Dahmer on Dahmer: A Serial Killer Speaks (2017) - full transcript

"Dahmer on Dahmer: A Serial Killer Speaks" offers a fresh look at the infamous serial killer's life through the eyes of the woman who became his closest confidant. With new interviews from ...

- Your Honor, it is over now.

[eerie music]

I know society will never

be able to forgive me.

♪ ♪

I know the families

of the victims

will never be able

to forgive me

for what I have done.

- Jeffrey, I hate you,

motherf---er!

I hate you!

- For sexual pleasure,

he took the life

of a human being.

- He told us

how he cooked them,

what they tasted like.

- Never would I have believed

that he was a killer, ever.

- Well, you're looking good.

- I have to start eating

at home more.

♪ ♪

- We're investigating

a homicide.

- What would lead

a human being

to take 17 lives?

- He was more normal

than we want to think he was.

- No one had a clue

as to what was happening

for over a decade.

- When you killed these men,

afterwards, were you repulsed?

Were you upset?

- No, it--

At the time, it was--

it was almost addictive.

- I don't consider myself

a victim.

I consider myself a survivor.

- As a 17-year-old kid,

would you really get that out

in your unit

that Jeff Dahmer raped you?

- I know Jeffrey

who used to stay

across the hall from me.

That Dahmer guy

is somebody else.

- You must understand

we protect our family.

He was our son.

- He fooled so many people

as to his real feelings.

- I knew I was sick or evil

or both.

[siren wailing]

- For years,

a serial killer

had been preying

on the city of Milwaukee.

Finally, in the summer of 1991,

it all comes to an end

when a frightened man

in handcuffs

approaches police.

He leads them to the home

of Jeffrey Dahmer.

- We're investigating

a homicide which occurred.

- Obviously that there is--

has been a number

of human specimens found.

- The victim count?

17.

- Police were lead there

by a man who told them

he had been attacked

with a butcher knife.

- The details

are shocking.

- Sources close

to the case say

the motive includes elements

of sexual violence

and cannibalism.

- Jeffrey Dahmer

is a quiet

chocolate factory worker

who confesses

to the most gruesome crimes.

- Jeff Dahmer is apologetically

admitting responsibility.

- Do you know

what started it?

Was there any kind of incident

that you can remember?

- To this day, I don't know

what started it.

And the person to blame is

sitting right across from you.

That's the only person--

not parents, not society,

not pornography.

I mean, those are just excuses.

- I'm Nancy Glass.

In 1991, I'm sitting

in a newsroom,

and a story comes in

that there's been

a serial killer in Milwaukee.

He killed people,

he dismembered them,

and, worse, he was a cannibal.

Well, at first,

you just don't believe this.

I mean, you got to look

at it twice.

And then, as a journalist,

you say,

"I really want to get

this story."

So I started communicating

with Jeffrey Dahmer's parents

and built a relationship

with them.

Eventually, Jeffrey and I

started writing back and forth.

And then,

a year and a half later,

I found myself

sitting opposite him

at the Columbia Correctional

Institute in Wisconsin.

You know, people always wonder,

was I afraid of him?

Well, I wasn't,

because by the time

I was sitting opposite him,

his killing spree was over.

In fact, he appeared to be

completely normal.

That was actually

what was so unsettling.

Were you molested?

- Never.

Never.

- In your childhood,

you have any memories

of anything

that you would associate

with what you became?

- No, that's the strange thing.

I can't pinpoint anything.

- So there was nothing

in your childhood--

- No, no abuse--

no physical abuse,

no verbal abuse.

It was a normal childhood

in a good home.

Something went awry

in my thought life.

I don't know why.

- There's no single history

that causes someone to become

a serial killer.

Many of the individuals

who are serial killers,

not all of them but many,

have had very traumatic

early life experiences.

In Mr. Dahmer's case,

none of that

seemed to be present.

- Jeffrey's father, Lionel,

now in his 80s,

wanted to talk to us

about the boy he knew.

But he only agreed

to an on-camera interview

if he could wear sunglasses.

In his mind, they make him

less identifiable.

- He loved the place

that we lived in,

and it was

a heavily wooded place.

He enjoyed

his small group of friends.

- He was raised

in a somewhat affluent family.

His father had a doctoral

degree in chemistry.

The family lived on

a 1 1/4 quiet, wooded acres

with a pond.

- While Jeffrey indicated

nothing in his childhood

could have fueled

his desire to kill,

according to Lionel

and his wife, Shari,

who'd been part

of Jeffrey's life

since he was 18,

there was something

that affected him

even before he was born.

His mother, Joyce, struggled

with mental illness

and took 27 pills a day when

she was pregnant with Jeffrey,

including antidepressants,

growth hormones,

and progesterone.

- Doctors met with us,

and they said

those medicines could have

affected the fetus.

And when Jeff was born,

the grandparents were not

allowed to hold the baby.

Joyce didn't want anybody

touching the baby

or breathing on it.

She was afraid of germs.

They virtually had no contact

with Jeff as a baby.

- In my conversations

with Lionel,

he told me that in infancy,

Joyce herself

rarely touched Jeffrey

except to change his diapers

or hold him for a photo.

- There was so much illness

with his mother at that time.

She was involved

with gestalt therapy

at a local

mental health center,

wandering around in the dark,

touching people.

Nothing--nothing helped.

- In the midst of this,

Lionel

and his first wife, Joyce,

have a second child.

- Jeff noticed that when

his younger brother was born,

Jeff no longer had

fairy tales from his mother,

stories read at night,

and tucking him in.

Jeff felt somewhat left out.

- We were moving at the time,

and he had to leave

his favorite kitten behind.

And going to a new school

and being only six years old,

he became

a little bit more shy,

much like I was in my youth.

- During his adolescence,

Dahmer develops a hobby

that would raise eyebrows

in the years that followed.

Were you obsessed

with dead animals?

Is that true?

- I was interested

in taxidermy in high school

and experimented

with preserving the bones

of dogs and things like that.

And whether that had

anything to do

with the escalation

of the crimes, I don't know.

- He went into further detail

in this interview

with a forensic psychologist.

- There are numbers

of young people

who might have those same kinds

of interests

and don't end up being

serial killers.

So in retrospect, had I spoken

with him as a teenager,

I don't know

that either he or I

would have predicted

at that point

that he was gonna end up

being the serial killer

he turned out to be.

- Now, I lived

with this young man.

He lived in our home.

He had

his father's intelligence.

And on the phone,

you could not tell Jeff

or Lionel apart.

Jeff was always very gentle,

very kind.

- In high school,

friends begin to notice

Jeffrey is becoming

a different person.

- Jeff's behavior began

to be so strange

that I felt very uncomfortable

being with him alone.

He liked to act,

in his words, "crazy."

He would just start

shrieking,

or he would twist himself up

in a grotesque way

and run with a limp,

almost like Quasimodo.

And I remember one time

asking him

why he behaved this way,

and he said,

"I just like

to shake people up."

- I remember when we had

our senior pictures taken,

he got into

a lot of the group photos

that he was not a member--

the National Honor Society

group.

Whoever was in charge

of that in those days,

they blacked out his face,

and it's really creepy.

- I had a classmate who said,

"Years ago, we thought

that photo was hilarious.

And it's not so funny anymore."

- His brazen behavior continues

in the classroom.

- He was drinking beer.

Sometimes he kept it

in his locker,

and I guess he kept beer

in his car.

Did teachers do anything

about it?

Did they know about it?

I'm sure some teachers knew

about it.

- I remember distinctly

one morning

sitting in class next to Jeff,

who had his cup of scotch.

And I said, "Jeff,

what is that?"

He just tossed his head back

as though it was no issue

at all,

and he said,

"It's my medicine."

There was a collective sense

of blinders going up,

that people didn't notice

because they didn't want

to notice.

- According to Dahmer,

alcohol was a way to drown

his growing dark desires.

- I started having

these obsessive thoughts

when I was about 15 and 16,

and they got worse and worse.

- What were

your fantasies about?

- [sighs]

They were sexual fantasies

of control, power,

complete dominance.

They became reality.

- Was there pleasure

in that fantasy?

- There was excitement,

fear, pleasure

all mixed together.

- He found certain

male joggers attractive

and sought opportunities

to watch them

and fantasize about them

as they jogged past.

There was one particular man

that he would fantasize about

having sexual contact with,

but he had no concept

of how to make a relationship

with this or any other man.

- He took a bat,

sawed it off

and fashioned it as a club,

hid in the woods,

anticipating that he would

assault this man.

[dramatic music]

- Teenage Jeffrey sits

nervously,

waiting to attack.

But the jogger

he has his eye on

doesn't pass that day.

♪ ♪

His first target

has slipped away,

but his next

wouldn't be so lucky.

Up next, the growing desire

to kill

is only the beginning.

- I had had fantasies

about picking up a hitchhiker

and taking him back

to the house

and having complete control

and dominance.

In the spring of 1976,

high school sophomore

Jeffrey Dahmer's

first planned assault fails.

He's 15, a time

when most teenagers

are worried about school

and making friends.

And he's already on a path

toward his terrible crimes.

- I had normal friendships

in high school,

but after that, I started in

with the alcohol, drinking,

a lot of solitary drinking,

and really never had any

close friendships after that,

after high school.

Just sort of lived

in my own thought life,

fantasy world.

- As high school ends,

his parents divorce,

and his mother takes off

with her younger son,

leaving Jeffrey alone

in the house.

- Jeff was left behind

with no money

and spoiled milk in the fridge.

I came into the family

at the tail end

of Lionel's divorce.

They'd been separated

two years.

Lionel was living

out of a motel.

Jeff was detached

at that point.

He felt somewhat abandoned.

- The first time

anybody asked me

about his parents,

I was struck by the fact

that I could only answer,

"I never knew he had parents."

He just seemed like

he was kind of a satellite

floating alone.

- He did not like

that feeling.

He didn't like

his parents leaving him.

And it's in that context

that he committed

his first homicide.

- You do sound, though,

like the kind of person

who could have said

to himself,

"This is wrong.

I must stop."

- I always knew

that it was wrong, but...

after the--the first--

The first killing

was not planned.

I was coming back

from the shopping mall

back in '78.

I had had fantasies

about picking up a hitchhiker

and taking him

back to the house

and having complete control

and dominance over him.

- Dahmer's violent fantasies Dahmer's violent fantasies

become reality- become reality

when he crosses paths

with 18-year-old Steve Hicks

looking for a ride

to a nearby rock concert.

- He picked up a young man

that was hitchhiking

and offered him a good time

if he wanted to just stop

and visit with him

for a little bit.

Jeffrey Dahmer was attracted

specifically

to this individual because

he wasn't wearing a shirt.

Throughout the evening,

they drank alcohol,

and I understand there might

have been marijuana involved.

Finally, Steve Hicks said

that "I should be going."

- He said, "We drank,

he wanted to leave,

and I hit him with a barbell,

and I killed him."

He says, "I didn't want him

to leave me."

- For sexual pleasure,

he took the life

of a human being.

- All of Dahmer's victims

were men.

His attraction to men

is what both motivated

and repulsed him.

- Never understood it.

There was no use

trying to fight it,

because I couldn't rid myself

of it.

It was--it was too powerful

and persistent.

- Do you dislike it?

- Yes, it's caused

a lot of problems

for me.

A lot of conflicts

and unanswered questions.

- Jerry Boyle

was Dahmer's lawyer.

He believes

that Jeffrey's sexuality

did not lead him to violence.

- He was just really

very forthright with me.

It is my first belief

that if he was a heterosexual,

he would have killed girls.

- After Dahmer dismembers

Steven Hicks's corpse

and stuffs the remains

in a deep drainage pipe

in his parents' backyard,

he panics and decides

to dig up the body parts

and dispose of them elsewhere.

- He decided late at night

towards midnight

to drive it to a local dump.

He was so nervous

that he was driving

erratically,

and he was stopped

by a police officer.

Mr. Dahmer kept

his wits about him.

He told the police officer

that his parents

had recently divorced.

He said he couldn't sleep

and wanted to take

a garbage bag

to the garbage dump.

The police officer

shined a flashlight inside

and saw a green garbage bag.

[ominous music]

- The officer had no reason

whatsoever

to believe that there was

anything unusual

other than he might have been

a little bit nervous.

But most people are nervous when

there's a traffic stop made.

- Jeff was very good

by that point

at convincing adults

for whatever it was

he wanted to convince them of.

- Jeffrey Dahmer definitely

was a manipulator.

He was able to convince

not only the individuals

to come to his place,

but he was also able

to convince people

that nothing was wrong

when there was something

very wrong.

- It all could have ended

at that moment.

But in the first

of many close calls

when he could have been

stopped,

Dahmer's let off

with only a ticket.

- He took him home,

smashed him all up,

and he spread the bones

in the woods.

- Steven Hicks's parents

reported him missing in 1978

but don't get any answers

until 1991,

when Dahmer confesses.

- That family had no idea

what had happened

to their 18-year-old son.

He disappeared

off the face of the Earth.

Talk about inflicting pain

if you're a parent.

- Later that summer,

Lionel and Shari moved back

into the Dahmer home

with 18-year-old Jeffrey.

- He would come home

a time or two

pretty well loaded.

If he was totally drunk,

he would forget where

he took his dad's car.

We had to track the car down

several times,

because Jeff just drew a blank.

- Frustrated,

Lionel forces Jeffrey

to enroll in college.

- I attended

Ohio State University,

and Jeff did as well.

The last time I saw him,

he was laying on the sidewalk,

passed out dead drunk.

I went over to him,

and I tried

to shake him into consciousness.

And I kept saying,

"Jeff, wake up.

Wake up."

I knew then that Jeff was gone.

- We found out he was drinking

at school and failing out,

so we brought him home.

We took Jeff

for psychiatric care.

We took him to institutions.

But as the old saying goes,

you can lead the horse to water,

but you can't make it drink.

- I was just thinking

of normal-type,

everyday things

that I could encourage him on

to do.

And the Army was

the logical place, I thought.

- During this time,

Jeffrey claims

his violent impulses

remained quiet.

What happened to you

in the nine years in between

that you were able to stop,

that you were able

to control yourself?

- Just wasn't an opportunity

to fully express

what I wanted to do.

There was not just

the physical opportunity

to do it then.

- While investigators

never had any reason

to doubt Dahmer's claim,

for the first time,

two of his fellow servicemen

are making accusations

the public has never heard

before.

Up next...

- As a 17-year-old kid,

would you really get that out

in your unit

that Jeff Dahmer raped you?

After one failed semester

After one failed semester

in college,

Jeffrey Dahmer's dad

implores his son

to find a direction in life.

He decides to enlist

in the Army.

Jeffrey says his evil urges

were quieted

while in the service

and he hoped

it would remain that way.

But according to those

he served with,

they did not.

We've uncovered two victims

who've agreed to speak

for the first time.

- You know, you really

don't know someone

until you live with them.

- Billy Joe Capshaw

was Dahmer's roommate

for 15 months while stationed

in Baumholder, Germany.

He arrived to replace

someone else in Dahmer's unit,

Preston Davis.

- We were out

on a field exercise.

It was a two-week exercise.

And the last three or four days

of the exercise,

our vehicle broke down.

During that timeframe,

I was drugged and

sexually assaulted by Jeff.

- Preston says

the attack haunted him,

and he eventually unraveled.

- My career went downhill

after this.

I got a DWI

in 1985 in the military.

I had a rocky marriage

with my first wife.

I wound up getting out

of the military in '86,

divorcing her,

became estranged from my son.

Substance abuse.

Alcohol abuse.

That's what a lot of victims do

to try to suppress that pain.

- But Preston wasn't

the only victim.

Billy Capshaw

shared a room with Dahmer

for over a year

and says he faced

an even more intense ordeal.

- He had me tied up, naked,

to a bunk, you know,

and was...

beside me, naked hisself,

and holding me

like I would hold a woman.

He raped me,

sexually molested me.

He tortured me.

The attacks,

the things like that,

were continuous

and almost every day.

- Billy told us his shame

over what was happening to him

kept him quiet.

- There's guys in there

and they got guns,

and they're mean.

They've been to Vietnam.

As a 17-year-old kid,

would you really get that out

in your unit

that someone raped you?

- The fact that Dahmer

would be so open

about all of his crimes

yet never address

these allegations

only creates more questions.

Why did he leave this out?

And what else could there be

that we don't know about?

- The fact

that he didn't disclose

the incidents in the military

just doesn't surprise me.

Jeffrey Dahmer wanted

to talk about

what he wanted to talk about.

- In March of 1981,

Dahmer is discharged

from the Army

not for violent behavior

but for excessive drinking.

- Was I disappointed in--

of course.

I was disappointed

in his inability

to achieve something,

you know, in normal working

or living.

- That fall, 21-year-old

Jeffrey Dahmer

moves back

into his parents' home

in Bath, Ohio.

Directionless,

he continues to drink heavily.

His father and stepmother

push him

to get professional help.

- I did as much

as I thought I could.

He seemed to be

an alcoholic,

so we got help that way

and that sort of thing.

- Lionel would drop him off,

and Jeff would go

out the back door.

So he wasn't going

for counseling.

And we reached a point

where we said,

"We're going to send you up

to Grandma's house for a while

and see if you can get

your life together."

- Dahmer's grandmother believes

that through God,

Jeffrey will change

his sexuality.

So he attends church

and gets a job drawing blood

at a local blood bank.

But at this point,

his depraved urges

become harder and harder

to control,

and he acts out.

He exposes himself to a group

of women and children

at the Wisconsin State Fair

and is arrested.

In court, he appears

remorseful,

which will become a routine

for him,

and all he gets is a fine,

$50 plus court fees.

At this point, Dahmer tries to

find a substitute for killing,

and what he settles on

is truly disturbing.

- His goal was finding

the partner

who would lie there all night

so that he could have

the illusion

of all the time in the world

to be close to that person.

And his strategies

for finding that partner

were creative and varied

but mostly ineffective.

They included

scanning obituaries,

going to the funeral

if there was a viewing

to see if it was someone

he'd find attractive,

and then trying to dig up

the grave.

[ominous music]

On the two occasions

that he did that,

the ground was too frozen.

He couldn't get anywhere

trying to dig it up.

He found an attractive

store mannequin.

He hid in a restroom

in the department store

till after closing,

stole the mannequin,

managed to get out

of the building,

took the mannequin home

to his grandmother's house,

and for some period of time

was satisfied

lying next to

the attractive mannequin.

♪ ♪

His grandmother found

the mannequin

and disposed of it.

- He spent a number of months,

if not longer,

going to gay bath houses

in both Chicago and Milwaukee.

He would slip Halcion

into the drinks

of men

that he would meet there.

They would fall asleep.

He would fondle them,

pretending in his own mind

that they were dead.

- That was satisfying to him

for a time.

But he gave too much of the drug

to one of the men.

- The bath house operator

couldn't wake

one of these fellows,

had to call to get medical help.

They realize

that Dahmer's doing this,

so they banned him

from the bath houses.

- Once again,

he could have been stopped,

and once again,

he wasn't.

- When I moved to Milwaukee

in '81,

I started reading pornography,

going to the bookstores.

Eventually, that lead to

frequenting the gay bars.

And then I--

One time, I brought

this young man

back to the hotel room,

the Ambassador Hotel,

was just planning

on drugging him

and spending the night with him.

I had no intention

of hurting him.

When I woke up in the morning,

he had a broken rib here.

It was heavily bruised.

Apparently, I had beaten him

to death with my fists.

- And you have no memory of it.

- I have no memory of it.

But that's what started

the whole spree all over again.

- He tells me

it wasn't premeditated

and that he then needed

to find more time

in order to dispose of the body.

- It has been nine years

since his last kill.

And in what seems like

an instant,

he goes into a mode

that is familiar to him:

the cover-up.

Up next,

Dahmer's crimes escalate,

and the bodies are piling up.

- I was saving body parts

such as skulls and skeletons.

In the fall of 1987,

Jeffrey Dahmer wakes up

in a hotel room in Milwaukee.

He is in bed

with the bludgeoned body

of his second victim.

He says he has no memory

of killing the man.

- He had to sign in

for a second night

in order to now have time

to get rid of the body

by stuffing it into a suitcase

and ultimately removing it.

- He took it

to his grandmother's house

to put it in the basement

until he was able to cut it up

and get it in the garbage.

And he knew the routine

of the garbage men,

so he'd cut it up Sundays

while Grandma went to church,

have it in the garbage

by Monday,

and it would be gone.

- Police would later determine

the victim was 24-year-old

Steven Tuomi.

He'd recently moved

to Milwaukee

from northern Michigan

and met Dahmer

after he finished his shift

at a local restaurant.

- I had these obsessive

desires and thoughts,

wanting to control them,

to...

I don't know how to put it.

Possess them permanently.

- And that's why

you killed them.

- Right, right,

not because I was angry

with them,

not because I hated them

but because I wanted

to keep them with me.

And as my obsession grew,

I was saving body parts

such as skulls and skeletons.

- At his grandmother's,

Dahmer's desire to kill

escalates.

He takes two more lives

in the winter of 1988,

raising his victim count

to four.

James Doxtator

is only 14 years old

when Dahmer lures him

with the promise of $50

to take a few pictures.

And six weeks later,

it's 23-year-old

Richard Guerrero.

Both face the same fate:

drugged, strangled,

dismembered.

It's at this time

Dahmer hones his craft

in disposing of bodies,

learning how flesh dissolves

in acid

and bones would need to be

crushed up

and tossed in the trash.

According to Lionel,

his grandmother objects

to the smells

coming from the basement

but apparently doesn't

figure out what's going on.

Or maybe

she just doesn't want to.

- I would send Lionel up

to his mother's house

to deal with problems,

but I really wasn't aware

at that time

that Lionel was too naive

to handle the situation.

Lionel didn't believe his son

was doing anything wrong.

- He was doing strange things.

We thought it was

with roadkill.

That's what he told us,

and I--I believed him.

But I said, "Jeff,"

you know,

"your grandma just can't take

this sort of thing.

You really need to move out."

- Now on his own,

Jeffrey Dahmer's free

to give in to his urges.

Just one day after moving

into his own apartment,

Dahmer brings home

a 13-year-old boy,

drugs and fondles him.

Dahmer is arrested

for sexual assault

against a minor.

This is the boy's testimony.

We should warn you

it's shocking and disturbing.

- How did the authorities

find out about this?

Well, for some reason,

when the boy wanted to leave,

Dahmer let him go.

- We talked about the incident

that he was involved in.

It was pretty clear to me

that he was

a little bit different.

- Jerry Boyle is hired

by Lionel and Shari Dahmer

to represent Jeffrey

in this case.

- I think my son was

a freshman in high school

at the time.

I think he could have

whipped Dahmer in a minute.

Never would I have believed

that he was a killer, ever,

because there was nothing

to indicate to me

that he was that way.

I mean, it just wasn't there.

- Dahmer's ability to deceive

is only matched

by his desire to kill.

Between his conviction

in January of 1989

and his sentencing in May,

he is not deterred.

Dahmer takes his fifth life,

24-year-old Anthony Sears,

on March 25th.

This murder marks

a depraved turning point

in Dahmer's process.

- I kept the mummified head

and skull

of one of the victims

in a carrying case

in my locker at work.

- Were you almost

flaunting it?

- Yes, but that's how strong

the compulsion was.

That's how bizarre

the desire was.

I wanted to keep something

of the person with me.

- But during

the sexual assault trial,

no one had any knowledge

of that,

which is why Jerry Boyle fought

to keep Dahmer a free man.

- The outcome in the case was,

Jeffrey admitted

to everything he was accused of,

except he was vehement

in saying

that he never touched a child.

I didn't believe

what he was telling me,

but my job is to try

and figure out what do for him

and for society

by getting him a sentence

that made sense,

and I think we did that.

- He fooled his attorney

that was representing him.

He fooled so many people

as to his real feelings.

Unfortunately,

I didn't realize it at the time.

- Dahmer avoids jail time.

Instead,

he's given work release

and mandatory time with

a mental health professional.

Another close call,

another opportunity where

he could have been stopped.

And once again,

he acts remorseful.

He writes to the judge.

"What I did was deplorable.

"The world has

enough misery in it

"without my adding more to it.

"Sir, I can assure you

that it will never happen

again."

We now know nothing could be

further from the truth.

- He would go see

a psychiatrist

and not say a word

for ten sessions,

and they'd let him walk

out the door.

Probation officer, he'd say,

"You have these feelings

of, you know,

sexual perversion

and all that?"

He says, "No, I read books

and masturbate to that."

He's out there killing people.

- Up next...

Do you ever think

about your victims?

- Uh, I've often wondered

why I haven't had

more dreams or nightmares

about what I've done.

By May of 1989,

Jeffrey Dahmer's body count

is at five.

Then he is sentenced

to one year

in a work release program

for the drugging and fondling

of a 13-year-old boy.

He claims during that time,

there were no killings.

After he's released

and on probation,

he finds a new place to live,

somewhere off the beaten path.

- I had asked him

a number of times,

"Why are you down here,

"you know, when you can go

somewhere else

"and stay, like, in West Alice

at your grandmother's house

"or something like that?

"And you would rather be here,

where you're surrounded

by blacks."

And that's all that

was over there,

was black people

and some Asian people.

He was like, "I like it better

down here,

'cause I can keep more

to myself."

- Pamela Bass, who lives

across the hall from Dahmer

in the Oxford Apartments,

develops a soft spot

for the man she would describe

as an unassuming bachelor.

- You know, me and my husband

at that time

were trying to get him

a girlfriend,

because we thought that,

you know,

he was over there by hisself,

and he didn't get out much,

and all this here kind of stuff.

So he said, "No, no, I'm fine.

I just want to work

and be left alone."

[ominous music]

- Within a week of settling in

to apartment 213,

Dahmer lures 32-year-old

Raymond Smith

home for a drink,

laces it with drugs,

strangles him to death,

and dismembers his body.

A month later,

Dahmer repeats the process

on a 27-year-old acquaintance,

Edward Smith,

raising his victim count

to seven.

Before you went out

to pick up a man,

was there any kind of ritual

you went through?

- I'd go to the nightclubs,

drink,

watch the strip tease shows.

And if I didn't meet anyone

at the bars,

I'd go to the Bath clubs

and meet someone there,

offer them money,

and we'd go back

to the apartment,

have a few drinks.

I'd have

the sleeping pill mixture

already prepared.

The person would drink it,

fall asleep.

And that's when they would be

strangled.

- The question of how

Mr. Dahmer chose his victims

I don't think

is a complicated one.

He tried to find people

that were attractive to him

and who were willing

to go with him voluntarily.

He wasn't jumping out of cars

and attacking people and so on.

- The men he's inviting back

don't want to just lie there.

They want to get it on,

get it over with,

and get going.

He found that

enormously frustrating.

Some of them rolled him.

Some of them were nasty

to him.

He didn't want to get

into an argument

or get into a fight

or get robbed.

He wanted somebody to lie there

with him.

But he was picking

the wrong guys

to try to achieve that,

so he began drugging them

at his apartment.

- He wanted his victims

to be still and quiet

so he didn't have to face

their humanity.

- It's a process.

It doesn't happen overnight.

When you depersonalize

another person

and view them as just an object,

an object for pleasure

instead of a living, breathing

human being,

it seems to make it easier

to...

do things you shouldn't do.

- It struck me

that classifying murder

as a "thing you shouldn't do"

minimizes the horror

and brutality

of Jeffrey Dahmer's actions.

- Dahmer drugged his victims,

so they weren't pleading

for their lives.

They weren't crying out

in pain

as he inflicted a torture

on them.

So he was in many ways

different,

frighteningly different.

- Do you ever think

about your victims?

- Uh, I've often wondered

why I haven't had

more dreams or nightmares

about what I've done.

For some reason, it's like

it's blocked off

from part of my mind.

If I dwelled on the subject

all the time,

I would...

I wouldn't be able to function.

- In talking to Jeffrey Dahmer,

I realized that one of

his most peculiar traits was,

no matter how well

he knew his victims,

he didn't view them as people.

That's why,

in his 160-page confession,

he could describe

everything he did to them

in excruciating detail

but he couldn't

remember their names.

Up next.

- Told us how he

cooked them.

What they tasted like.

- He seemed like a

very normal person.

He covered up so much.

I was branching out

that's when

the cannibalism started.

He just was crazy sick.

Things just began to

deteriorate.

He became like a killing

machine out of control.

It just seemed

to be an absence

of any moral compass

in the man at all.

- I didn t believe in

the concept of evil.

And, now I do.

No one, no one had a clue

as to what was happening

for over a decade.

[eerie music]

♪ ♪

- He became

like a killing machine

out of control.

- There just seemed to be

an absence

of any moral compass.

He was an evil man.

- The manager came up

and complained about the smell.

He told the manager,

"Well, my fish died."

- He had a very good disguise.

- It's a process;

it doesn't happen overnight

when you depersonalize

another person

and view them as just an object,

an object for pleasure,

instead of a living, breathing

human being.

I had these obsessive desires

and thoughts,

wanting to control them.

- He immediately said,

"When you find out what I did,

you're gonna want to kill me."

- You love

who the true human being is,

and you take that with you

to your grave.

- He seemed like

a very normal boy.

He covered up so much.

- Murder.

- Necrophilia.

- Zombies.

- Religious ritual.

- Vats of acid.

- Body parts.

- Aroused.

- Consuming.

- Willing.

- Cooked them.

- Bad people.

- [tearfully] He was our son.

from Jeffrey Dahmer

tting across

in a small prison

meeting room.

And face-to-face,

I can see how he got away

with his terrible crimes.

He appears completely normal.

That's what made him

so frightening.

In the second half

of our conversation,

he talks about

the most vicious acts--

cannibalism, murder,

dismemberment--

in the most casual way.

He even says he's sorry.

He sounds thoughtful.

He sounds sincere.

But Jeffrey Dahmer was

a psychopath.

When you killed these men,

afterwards,

were you repulsed?

Were you upset?

- No, it--at the time,

it was--

it was almost addictive.

It was almost...

a surge of energy.

I wouldn't have to worry

about any of their needs

or anything.

I just had complete control

of the situation.

- The right way to think of him

is as having necrophilia.

Now, usually, we think

of necrophilia

as being about corpses.

I think it's more than that.

I think it is control

over the completely passive,

compliant partner

that he could fondle, hug,

touch, and lie with

as long as possible.

- He always said he didn't enjoy

murdering people.

He said that.

I don't doubt that.

But he enjoyed getting sex,

and he enjoyed getting it

against their will,

and he did what he had to do

to get it.

- He told me

his motivating force

was to have sex with a partner

who wouldn't leave him.

But more than that,

he wanted to be the aggressor,

and he didn't want

to be touched.

What do you want to say to

the families of the victims?

- I had no intention

of hurting them.

I was--I--

I was extremely selfish.

I was only thinking of myself,

my own pleasure, my own...

perverted desires.

- In the meantime,

he has men dying.

To dispose of them

required dismembering them.

He hated this process.

But if he drank enough,

he could lay down

sheets of plastic

and begin the process

of cutting

and the hard work

of dismembering

and putting body parts

in vats of acid.

- When the bodies were

still in your apartment,

there was no time

when you would see them

and say, "This is grotesque"?

"What have I done?"

- There were times.

There were times.

But the compulsive obsession

with doing what I was doing

overpowered any feelings

of revulsion.

- In September of 1990,

Dahmer's victim count

is seven,

and he would have

yet more bodies to dispose of.

22-year-old Ernest Miller

is a dance student

he meets outside a bookstore.

Dahmer murders

the talented dancer,

stuffs his entire skeleton

in the bottom

of a filing cabinet

in his apartment

and his heart and biceps

in his freezer.

Three weeks later,

Dahmer brings home

and strangles David Thomas,

a 22-year-old man

he meets outside a mall.

He has claimed nine lives,

and his routine becomes

even more twisted.

Why did you photograph them?

- It was my way of remembering

their appearance,

their physical beauty.

I also wanted to keep some--

If I couldn't keep them there

with me whole,

at least I felt that

I could keep their skeletons.

And I even went so far

as planning on setting up

an altar

with the ten different skulls

and skeletons.

- And what was the purpose

of the altar going to be?

- Uh, as a sort of memorial,

a point where I could...

I don't know.

It's so bizarre and strange,

it's hard to describe.

A place where I could collect

my thoughts

and feed my obsession.

- This is a sketch of the altar

drawn by Jeffrey Dahmer.

- The altar was not

of any religious ritual

involved.

It was as a memory of the people

that he had killed.

There just seemed to be

an absence

of any moral compass

in the man at all.

He was an evil man.

- And in Jeffrey Dahmer's mind,

this macabre ritual

has a purpose,

and it's something he has

no trouble describing

down to the goriest detail.

- I was branching out.

That's when

the cannibalism started,

eating of the heart

and the arm muscle.

It was a way of making me feel

that they were a part of me.

At first,

it was just curiosity,

and then it became compulsive.

- Contrary

to what one might expect

of some wild frenzy

of consuming raw flesh,

what he did was to cook

a filet of biceps

that he'd kept in his freezer,

sit at a table,

and make a meal of it

while looking at photographs

of that person alive.

- Up next, Jeffrey Dahmer's

most terrifying idea yet.

- I tried

to keep the person alive

by inducing

a zombie-like state.

It's 1990, and Jeffrey Dahmer

is in the middle

of a killing spree,

which continues uninterrupted

and unnoticed for years.

He was pulled over

by the police

with body parts in his car.

He had been arrested

for exposing himself

and for sexual assault

on a minor.

He was caught drugging men

at a bathhouse.

And still he wasn't stopped.

Emboldened

by these multiple close calls,

his violent compulsions

begin to evolve,

intensifying and becoming

more and more perverse

as he preys upon men

in Milwaukee.

How did you live

that double life?

How did you go to work?

How did you have

a normal relationship

with your family?

- When you try to keep

a terrible secret, like I was,

it warps every other aspect

of your life.

But I managed to--

I managed to go to work,

conduct myself

just like anyone else would.

- Well, I've been surviving

mostly on McDonald's food.

It's just so much easier just

to pop into the restaurant.

But like I've said before,

it gets too expensive,

and I have to start eating

at home more.

- Even his neighbors

were fooled.

- I don't know where he was

getting them guys from,

but he would take them

in his apartment, you know?

And there were a couple of them

that I didn't see them

come out of there,

and I had asked him about that.

He said, "Oh, well, maybe

you were in the bathroom

or something like that,

'cause they're gone."

- Why was it so easy, though,

for you to hide it all?

- I desensitized myself to it.

I--I--

I...

[exhales]

I don't know.

I went to great lengths.

I bought security systems,

installed them myself

in the apartment.

I had a video camera

in the corner of the room,

installed locks on the doors,

sirens and stuff

in case anyone broke in

to the apartment.

- I was there,

and because I taught the boys

how to clean

and take care of a home,

I went through the refrigerator,

the bathroom,

behind the shower curtain.

The fridge was fine.

The bathroom was fine.

Nothing had taken place

at that time.

- They said it was

absolutely clean, perfect.

- Right.

- How'd you hide from them?

- Everything was locked up,

either in the freezer

or in the file chest.

And so there was no evidence

laying in the open.

There was nothing abnormal

about the look of the apartment.

- Dahmer's father, Lionel,

is talking about his son

after years of silence.

He says he wants to share

his thoughts

on Jeffrey's terrible deeds

one last time.

- Everything that he did was...

You know, he seemed like

a very normal person.

He covered up so much.

And I wish that I had

really pushed harder

to find out what he's thinking

in his--about everything.

- You need to understand

at that point

in Lionel's life,

he was very, very naive.

If there's no communication,

you don't know

what the truth is.

- Did his father know

that at times,

his son was keeping secrets?

Yes.

But could he,

in his wildest dreams,

have imagined

that the secret was

that he was a serial killer

who had necrophilia

and had killed 17 people?

I can't imagine

that's the case.

- And what's just as puzzling

is the fact

that neither the authorities

nor the general public

had any idea a serial killer

was systematically

removing men

from the streets of Milwaukee.

- Every year,

many young men disappear.

They have a fight

with their girlfriend,

get fired from the job,

have a fight with the family,

and leave.

And they're gone a couple weeks

and come back home.

They give it very different

investigative efforts

compared when a young woman

disappears.

No one had even a suspicion

that a serial slayer was afoot.

- By the spring of 1991,

Dahmer's victim count

reaches double digits.

He lures 17-year-old

Curtis Straughter

from a bus stop,

then strangles him to death.

Next, Dahmer would move on

to a new obsession.

- Mr. Dahmer had been

sexually aroused

by the idea of having sex

with a dead body.

He also, at times,

had fantasies

about having sex

with what he referred to

as "zombies,"

human beings that existed

somewhere between being dead

and being alive,

something he later on

actually ended up acting upon.

- His experiments lead

to the death

of his 11th victim,

Errol Lindsey.

A month later, he fails again,

this time

with 31-year-old Tony Hughes,

a deaf man

who Dahmer communicates with

through written notes.

- I tried

to keep the person alive

by inducing

a zombie-like state...

By injecting first

a dilute acid solution

into their brain

or hot water.

And it never did

completely work.

- Could someone like you

be stopped?

Could you be helped?

- No, I was--

I was dead set on going

with this compulsion.

It was the only thing

that gave me any...

any satisfaction.

- He later shares the details

with a forensic psychologist.

- After two failed attempts

at creating zombies,

Dahmer tries for a third time

in May 1991.

That would lead

to his closest call yet.

- He looked like a little kid.

He had a towel around,

and it had blood,

and he had blood running

down his leg.

- The boy is 14-year-old

Konerak Sinthasomphone.

Injured and drugged,

he escaped

when Jeffrey Dahmer

left the apartment

to buy beer.

In a terrible twist of fate,

he's the younger brother

of the boy Dahmer was arrested

for molesting

three years earlier.

- What had already happened

that the police

couldn't possibly have known

is that Mr. Dahmer

had drilled a small hole

in the skull of this young man

and poured a caustic substance

into it,

thinking that he now created

a zombie.

- They didn't see the drillings

into the head

that he had conducted.

Apparently, it was under

the hairline.

- The incoherent boy

is with the police

when Dahmer returns,

but instead of fleeing

the scene,

he acts as cool as ever.

- Dahmer went right up

to the police and says,

"This is my lover.

"If you come, I'll take you back

to my apartment.

Here's his clothes."

They were all folded

on the couch.

- Mr. Dahmer did keep his wits

and persuaded them by showing

some pictures

that this young lad

had voluntarily taken

that these were just two

consenting homosexual adults

engaging in sexual activity.

I don't think the police

recognized the age

of this young man

at that time.

- The body of the last victim,

Tony Hughes, is still there,

but the police

don't look around.

Instead, they leave the boy

in the apartment with Dahmer.

- Did that play an element

in it,

that there were homosexuals

involved, possibly?

I can't assess that.

I think that would be

a harsh judgment.

- During the incident

where the police were called...

- Mm-hmm.

- And the young boy

was returned to you,

that didn't wake you up

at all?

The police on your doorstep?

- They were--they were

in the apartment.

They were actually in

the apartment,

and there was a dead young man

in the bedroom

on the floor.

I couldn't believe it when--

when it turned out

that they--they--

they didn't see anything.

I just--I couldn't believe it.

And yes, it did shock me

but not enough to quit.

That's how strong

the compulsion was.

- Any neighbors

with lingering suspicions

are assured by the police

that nothing

is out of the ordinary,

as you'll hear

in this 911 call.

- Well, the next day,

Dahmer killed him.

- Konerak Sinthasomphone

was Dahmer's 13th victim.

Up next...

Did you like feeling evil?

- No.

No, I didn't.

After the close call

After the close call

with the police

in May of 1991,

Jeffrey Dahmer's killing

accelerates

to a dizzying pace.

Within a week, he murders

20-year-old Matt Turner

and 23-year-old

Jeremiah Weinberger.

Only ten days later,

he strangles

24-year-old Oliver Lacy.

- Things just began

to deteriorate.

He became like a killing machine

out of control.

There were just body parts,

at the end, all over the place.

- Before long, his neighbors

report a foul stench

coming from somewhere

on their floor.

- Ooh.

I can't even describe it.

It's a horrible smell.

I know me and Jeff went up and

down the hallways, smelling--

you know, trying to see

where it was coming from.

- The landlord eventually

tracks the smell

to Dahmer's apartment.

- He told the manager,

"Well, my fish died."

Then he told him,

"My meat spoiled."

And then the third time,

the manager came up

and told him--

complained about the smell,

he told him,

"You're gonna be evicted

next month."

- I went in

to help him clean up,

and he told me--he said,

"It's the freezer over there

"that my grandma has sent me

some meat,

"and I put it in there,

and I went back to her house,

and I forgot to plug it in."

I haven't been around

no dead people.

I don't know anything

about how they smell.

He had a very good disguise.

That's what it was.

- Jeffrey Dahmer begins

to miss work

and is fired from his job

at the chocolate factory.

Killing becomes

his only function in life.

Two days later,

25-year-old Joseph Bradehoft

becomes Dahmer's 17th

and final victim.

Three days later,

Dahmer's reign of terror

comes crashing to a halt.

- Oh, Lord.

[chuckles]

That was not a good night

for me.

I was home by myself,

and Jeff was having--

Jeff was having some company

or something,

'cause I could hear music,

a radio or something playing.

- The company she hears

is Tracy Edwards,

a man Jeffrey Dahmer met

at a mall

and convinces to come back

to his apartment.

- He was out of Halcion,

so he had handcuffs,

and he persuaded Edwards

to get one handcuff on,

and he said he wanted

to photograph him in bondage,

so he wanted to put

the other one on.

Well, Edwards says,

"You're not gonna put

that second one on."

- At the trial, Edwards gives

a harrowing account

of the night's events.

- He told me

to lay down face down,

put both of my hands

behind my back.

I kind of, like,

laid on my side.

For some reason, I guess

God told me not to lay flat down

and let this person handcuff me,

so I didn't.

He kind of laid across me,

put his head across my chest

at that point

like he was listening

to my heart,

'cause at that point,

he told me

he was gonna eat my heart

at that point.

The "Exorcist" movie

was playing at that time.

- This was part

of Jeffrey Dahmer's ritual.

He would watch "Exorcist III"

before every murderous outing.

- I felt so hopelessly evil

and perverted

that...

that I actually derived

a sort of pleasure

from watching that tape.

- Did you like feeling evil?

- No, no, I didn't.

But I had tried to overcome

the thoughts,

and it worked for a while,

but eventually I gave in.

- Jeffrey took him

into his room.

They were both sitting

on the bed.

And Dahmer was rocking

back and forth

and kind of humming,

making noises.

[ominous music]

- I said, "Well, at least

I'm gonna die trying.

I'm not just gonna sit here."

And then I just--

for some reason, I said,

"Well, I need to go

to the bathroom,"

and he didn't follow me

at that point.

And I ran out.

- He goes up to a squad car,

says, "Hey,

can you help me

take this handcuff off?"

The police ask him

what's happening.

They try.

They can't.

So they head back

to Dahmer's house

to get the key.

- So they went back

to the apartment with Edwards.

Dahmer, of course,

was drinking or drunk.

- In an open dresser drawer

in plain sight

are close to 80 Polaroids

documenting Dahmer's victims--

naked, posed, and dismembered.

- Officer yelled,

"Get the cuffs on him"

or something like that.

And the other one came out

in the hallway,

and I was running down that way

to get out of the way,

'cause I said, "I don't know

what they're doing.

I don't know what they found."

- We're investigating

a homicide that's occurred

in the apartment building

in the 900 block

of North 25th Street.

- It's obvious that there is--

has been a number

of human specimens found

within the apartment.

- The evidence collected

is straight out of

a horror film:

severed heads,

bleached skulls,

a 57-gallon vat of acid

used to dissolve human flesh.

And inside the refrigerator,

neatly packaged body parts

ready for consumption.

What was the turning point

for you

that made you suddenly realize

that you had done something

terribly wrong,

something you should be

sorry for?

- It was the night

of the arrest.

I have no memory

of what happened

during the s the srs

before the last victim ran

out of the apartment.

I heard a knock on the door,

and the police were there

with the last victim.

They asked me where the key was

to the handcuffs.

I was--my mind was in a haze.

I sort of pointed

to the bedroom,

and that's where they found

the pictures.

And they yelled, "Cuff him."

I was handcuffed.

And it was just the realization

that there was no point

in trying to hide--

hide my actions anymore.

The best route was to help,

help the police

identify all the victims

and just make

a complete confession.

- Well, at 3:00,

I got a phone call.

They had a subject in custody

that had skulls

in his apartment

and body parts,

at which time

I immediately said,

"You're screwing with me."

I went in

and introduced myself to Jeff,

and he immediately said,

"When you find out what I did,

you're gonna want to kill me."

Then we says, "Well, let's

start from the beginning."

And he said, "Well, that was

a long time ago."

And we said, "What--what year?"

And he says, "'78."

- Starting

with the disappearance

of Steven Hicks

back in Bath, Ohio,

Dahmer describes every murder

in detail

all the way up

to Joseph Bradehoft

just days before the arrest.

It starts to become clear

that Dahmer had a type.

- Interestingly enough,

disproportionately,

Dahmer's victims

were African-American.

- 10 of your 17 victims

were black.

Were they racially motivated

crimes?

- It was not

racially motivated.

It was not sexual preference.

It was just to find--

an obsession

with the best-looking

young man I could find.

- The only time I saw Dahmer

get mad

is when he was accused

of being biased against blacks.

It wasn't true.

He just was crazy sick.

- Everyone

in the law enforcement,

ranging from the policemen

who arrested him

to the attorney,

thought he covered up

everything

so extremely well

that they had no idea of what

was going on in his mind.

- We didn't hear

about the extent

till it came out in the papers

and he was in jail.

It's not a pleasant experience

to go through.

But my concern was taking care

of my husband.

- But Lionel's main concern

was his mother,

who lived in the house

where murders three, four,

and five were committed.

- All the four newspapers,

they were camped out

across the street,

and it was just endless.

- She just couldn't imagine.

She just--it didn't register

how bad it was.

We kept it from her,

but when she finally was told,

she finally succumbed

to dementia.

- Despite the terrible effect

the discovery of Jeffrey's

crimes had on the family,

they wanted to go to trial.

- At that time, I was thinking

that the mystery could be solved

as to why he did these things

by being examined

by a psychologist.

As it turned out, it--

it seemed to me

a useless exercise.

I know the real reason:

there was a lack of connection

with our creator.

- Up next...

How should you be punished?

- Well, there's no question

that I deserve

the death penalty.

In early 1992,

serial killer Jefferey Dahmer

is about to stand trial

for 15 of his 17 murders.

But this trial

isn't to establish guilt.

That has been weighed.

This is to determine sanity.

His family wants him

declared insane

so he can be treated by

mental health professionals.

- All rise.

[gavel bangs]

- Despite the pain

of hearing the details

of their son's crimes,

the Dahmers never miss

a day in court.

- If you look at the early films

of Jeff in court,

you'll see him

in this striped shirt,

looking somewhat like

a vagabond.

Well, I took Lionel's suit in,

and we gave it to Jeff.

He went to court

looking like a gentleman.

[tearfully]

Because he was our son.

- Hearing about the crimes

was just horrible.

I mean, it was just

overwhelming.

And all we could do

was sit there and listen

with the hope that the

psychologists that were involved

could find out what caused him

to do these things.

But I think, in the end,

the reason

that caused him to do

what he did--

he just wasn't with God.

- Jeffrey Dahmer told me he

never wanted to go to trial.

He just wanted to go to prison

and take his punishment.

But that didn't happen.

You're wearing glasses now.

- Right.

- You didn't

during the trial.

Why not?

- I--I didn't want to--

I felt uncomfortable

looking anyone in the face.

I didn't want to...

see anyone's face clearly.

It helped me dissociate myself

from what was happening.

- Dahmer didn't have to look,

but he did have to listen.

- He tried tasting

the flesh and the heart.

He reported that it had

a beef-like flavor.

- Do you still feel

those same urges?

Do you still feel

that compulsion, that obsession?

- I wish I could say

that it just left completely,

but no, there are times

when I still do--

still do have

the old compulsion.

- Could someone like you

be stopped?

Could you be helped?

- No, I was--

I was dead set

on going with this compulsion.

It was the only thing

that gave me any--

any satisfaction.

- Jerry Boyle argued

that Dahmer was like

a locomotive out of control,

speeding down the track

as he killed more people,

lost any sensitivity to it.

That would come under

the hypothesis, then,

that he was insane,

'cause he couldn't control

what he was doing.

I can understand

that someone might say,

"He must be crazy."

I can understand that.

He was not.

- Did the defendant,

Jeffrey L. Dahmer,

have a mental disease?

Answer: no.

[people cheer]

- Ultimately, the jury

finds Dahmer guilty

and legally sane

at the time of the murders.

After the verdict,

the families of the victims

are allowed to address

the killer.

- Jeffrey, I hate you,

motherf---er!

I hate you!

This is out of control!

- One woman in particular

really got angry.

What did you think

when she was doing that?

- I couldn't blame her

a bit.

I'm surprised

there wasn't more of that.

- You know, there's nothing

that you can say to someone

who is extremely distraught

except to give them empathy

and try to convince them

that you really do care

very, very much.

And I do.

- [yelling]

- Mr. Dahmer,

you do have the right

to address the court

at this time.

- Your Honor, I know that you

are about to sentence me.

I ask for no consideration.

Thank you, Your Honor,

and I am prepared

for your sentence,

which I know will be

the maximum.

- The court will impose

the mandatory life sentence...

[dramatic music]

Plus an additional ten years

on the habitual criminality.

- With the death penalty

not an option in Wisconsin,

Dahmer is given

more than 15 life sentences

equaling 936 years.

Soon after, he's extradited

to Ohio...

- To the charge

of aggravated murder...

- Where he's convicted

for the murder

of his first victim,

Steven Hicks.

Dahmer is never charged

with the 1987 murder

of Steven Tuomi.

Although he claimed

responsibility,

Dahmer says he was blacked out

during the act,

and there was

no further evidence

linking him to the crime.

It was the only murder

he confessed to

that he was not convicted of.

Regardless, the sentences

are more than enough

to put minds at rest.

Jeffrey Dahmer would spend

the rest of his life

behind bars.

- When he had first gotten

locked up down there,

he wanted me to come down there

and see him.

But by then, I was terrified

of him.

I know Jeffrey who used to stay

across the hall from me.

That Dahmer guy

is somebody else.

No.

- He confided

that he stayed up all night

and slept all day

because he couldn't face

the daylight

and the memories

of the brutal crimes

that defined his life.

- Usually wake up

at 6:30 in the morning,

go eat breakfast,

and then sleep until noon,

wake up for lunch,

and sleep until about 4:00

in the afternoon,

eat dinner,

and then spend

the greater portion of the night

watching TV.

- But how does a family

even attempt

to reconcile the thought

that a man who is

their own flesh and blood

is also the most evil criminal

imaginable?

- I had these many, many

discussions with him

on the phone.

It was always Shari and I

who would visit him

at the prison,

and Shari was extremely

instrumental

in bringing Jeff and I

and her together

into a very loving relationship.

- He was very embarrassed

about being in prison.

He would try to hide

his handcuffs.

He was embarrassed.

He apologized,

but you have to understand

he's not--

he's not going to sit there

and bleed about his crimes.

- It really was irrelevant,

at that point,

to talk about.

- No, no.

What would it serve

to be angry with him?

- I try not to think too deeply

about anything,

because then I get depressed.

I try to figure out

why this happened,

what started these thoughts

in my head

at such a young age,

whether this has any--

any meaning to it

or whether this is all

just a horrible coincidence,

you know, all the events

in my life.

I feel that I'm better off here

than I was on the outside,

doing what I was doing.

- You're glad

you're in prison.

- I think it's best

for everyone, right.

- As prisoners often do,

Dahmer turns to God

while behind bars.

- Got a phone call.

It was from a minister friend

of mine in Milwaukee

who said that there was

an inmate

who wanted to be baptized.

I said, "Okay, I've never

done this before, but sure.

What's his name?"

He said, "You better sit down

for this one.

It's Jeffrey Dahmer."

- Up next...

What do you think happens

after you die?

- Right.

That's the big unknown.

- Sentenced to almost

- Sentenced to almost

a millennium in prison,

convicted serial killer

Jeffrey Dahmer

embraces religion.

He asks Roy Ratcliff,

then a minister

in the Church of Christ,

to baptize him.

- He'd begun to think

more deeply,

and that was primarily

to save his soul,

to get his soul right with God.

- Dahmer's father, Lionel,

by now a devout Christian

himself,

uses this opportunity

to bond with his son.

- I told him that there are

many, many, many people

in this world

who think that Genesis,

the first book of the Bible,

is some type of a myth

instead of actual history.

And he ordered roughly 13 books

on the evolution-creation

controversy,

and he became convinced,

and then he attempted

to follow through

and live as holy a life

as he could.

- But at the same time,

Dahmer told me

he never conquered

his deadly impulses.

If you were out

on the street now,

would you still be

committing the crimes?

- Probably.

If this hadn't happened,

there's no doubt

I probably would be.

I can't think of anything

that would have stopped me.

- Jeff told us

when he was in prison

that he should never be

turned loose,

because he would do

the same thing again.

Now, that requires

a great deal

of soul-searching and honesty.

- You know the families

of the victims

don't believe

in your conversion

or your sorrow.

- Oh, right.

And if I was on the--

on their end of the table,

I wouldn't either.

Ultimately, I'm accountable

to the Lord Jesus Christ.

He'll be my final judge.

- Can your sins

be forgiven?

- The Lord Jesus Christ's

shed blood

is powerful enough

to wipe out even my sins.

- One of the most beautiful

things that occurred

when Jeff was in prison,

if you can call it beautiful--

I made friends with one of

the victims' sisters,

and I was able to get her in

to visit Jeff.

As nervous as Jeff was,

he was able to tell her

how her brother died.

And she needed that for closure.

- And she ended up saying

that she forgave Jeff,

because she knew

that it was something

that was completely

overpowering Jeff.

- How should you be punished?

- Well, there's no question

that I deserve

the death penalty.

I've wondered myself

why I don't have

the death penalty.

That's what I deserve;

I deserve death.

- What do you think happens

after you die?

- Right.

That's the big unknown.

I've thought of--I've had

thoughts of suicide.

But I just haven't been able

to carry them through.

So I don't know

what the future will hold.

- Mr. Dahmer was the subject

of an attack

at the Columbia

Correctional Institution.

- He was beaten to death

in prison yesterday.

- The slaying ended a life

of sadism, serial murder,

and cannibalism.

- Dahmer is beaten to death

by a fellow inmate.

Ironically, he's killed

by a barbell,

the same object he'd used

on Steven Hicks

16 years earlier.

For the first time,

Jeffrey's father talks

about his son's death.

- How did his death

affect me?

- It--

I was brought into a room

where he was lying

after being bludgeoned.

And it struck me so emotionally

that I touched him

and I said, "Oh, Jeff.

"Jeff.

Jeff."

It was extremely

emotionally devastating

just to see him.

Disregarding

all of the horrible things

that his demented state

caused him to do,

I was at least very, very glad

that he had done

what we believers believe.

- Lionel said that his son

didn't put up a fight

when he was attacked.

Well, when I talked to Jeffrey,

it was clear

that he wanted to die.

He said

he even considered suicide.

But after embracing

Christianity,

he felt that, of all things,

would be too great a sin.

- I love the human beings

who have been in my life

and who may have failed.

I have failed.

But the important thing is,

you love

who the true human being is,

and you take that with you

to your grave.

- I'm very, very proud

that in the end,

he did everything

that was required

for the initial salvation.

I believe he's with God.

He forgave Jeff

according to what's said

in the Scriptures,

and therefore I forgive Jeff.

- Originally, I didn't believe

in the concept

of evil,

but now I do.

I'm talking about someone

who exhibits

unbelievable cruelty on others

simply for their own purposes,

I think is a pretty good

definition of evil.

And I think

it's a pretty good understanding

of Jeffrey Dahmer.

- For more

about "Dahmer on Dahmer,"