Jeffrey Dahmer Pt. 2

Summary

Mind of a Serial Killer – Jeffrey Dahmer Pt. 2: First Murder and Psychological Descent

In the second episode of "Mind of a Serial Killer", hosts Vanessa Richardson and Dr. Tristan Engels delve deeper into the dark psyche of Jeffrey Dahmer, exploring his first murder, the subsequent psychological fallout, and the early signs that marked his transformation into one of history’s most notorious serial killers.

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1. Jeffrey Dahmer’s First Murder: The Descent Begins

The episode opens with Vanessa Richardson setting the stage for understanding the powerful emotion of guilt and its elusive nature in Jeffrey Dahmer's life. She states:

"Guilt is one of the most powerful emotions we can feel... That's what Jeffrey Dahmer did, and the resulting damage could never be repaired."
[00:06] Vanessa Richardson

Delving into Dahmer's early motivations, the hosts recount his first murder on June 18, 1978, when 18-year-old Jeffrey Dahmer targeted Steven Hicks. This act marked the beginning of Dahmer's ruthless pursuit of control and companionship. Vanessa narrates the chilling details:

"Jeffrey was determined to try again... He swung it down onto Steven's head."
[05:45] Vanessa Richardson

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2. The Absence of Guilt and Empathy

Dr. Tristan Engels provides a profound psychological analysis of Dahmer's actions, emphasizing his inability to feel typical human emotions such as guilt or empathy:

"I don't think he's capable of feeling the emotion of guilt or regret... He's never learned how to be valued by other people."
[08:20] Dr. Tristan Engels

This lack of remorse allowed Dahmer to commit his heinous acts without the moral constraints that typically prevent such behavior in most individuals.

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3. Aftermath of the First Murder: Hiding the Evidence

Following the murder, Dahmer grapples with the immediate need to conceal his crime. Vanessa describes his meticulous yet flawed attempts to hide Steven's body:

"He had the house to himself for the moment... So Jeffrey knelt down, pressed the barbell over Steven's throat."
[08:40] Vanessa Richardson

Despite his efforts to hide the body in the crawl space beneath his house—mirroring his childhood obsession with animal bones—fear begins to gnaw at him. Dr. Engels interprets Dahmer's actions as a desperate attempt to maintain control:

"He wants it to be somewhere that he knows he can access it if he needs to."
[14:11] Dr. Tristan Engels

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4. A Near-Encounter with the Law

One of the most gripping moments of the episode is Dahmer’s unexpected encounter with law enforcement. As Dahmer attempts to dispose of Steven's remains, he is pulled over:

"He saw a flash of red and blue lights... he was getting pulled over with pieces of a dead body in the backseat."
[16:20] Vanessa Richardson

Despite the gravity of his situation, Dahmer manages to evade suspicion by cleverly deflecting the officer's inquiries. Dr. Engels highlights how this incident only emboldened Dahmer:

"I think that actually fuels him a little bit more, his confidence."
[20:19] Dr. Tristan Engels

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5. Escalation Through Alcohol and Isolation

The aftermath of the murder sees Dahmer spiraling into deeper alcohol abuse, exacerbating his feelings of isolation following his parents' divorce. Vanessa reflects on the worsening state of Dahmer’s life:

"His alcohol abuse spiraled out of control and there was nobody around to make him stop."
[24:31] Vanessa Richardson

Dr. Engels explains that Dahmer's substance abuse was a futile attempt to numb his relentless inner turmoil:

"He's trying to numb the feelings of being alone and being abandoned."
[25:59] Dr. Tristan Engels

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6. Attempts to Satisfy Twisted Desires: The Mannequin and Beyond

In his quest for control and companionship, Dahmer resorts to using a mannequin as a surrogate for a living partner. Vanessa poses a critical question:

"Was his desire for this mannequin, like, different from other people who use sex dolls?"
[39:36] Vanessa Richardson

Dr. Engels responds by distinguishing Dahmer's intentions from typical uses of sex dolls, emphasizing his need for dominance and the inability to form genuine connections:

"It's like having a companion, even though that companion is an inanimate object."
[40:18] Dr. Tristan Engels

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7. The Path to Serial Killing: From Mannequins to Real Victims

Despite these attempts to control his environment, Dahmer's dark urges resurface with increased intensity. His experiments with drugging and controlling his victims set the stage for his subsequent murders. The episode culminates with the murder of Stephen Tuomi on November 21, 1987, highlighting the culmination of Dahmer's descent:

"Jeffrey Dahmer had killed. Again."
[41:54] Vanessa Richardson

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8. Psychological Patterns and Trophies

A recurring theme discussed is Dahmer's tendency to keep "trophies" from his victims, symbolizing his need to relive the control and domination he exerted. Dr. Engels elaborates:

"Trophies are a symbol of the act... it allows him to continue to relive that experience."
[14:16] Dr. Tristan Engels

This behavior underscores the deep-seated psychological patterns that enabled Dahmer to continue his killing spree unchecked for years.

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Conclusion

In this gripping episode, Vanessa Richardson and Dr. Tristan Engels meticulously unravel the early stages of Jeffrey Dahmer's transformation into a serial killer. Through detailed narration and expert psychological insights, listeners gain a comprehensive understanding of the factors that fueled Dahmer's heinous actions. As the episode concludes, anticipation builds for the next installment, which promises to explore Dahmer's journey from initial murderer to full-fledged serial killer.

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Notable Quotes:

• "I don't think he's capable of feeling the emotion of guilt or regret."
  — Dr. Tristan Engels [08:20]

• "What makes a serial killer?"
  — Vanessa Richardson [02:26]

• "Trophies are a symbol of the act... it's a way for him to try to do that."
  — Dr. Tristan Engels [14:16]

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Transcript

[Vanessa Richardson]

This is Crime House. Guilt is one of the most powerful emotions we can feel. It haunts us, consumes us. It's the mind's way of telling us that we've done something worth regretting. And although people say everything fades over time, guilt rarely does. It hangs over us until we're strong enough to confront the thing that made us feel like this in the first place. Others might spend their entire lives living with that guilt and doing everything they can to drive it down as deep as it can go. That's what Jeffrey Dahmer did, and the resulting damage could never be repaired. The human mind is fascinating. It controls how we think, how we feel, how we love, and how we hate. And sometimes the mind drives us to do something truly unspeakable. When that happens, people wonder, how could someone do such a thing? Well, on this show, that's what we're going to try and answer. This is Mind of a Serial Killer, a Crime House original. Every Monday, we'll be taking deep dives into the minds of hit history's most notorious serial killers and violent offenders. At Crime House. We want to express our gratitude to you, our community, for making this possible. Please support us by rating, reviewing and following Mind of a Serial Killer. Wherever you get your podcasts, your feedback truly matters. And for ad free and early access to Mind of a Serial Killer plus exciting bonus content, subscribe to Crime House plus on Apple Podcasts. Subscribe now for instant access to all four episodes of our limited series on Jeffrey Dahmer. I'm Vanessa Richardson.

[Dr. Tristan Engels]

And I'm Dr. Tristan Engels. As Vanessa takes you through our subject stories, I'll be helping her dive into these killers minds as we try to understand how someone could do such horrible things.

[Vanessa Richardson]

This is the second of four episodes on Jeffrey Dahmer, perhaps the world's most famous serial killer, who was responsible for murdering at least 17 people in Wisconsin and Ohio from 1978 to 1991. Last week, we examined Jeffrey's troubled childhood and how his fear of abandonment led to his desire for a companion that would never leave him. In today's episode, we'll be exploring Jeffrey Dahmer's first murder, the subsequent fallout, and as always, asking the question, what makes a serial killer?

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[Vanessa Richardson]

In our last episode, we talked a lot about Jeffrey Dahmer's issues with abandonment and how those fears mutated into a twisted fantasy of possessing another person's body that he could caress and explore at will. And when we last left off, Jeffrey was trying for the second time to turn that fantasy into a sickening reality.

[Dr. Tristan Engels]

It's almost a borderline personality pattern where there's that real fear of abandonment or rejection going back to that jogger that didn't jog past his house on the day that he had built up the courage and confidence to take action on that. I think he'd obsessed about that missed opportunity and viewed that as also a form of rejection. And so now he's in a position where one, he's been abandoned by his family, he's left to his own devices, he's drinking, he's the controller of the environment. He sees the opportunity, he takes it. And in that moment, I think he's finally getting that sense of control over nobody abandoning or rejecting him.

[Vanessa Richardson]

On June 18, 1978, 18 year old Jeffrey was out for a drive when he passed by a handsome hitchhiker, a young man named Steven Hicks. Steven reminded Jeffrey of the jogger he used to pass by his house. Jeffrey had dreamed of getting his hands on that jogger, but his plan to attack and kidnap him had Failed. And now, seeing Steven walking along the side of a backcountry road, Jeffrey was determined to try again. Jeffrey convinced Steven to come over to his house. But after smoking some weed and drinking a couple beers, Steven decided he wanted to leave. That was something Jeffrey couldn't allow. He excused himself, went to his workout equipment and grabbed a barbell. He was not going to let Steven leave that house. Jeffrey came back to the living room, the barbell gripped in his hands. He slowly turned the handle and crept back into the room. Steven was sitting down, facing away from the door. As quietly as he could, Jeffrey crept up behind him. Then he lifted the barbell in the air and swung it down onto Steven's head. Steven fell forward, grabbing his head. He was still conscious, and before Jeffrey could swing again, Steven sprang to his feet and tackled him. The two young men fell to the ground, wrestling over the barbell. But Jeffrey was bigger and stronger and also wasn't dealing with a severe head injury. He easily overpowered Steven and struck him in the head again with the barbell. This time, Stephen was knocked unconscious. Jeffrey staggered to his feet, taking in the scene in front of him. He felt a surge of excitement mixed with a little fear. There was still time to go back. He could grab Steven, put him in the car, and take him to a hospital. But that wasn't going to happen. Jeffrey had finally gotten what he wanted, and he wasn't going to let it slip through his fingers again. He wanted to be sure Steven never left him. And that meant he could never let him wake up. So Jeffrey knelt down, pressed the barbell over Steven's throat, and held it down until he stopped breathing. Jeffrey Dahmer was now a murderer. Do you think in that moment he felt any guilt?

[Dr. Tristan Engels]

I don't think so. I don't think he's capable of feeling the emotion of guilt or regret. I don't think he's capable of feeling the emotion of empathy or sympathy. He's never learned how to be valued by other people, let alone to value others. So I think in that moment, there's no guilt. I think if anything, he's feeling relief.

[Vanessa Richardson]

His deepest fantasy had finally come true. So the first thing Jeffrey did was strip the clothes from Steven's body. He laid down next to Steven, caressing his torso. It was everything he'd imagined it would be. There were no emotions to deal with, no partner who had their own wants and needs. Best of all, for him, there was no resistance, no way Steven could leave. It was, as we just said, everything Jeffrey dreamt it would be. Even better than the scenarios he'd fantasized about for hours in his room. And eventually, his feelings of happiness took another shape. Lust. Jeffrey got up, and as he stood over the body admiring what he'd done, he pleasured himself. Afterwards, another emotion came crashing over him. Fear. So Jeffrey's emotions threatened to overwhelm him, and he had no idea what to do next. He'd spent so much time thinking about how he would get to this moment, but he never considered what would happen once it was over. All he knew was that he couldn't just leave Steven's body lying there forever. He had the house to himself for the moment. But at some point, one of his parents would be back. So once it got dark, Jeffrey carried Stephen's body outside and hid it in the crawl space beneath the house. If you remember, in episode one, this is kind of a sick, twisted return to Jeffrey coming full circle. So when he was a kid, his obsession with dead bodies and anatomy had started when he found animal bones from this same crawl space. And now he was putting his first victim there. But that morbid coincidence wasn't remotely on Jeffrey's mind. He was trying to figure out his next move. He knew hiding the body here was just a temporary solution. He figured he would sleep on it and confront the problem in the morning. Sleep didn't come easy, though. Jeffrey's fear was all consuming. He didn't regret what he'd done, but he was terrified about what came next. He had no idea who Steven was or if someone would come looking for him. All he knew was that he didn't want to get caught and that somehow he'd have to cover it up.

[Dr. Tristan Engels]

In Jeffrey's case, the fear of getting caught is the fear of not being able to do this again. Getting caught means there's no more opportunity for him to have more experiences of completely controlling another person to the degree where he can have his way without any rejection or abandonment. That's where the fear is stemming from.

[Vanessa Richardson]

We've all had moments where we regretted something or we were worried about getting caught. I mean, when I was a kid, I think I was in kindergarten, I loved Superman. And I had saw this little toy in somebody else's cubby, and I stole it. And my mom obviously knew it wasn't mine. And then I had to return it, you know, the next day I felt so guilty. I mean, that's a very different example, obviously. But did Jeffrey feel any kind of, like, remorse in that way?

[Dr. Tristan Engels]

No. What you're describing is a very normal experience for children. Learning their boundaries, learning their limits, learning what's pro social and learning what's antisocial. And your reaction, the guilt shows that you have the conscience that most people have. Jeffrey doesn't have that conscience. He doesn't have remorse, he doesn't have guilt, he doesn't have empathy. He doesn't have sympathy. So in Jeffrey's case, it's much more pathological.

[Vanessa Richardson]

By the next morning, Jeffrey had finally settled on a plan of what to do. He got up, threw on some clothes, and headed out to the store, where he bought a massive knife. In Jeffrey's mind, it would be easier to get rid of the evidence if it was cut up into pieces. So he went back home, ducked into the crawl space, and hacked the limbs off Steven's body, stuffing them into trash bags. But before he got rid of the torso, there was one more thing he had to do. Like with many of the dead animals Jeffrey used to experiment on in his tree house in the woods, Jeffrey wanted to see the inside of Steven's body. So he slid open the stomach and examined the organs inside. Once he was done, Jeffrey went inside to clean up and think about what to do next. At this point, he was going one step at a time. He'd cut the body into smaller pieces and put them into garbage bags. But he still didn't know where to put them, and the answer didn't come to him easily. Jeffrey spent the rest of the day drinking beers, mulling over what to do with the evidence.

[Dr. Tristan Engels]

In this case, with Jeffrey, he's mulling over where to put the pieces of his body. And I think that's probably an internal conflict for him because he wants it to be within reach, to be somewhere that he knows he can access it if he needs to. We all know a lot of serial killers have what we would call a trophy or a manifesto or something, tokens, as we say. And Jeffrey is probably thinking, I don't want to fully part with this person and their anatomy. I need it to be somewhere where one, no one could find it, but where I could easily access it if I wanted to. I would surmise that that's what's going on in Jeffrey's head in this particular situation. Knowing what we know about Jeffrey thus.

[Vanessa Richardson]

Far, why is it that serial killers love to keep trophies?

[Dr. Tristan Engels]

Trophies are a symbol of the act. It's a symbol of the moment. It's a symbol of all of the emotions that they experienced, whether it's adrenaline, whether it's thrill, and having those with them is almost like an ability to stay connected to that. I think in some ways these trophies are something that they can hold on to to fight the urge for a period of time. Because we know serial killers generally, according with to the FBI's description, they have a period of what we call a sleeper period where they're not acting on something and during that time they're using something or having something that's getting them by to fight these urges. And I think in a lot of cases, especially in Jeffrey's case here, is that these trophies or tokens or whatever he keeps with him is a way for him to try to do that, because it's not like he can do this every day without getting caught. He knows that he's got to be careful so that he can keep doing this.

[Vanessa Richardson]

Those little tokens help kind of satiate that urge.

[Dr. Tristan Engels]

Absolutely.

[Vanessa Richardson]

It took the whole day, but eventually Jeffrey made a decision. In the dead of night, he was going to put the remains in his car, then drive them out to a ravine a few miles away and dump them. To muster up some courage, he spent the rest of the day and deep into the night drinking. Finally, around 3am Jeffrey threw back one last beer and staggered outside, then moved the bags from the crawl space into the back of his car. The dark country roads were quiet and empty, just as he expected them to be at this time of night. But then something unexpected happened that threw a massive wrench into Jeffrey's plans. He saw a flash of red and blue lights in his rearview mirror and the unmistakable blare of a police siren. He was getting pulled over with pieces of a dead body in the backseat.

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[Vanessa Richardson]

When Jeffrey realized he was getting pulled over, his stomach dropped. He was sure that he would be arrested and hauled off to jail. He tried to stay calm as the officer climbed out of his police cruiser and strode over to Jeffrey's window. Jeffrey rolled down the window, doing his best to act naturally. He asked if everything was all right, but the officer shook his head. He reached down for something on his belt and Jeffrey braced for the worst. But it was just the officer's flashlight. He clicked it on and shined the beam in Jeffrey's face. He said that Jeffrey had been driving erratically, so the officer wanted Jeffrey to get out of the car for a sobriety test. All Jeffrey wanted to do was put the car in drive and slam on the gas pedal. But he knew that if he ran, it would all be over. So he took a deep breath, smiled, and slowly exited the vehicle. Somehow, Jeffrey managed to pass the field sobriety test. The officer walked Jeffrey back to the car, told him he was free to go, then turned to leave. But then the officer's nose wrinkled. He clicked his flashlight on and pointed it at the trash bag sitting in the backseat. Looking back at Jeffrey, he asked, what on earth smelled so bad? Jeffrey stammered and said he was taking some trash to the city dump. The officer looked skeptical. He asked why he would be taking the trash out at 3am Thinking fast, Jeffrey told the sob story of his parents impending divorce and that he was so upset by it he couldn't sleep. He said he thought a late night drive might help clear his mind. The officer looked at him for a long moment. Then he clicked his flashlight off, wrote him a ticket for erratic driving, and told Jeffrey to just get home safe. If the officer had investigated a little more, he might have caught Jeffrey and stopped a years long murder spree before it started. But once again, Jeffrey got off the hook. Once the officer had driven off, Jeffrey turned his car back on. He abandoned his plan to dispose of the body and decided to head back home instead.

[Dr. Tristan Engels]

I think an average person would process a close call like that by saying, all right, that's the last time I have anything to drink before I get behind the wheel. Or that's the last time I drive erratically and I'll be much more conscientious and cautious in the future. No matter what time of day it is. That's what a person would process, a close call like that. But someone like Jeffrey. I think this just added more to the arrogance of what he's doing, that I did this, I got this close, and I could still get away with it. And so I think that actually fuels him a little bit more, his confidence.

[Vanessa Richardson]

It's just terrifying. So when Jeffrey got back home, he returned Steven's remains to the crawl space underneath the house, with one exception. The head. He brought that back up to his room, and just like he did over Steven's body, he pleasured himself while looking at it. Okay, I know we just paused the story, but I can't let this go by without stopping again. Please help us make some sense of this.

[Dr. Tristan Engels]

I think in the case of serial killers and their trophies, this is his trophy. This is something that he can't let go, something that he can keep with him, something that allows him to continue to relive that experience. And all of the emotions he felt, the gratifying emotions, the pleasurable emotions, the controlled emotions, the lack of fear, of abandonment in that case, that's what this is about for Jeffrey.

[Vanessa Richardson]

And I understand that lack of wanting them to go away. It's obviously a control. But what could possibly be arousing? Why is it now turning sexual? Is it the object itself or the situation?

[Dr. Tristan Engels]

Okay, so in this case, without having Jeffrey here to ask directly, we really can only surmise, and I think when we take into consideration what we know thus far about Jeffrey, his fascination with anatomy began at a very young age with his father. It was something that he was able to bond with his father over. His father was the chemist. His father didn't decline in bleaching bones. Instead, he sort of wanted to help grow this curiosity that Jeffrey had. Because finally, Lionel was seeing Jeffrey interested in something. And because Lionel was a chemist and this is what he does, he didn't really look at it as anything abnormal. So because that was something that he was connected to his dad over there's an emotional, personal part of anatomy for him. And maybe there's something there that he holds onto when it comes to anatomy's physical bodies. But also it's that he's in total control over the victim.

[Vanessa Richardson]

Yeah.

[Dr. Tristan Engels]

And there's no way the victim can say no. There's no way the victim can deny him. There's no way the victim can say, I'm. I don't want this right now. I don't want to be your friend. I don't want to be here. He has full control at all times.

[Vanessa Richardson]

The next morning, Jeffrey was at a complete loss of what to do. The remains were starting to badly decompose at this Point, the house just smelled awful. As much as he wanted to keep them forever, he knew it was just a matter of time before someone came around to check on him. He was too afraid to try to take them to the ravine again. So instead he stuffed the head and the trash bags into a big drainage pipe at the back of the Dahmer's property, then covered them up with some dirt. But for Jeffrey, the phrase out of sight, out of mind didn't apply. Once the initial rush had worn off, the initial enormity of what he'd done finally hit him. He regretted killing Steven at that point and blamed his twisted desires for driving him over the edge.

[Dr. Tristan Engels]

I don't think in this case with Jeffrey, the regret is the regret that someone with a more normal pathology would experience. I think the regret is that having killed Steven doesn't mean he gets to stay with him forever. At this point, he had to let all of Steven go. If there is a regret in this case, it's the regret of I thought this would allow me to keep him forever so he could never leave me. But the reality is he cannot keep a decomposing body or body parts forever. He does have to let it go. And the regret is having to let Steven go.

[Vanessa Richardson]

So the regret isn't for the act of ending Stephen's life. It was for his own satisfaction.

[Dr. Tristan Engels]

I think if anything, he thought I could keep him, but I really can't. So now I regret killing him because maybe if I left, kept him alive, I could have kept him forever.

[Vanessa Richardson]

Now he had no interest in actually paying for his crime. He never really considered turning himself in and dealing with the consequences. Instead, Jeffrey tried to drown out the memories from that night by drinking even more than he had before. Predictably, Jeffrey's attempt to drown his emotions in alcohol didn't work out too well. Over the next few months, his alcohol abuse spiraled out of control and there was nobody around to make him stop. Just a few weeks after Jeffrey killed Stephen, his parents divorce finally went through. Within the month, Jeffrey's mom, Joyce, left for Wisconsin with his little brother David and Jeffrey's dad. Lionel had no idea that Jeffrey was alone. A condition of the divorce was that he wasn't allowed to come to the house without permission. And Joyce hadn't told Lionel she was leaving the state. Given how acrimonious the divorce was, it's not surprising that Lionel kept his distance for a while. But by the end of the summer, he finally found out that Jeffrey had been left to his own devices for weeks. So in early September 1978. Lionel and his new girlfriend, Sherry Jordan, rushed to the house to check up on Jeffrey. They found Jeffrey just sitting in an empty room in a drunken daze. The house was a total mess. Aside from beer, the only thing in the fridge was a half gallon of milk.

[Dr. Tristan Engels]

Obviously, Jeffrey's substance use is escalating, and in his case, he's attempting to numb himself. And if we're speaking on Jeffrey's pathology, my guess is that he's trying to numb the feelings of being alone and being abandoned. It's nothing to do with regret, it's nothing to do with empathy. It's everything to do with feeling alone and unwanted.

[Vanessa Richardson]

What's going on actually in the brain when alcohol shuts it down like this?

[Dr. Tristan Engels]

So any substance, whether it's alcohol or illicit drugs, uses the brain's own neurotransmitters, the ones that we are biologically born with, against them. So even if there's an abuse or especially if there's a dependency over time, it's hijacking the reward pathway in the brain. So when Jeffrey's drinking, he's feeling some happy feelings, so to speak, because he's flooding his brain with his own neurotransmitters. But on the contrary, when somebody starts to become more sobering off of the substance, whatever that might be, then the imbalance comes and then the depression, the anxiety, a lot of those feelings come into play.

[Vanessa Richardson]

So it's almost like the child who never got that parental support is now self soothing as an adult.

[Dr. Tristan Engels]

Exactly. And I also think too that I don't think Jeffrey knows what makes him happy or what gives him that same feeling of pleasure than as a normal person does. For example, when we look at, let's say a normal brain and they're shown images of, let's say, ice cream, that same reward pathway will light up because they know ice cream is something that makes them happy. They love it, they like it. If they're shown a picture of, let's say, murder, that pathway doesn't light up. But with a psychopath's brain, when they're shown a picture of ice cream, it might light up the pathway, but so does a picture of murder.

[Vanessa Richardson]

Now, going back to the house, Lionel was devastated to see his son in such a distressed state and was determined to help him. So after graduating, Jeffrey had abandoned plans to attend Ohio State University. But at Lionel and Sherry's urging, he agreed to give college a try. And like so many 18 year olds do, Jeffrey Dahmer embarked on the rite of passage that is the Freshman year of college. But unlike other college students, there was no socializing, studying, or any real attempt at self discovery. Instead, he spent all his time in his room drinking alone. Well, if there's any positive to be drawn from Jeffrey's time at Ohio State, it's that he was too inebriated to fixate on other potential victims. It also seems like, at least at this point, Jeffrey was trying hard not to repeat what had happened with Stephen over the summer. And the only way he felt he could do that was by constantly drinking. As you might imagine, that wasn't exactly conducive to doing well in school. When the semester ended in December, Jeffrey decided he was done with school. And Lionel didn't fight him on it. Instead, they both decided that Jeffrey should try another way to get some discipline into his life. Enlist in the army. And so in January 1979, Jeffrey Dahmer reported for training at Fort McClellan in Alabama.

[Dr. Tristan Engels]

I think that a lot of households felt in 1979 that by enlisting children into the army, especially children who are struggling, finding self discipline and structure, that the army would be the solution for that. Because a lot of the training in the military is structured. It is a very regimented, very orderly, very structured environment that they have to abide by. But in addition to the benefits of providing that sort of environment, there's also some risks involved in that as well. And in Jeffrey's case, he's already, as we shared, feeled abandoned by his family. Enlisting him in the military and allowing him to go off can be another form of abandonment in his mind.

[Vanessa Richardson]

Obviously, we know that Jeffrey Dahmer is an outlier, but for other regular people, does it tend to work for people who need structure in their lives, or do they just tend to revert back to bad habits once they're out?

[Dr. Tristan Engels]

It really is dependent on the individual. I've seen both ways. I've seen individuals who've enlisted in the military gain a lot of positive improvement in behavioral patterns and overall adjustment. But I've also seen that polar difference in terms of orderliness and routine and rigidity become a negative. And it really depends on the individual.

[Vanessa Richardson]

So in the end, just like his brief time in college, Jeffrey's military career was an utter disaster. When he wasn't on duty, he was drinking, and he spent the next three years in a drunken stupor. On March 26, 1981, Jeffrey Dahmer, now 20 years old, left the military with an honorable discharge despite his well known substance abuse. Instead of moving back to Ohio, he decided to Go to Miami. Despite the city's notorious nightlife, Jeffrey kept to himself. He was still fighting to repress his dark, violent desires and, like he'd done for the past three years or so, spent all his time drinking alone. The only job he could get was working at a sandwich shop. And that meager income couldn't support his alcohol addiction. So after a few months, Jeffrey called Lionel and moved back to Ohio. By this point, Jeffrey was getting desperate. He recognized that his alcohol abuse wouldn't hold the memories of what he'd done to Stephen Hicks at bay. He had to do something or they'd consume him forever. So in September 1981, almost three years since Jeffrey left for college, he arrived back at his childhood home. One day, while Lionel and Sherry were at work, Jeffrey snuck out to the drainage pipe where he'd buried Steven's remains. The trash bags were still there. He dragged them out and carried them to the top of a small cliff in the woods behind the house. Jeffrey opened the bags. The flesh was long gone and all that was left were the bones. Then he picked up a rock and started smashing them. But just like everything else Jeffrey did to outrun his past, it didn't make him feel better. He was just as emotionally tortured as ever. And it wouldn't be long until all that rage and guilt that he'd been burying finally erupted.

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[Vanessa Richardson]

Unfortunately for Jeffrey Dahmer, smashing the bones of his first victim Stephen Hicks didn't help him turn over a new leaf. He couldn't shake his dependency on alcohol and it finally got him into trouble. On October 7, 1981, 21 year old Jeffrey got arrested for the first time when he was charged with disorderly conduct for drinking straight from a vodka bottle in the hotel bar of a Ramada Inn. Jeffrey's dad, Lionel, desperately wanted to help his son, but so far, nothing had worked. College didn't spark any inspiration, and the military failed to instill any discipline. But there was one thing left for Jeffrey to try. Moving in with his grandmother. Katherine Dahmer was a quiet, religious woman who lived in West Alice, Wisconsin, a working class suburb of Milwaukee. She got along well with Jeffrey in the way most grandparents do with their grandchildren, and was happy to help him however she could. So in late 1981, Jeffrey moved in. And for a while, it seemed like maybe this was the fresh start Jeffrey desperately needed. He'd trained as a medic in the army, so he was able to get a job drawing blood at the Milwaukee Blood Plasma Center. He did chores around the house for his grandma, and they watched TV together every, every single night. But underneath the surface, his demons still raged. As hard as Jeffrey tried, he couldn't stop drinking. And on August 8, 1982, 22 year old Jeffrey was arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct at the Wisconsin State Fair. This incident was also the first instance Jeffrey got caught for something that would later happen with greater frequency. Indecent exposure. According to the police officer who arrested him, Jeffrey did lower his pants in the presence of approximately 25 people, including women and children.

[Dr. Tristan Engels]

I have been the unfortunate victim of an indecent exposure many times working in state prison. And as we discussed before, I don't think that Jeffrey got pleasure from the same things that most people would. He got pleasure from the actions of indecent exposure. He got pleasure from what he had done to Steven Hicks. He got pleasure from exploring the anatomy of different animals. And now, as we know people, that's the thing that Jeffrey's reward pathway would get flooded with dopamine. Whereas a normal person just being at the Wisconsin State Fair and having one of their cream puffs, because I've been there many times, those cream puffs are the staple that would do the same for a normal person. But Jeffrey, his thrill seeking, that's what he needs. Those actions are the only way that he feels something other than what he's trying to numb.

[Vanessa Richardson]

Whatever Jeffrey's reasoning was for exposing himself in public like that, it does seem like getting arrested was a bit of a wake up call. And this time, unlike the several other wake up calls he's had over the years, this one actually stuck for a while. Even though he wasn't sentenced to any serious jail time. Maybe the process of actually getting arrested made Jeffrey realize he needed to change. So, following his grandmother's lead, he turned to religion. It wasn't all sunshine and roses, though. He did get fired from his job. But it did seem like Jeffrey was genuinely trying to be a better person. From the fall of 1982 to 1984, nothing particularly notable happened in Jeffrey's life. But Jeffrey Dahmer was about to go down a path there was no coming back from. Sometime in early 1985, Jeffrey was at the library when a random encounter reawakened some of his darkest desires completely at random. Another man dropped a note in Jeffrey's lap, asking to meet him in the bathroom for sex. Jeffrey didn't go after him, but it did get him thinking. Imagining what the encounter could have been like got him fantasizing again, Just like he did in his room when he was a teenager and the obsessed over the jogger that passed by his house. Jeffrey yearned for another experience where he was fully in control, where he would face no resistance, no chance of abandonment. But he didn't want to repeat what had happened with Steven Hicks. So he turned to a companion that he knew wouldn't give him any trouble, no matter what. A mannequin that he stole from a local department store.

[Dr. Tristan Engels]

Well, a mannequin represents a human figure. So Jeffrey is starting to get back into that obsessive part of him that is looking for another Stephen Hicks. And he's trying to find ways to curtail that. Like, he has been drinking excessively, and now his behavior, as we're seeing, is escalating. There's a pattern of that shock and awe. He's trying to get some sort of thrills, and this is the next step. And I think after this, what we'll find is maybe an increase in picking up dead animals again until he once again puts his sights on another victim.

[Vanessa Richardson]

So I know this is a little left field, but I know that there are people out there who use sex dolls. And this reminds me of that. Was his desire for this mannequin, like, different from other people who use sex dolls?

[Dr. Tristan Engels]

Sex dolls are used for a particular purpose, and they have the particular anatomy to use it for that purpose, whereas mannequins really don't. So it could be one of two things. It could be, as Geoffrey has in the past, he's pleasured himself to the anatomy of another, not necessarily with the anatomy or. And I think which is more likely, it's something that makes him feel connected. It's like having a companion, even though that companion is an inanimate object.

[Vanessa Richardson]

So it seems like Jeffrey thought that living out his fantasies with the mannequin would allow him to replicate that same satisfaction he felt the night he spent with Steven Hicks's body. And for a while, he seemed to be happy enough with it. But eventually he got rid of it after his grandmother found it in his room. This was sometime around 1985. Jeffrey was 25, and maybe realizing that a mannequin wasn't enough of a companion, he started experimenting with random sexual encounters at bars and bathhouses. But he didn't particularly enjoy the experience. Although he liked the sexual gratification, he couldn't get comfortable actually interacting with a partner who had their own wants and needs. Jeffrey needed to be in control. As we've seen again and again in this story, he was desperate to replicate the experience with Steven. But the mannequin wasn't real enough, and the anonymous encounters were too stressful. So Jeffrey found what he thought was the perfect middle ground. On June 6, 1986, Jeffrey visited a doctor and told him he was having trouble sleeping because he was working the night shift and couldn't adjust to the odd hours. Thinking nothing of it, the doctor prescribed him some sleeping pills, But Jeffrey had no intention of using them for himself. That night, he visited a bathhouse and convinced a young man to join him in a private room. He fixed the young man a drink, then dropped a few pills in. Within the hour, he'd fallen unconscious, allowing Jeffrey to live out his fantasies.

[Dr. Tristan Engels]

What we've seen is we've seen an escalation. He's tried to curtail this drive, this need by excessively drinking. His parents, or Lionel in particular, try to provide structure and routine by having him enlist in the military. He then went to get a mannequin to have that in his room to hope that that would curtail this need, this drive. But that wasn't enough. And so then he goes and has these sexual encounters with strange men in different bath houses and different places. But that's not going to give him what he's looking for. What he's looking for is having the dominance and the control and the keeping, the keeping of the person. So drugging somebody is subduing that person to a degree where they can't reject, they can't say no, they can't escape, and they can't leave.

[Vanessa Richardson]

So after that night, Jeffrey's victim didn't report him to the police or to the bathhouse's management. Most likely, he felt like nobody would do anything to help even if he did. And so Jeffrey kept doing it. Over the next few months, he drugged at least eight other men. But at some point in the summer of 1986, he went too far and put his victim in a coma for a week. At that point, the owner of the Bath House finally took action and banned Jeffrey from the premises. The police followed up, but they didn't take any action. And that meant Jeffrey was free once again to find another venue to lure his victims to. He started frequenting bars and clubs, looking for someone to join him in a room at the Ambassador Hotel in Milwaukee. Just like at the Bath House. He would then fix a drug laced drink for them and assault them while they slept. He managed to do this at least six times throughout 1986 and 1987. And so, on the night of November 21, 1987, he fell into his usual routine and headed to a bar called Club219. Jeffrey sat down at the bar, scoping out the scene. A few drinks in, he saw a sandy haired young man that drew his interest. So after closing time, Jeffrey approached him on the street and they struck up a conversation. His name was Stephen Tuomi. He was from a small town in Michigan and was working as a cook at a local diner. This was one of his few nights off and he'd gone out to relax and unwind. Jeffrey invited him to go back to his room at the Ambassador Hotel. Steven said yes. When they got to the room, Jeffrey began his usual routine. He mixed sleeping pills into Steven's drink and after some foreplay, Stephen fell asleep. The next thing Jeffrey knew, it was morning. He had a massive headache and didn't remember falling asleep himself. As he slowly came to, he realized he was lying on top of Steve. There was blood coming out of Stephen's mouth and his chest had been savagely beaten. Jeffrey Dahmer had killed. Again. Thanks so much for listening. We'll be back next Monday as as we discuss Jeffrey Dahmer's journey from murderer to serial killer.

[Dr. Tristan Engels]

Mind of a Serial Killer is a Crime House original. Powered by Pave Studios. If you like what you heard today, reach out on social media at Crimehouse on TikTok and Instagram. Don't forget to rate, review and follow Mind of a Serial Killer. Wherever you get your podcasts, your feedback truly makes a difference.

[Vanessa Richardson]

And for ad free and early access to Mind of a Serial Killer plus exciting bonus content, subscribe to Crime House plus on Apple Podcasts. Subscribe now for instant access to all four episodes of our limited series on Jeffrey Dahmer. We'll be back next Monday. Mind of a Serial Killer, a crime house original powered by Pave Studios, is executive produced by Max Cutler. This episode of Mind of a Serial Killer was produced, produced and directed by Ron Shapiro, written and developed by Alex Benedon, fact checked by Claire Cronin and included production assistance from Paul Ebiskin, Sarah Carroll and Kristen Acevedo. Mind of a Serial Killer is hosted by Vanessa Richardson and Dr. Tristan Engels.