← UNMARKED: A True Crime Podcast
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- [00:00]
James Buddy Day
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Dr. Eric Hickey
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- [00:33]
James Buddy Day
I got into true crime early. I remember reading beat up paperbacks about murder on the bus to high school. It was 1992 when I became fascinated with the trial of a Milwaukee man named Jeffrey Dahmer.
- [00:50]
Dr. Eric Hickey
Dahmer has confessed to the murders of
- [00:53]
James Buddy Day
17 men, most occurring in his downtown Milwaukee apartment. I wrote a letter to the Milwaukee Police Department, true story. And I asked them for all the case files. In my letter I said I was a college student hoping to write a paper on the case. This was before the Internet. I had no idea why I thought they might actually respond. But they did. I still remember the call. An officer from the Milwaukee police phone the landline at my parents house and asked if I wanted the full unredacted confession. $10 for shipping. I still have it.
- [01:33]
Jeffrey Dahmer
I did what I did. Not for reasons of hate. I hated no one. I knew I was sick or evil or both.
- [01:41]
James Buddy Day
In this episode we're going to dissect that question and look at the case through Dahmer's own statements. Because when you confront the darkest stories directly, they often reveal the clearest truths. I'm James Buddy Day. This is unmarked. I still remember getting the package. This was before FOIA requests were commonplace. It was hundreds of printed pages. I put them in a binder, read them, annotated them, pored over them. Throughout this episode, I'll be referencing this file and I want to put it in context. On Monday, July 22, 1991, Milwaukee Police were flagged down by a young man named Tracy Edwards. He was panic stricken with a handcuff hanging from one wrist. Edwards led officers to an apartment on the edge of downtown. He told them that the man inside had threatened him with a knife. What happened next has been sensationalized in books, films and documentaries. So instead I want to read the actual police account from that day. Quote, they observed various photographs in the apartment depicting dismembered bodies. When they opened the refrigerator, the officers observed the dismembered head of a human being inside. The suspect was subsequently placed under Arrest and admitted to this offense. The suspect was Jeffrey Dahmer. He surrendered without incident and immediately gave a detailed confession. To help paint the picture, I want to refer to an opening page where officers describe the interview itself. They write, quote, jeffrey Dahmer was given numerous cigarettes, four or five cups of coffee, two glasses of water, two cans of Coca Cola, soda pop. The officers note that the interview lasted approximately six hours. What's truly unique about these documents is not just what Dahmer says, it's what he doesn't say. Decades later, we know what he omits, what he claims not to remember, what he lies about. And that's where the real story begins. You have to put yourself back in 1991. Milwaukee is a working class city in transition. Manufacturing jobs are disappearing. Crime is rising across many American cities, and police are busy dealing with drugs and violence in, in struggling neighborhoods. When Jeffrey Dahmer is arrested, he is completely unknown to the officers that are interviewing him. So they start with the basics. They write, quote, Mr. Dahmer states he is 31 years of age, born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He states he moved to Richfield, Ohio when he was about 6 years old and was raised there. Now this entire interview, it's written this way, cold and analytical. It's the voice of an officer taking notes, methodically documenting what Dahmer says, even as the conversation begins to move toward crimes that are almost impossible to comprehend.
- [05:21]
Dr. Eric Hickey
It wasn't like he woke up one morning and said, this is what I'm going to do. It was a long process he went through for years.
- [05:28]
James Buddy Day
That's the voice of Dr. Eric Hickey, a renowned forensic psychologist specializing in serial murder, sexual predators and victimology. He's a professor at Walden University and a former consultant to the FBI. Dr. Hickey has spent years studying the Dahmer case, even meeting with Dmer's family in an effort to understand how someone like Jeffrey Dahmer develops. He seems to have the hallmarks of psychopathy. He's, he's incredible, you know, as an adult. He's, he's self centered, grandiose, callous. He sees other people as objects. So I'm curious, like, where that came from. Why did he feel so isolated and so different as a child?
- [06:15]
Dr. Eric Hickey
Well, I, yes, I think he inherited some of that. And I think, you know, of course genetics and of course biology, they play roles in sort of helping set the stage.
- [06:28]
James Buddy Day
Throughout Dahmer's childhood, his mother struggles with significant mental health issues during pregnancy, she suffers from prolonged nausea, anxiety, and is prescribed tranquilizers in his confession, Dahmer tells authorities that his mother, quote, became depressed after his birth and, and never quite fully recovered.
- [06:50]
Dr. Eric Hickey
There was a lot of argument, a lot of fighting, infighting, and of course his mom had mental. She had some mental health issues.
- [07:00]
James Buddy Day
Dahmer's own description of his childhood is revealing. In the confession officers note, quote, he remembers his early life being one of extreme tension and that his parents were, quote, unquote, constantly at each other's throats. Reading the confession, it occurs to me that while the description is supported by the record, it's only part of the story. What Dahmer omits, or perhaps doesn't fully appreciate are the early warning signs that appear in his childhood. Clinical records suggest that Dahmer showed signs of neurological dysfunction at a very young age. At 4 or 5 years old, Jeffrey appears uninterested in engaging with the social world around him. He's withdrawn, introverted. In a study I came across titled the Case of Jeffrey Sexual Serial Homicide from a Neuropsychiatric Developmental Perspective, researchers examined the possibility that Dahmer suffered from a developmental disorder on the autism spectrum, most likely consistent with some form of Asperger's disorder. It's a fascinating paper and I'll post it in our research portal Unmarked case Files, so you can look at the evidence for yourself. But what that study highlights is a pattern that appears again and again in serial offenders. Perceived childhood trauma combined with neurological vulnerability.
- [08:35]
Dr. Eric Hickey
He wanted to feel normal, and he had really had a hard time doing that.
- [08:41]
James Buddy Day
Dahmer attends Revere High School and his social isolation deepens. He struggles to form attachments with others.
- [08:49]
Dr. Eric Hickey
He was a class clown in high school. He wanted to fit in. He didn't fit in very well. He was never comfortable with his own skin.
- [08:59]
James Buddy Day
What emerges from the record is simply not a troubled childhood, but a boy who is struggling to connect with the world around him. He can imitate normal teenage behavior, but genuine connection is just out of reach. To cope, he begins drinking not only for worsening depression, but also to suppress his developing sexuality, which he feels further isolates him.
- [09:28]
Dr. Eric Hickey
Jeffrey was. He was gay. He never expressed that to people because back in those days it wasn't cool at all and he wouldn't and he wanted to fit in.
- [09:42]
James Buddy Day
By 1978, as Dahmer approaches graduation, his struggles are becoming impossible to ignore. He's frequently drunk at school, his grades are poor. His parents marriage is collapsing. Yet in reading the confession, when Dahmer later speaks with investigators, he rarely addresses these issues directly. Instead, he focuses almost entirely on the turmoil between his parents, as if the chaos around him somehow explains the chaos within him.
- [10:16]
Dr. Eric Hickey
At his high school senior prom, he actually went to the prom with a girl. It didn't go well.
- [10:26]
James Buddy Day
In the psychology of violent offenders, chronic social isolation is often where fantasy life begins to expand and harden.
- [10:35]
Dr. Eric Hickey
You're the fantasies. Absolutely, the fantasies. That's the part that most people don't investigate.
- [10:43]
James Buddy Day
Dahmer will later recall a fascination with bones and with the dead, something his parents dismiss as, quote, inoffensive passing fascinations of childhood. But in the Dahmer case, it's something much more. In the beginning, it isn't simply a fascination with death. The fantasies grow out of something else entirely, a longing for intimacy with someone like Dahmer.
- [11:12]
Dr. Eric Hickey
He was so uncomfortable that he was more comfortable developing his intimacy with somebody who was dead.
- [11:23]
James Buddy Day
For most people, intimacy requires vulnerability. You have to risk rejection. You have to allow another person to have their own thoughts, their own desires. For Dahmer, that unpredictability was unbearable. A dead body removes that risk entirely.
- [11:42]
Dr. Eric Hickey
Dahmer was always fascinated by people who had been dead or been buried. And he. Even before he was with dead people, he. He. Yeah, the fascination, like taphophilia.
- [11:58]
James Buddy Day
The word taphophilia refers to a deep fascination or recurring interest in cemeteries, funerals, and the rituals surrounding death. For Dahmer, though, it isn't about the ceremony.
- [12:12]
Dr. Eric Hickey
He would look in newspapers and find young men who had died in car accidents or were diagnosed illnesses. Then he'd go to the viewings of the bodies. Then he would go to the funerals, and then you go to the cemeteries.
- [12:32]
James Buddy Day
For Dahmer, these rituals become something else entirely, A way to be close to someone even in death, satisfying a craving for the intimacy he cannot seem to achieve in life.
- [12:45]
Dr. Eric Hickey
And that gave him some release, some relief for his need to be with somebody. And he did that for quite a while.
- [12:59]
James Buddy Day
For Dahmer, the tipping point comes in 1978, when he's essentially abandoned by his parents. Up to this point in his life, isolation has been a defining theme. Now that isolation becomes literal. This moment has been examined from a number of angles over the years, but Dahmer provides his own version. In the confession. I'll read it to you. He states that when he was approximately 18 years old is when a divorce occurred between his mother and his father. And at this time, his mother moved to Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, and his father had been court ordered to stay out of the house and had moved in to a motel.
- [13:44]
Dr. Eric Hickey
I think he was 17 when he came Home one day, his mom was gone. She had left, just left him.
- [13:52]
James Buddy Day
Now, by most accounts, there was some sort of miscommunication between Dahmer's mother and father. Each believed the other was looking out for him. Regardless, the result is the same. Weeks after graduating from high school, Jeffrey Dahmer finds himself alone in the house. No parents, no supervision, no structure. In the confession, Dahmer describes something that begins to take hold during this period. He talks about feeling, quote, strong desires of not wanting people to leave him. And he says, quote, he began to hate sleeping alone at night.
- [14:36]
Dr. Eric Hickey
He's very insecure around people. He wasn't, he was so fearful of rejection and I think three weeks later killed his first victim.
- [14:47]
James Buddy Day
This is where the fantasy crosses a line. On June 18, 1978, Jeffrey Dahmer picks up a hitchhiker close to his own age, 19 year old Stephen Hicks. The remains of Stephen Hicks have never been recovered. The murder was only revealed when Dahmer confessed to it more than a decade later, meaning there is minimal physical evidence. Everything we know about what happened that night comes from Dahmer's own statements, which shifted somewhat over time in the confession police document that, quote, he took him home, had homosexual sex with him and they were drinking beer and became intoxicated. Dahmer goes on to tell investigators, quote, he states they got into a physical fight because the 19 year old tried to leave. And that during the fight, he states he struck the hitchhiker in the head with a barbell. For Dahmer, this isn't about anger or cruelty in a conventional sense. What Jeffrey Dahmer is discovering is something far darker. That if someone is dead, they cannot abandon him. The murder solves the very problem his fantasies have been circling for years. And once that realization takes hold, the psychological barrier to killing begins to disappear.
- [16:17]
Dr. Eric Hickey
The concept of being dead, in other words, he won't experience rejection from them.
- [16:22]
James Buddy Day
For Dahmer specifically, it's not about the murder. It's not about suffering. The anecdote he tells where he stole a mannequin as a first attempt, and you know the stories you're telling where he's attending funerals. He's trying to achieve a completely submissive human.
- [16:43]
Dr. Eric Hickey
In the beginning, he just wanted to be with somebody.
- [16:46]
James Buddy Day
Dahmer tells investigators that after killing Stephen Hicks, he dismembers the body, places the remains in trash bags and dumps them in the woods. Two weeks later, he says he returns and breaks up the bones with a sledgehammer. But Dahmer was often dismissive when it came to discussing his victims, and he frequently misremembered or misrepresented the details. For example, in 1991, when anthropologists examined the yard at Dahmer's home where the murder took place, they found evidence suggesting Dahmer had stored the body in the crawl space for some period of time and most likely brought it back inside the house. And at trial, it was also revealed that Dahmer attempted to dispose of the remains wrapped in garbage bags at a local dump. On the way there, he was pulled over by the police with the bags visible in the backseat of his car. Somehow, Dahmer managed to talk his way out of the stop and was released without incident. What that tells us is, is that Dahmer's memory of these crimes is unreliable, not just because time has passed, but because his victims were never fully real to him in the first place.
- [18:11]
Dr. Eric Hickey
A lot of offenders I've dealt with that they're not comfortable with, like, they're incel types, so they're not comfortable with being around people so much in relationships. They don't feel how to do it. So then they will turn to other things.
- [18:27]
James Buddy Day
Back in 1978, Dahmer's father pressures him to enlist in the army. Jeffrey Dahmer is stationed in braunhold, Germany, where records show that he trains as a field medic. But military service does little to stabilize him. He drinks heavily, and after nearly three years, he's discharged early and given a plane ticket to anywhere in the United States. Dahmer later tells police he can't bring himself to return home and face his father, so instead he goes to Miami beach, Florida. At this point, he's drifting. He spends much of his time in Florida at a hospital, and he's eventually asked to leave because of continual drinking. When he finally does return home, the pattern continues. Dahmer drinks heavily and is soon arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct later that same year. In an attempt to break this cycle, Dahmer moves to Milwaukee in 1981, living with his grandmother in a nondescript house on 57th Street. In his confession, investigators note, quote, he states that after he moved to Milwaukee in 1981, the fantasies of killing people began to excite him and became more frequent. Now, that observation is interesting, but it's a little reductive because something else is happening. During this period, for the first time in his life, Dahmer discovers Milwaukee's gay scene, Places where he can meet people like himself, where he experiences a level of acceptance he's never felt before. Bars like 219 Club, the Cage nightclub and the Phoenix. These become a nightly ritual. In his confession, it's noted, Dahmer states there have been many times where he's had sex with men where no violence was involved. For Dahmer, Milwaukee's gay bars give him something he has never experienced before. But they can't give him the thing he truly wants. Someone who will never leave. On September 15, 1987, Dahmer is at the 219 Club when he meets 25 year old Steven Toomey, a short order cook who had finished a shift earlier that evening. According to Dahmer's confession, quote, he states they got a room at the Ambassador Hotel and they got very drunk and passed out. When he woke up, Stephen Toomey was dead. Dahmer will later claim he has almost no memory of what happened, saying he blacked out. The details of the killing remain unclear. According to Dahmer, he leaves the body in the hotel room and goes to a nearby mall where he buys a large suitcase. He then hails a cab back to the hotel, packs Tumi's body inside the suitcase and takes another cab to his grandmother's house. There, in the basement, he dismembers the body and disposes of the remains using the household drain and trash bags. It's a chilling sequence, not only because of the violence involved, but because of how quickly Dahmer shifts from shock to procedure. And that tells us something important. By this point, Dahmer's fantasies are no longer abstract. When confronted with the reality of a corpse, he already knows what to do. But there's a detail within the confession that stands out to me. Forget everything you had planned for this weekend because you are sitting on your couch and winning from the comfort of your own home. I'm here with Spin Quest, where you can play hundreds of slot games, all the table games you love, and you could even win real cash prizes. New users, $30 coin packs are on sale for 10@Spinquest.com SpinQuest is a free
- [22:49]
Dr. Eric Hickey
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- [22:56]
James Buddy Day
In his initial statement to police, Dahmer places this incident in 1984. But investigators later determine the murder occurred three years later in 1987. The mistake is revealing. Dahmer remembers the postmortem acts in disturbing detail, but the timeline drifts. The mechanics of the crime remain clear. Well, the context disappears. Psychologists often describe this as compartmentalization, the mind separating the act from the life surrounding it. But despite Dahmer's dissociation, he learned something crucial from this murder. He was seen with Steven Toomey. They left the bar together. They checked into the hotel together. And yet, from Dahmer's perspective, no one ever comes looking. In reality, Thoome's father, Walter, does try to push police to investigate, but his concerns are largely dismissed. There's no sustained investigation, and Dahmer draws a conclusion from the men he meets in the bars. Young, often transient, sometimes estranged from their families, they're vulnerable. Their disappearances do not trigger the same urgency as others might. This again is Dr. Eric Hickey.
- [24:21]
Dr. Eric Hickey
Interesting how he went to bars and sought out men he thought were kind of not connected to society very well.
- [24:30]
James Buddy Day
It's also important to remember the climate in the 1980s. Milwaukee police frequently raided gay bars, and complaints from gay men are often treated with skepticism or indifference. For many in the community, contact with police is something to avoid, not to seek out. And Dahmer, he understands this. According to Dahmer, on January 16, 1988, he's again at the 219 Club, where he's approached by James Doxeter, age 14, at about 1am and takes him back to his grandmother's home. This is where Dahmer's behavior escalates. He subdues his victim with a drink laced with sleeping pills. Once the boy's unconscious, Dahmer reportedly strangles him. In his confession, Dahmer tells police it was better to have him dead than to have them leave. You have to understand that dmer is not acting out on sadism in a conventional sense. The act of murder itself does not appear to give him gratification. His long, simmering fantasy of keeping people from leaving is manifesting itself in violence.
- [25:51]
Dr. Eric Hickey
When they told him he had to leave, he had to leave, get back to work and whatever. That's when he said in the beginning, that's when he knew he had to kill them. And that's what he did.
- [26:03]
James Buddy Day
Dahmer disposes of the remains in the same way as before. But something has changed. Dahmer is now fully inside the fantasy world he's been building for years, one built around control. The men he's encountering are no longer individuals to him, but objects he can possess. You can see this even in the confession itself. Dahmer is unable to refer to his victims by name. Instead, he describes them as a white male or a Hispanic male. In fact, he struggles to remember the names of any of the men he's killed. Upon his arrest, he's unable to give the police one single name. Only demographic descriptions Psychologically, that tells us something very important. Dahmer's emotional engagement was not with the person, but with the act itself.
- [27:02]
Dr. Eric Hickey
Dahmer talked about how pathetic his life was, what a waste of time it was. Yet Dahmer could never identify with, with the actual victims. He never talked about the victims. He just, he couldn't connect to the victims. He only could connect to the fact that he had lived a terrible life. He wished to have been better, a different life.
- [27:36]
James Buddy Day
The victim fades from memory. Only the procedure remains, and the pattern continues. And interestingly, Dahmer himself was aware of this blind spot.
- [27:48]
Jeffrey Dahmer
My attempt to help identify the remains was the best that I could do, and that was hardly anything.
- [27:54]
James Buddy Day
That's Jeffrey Dahmer himself, briefly addressing the court at his sentencing hearing.
- [28:00]
Jeffrey Dahmer
I tried to do the best I could after the arrest to make amends, but no matter what I did, I could not undo the, the terrible harm I have caused.
- [28:08]
James Buddy Day
In 1988, just three months after his most recent murder, around March 24, Dahmer murders Richard Guerrero, age 25. About a year later, almost to the day, he kills Anthony Sears, age 24. In both cases, Dahmer meets the men in clubs, the 219 Club or Le Cage. He brings them back to his grandmother's house and he follows the same routine. Sleeping pills, strangulation, dismemberment. And in both cases, there's no real investigation. Guerrero's sister reports his disappearance to police, but she says she's not taken seriously. Her family eventually hires a private investigator who defrauds them of money. And the trail goes quick, cold. Dahmer faces no consequences, no questions, nothing. In fact, contemporary coverage in the Milwaukee Sentinel reports that in September 1988, Dahmer is arrested for drugging a 13 year old boy at the Ambassador Hotel. Circumstances that echo his previous murder. Dahmer even pleads guilty to this crime. He receives five years probation and a one year work release sentence. But instead of stopping him, the conviction ends up enabling him. Soon after, Dahmer moves into his own apartment for the first time in his life. It's the same apartment investigators will enter just three years later. The same apartment where Dahmer will ultimately kill more than a dozen men. And during this time, Dahmer is under supervision. He has a probation officer, he attends court mandated therapy. He is in regular contact with authorities. And yet, on May 29, 1990, Dahmer murders again. He picks up 33 year old Raymond Lamond Smith, also known as Ricky Beaks. They meet outside a bookstore and Dahmer brings him back to the apartment and kills him using the same method for the next year, Dahmer's life becomes almost mechanical. He sleeps during the day, works nights at a candy factory, then goes out looking for a victim. In his confession, he describes this routine in almost monotonous detail. Over and over again, the investigators record the same footage phrases. He met a black male, he met a Hispanic male, he met a Chinese male. The identities blur together, the dates drift. He says it was maybe in June or July. About one victim, the report simply notes, quote, they took a taxi back to his apartment, and he repeated the same scenario. What we know is that by the end of 1990, Dahmer has killed nine people. His apartment is beginning to fill with the smell of decay. Evidence is everywhere in plain sight, and yet no one has discovered what is happening. And it's around this time a neighbor in Dahmer's building is strangled. Police even question Dahmer in the confession. Investigators note, quote, dahmer states, when detectives are came to his door, he was sure he was going to be apprehended for the numerous homicides. But that doesn't happen. The detectives notice nothing unusual. The murder case goes cold. And while some later speculate about Dahmer's possible involvement, he denies any connection and is never charged. And that experience, it only emboldens him. This seems to be such a common thing in these men where they develop this reoccurring fantasy.
- [32:08]
Dr. Eric Hickey
And Dahmer's fantasies no doubt had increased and morphed into other kinds of very violent fantasies. But his need, his strong need to be with someone drove him.
- [32:25]
James Buddy Day
On February 18, 1991, Dahmer murders Curtis Darrell Straughter, age 17. On April 7, he kills Errol Lindsay, 19. On May 24, Dahmer murders Tony Anthony Hughes, age 31. And by this point, Dahmer's fantasies have progressed even further. He begins to keep partial remains. Do you think he progressed into a psychotic state? Like, I, you know, and I've heard a lot of interviews with him in which he kind of refers to those later days and he, and he, and he says, you know, looking back, you know, it was just so crazy. Like, you know, but at the time it made sense. So do you think he did his fantasy world just overtake him when he
- [33:13]
Dr. Eric Hickey
arrived at that level, when he was doing his necrophilic acts, not just with the body parts, but actually with people and taking pictures of them, then he felt like he was surrounded by his friends.
- [33:29]
James Buddy Day
In the early morning hours of May 27, 1991, 14 year old Konerak Sinthesomphone, the younger brother of the boy Dahmer had molested in 1988, is found wandering the street naked, heavily drugged and bleeding. Remarkably, Dahmer is completely unaware that his victims are related as he never has learned their names. Neighbors see the victim and call 911. Okay, I'm on 25th Estate and this is young man. He is butt naked. He has been beaten up, he's very bruised up, he can't stand, he's study fallout. He has his butt neck, he has no clothes on and he was really hurt. And I, you know, I ain't got no cord on. I just thank him. He needs some help. When officers John Ballstrack and Joseph Gabrich arrive, Dahmer tells them the Victim is his 19 year old boyfriend. He says the two have been drinking and arguing despite obvious signs that something is wrong. The officers return the boy to Dahmer's apartment. Within hours, Dahmer murders him. This is Dahmer once again talking about the incident during his sentencing hearing. Years later.
- [34:47]
Jeffrey Dahmer
I hurt those policemen in the counteract matter and I shall ever regret causing them to lose their jobs. And I hope and pray that they can get their jobs back because I know they did their best and I just plain fooled them.
- [35:01]
James Buddy Day
What makes this moment so chilling is not only the brutality of, of the crime, but how familiar the pattern has become. At this point, Dahmer has already been arrested for drugging a boy. He's on probation. Police have spoken to him before. Again and again and again, authorities encounter Jeffrey Dahmer and see only an awkward intoxicated man, not the predator he actually is.
- [35:29]
Jeffrey Dahmer
I know I hurt my probation officer
- [35:32]
James Buddy Day
who was really trying to help me back in 1991. That night is no different. Officers stand at the doorway of Jeffrey Dahmer's apartment, speak with him, see a victim and leave. On June 30, 1991, Dahmer attends the Chicago Pride parade at a bus stop. He encounters 21 year old Matt Turner and persuades him to come back to Milwaukee for a photo shoot inside Dahmer's apartment. It coincides with Dahmer losing his job, giving him ample free time. In his confession, Dahmer later explains what was driving him during this period. Quote, this is the reason the killings escalated, because he was alone at night and he did not want to be alone. On July 5, he kills Jeremiah Benjamin Weinberger, 23, after meeting him at a gay bar in Chicago. On July 15, Oliver Joseph Lacey, 24 is lured to Dahmer's apartment with the promise of money for photographs.
- [36:41]
Dr. Eric Hickey
He wasn't interested in the suffering. He just needed him to be dead so he could be with the bodies.
- [36:48]
James Buddy Day
But by this stage, Dahmer's fantasies have progressed even further, into the most infamous aspect of his cannibalism. In the confession, Dahmer explains that eating parts of the victims is a way of making them part of himself. Psychologically, it reflects the same obsession that had driven his crimes from the beginning. Possession. Dahmer repeatedly describes an overwhelming fear of abandonment. If someone could be absorbed into him, literally made a part of him, then they could truly never leave.
- [37:29]
Dr. Eric Hickey
He wanted to feel powerful and in fact he said, he said, once I completed this, these people could never. They're on my front, friends, and they can never leave me. They can never leave me.
- [37:47]
James Buddy Day
Researchers who study extreme offenders sometimes describe this as a form of incorporative fantasy where the desire for intimacy becomes fused with the desire for total control. In Dahmer's case, the act wasn't about survival or hunger. It was the final expression of the same distorted logic that had been developing for years. If he could not sustain a relationship with another living person, he would create a permanent bond through possession. It's disturbing, but it follows the same psychological thread that runs through Dahmer's entire confession. The need to eliminate rejection, rejection, eliminate independence and eliminate the possibility that someone could walk away. Dahmer's final victim is 25 year old Joseph Bradhoff. Bradhoff is a father of three from Minnesota who has come to Milwaukee looking for work. Like many of Dahmer's victims, he's passing through the city, not deeply rooted in the community. The two meet in a bar in Downtown Milwaukee on July 19, 1991. According to Dahmer's confession, the encounter follows the now familiar pattern. The two drink together. Dahmer persuades the victim to return to his apartment because by this point Dahmer's routine has become almost mechanical. Same apartment, same method, same attempt to preserve, preserve the body. Afterwards, the fantasies that began years earlier have fully taken over his life. He's unemployed, unable to pay rent or sustain any semblance of control. In fact, on the day of his arrest, he's been evicted from his apartment.
- [39:42]
Dr. Eric Hickey
He was supposed to be moving out of his apartment, being evicted, he went out and found to find another victim rather than go in that movie. I think he just knew the end was coming.
- [39:52]
James Buddy Day
It's now July 22, 1991, the day Tracy Edwards escapes from Dahmer's apartment with a handcuff still attached to his wrist, triggering the investigation that finally exposes what has been happening inside Dahmer's apartment.
- [40:08]
Dr. Eric Hickey
I think he was very happy to be caught.
- [40:18]
James Buddy Day
After his arrest, Dahmer confesses to the murders. The questions at trial are never whether he committed these crimes. Dahmer has already told investigators in disturbing detail what he'd done. The question is whether or not he's legally insane.
- [40:36]
Dr. Eric Hickey
He wasn't crazy under law, and he knew exactly what he was doing.
- [40:41]
James Buddy Day
The trial begins in January of 1992 in Milwaukee. Prosecutors argue that Dahmer understood exactly what he was doing and took careful steps to avoid being caught. The defense argues that Dahmer's compulsions, these extreme paraphilias, had destroyed his ability to control his own behavior. Over two weeks, jurors listen to testimony from psychiatrists, police investigators, forensic experts. They hear Dahmer's own statements from the confession, and they see evidence taken from his apartment. In the end, the jury rejects the insanity defense. Dahmer is found guilty but sane on 15 counts of murder and sentenced to 15 consecutive life terms in prison, effectively ensuring he will never leave custody.
- [41:33]
Jeffrey Dahmer
Your Honor, it is over now. This has never been a case of trying to get free. I didn't ever want freedom. Frankly. I want a death for myself.
- [41:44]
James Buddy Day
For many of the victim's families, the verdict brings a measure of closure. But it can never fully answer the questions that haunt the entire investigation. How someone like Jeffrey Dahmer had managed to kill for so long without being stopped. The answer is complicated. From childhood, Dahmer struggled to connect with the world around him. Relationships were confusing, unpredictable, filled with the possibility of rejection. Over time, fantasies he developed offered something reality could not certainty. In those fantasies, there was no abandonment, no judgment. No one could walk away. For Dahmer, the murders were not acts of rage. They were the final step in a psychological process that developed for years a distorted attempt to solve a problem that had haunted him since childhood. The fear of being alone.
- [42:48]
Jeffrey Dahmer
If there are people out there with these disorders, maybe they can get some help before they end up being hurt or hurting someone.
- [42:57]
James Buddy Day
When I first wrote that letter to the Milwaukee Police department back in 1992, I had no idea what they would send me. But what emerges from those pages is not a single moment of madness, but a long psychological progress. Aggression, isolation, giving away to fantasy, fantasy giving away to control. And control eventually giving way to murder. And more than 30 years later, those same pages, the ones Milwaukee Police Department mailed to a curious kid for $10 in shipping. They're still sitting in a binder in my office. Before we wrap up, a quick note. If you're the kind of person like me and you're just never happier than going to Kansas City and spending the full day in cold case storage and you just want to get your hands on all this evidence yourself, I will post it for you. I'll take Jeffrey Dahmer's confession and I will post it inside Unmarked Case Files. That's our research portal. And you can spend your evening digging through his words yourself. And on that note, if you are as obsessed obsessed with the Manson murders case, at least as much as I am, my book, Charles Manson the Last Words has just been republished. It's on Amazon. I just got the test copy here and I'm pretty happy with the formatting. There's a few things I want to update, but by the time you hear this, it will be live in the Amazon store, both on Kindle and paperback. And I spent 10 years interviewing the Manson family and all my research is in this book. It's a good read. Now, Unmarked takes a lot of work to produce. Every episode comes out a weeks of research going through documents, interviews, and we're starting to work with advertisers to help support that work. But if you'd rather listen without ads and get early access to all the episodes, you can join us inside Unmarked Case Files. And if you're already there, thank you. Because that support, that really is what keeps this research going. Finally, if you want to HEAR More from Dr. Eric Hickey, you can find him on the podcast Dark Matters. And it's available wherever you get your podcasts. This episode of Unmarked was produced by John Nadeau and edited by Dave Alderson. Our additional producer is Jesse Demarais. Until next week, this is Unmarked. What's up baby? It's Bretzky and I'm here to tell you that spinquest.com is giving out free Spin Sweeps coins. All you gotta do is purchase a
- [45:29]
Dr. Eric Hickey
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James Buddy Day
And we're talking real cash prizes, baby.
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Dr. Eric Hickey
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