dahmer expressed the symptoms of a necrophile. He remains consistent with the idea that Dahmer wanted to kill the source of his attraction to them and destroy what he hated about himself. Palermo maintained the belief that Dahmer was not psychotic though he did exude characteristics of someone with a personality disorder. Even today the ideas regarding Dahmer's actual mental state and possible disorders differ greatly.
http://www.criminalprofiling.com/Psychiatric-Testimony-of-Jeffrey-Dahmer_s115.html

Jeffrey Dahmer was without a doubt one of America's most notorious serial killers. With seventeen known victims, the sanity of Jeffrey Dahmer had to be questioned. Chapter 12 of Minds on Trial highlights a few of his known victims and discusses possible causes for his heartless killing spree. The chapter also illustrates the legal battle between the prosecution and defense. Both the prosecution and defense had teams of psychologists; the prosecution claiming that Dahmer was sane at the time of the murders, and the defense claiming he was not. Previously, Dahmer had faced charges of Sexual Assault and Enticement. The victim was thirteen year old Anoukone Sinthasomphone. Although he did not serve time in prison because the Judge said, "You'd come out probably worse than you are now," Dahmer spent ten months sleeping in a jail dormitory. It's hard to think that if he would have just been put in prison this time, many lives could have been saved.

Jeffrey Dahmer was raised in a seemingly normal middle-class family. There is debate to whether he had been molested by a neighbor at the age of eight. Dahmer and his father both stated that this never occurred. Many people who grew up with Dahmer say that he was a bit "weird." Around the age of thirteen, Dahmer began a fierce battle with his own feelings. He was beginning to realize that he was a homosexual, and I don't think that he was really okay with this.

When he was only seventeen, Jeffrey Dahmer committed his first murder. He lured a hitchhiker back to his home and ruthlessly beat, strangled, and dismembered him. Shortly after his first murder, he attended Ohio State University, where he failed out. Around this time, Dahmer's serious problems began. He had a serious drinking problem and also began committing sexual crimes such as exposing himself.
In July 1991, Jeffrey Dahmer was finally caught for his murders. After holding a thirty-two year old man at knife point for four hours, the man escaped and alerted police. When the police searched his apartment, they found very gruesome photos, human bodies, and male genitals. Dahmer cooperated with police and admitted to killing seventeen men. In the end, Jeffrey Dahmer was sentenced to 957 years in prison, which he only served two before being murdered.

Clinical Psychology was the most relevant form of Psychology used in this case. Many of the psychologists working for both the prosecution and the defense agreed that Jeffrey Dahmer had psychological disorders. Necrophilia is the sexual attraction to corpses. Many of the psychologists who testified believed that Jeffrey Dahmer suffered from this disorder. Although they agreed that he may have suffered from this, psychologists testifying for the prosecution said that this disorder did not cause him to kill anyone. Out of 122 cases of necrophilia studied by Dr. Judith Beck, only fifteen actually ended up killing their sexual partners. They believed that Dahmer may have been "sick," but not "psychotic."

The part of this chapter that I found most interesting (and most terrifying) is that police were in Dahmer's home right before he murdered a young boy. It amazes me that despite the complaints of neighbors, police let the young boy stay with Dahmer. It is also scary to me that Jeffrey Dahmer appeared like a normal citizen to many people.

The first outside source that I found was an article from The New York Times. This article is relevant to the case because it discusses the question of Dahmer's sanity. Again, the prosecution argues that Necrophilia is only a personality disorder, not a mental disease. The insanity defense rests on the assumption that the defendant couldn't tell right from wrong at the time of the crime.
http://www.nytimes.com/1992/02/15/us/jury-deliberates-sanity-of-dahmer.html

In the Minds on Trial book it said that Dahmer displayed cruelty to animals as a child. It said that he collected insects and killed them. I decided to take a deeper look into this and found that he didn't just do this to insects, but also to animals. This source describes in detail what he did to animals as a child. He would put animal heads on stakes in his backyard and scraped the skin off of animals.
http://karisable.com/skazdahmer.htm

It's pretty strange to me that the same family encountered problems with Dahmer twice. This article was posted back in 1991 and talks about the Laotian family that suffered two terrible tragedies. It is so unfortunate that this boy's life could have easily been saved.
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/174568/LAOTIAN-FAMILY-FALLS-VICTIM-TWICE.html

Jeffrey Dahmer is a very cruel and disgusting man. He lured his victims by offering to pay them to pose nude for him. Jeffrey not only raped and drugged his victims while they were alive, but he often sodimized their dead bodies before decapitating them. He then stored their body parts or he even ate parts of the them.

I found it extremely frustrating and irritating that a neighbor took the initiative to call the police after a young boy fled Dahmer's apartment bruised and in his underwear, and the police didn't even take the time to check Dahmer's criminal record. The lack of police effort in this scenario amazes me. If they would have been a little more attentive to that child they could have helped spare a childs life.

Jeffrey seemed to have a pretty normal childhood, but had a hard time dealing with his new feeling of being homosexual. He also had an ongoing alcohol abuse problem that became worse when his parents divorced his senior year. He committed his first murder when he was only 17 by picking up a hitchhiker and bringing him back to his home. He then beatened and strangled him before burying him in back yard.

Many psychologists played roles in the trial of Jeffery Dahmer. They were divided when trying to decide whether Jeffrey was insane at the time he committed these crimes. Social psychologists argued that Jeffrey has a social disorder, and he had a need to be close to people. They said he killed these men because he was too afraid of losing them. Clinical pyschologists said Jeffery suffered from mental disorders and many paraphilias. Although he had such paraphilias, such as necrophilia, some psychologists believe it should of only affected his sexual drive and not he judgement of what is wrong. This is why a few of the psychologists agreed that Jeffrey was in fact sane at the time he committed these murders because he deliberately lured his victims, crushed pills to drug them, and stored their body parts. This shows he was able to plan, and he knew fully what he was doing. In my opinion, Jeffrey was sane and deserved what happened to him.

After looking over a website I found I learned Jeffrey had experienced weird situations as a child. For example, his father recalled when Jeffrey was 4 he was oddly obsessed with a pile of animal bones from under their home. He said Jeffrey stuck his hand into the pile, and his father now saw it may have been the beginning of something dark inside him.

http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/notorious/dahmer/14.html

I found another interesting story about what happened to Jeffrey as a teenager, which may have added to his mental disorder and his anxiety of being alone. It was said that Jeffrey was left at home without food, money, and the refridgerator for days. This happened when he was 17, and before this occured Jeffrey had experienced fantasies of mutalating or killing men. These incidents probably increased Jeffrey's worry of people leaving him.
http://karisable.com/skazdahmer.htm

The last website I looked at made sexual allegations towards Jeffrey's father, Lionel. According to family friend, it said Lionel may have molested Jeffrey as a young child. These allegations were denied his book. Also it is being debated whether or not Jeffrey's childhood neighbor molested him when he was kid. Niether one of these alegations can be proved, but it does raise many questions if they contribute to forming this notorious serial killer.
http://socyberty.com/crime/jeffrey-dahmer-the-truth/

Chapter 12 is about Jeffrey Dahmer: one of America’s most infamous serial killers. Jeffrey grew up in what seemed like an average middle class white family. Around age 13, however, he realized he was homosexual and by the age of 17 he killed his first victim—a hitchhiker he offered a ride to. His life consisted of a string of sexual advances, toward men and boys alike, that rarely led to the victim escaping Dahmer’s home alive. Often times he would convince or coerce adolescents into coming to his apartment to get paid for letting him take revealing photographs of them. He would then drug his victim via strong doses of sleeping pills dissolved in alcoholic beverages. The atrocious acts that followed after his victims were unconscious are unimaginable. Jeffrey Dahmer was said to have suffered from necrophilia, a condition where one is sexually attracted to dead bodies. He would perform unspeakable acts with his victims and then either cut them up, dispose of them, preserve them, or eat parts of them. When Jeffrey Dahmer was finally caught, he went through a series of interviews and observations by doctors and psychologists from both the defense and prosecution attorneys. The trial practically turned into a battle of expert opinion on whether Dahmer was to be considered legally insane during the time of the murders. An expert opinion resulting in Dahmer’s being insane would result in his being sent to a mental hospital, while an opinion of him being sane would follow with a prison sentence—which is what happened. Dahmer’s 900+ year prison sentence was cut short when an inmate crushed Dahmer’s skull with a steel bar, claiming God had told him to do it.
There are a few instances mentioned within the chapter that suggest a superfluity of mistakes made by police officers. Certain precautions were not followed and eye-witness testimonies were not taken seriously. Who knows how many lives could have been saved if one police officer had taken things one step further in his or her investigation of a particular call involving Dahmer? These stories of one murder made me feel disappointed in the work of our nation’s police force at the time; though I believe we have learned a lot from these mistakes. Technologies as well as psychology have come a long way in facilitating the processes of our legal systems. Within this case alone, there is evidence of many aspects of psychology. Dahmer’s cognitive abilities and mental health were debated by six different psychologists. Psychopathology and the diagnostic and statistical manual assisted with describing and labeling many of Dahmer’s problems. Social psychology came into play when observing Dahmer’s social interactions and tendencies, such as with the psychologists who interviewed him. Some even claimed Jeffrey was a “charming man”, which opens the door to the psychology of persuasion and how an individual can present them self in a manner reflecting that of someone charming and likable. How Jeffrey grew up during his child and adolescent years was also studied, which encompasses developmental psychology. The way everyone in court acts and feels depends on their sensation and perception, while their verdicts depend on their motivations and emotions. Finally, criminal psychology plays an obvious role in all court cases.
From: http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/199204/i-carried-it-too-far-thats-sure, I read a first-person report from the insanity trial of Jeffrey Dahmer. This person is a psychologist who was apprehensive about going into the trial where there was going to be an insanity debate. They felt as though the language used in court was to comfort everyone, including Dahmer, that the acts discussed are not actually as repulsive and deviant as they seem. At one point the report even reads that they,
“…spewed confusion over semantically similar--but differently defined--legal, psychiatric, and laymen's terms for mental disease and insanity. It also forced the jury to listen to crazy-sounding arguments pushed to logical absurdities by expert witnesses you could only regard as hired goons.”
Another aspect of psychology that I found interesting that relates to this case, as well as nearly every case, is the effect of stress on jurors. From: http://cranepsych2.edublogs.org/files/2009/08/Juror_stress_and_the_verdict.pdf, you learn that the quality of justice may be impacted by the level of stress inflicted on members of the jury. During the Dahmer case, the jury was exposed to pictures of dead bodies that had been brutally dismembered. Additionally, they had sat through hours of debate between the prosecution and defense over the legal definition of certain mental illnesses and insanity. Stress was and is bound to play a role in the conclusion a jury comes to.
Lastly, I wanted to know more about the mind of Jeffrey Dahmer and how it relates to our cultures norms. How can one seem so put together, independent, and fully functional on the outside, yet commit such hideous crimes behind closed doors? This site: http://www.health24.com/mind/Psychopaths/1284-4393,50398.asp, explains how psychopaths can wear a societal mask while still deviating and becoming a monster. I found it extremely interesting how the psychologists analyzing Dahmer found him youthful and charming—in other words, a seemingly normal, nice guy. This ability almost suggests that he is a social savant, capable of manipulating nearly everyone into thinking he is a likable or acceptable person who simply needs help.

This chapter briefly outlined Dahmer's life and descibed, in detail, his tactics of murder. I believe the main point of the chapter, however, focused on the idea of expert testimonials and whether or not Dahmer should have been considered insane at the time of the murders or not. In my opinion, it would have to take a pretty sick person to behave so repulsively.

I fnd it appalling that in the 1989 trial, the judge didn't send him to prison given all of the evidence, including the findings of the psychologists, provided. Even after their research concluded that Dhahmer had no intention to get help for his clear mental health problems. It is troubling to think that just after ten short months, Dahmer was back out in the world, a threat to all of society, while there are hundreds of prisoners wrongly convicted who serve tens of years, even lifetimes. It was also shocking to me how many times an opportunity presented itself to catch Dahmer in the act. The police could have saved many lives, but they didn't seem to have the desire to investigate further. They didn't even listen to the neighbors who were urging that his victim was just a child. In my opinion, the police involved were either afraid of or digusted at how open Dahmer was about being gay and how much he was willing to share about his relationships. I find it strange the Dahmer cooperated so well after getting caught. The fact the his father wanted him to be sent to prison and denied the claim that he was sexually abused by a neighbor at a young age indicates that he didn't want his son's actions to be justified by a traumatic experience.

Many psychological aspects were utilized in this chapter. The main one that stuck out to me was social psychology. On page 142 of the text, a psychologist claims that Dahmer suffered a condition that gave him a sort of "detachment from social relationships..." He tried filling the void of the lack of relationships in his life by creating zombies as friends. Cognitive psychology is touched in a sense that Dahmer manipulated the police to think that nothing was out of the ordinary. As I mentioned before a good part of the chapter focused on the expert testimonials and determining the state of Dahmer's sanity at the time of the murders. Psychology was very important to this case because Dahmer was clearly not fit mentally. Analizations were need to decide whether he was incapable of recognizing his actions as wrong, or he was just a sick human being. Many times, unfortunately, the subject of necrophelia was brought up, which is a sexual disorder decribed as a "cancer of the mind."

After reading this article I learned more about the process used to determine Dahmer's sanity. It focused on sadism. Dahmer's actions would probably seem very sadistic to any normal person, but some experts denied that claim. They concluded that his intention was not actually to kill, but to create a zombie and death was only accidental.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/199204/i-carried-it-too-far-thats-sure

This websited focused on Dahmer's childhood. I learned a lot more about his behavior as a child and adolescent. He was very aloof and nothing seemed to matter to him at all, which was why he never rebelled.
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/notorious/dahmer/16.html

I learned in this website that most serial killers get their thrill from the events leading up to the murder, but Jeffry Dahmer was different. He got all of his enjoymeny after he killed them, which is absolutely disgusting. It also talked about how Dahmer might have taken the frustration of his sexuality out on his victims.
http://allthingshorror.tripod.com/dahmer.html

Briefly summarize the chapter and your opinion of it. Then describe what aspects of psychology are relevant to this case.
In summary Jeffrey Dahmer was a homosexual, a rapist, and murderer. He murdered men and boys by luring them to his house by offering them money to take pictures of them. Once there he would drug them, rape them, kill them, rape them again, and possibly eat and/or sore them. He had gone to trial several times and got minor charges, and finally got convicted merely by accident, and was sentences to 997 years in prison. Several psychologists and psychiatrists were involved in his cases all with different conclusions and diagnosis'.
After reading this I am speechless. It is just astonishing to me that people can do those things. It is also interesting and nonconforming how different they psychs were in diagnosis him even in just deciding weather he was in his right mind or not. It seemed that nobody could agree on anything.

Finally, find three additional sources (links) on the internet that discuss the specific case, or a specific psychological issue relevant to the case. Discuss each of those links. Provide your links at the bottom of your comment.

The first one I read goes into a little better detail on the story of Konerak. It states that Konerak was naked when he escaped out of Dahmers and that there were two 18 year old women present to stand up for him. It also says that before the police got to the scene that Konerak was trying to get away from Dahmers, but the police disregarded everything they were told by the women and just listned to Dahmer since he appeared to be and intelligent man. It worries me that police cant tell the difference between a 14 year old boy and a 19 year old man.
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/notorious/dahmer/index.html

on November 2,2011 Tracey Edwards, the man who led to the conviction of Dahmer, was charged with recklessly endangering a man 20 years after he was captured by Dahmer. He was homeless and traveling from shelter to shelter since 2002. Some say its to blame on the after effects of being captured by Dahmer. Edwards claimed he escaped Dahmer by gaining his trust. He also pressed charges against Milwaukee police for not better investigating earlier tips about Dahmer which would have possibly prevented many other murders. Edwards wanted 5 million but the suit was thrown out of court. Later though, the victims families of Dahmer received $500,000.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/jeffrey-dahmer-hero-tracy-edwards-charged-homicide/story?id=14853608#.Tx4WrPmR3Kg

The last article I read was about Konerak. At the time of his death his father was unemployed and his mother was constantly fainting due to the news of her sons death. Konerak had 4 brothers and 3 sisters. They had all moved to the community 10 years ago to get away from the troubles in Loas and to be with other family and friends.
When they left Laos the fled on a boat that Mr. Sinthasomphone built. They had druged the young kids with sleeping pills so they wouldnt cry and gain attention from the soldiers. They had thought they found peace when the came to America only to be disproved and have one son molested by Dahmer and one murdered.
http://www.nytimes.com/1991/07/31/us/family-sought-new-life-only-to-find-new-pain.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

The chapter begins by painting a filthy portrait of a disgusting pedophile that got away with far too much for far too long. Right away, I am surprised to read that Dahmer was only sentenced to a year of probation for what he did at the Wisconsin State Fair. As I continued to read the offenses for which he was given probation for again and again, I grew angry. How is it a judge figures Dahmer is better off on the outside around innocent children than on the inside just because “he could come out worse”? How much worse can you get? He needed to be locked in a cage for the rest of his life, or better yet sentenced to death much sooner than he was. I applaud the inmates who took it upon themselves to end his miserable existence. I will never forget hearing about his prison murder when I was in grade school. The teachers were actually excited and immediately informed us of what had happened. Psychiatrist Fred Berlin states in the book that Dahmer had wanted to “sustain a relationship with these people” and that his sickness was a “love sickness”. LOL! That is about the most ridiculous bunch of crap I have ever heard. He was evil and that is all there is to it. Dr. Judith Becker says it would have been a “miscarriage of justice” to send Dahmer to prison? These are doctors with real credentials. After reading this, I have a hard time believing in psychologists’ competence (especially as it pertained to this case). Dr. George Palermo summed it up best when he said that Dhamer was “not psychotic”, but “a sick person”. Obviously, social psychology played a major role in this case. Dahmer was antisocial to an extreme and lacked any real relationships. The fact that he had not accepted that he was gay until he was older indicates that his comfort level in the home was not good. Apparently his mother and father didn’t have enough time for young Jeffrey.

http://graphicinsight.co.za/dahmer.htm

This was an interesting read. If there is any truth to this article (and I’m not so sure I believe it be accurate), then we may have a way of noticing signs of personality disorders via handwriting samples. In this article, Dahmer’s handwriting is analyzed and he is characterized as one who is “emotionally unpredictable” as well as suffering from “moral terptitude”.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/man-who-led-
police-to-serial-killer-jeffrey-dahmer-sentenced-to-prison-in-drowning-death/2012/01/23/gIQA9KO5KQ_story.html

This news story gives us a look into the life of the man who helped reel in Jeffrey Dahmer. In recent news, Tracy Edwards was sentenced to a year in a half in prison for his role in the death of a man who drowned last summer. Edwards and another man had thrown the victim over a bridge during an argument.

http://www.milwaukeesfinest.net/JeffreyDahlmer.html

This site was really cool. An officer recounts his experience the night that Dahmer was brought in. He tells of how his squad was investigating their own murder when they heard something over the radio about a refrigerator full of body parts. The officer says that at first the police began to think Dahmer had robbed graves or hit up a funeral home due to the abundance of body parts. Little did he know what kind of sick individual they would be dealing with.

After watching "The Road" this weekend, cannibalism was a topic I have been thinking about and this chapter focused upon the serial murder, necrophiliac, and cannibal, Jeffery Dahmer. I have been thinking about how someone could get over the mental block and eat people out of necessity, however Jeffery Dahmer ate people just because his wish for them to remain close to them. He admitted to killing 17 people, most of whom he sexually abused, and ate. He began killing people very young, at 17 years of age he killed a hitchhiker. I was appalled by the failure of the legal system when he was only given probation and all psychological findings were ignored.

In this chapter, there were many psychological aspects discussed. Prior to his sentencing in 1989, three psychologists "concluded that Dahmer was a manipulative alcohol abuser who lacker insight and motivation for treatment" (p 142). Later when Dahlmer went to court when he was charged for multiple murders. There were many psychologists, and many differing opinions whether or not Dahmer was mentally insane.

I found three articles related to the Dahmer case.

1) http://go.galegroup.com.proxy.lib.uni.edu/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA11910864&v=2.1&u=uni_rodit&it=r&p=AONE&sw=w
" Post-mortem on the Dahmer trial coverage."
This article discusses how different media sources chose to present information regarding the Dahmer case to the public. In sources geographically closer to where the trial was being held the stories presented were full of the gruesome facts, but sources that were further away chose to omit the more gruesome details. For example according to the article "During the trial, the Sentinel devoted two full pages to Dahmer's confession, and reported virtually all details as they emerged in testimony." However, However, 'the Sun-Times omitted testimony that Dahmer had eaten a bicep and likened the taste to beef, because the detail was "clearly revolting," executive editor Mark Nadler said.'

2)http://www.internetjournalofcriminology.com/Diaz%20-%20Killing%20as%20an%20Initiator%20of%20Self-Change.pdf
KILLING AS AN INITIATOR OF SELF-CHANGE: A Symbolic Interactionist Comparison of the Etiology of Dennis Nilsen and Jeffrey Dahmer
This article proposes the sociological theory of "self" proposed by Erving Goffman. The article uses this theory to explain its role in the life of Dahmer. The article argues "The serial murders of Dahmer and Nilsen partly served the purpose of allowing the killer to change or become something that he couldn’t have been without the killings."

3)http://www.upstate.edu/psych/education/fellowships/pdf/serial_murder.pdf
Serial Murder: A Forensic Psychiatric Perspective
This article discusses a combined psychology and forensic look towards serial murders. It provides two tables on with common offender traits, and another titled "Ominous Signs (When Seen in Combination) Indicate Risk for a Potential Sex Murderer" which were both very interesting.The article states "Animal cruelty appears to be a common finding in the childhood and adolescent developmental stages of many serial murderers." I found this to be very interesting as Dahmer may have demonstrated cruelty to small animals according to our book. The article also stated " They (Silva and colleagues) describe an association between autism spectrum disorders and a subgroup of serial murders, and propose that Dahmer may have suffered from Asperger’s syndrome. Which I found very interesting.

Jeffrey Dahmer’s life story was told through the chapter. It touched upon aspects of his childhood through his malicious acts that took place over the years. Throughout his killing spree, he targeted men between the ages of fourteen to forty-eight. He would invite them over to his apartment with a money incentive in exchange for nude pictures, and sexual acts. After they agreed to coming, he would drug them and then kill them.

His killings started when he was seventeen years old. Before this, he did not show any signs of being a serial killer. His childhood was relatively normal. He grew up in a suburb with a father that held a respectable job, and a mother who held minor emotional problems, if any. Although, he possessed traits that many found odd and strange, he was never showed any signs that people should be concerned about. As he grew older, he acquired a drinking problem when he attended college, which eventually led to dropping out of college and his discharge from the Army.
Jeffrey ran into problems with the law, which were excused through probation and psychotherapy. He successfully passed his psychotherapy classes by going through the motions. Eventually, his killings caught up to him, and his role in seventeen murders was exposed.

Psychology placed a vital role in the conviction on Jeffrey Dahmer. In this case, the expert witnesses, and psychologist statements were the key factors in deciding if he was guilty or insane. Specifically, clinical psychology was a large role in this case. Clinical psychology works with mental ill assessments and diagnosis. In this case, Jeffrey’s insanity level impacted the sentencing he faced. Other forms of psychology were used to assess his addictions and personality levels that may suggest why he would commit the brutal crimes that he did.

Honestly, I thought this chapter was extremely interested. I enjoyed reading it. The psychologist dissection of his though process was intriguing. They all had their own unique view that could persuade any individual each way. I never thought it was possible to look at this type of act in so many different ways. It was also interesting to see how there were signs; however, the police and other authorities over looked many of the signs. They had the chance to prevent nineteen killings; however, due to small clues that people missed, the preventative action never took place.

The first website I found discussed one of the victims in Jeffrey’s killings. This particular victim had escaped from Jeffrey’s apartment, but was heavily drugged. The police disregarded that fact and placed the victim back in Jeffery’s care after he lied about who he was and the relationship between the two. In he article, it talked about the witnesses that were at the scene who recognized the boy. They pled that the boy was not who Jeffrey claimed; however, the police disregarded them. The boy ended up being killed.
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/notorious/dahmer/index.html

The second website I found discussed Jeffrey’s death. It went into detail about what happened to him in the jail cell that day that he was found. Another inmate bludgeoned him to death while they were supposed to be cleaning the bathrooms. The guard had left the two inmates alone for twenty minutes. Others had also tried to kill Jeffrey before this incident. In those cases, he was not hurt; however, this time he was not so lucky.

http://www.nytimes.com/1994/11/29/us/jeffrey-dahmer-multiple-killer-is-bludgeoned-to-death-in-prison.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

The third website I found was written by a women who experienced the courtroom first hand. Much of the article was excerpts from what Jeffrey said on the stand. They were certainly interesting to read. It also discusses the different psychologist statements from her won point of view as a psychologist. It was an interesting way to read about the case from a different perspective and someone else’s first hand.

http://www.serialkillercalendar.com/jeffreydahmer.html

In this chapter we learned about the life of Jeffrey Dahmer. He was a very disturbing person and had a lot of problems. The chapter talked about his childhood and later life. I learned that Dahmer's first murder was committed when he was seventeen years old. He committed fifteen murders and was put away for nine hundred and fifty-seven years, which he deserved this sentence.

I do believe that Dahmer messed up in the head. He was sexually abused as a child and was confused about his own sexuality. In my opinion Dahmer was confused about his sexuality and didn't know how to take it so he murdered people. Psychology had a lot to do with this trial because no one knew exactly what to think of this trial. Biopsychology was a factor in this trial because there was a lot of things going on in Dahmer's head. Some say he was "psychotic" but to others he was just wrong to kill fifteen people. The jurors also had a hard time deciding whether Dahmer was innocent or guilty because some thought he was in a mental health state and some thought that he just did it out of pure hatred.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Dahmer
This website talks about Dahmer's early childhood and his later life when the murders were taking place. It also tells who all of the people are who were killed and their ages.

http://www.angelfire.com/fl5/headsinmyfridge/Victims.html
This website shows pictures and gives a brief description of how each victim was killed and what happened to the remains of the body.

http://karisable.com/skazdahmer.htm
This website talks about the early childhood of Dahmer and details about each one of the murders.

I knew very little about Jeffery Dahmer before reading this chapter. I knew he was a serial killer whose victims were males. I had no idea how sick these murders were. After reading I found out Dahmer was a homosexual who convinced many of his victims to come back to his apartment from gay bars by offering them $50 to take photos of them. He then would drug them and and kill them. In the chapter it stated that he would cut up the bodies and keep the parts in one of the bedrooms in his two bedroom apartment. Also at times he would eat some of the parts so his victims would be "close to him and wouldnt leave him".

Sadly, many of these murders could've been prevented as it seemed as if the police messed up when they had a run in with Dahmer. One of Dahmer's victims escaped from his apartment and neighbors noticed his condition. They called the police and met up with the boy and at that time Dahmer was at his side. He told police that they were gay lovers and his boyfriend had to much to drink. He brought them to his apartment to show them pictures of the homosexual acts they had just committed. The police left by ignoring the awful smell coming from one of Dahmer's bedrooms and they never checked his criminnal record. If they would have done that they would have seen he had a record. After the police left Dahmer stanggled and killed the boy and went on to kill many others. He was eventually caught when one of his victims again escaped and brought police back where they found numerous body parts and pictures of the victims. He was later convicted and sentenced to life in prision where he was killed by an inmate.

After reading about Dahmer I was in shock. I wasn't really sure how someone could do this to another human being. His acts were so deranged. He chopped up his victims bodies and ate some of them. I dont think it can get more messed up than that. My first thoughts were that he was psychotic or insane, but after what some of the doctor's said in favor for the prosecution it just seemed as if he was a sick human being. In the end I think he got what he deserved for all the horrible acts he commited.

Psychology played a tremedous role in Dahmer's case. Several psychologist examined Dahmer to see if he was potentially insane. Also experts throughout the trial argued over whether he had a metal disorder that caused him to have delusions or a personality disorder that cause him to have violent outbursts. It was hard to choose which one I thought Dahmer had but none the less psychology played a huge role in this case and it's outcome.

http://www.nytimes.com/1994/11/29/us/jeffrey-dahmer-multiple-killer-is-bludgeoned-to-death-in-prison.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
This was an interesting article on the death of Jeffery Dahmer. It talked about how he was killed in prison by a follow inmate. When Dahmer was first senteneced to prison he was put in protective isolation because his saftey was of high concern. He eventually was realesed into the general prison population. Soon after a prisoner tried to slit Dahmer's throat with homemade plastic knife but wasn't injured. Soon after he was assigned with two other inmates to clean a bathroom and was left unattented by the guard for about 20 minutes. When the guard came back Dahmer was lying in a pool of blood with his head severly beaten. He was soon pronounced dead.

http://www.angelfire.com/fl5/headsinmyfridge/Victims.html
This was a pretty disurbing website that detailed each of Dahmer's victims and how he went about killing them. All of them were very gruesome. In some of the murders he tried to beat in their chests and rip out their heats. In many of ther murders he dismembered them and put their body parts in acid to dispose of them. With one of his victims he cut off his head and genitals and kept them as "Trophies".

http://crime.about.com/od/serial/a/dahmer.htm
In chapter 12 it briefly discussed Dahmer's childhood, but I wanted to research some more to see if there was anything else that could've predicted his future behavior. In searching around the internet I found that as a child he would collect dead animals, skin them and keep their bones. When in high school he was very much a loner who developed a bad drinking problem. He eventually went Ohio State University and dropped out soon after. He then went to the army and was kicked out for his drinking habbits.

In this chapter we see how Jeffrey Dahmer went from being a loner throughout his youth to a pro serial killer. Dahmer committed his first kill when he was only seventeen. From his first kill to his last he had murdered seventeen people total, by drugging them, raping them, over and over, eating them, blinding them up, hiding their parts all around his apartments, and then just simply killing them. All his murders were men he picked up at gay bars, because he himself was homosexual. He got them to come to his place by giving them money to get nude and take pictures, and then once he got them inside he would slip them sleeping pills or drugs and do his disgusting work. He went to trials more than a few times, but always got off with minor charges, but was finally served justice when he got his last conviction, just three years shy of 1000 years in prison.

Personally, this guy should have been put in prison a long time ago, the judge and policemen should of stepped their game up a little better. Nobody wants this type of person wondering around in the streets, especially someone who has done so many ridiculous things to people you never would have dreamed possible. I’m just glad they finally got him, and served him his rightful punishment.

Clinical Psychology was used throughout all the trials he went through to determine whether he was insane or mentally ill. The psychologists were spilt basically in the middle when it came to this dilemma; Half believed he had to be insane, while the other half believed he was sane. Personally, it’s tough to say whether I believed him to be sane or insane at the time he committed all of his crimes, because he did have some good cover stories that made the cops believe he wasn’t doing anything wrong. Yet, the acts he committed on all those men, he had to of known how crazy he was becoming, especially when he would decapitate or eat them, that is just plain wrong. Dahmer also had some deep connections to a few paraphilias, like necrophilia and exhibitionism. Both equally disgusting, one, necrophilia is having sexual relations with the deceased, and exhibitionism is getting satisfaction sexually for showing genitals to others. No matter what Psychology played a very key role in Dahmer’s case dealing with everything he’d done and the length he went to accomplish his killings.

The first link is basically talking about how Dahmer felt abandoned after his parents got divorced, which lead him to feel lost and rejected with a low self-esteem. At seventeen he was left alone with no money, food, and a broken refrigerator. This is where some experts believed his mental illness played part in granting him permission to commit his hateful crimes.

http://karisable.com/skazdahmer.htm

In this second link the prosecutor, Michael McCann, argued the case of necrophilia to a personality disorder and how it was not a mental disease. On the other side Mr. Boyle agrued that Dahmer’s necrophilia grew and became less controllable as he continued to kill. If there were to be a spilt verdict on Dahmer’s sanity, he would of more than likely been sent to a mental institution and if he were to be eligible for release, he would be sent to prison.

http://www.nytimes.com/1992/02/15/us/jury-deliberates-sanity-of-dahmer.html

In the third link it talks about how Dahmer was beaten to death at the age of 34. In true fashion he was brutally murdered similar to his victims. Now his parents will have to go through the same pain his victims families all went through.

http://www.nytimes.com/1994/11/29/us/jeffrey-dahmer-multiple-killer-is-bludgeoned-to-death-in-prison.html

This was a story about a homosexual man, Jeffrey Dahmer, who was dealing with many issues involving his sexuality as well as an alcohol abuse problem. He would lure males of any age into his home offering to pay them for portraits of themselves and would sexually assault them and rape them, drug them, take pictures of them and he would slice their bodies up and preserve parts and eat some other parts. He would either freeze, refrigerate or store some parts in formaldehyde. He would eat some parts of their body and he said they tasted like filet mignon. He killed 17 men. The strange part is he grew up normally in a normal family. He struggled with his sexuality which was a large part of the case in which they said he may have killed the people in spite of his struggle. He was also diagnosed by some psychologists to have some disorders such as necrophilia, meaning he had a sexual attraction to corpses. He also suffered from pedophilia, exhibitionism,, transvestism, and voyeurism. There were also some psychologists who did not diagnose Dahmer insane because he had it all thought out and it was something he could have restrained from doing. Dahmer was found guilty of fifteen counts of murder and sentenced to 957 years in prison. After about two years in prison, Dahmer was murdered by an inmate who crushed his skull with a steel bar. I am shocked at the entire story of how he had gone years killing so many people and not being suspected for any of it, especially after having the police in his house while it was no secret where the bodies were hidden. I am ashamed to say our police never ran a back up check on him when he had the neighbors call in very concerned as a boy is running the streets naked and bruised. Also the fact the judge stated he would come out of prison worse than he is going into prison blew my mind. There are people who have not committed a crime in jail and he was on probation and able to leave the jail for work still. I am appalled at the things he did and how people actually pled insanity for him. I do not believe in the insanity diagnoses, obviously that person will do it again if they are given the chance to. Anyone could plea insanity and have it be okay for them to slip by. Every human is perfectly capable of knowing what they are doing when they are killing someone, especially if it is thought out and performed time and time again. No matter what textbooks or anything will say about that, I 100% do not agree with it and that is that. I was shocked people were on his side about this. I guarantee if it were someone they knew that he killed, their views would be completely different.

Psychology played a large role throughout this trial. The court psychologists examined Dahmer to give their opinion of Dahmer's sanity or insanity. Dr. Kenneth Smail spent more time with Dahmer than any other psychologist had. He found Dahmer had the possibility of schizophrenic disorder or a major affective disorder. Dr. Carl Wahlstrom testified Dahmer as "psychotic" and symptomatic of a borderline personality disorder, saying he could have had transient psychotic episodes. Dr. Fred Berlin, who directed the sexual disorders clinic at Johns Hopkins Univeristy diagnosed Dahmer as a necrophiliac along with other paraphilias such as exhibitionism, transvestism, voyeurism, and pediphilia. Dr. Judith Becker was a clinical and research psychologist from the University of Arizona and a fomrer member of the U.S. Attorney General's Commission on Pornography. He said it would be a "miscarriage of justice" to send Dahmer to prison rather than a mental institution. Dr. Frederick Fosdal testified Dahmer had a mental disease but it didn't interfere with his ability to abide by the law, concluding Dahmer was not insane at the time of each murder. Dr. Park Dietz was a forensic psychiatrist from California and he also stated the paraphilias did not drive Dahmer to commit the crimes he did. There were many different kinds of psychologists and psychiatrists who had a say in the trial and I believe each of their opinions accounted for something in the courtroom because the verdict of the jury came out as ten jurors said Dahmer was sane when he committed the murders and two jurors found him not guilty due to insanity.

This article discusses paraphilia diagnoses should be more cautious when it comes to sexual offenders. It brings up the DSM-IV and how a paraphilia should be diagnosed compared to the way sexual offenders were diagnosed before. There needs to be a significant amount of evidence the rapist did in fact have a paraphilia. This article describes how the state of California is cracking down more on the diagnoses of paraphilia for sexual offenders.

http://forensicpsychologist.blogspot.com/2011/10/california-deals-big-blow-to-bogus.html

This is an interview with Jeffrey's father and stepmother with Larry King and CNN. It talks about how Jeffrey was as a child and how they would do things over if they had known how he was going to turn out. This proved to be interesting when I read he would collect roadkill from the sides of the streets and would cut them open, examine the insides, and also do some sexual things to the animals which may have stemmed his cannibalism and necrophilia. The parents did not find this out until the trial, which shocked them. The parents namely want to give a heads up for future parents who may have a child that will end up to be different and maybe a necrophiliac.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0406/17/lkl.00.html

This article is a very long story of Dahmer's killings as well as his trial. It goes into detail with some of the horrifying stories of some of his victims and it goes throughout the trial into more detail. It also goes into his apology note and through to him being baptized again.

http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/notorious/dahmer/23.html

This chapter discussed the life and crime of a man name Jeffery Dahmer. He was a homosexual serial killer that admitted to murdering seventeen men. Some of these men were as young as 13 and the oldest reported murder was a thirty-three-year-old. He was brought on charges of second-degree sexual assault and enticement of a child for immoral purposes. Dahmer enticed a minor into his apartment with an offer to pay him for modeling nude for some photos. He then gave the boy an alcoholic beverage with crushed up sleeping pills in it. In this instance the boy got a way and was able to get help. For many other men/boys this was not the case. Dahmer would continue this routine for his other victims. He would perform sexual acts with the victims (either before or after the sleeping pills kicked – I do not think the book specified) then he would murder the victims. He would proceed to take more photos of the, and he would perform more sexual acts with the victims post mortem. Afterwards Dahmer would cut up the bodies. He would sometimes store parts of them, or even eat parts of them.
This chapter also goes through the court proceedings after Dahmer is caught. This was as a result of one of his victims escaping and reaching help. When the police went through Dahmer’s apartment they found remains of his past victims, photos, and Dahmer himself admitted to killing seventeen people. Dahmer’s attorney tried to argue that he was insane at the time of the crime. There was a panel of psychologists and psychiatrists that testified whether or not this was true. In the end the expert witnesses were split – some said that Dahmer is “sick” or insane and thusly did not know right from wrong. The other half of the expert witnesses said that Dahmer was fully of aware of right and wrong while committing these crimes – despite him having any paraphilia (necrophilia). In the end the jury was divided as well but, the judge sentenced Dahmer to 957 years in prison. However, after two (if I remember correctly) he was murdered by a mentally ill inmate that later said, “God told me to do it”.
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/notorious/dahmer/16.html
This site discusses Dahmer’s normal upbringing and how seemingly harmless pranks. It also discusses that his internal conflicts were starting the manifest and result in the man we read about in papers and saw on the news. Lastly, this site addresses the fact that Dahmer had a real problem with alcohol. His drinking problem started in high school continued and played a role in him flunking out of college and his dismissal from the from the army. This site offers other links that discuss other parts of Dahmer’s life.
Psychologically, this would not suggest any further criminal life and public intoxication.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12455663
This article looks at the potential biopsychological roots for Dahmer’s behavior. They are looking at autism spectrum with the idea that Dahmer had Asperger’s syndrome. This diagnosis in combination with Dahmer’s psychopathological tendencies may have contributed to his behavior.
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/notorious/dahmer/20.html
This site discussed the question was Dahmer evil or sick? It was a very important argument/question during the trial. It also said that there were some 45 witnesses that were brought into to testify that Dahmer’s behavior was the result of his insanity.

Even though I've heard about Jeffrey Dahmer and went to school with a member of his kin back in high school, I never really knew exactly what he did and to what extent. Jeffrey Dahmer, to put it nicely, was one screwed up son of a gun! This chapter describes the crimes he committed, his modus operandi which I believe means his consistant way of going about seducing, sexually assaulting, killing, and then usually dismembering the then lifeless corpses. Jeffrey Dahmer started his reign of terror at the young age of 17 when he picked up a hitch-hiker and proceeded to kill and dismember him and then bury him. Before his demise, Dahmer committed around 15 slayings of men between the ages of 14 and 45. In the studying of Dahmer's m.o., it was realized that he focussed all of his attacks on men and in his early years of killing, he chose his victims from gay bars. He later changed his m.o. slighty and turned to luring males to an apartment with the offer of being photographed naked in exchange for money. In order to prosecute Jeffrey Dahmer, they felt it was necessary to put together a team of three psychologists and four psychiatrists which eventually turned in the "battle of the experts". They couldn't decide whether to diagnose Dahmer or to imprison him. Eventually he was sentenced to 957 years in prison. He was brutally murdered by a mentally ill inmate after serving less than 2 years of his sentence.

Clearly Jeffrey Dahmer was a very sick person. But as hard as it was for the psychologists and psychiatrists supervising his trial to come up with a clear idea of exactly how to diagnose him, it's even harder for myself. I dont have a clear understanding of psychological disorders and what exactly makes you a sociopath or a psycopath but I would have to guess Jeffrey Dahmer was some kind of mixture of both. They found him to have a definite personality disorder which made it hard for him to function in public settings, donning him a sociopath. Yet, he also killed without remorse and practiced canabalism which are qualities of a psychopath. These things make you question his sanity and whether or not he should've been allowed to participate in his trial even though the ultimate decision was "life" in prison.

In the chapter it describes Jeffrey Dahmers early life in high school as tainted by his alcoholism problems. In this article, it explains that alcoholism can be a cause for personality changes in a person. This could be a possible explanation for the early start to Jeffrey Dahmers slayings.
http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Psychological-Effects-Of-Alcohol&id=1179178

The chapter also describes how Jeffrey Dahmers parents divorced his senior year of high school. Personally, I'd be very surprised if their divorce had any significant influence on the sick mind of Mr. Dahmer. But besides that point, this article points out that "boys are more vulnerable than girls are to divorce related stress. This could be due to the fact that women tend to get custody of the children over men. Boys are then forced to live with the opposite sex with no male role model in sight". This could have possibly provoked his eventual realization of being gay and/or acting out in an extreme way.
http://www.marriage-success-secrets.com/psychological-effects-of-divorce-on-children.html

In the chapter they never really give us the gruesome details of what a crime scene of Jeffrey Dahmers happens to look like. I found an interesting article on what exactly was found in one of his apartments locations that he seduced men to and killed them.
http://crime.about.com/od/serial/a/dahmer_2.htm

This chapter describes Jeffrey Dahmer's life. It tells how it was believed that Dahmer was struggling with the realization that he was homosexual. With that realization, his parent's divorce, and failing out of Ohio State University, Dahmer became an alcoholic. At the age of 17, he killed an 18 year old hitchhiker. He was discharged from the Army as an untreatable alcoholic. He was also laid off from a plasma center in Milwaukee. He then found a job working as a mixer at a Milwaukee chocolate factory.

For three and a half years, Dahmer was on a killing spree. He would find victims, offer money for photos or sex, take them back to his apartment, drug them, sexually assault them and kill them. After finally being discovered by authorities, Dahmer admitted to killing seventeen men. He was sentenced to 957 years in prison. After serving two years, he was murdered by a mentally ill inmate.

I found many things in this chapter to be both interesting and disturbing. I literally said "oh my gosh" when I had finished reading it. The actions he took, and the way he murdered so many people is outrageously disturbing. The things that I found interesting came about by thinking about the position of some of the characters. For example, the policemen who were told the story by a man with handcuffs going into an apartment and finding parts of bodies and photos of the mutilations. I could not imagine the mindset of those officers who were just out on patrol finding all of those things. Also, in the setting of the jury members. With having so many mental health professionals debating if Dahmer was legally insane or not, it is not surprising at all that they could not reach a verdict. I could not imagine trying to sort through all of the psychological evidence having no psychology background at all.

http://twistedminds.creativescapism.com/most-notorious/jeffrey-dahmer/jd-murders/
This website gave a bit of an overview of what Dahmer's had done. One thing I had been interested in was how he could take a body in a suitcase to his grandmother's house and dismember it without her asking questions. This site says that he would spend hours in the basement alone, and she would smell a "nauseating stench." It says that she had told him to move out, and that she was tired of his strange behavior.

http://dailynightly.msnbc.com/2006/11/real_to_reel_je.html
This is an article covering the death of Dahmer. It tells how many of the places he would hang out because infamous. The apartment building where he lived and conducted many of the murders was demolished. It also gives some information about the murder, such as how him and two other inmates were left alone by guards for 20 min. The result was two of the inmates, including Dahmer, were murdered. It also says that some of the victim's families voiced "satisfaction and relief."

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/01/23/dahmer-survivor-sentenced-in-drowning-death/
This article is from Fox News and describes how Tracy Edwards, the man who broke free from Dahmer and alerted authorities was found associated with a drowning death. He was sentenced to 1 1/2 years in prison and had to pay the victim's mother for some of the funeral costs.