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JEFFREY DAHMER - SERIAL KILLER - ORIGINAL INTERVIEW #balancescalesofjustice — Transcript

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0:02[Music]
0:11you took my mother's oldest grandchild
0:13from her and for that i can never
0:15forgive you
0:16i hope you
0:19i hope you can deal with what you've
0:20done
0:23one after another the relatives of his
0:25victims poured out the pain and grief
0:27they had suffered at the hands of
0:29jeffrey dahmer
0:38few crimes in modern american history
0:40can compare to the dark secrets that
0:42came out of apartment 213 in this quiet
0:45milwaukee neighborhood
0:47investigators found seven skulls and
0:49four heads one of them in a refrigerator
0:54in this blue barrel still more body
0:56parts
0:57after 13 years the murder spree had
1:00finally come to an end but not before at
1:02least 17 young men were dead their
1:04bodies mutilated some had even been
1:07cannibalized to satisfy the killer's
1:09twisted sexual urges
1:12after a two-week trial in january 1992
1:15jeffrey dahmer was sentenced to more
1:17than 900 years in prison
1:19this defendant will never again see
1:21freedom
1:23little consolation for the grieving
1:24families or for this man who listened
1:27with a combination of disbelief and
1:29shame
1:30lionel dahmer
1:32jeffrey dahmer's father
1:35to have a child murdered and mutilated
1:37is a horror from which no parent
1:39recovers
1:40but what about the parent whose child
1:42committed the crimes
1:44what lionel dahmer learned about his son
1:46in this milwaukee courthouse two years
1:47ago
1:48led to another kind of hell
1:51where a father turns the questions of
1:53guilt and responsibility on himself
1:55wondering
1:56where did i go wrong
1:58was there something i could have said or
2:00done to have prevented this
2:02did i help create a serial killer it's
2:05been eternal torment
2:08fifty-seven-year-old lionel dahmer a
2:10research chemist has confronted some of
2:12the most painful questions any parent
2:14could ever ask
2:15in a haunting book called a father story
2:18he looks for the origins of his son's
2:20madness and one of the first places he
2:23looks is in the mirror
2:25as i began to confront jeff's childhood
2:28imaginings
2:29it became clear to me that they had not
2:31always been wholly different from my own
2:34these same needs and impulses had lived
2:37a shadowy half-life in me
2:40when you were a teenager
2:43you had
2:44dreams of committing murder yourself
2:47almost always after i was either
2:50physically or in some other way harassed
2:54by bullies i would wake up say the next
2:57morning and i would i would have this
2:59feeling
3:00that i had hurt someone that i'd maybe
3:02hurt them badly that i had killed them
3:06lionel dahmer also reveals that as a
3:08teenager struggling with feelings of
3:09inferiority he had his own destructive
3:12obsessions with fire and homemade bombs
3:16and this was your way of what achieving
3:18some control gaining some respect
3:22i felt like i was in control and i had
3:24some power
3:26i was noticed
3:28you seem to believe that you may have
3:29passed on some kind of
3:31genetic propensity for obsession or
3:35destructive behavior
3:37it's something to be considered
3:40i mean i want to consider everything
3:42a series of childhood infections a
3:45hernia operation that seemed to
3:46traumatize jeffrey when he was four
3:49at about that same time something else
3:51happened
3:53lionel had removed some dead animals
3:54from the crawl space beneath their house
3:56and placed the bones in a bucket
4:00i noticed that jeff had picked up these
4:02bones and just let him drop back down
4:04into the into the bucket and made a a
4:07clanging noise
4:09and he seemed
4:11sort of entranced by that he just said
4:14as he dropped them down it's just like
4:16fiddlesticks he says
4:17looking back on it now lionel says he
4:19can't help wondering if there was more
4:21to it than just child's play
4:24i can no longer distinguish the ordinary
4:26from the forbidding trivial events from
4:29ones loaded with foreboding
4:31when he was four and pointed to his
4:33belly button
4:34and asked what would happen if someone
4:36cut it out was that merely an ordinary
4:39question from a child who had begun to
4:41explore his own body
4:43or was it a sign of something morbid
4:46already growing in his mind when we went
4:49fishing and he seemed captivated by the
4:51gutted fish
4:53staring intently at the brightly colored
4:56entrails
4:57was that a child's natural curiosity or
5:00was it a harbinger of the horror that
5:02was later to be found in apartment 213
5:07what was he like as a as a young as a
5:10young boy
5:11wonderful
5:13i thought he was wonderful
5:15jeffrey's mother joyce he was fun he we
5:18did all the normal things that people do
5:21if i'd seen something that had been a
5:24clue of any kind i i'd i'd like to think
5:28that i would have done something about
5:31it immediately no there there wasn't
5:33anything unusual about jeff
5:35but according to lionel by the time
5:37jeffrey entered this elementary school
5:39in doyle's town ohio he was no longer
5:41the buoyant child his parents once knew
5:44jeff's first grade teacher described him
5:46as inordinately shy so that he stayed
5:48away from all the kids out here on the
5:50playground
5:51and seem to be profoundly unhappy
5:54shouldn't that have set off some kind of
5:56alarm we visited the
5:59the teacher and we became very concerned
6:02as she did
6:05but i thought it was
6:07just shyness as i had gone through when
6:10i was
6:11a youngster in school but what for you
6:13had been shyness for him was becoming
6:16near total isolation that's right
6:19in retrospect that's very true
6:22as jeffrey entered adolescence he became
6:24even more withdrawn
6:26lionel and joyce were fighting at times
6:29so violently he says knives were drawn
6:32their strained marriage was beginning to
6:34crack
6:35there were times when he heard the
6:37shouting and he went outside
6:40and just left the house
6:41i learned later that he was slapping the
6:43trees with
6:45branches and sticks and
6:47i guess uh apparently out of frustration
6:51when you think back on those times the
6:52arguments and the possible effects
6:55it makes me sick it really makes me sick
6:58that we didn't have a more
7:00ozzie and harriet type family
7:03and i'll feel that way to my death
7:06in his endless second guessing about the
7:08upbringing of his child there is one
7:10last agonizing possibility that haunts
7:13lionel dahmer
7:14that the drugs he says were prescribed
7:16for his wife when she was pregnant with
7:18jeffrey might have harmed him
7:20lionel remembers a very difficult
7:22pregnancy
7:24her jaw would go sideways and lock
7:27and her eyes would bulge and i know it
7:30sort of sounds like epilepsy it does
7:33sound like a seizure of something right
7:36but it was not diagnosed as that the
7:38doctor did not say that that's what it
7:41was he did not know what it was a doctor
7:44would usually have to intervene
7:47giving joyce injections of barbiturates
7:50and morphine which would finally relax
7:53her
7:53while current medical literature says
7:55barbiturates taken during pregnancy can
7:57cause fetal damage
7:59at jeffrey's trial experts said it was
8:01impossible to link his criminal behavior
8:04to the prescription drugs his mother may
8:06have taken during her pregnancy
8:08and tests showed no brain or genetic
8:11abnormalities
8:12when we asked joyce about her pregnancy
8:14she disputed much of what lionel said it
8:16happened and told us she doesn't know
8:19why he continues to raise questions
8:20about it
8:21unless it's to blame her
8:24there were no seizures
8:26i can't imagine where that comes from
8:29it isn't true i don't
8:32um
8:33you don't recall any anything like that
8:35seizures or
8:36seizure-like episodes absolutely not is
8:40it possible you just don't remember them
8:42no it's not possible i don't remember
8:44them it was my first pregnancy i
8:45remember everything about my first
8:47pregnancy
8:48were you prescribed medications
8:50including morphine
8:52barbiturates
8:54i don't know what medications were
8:57prescribed and i had a doctor a
8:59physician i took the medicine that
9:02was prescribed for me and
9:06for the most part i was healthy there
9:07was nothing
9:09that
9:11was out of the ordinary as far as my
9:14pregnancy was concerned except
9:16in the end she like lionel
9:19has no answers
9:21only questions
9:23jeff was raised with all the love and
9:26care
9:27and concern
9:29that any child could be raised with and
9:32what happened to him i don't know i wish
9:35i knew i'd get anything to know
9:40i asked the universe
9:42why would this be allowed to happen
9:45i don't have an answer for that
9:48you don't have any answers do you no
9:51no i don't
9:52what do you see when you look at jeff's
9:54face
9:56um
9:59i guess
10:00the parent
10:02naive parent in me still says i see
10:05a
10:06an innocent uh
10:08shy child a defenseless vulnerable child
10:11who
10:12i wish i could help now
10:21every month lionel dahmer along with his
10:24second wife sherry makes the 11-hour
10:26drive from their home in ohio to the
10:28wisconsin prison where his son will
10:30spend the rest of his life
10:32except for the guard towers you wouldn't
10:34really see right away that it is a
10:36prison
10:37though father and son have spent many
10:39hours together during these regular
10:41visits at the prison
10:44incredibly they've never talked about
10:45the horrific crimes that have made the
10:47name dahmer so infamous
10:50they've never talked about jeffrey's
10:52childhood
10:54or the many questions lionel has had
10:56about why jeffrey did what he did
10:59until now
11:02hi jim sherry how are you
11:04good to see you good to see you
11:06the two of you never really
11:08communicated all that much did you
11:10father and son
11:12not on
11:13not on any deep
11:15deep level no
11:16we talked about superficial things
11:19uh never really had a
11:22real deep heart-to-heart talk about what
11:24was going on
11:26inside our own minds
11:28why do you think that was
11:32uh because
11:34from about
11:3615 years on up
11:38a great deal of my thoughts were
11:42basically unshareable
11:44as a teenager there were many things
11:45jeffrey felt he couldn't share with his
11:47parents
11:48but in lionel dahmer's home one subject
11:51was particularly taboo
11:53did you ever consider talking to your
11:55parents to your dad about homosexuality
12:00is that something you felt you could
12:01ever raise early on
12:04i really didn't know that much about it
12:06myself
12:07all i knew was that it was something
12:09that
12:10was to be kept hush-hush not
12:13talked about not even thought about
12:16so i just kept it all within me and
12:19never
12:20never talked about sexual
12:23issues at all really
12:25with anybody
12:27if jeff had come to you
12:29and said dad i'm a homosexual
12:33how would you have reacted
12:36i
12:37think i would have started in on a
12:40program to to try to
12:43change his thinking
12:45so you would not have been accepting no
12:48no do you
12:49believe to this day that he is as a
12:51homosexual living in a state of sin
12:54if you believe the inspired word of god
12:57which i do that is sin it's repugnant to
13:00god do you think jeff was ashamed of his
13:02homosexuality i think so
13:06he certainly hid it from you
13:09he sure did
13:11do you think if you had been able to
13:13talk about that in a more open way that
13:16it would have
13:18helped talking about it i don't think
13:20would have made that much difference
13:21because like i said there were things
13:23going on in my head that
13:25i would have never opened up and talked
13:26about with anybody today jeffrey's
13:28secret homosexuality was only one force
13:31that drove him into his own world his
13:34parents incessant fighting was another
13:36it was unnerving depressing
13:39made me angry sometimes
13:43i'd leave the house go out in the woods
13:45and
13:46sulk brooding you know wondering why
13:49they had to
13:50have such a rough relationship
13:52your dad says that somewhere around the
13:54age of six he thought that you began to
13:57change you began to withdraw that you
14:00became much more shy
14:02oh yeah that's that's the time i really
14:05really remember uh
14:07noticing that things weren't quite right
14:09so it wasn't so much in a chinese as it
14:11was wanting to
14:13withdraw from tension and arguments and
14:17problems in the house that's how i saw
14:18it yeah just
14:21i i
14:24sort of
14:26lived in my own little fantasy world
14:27when things got too heated in the
14:29household it was just
14:34just my own little world where i had
14:36control
14:38that fantasy world may have been
14:39jeffrey's retreat from violence as a boy
14:42but as he grew up it would become a
14:45world filled with violence maybe i felt
14:48uh
14:49i had no control as a child or a young
14:52adult
14:53and
14:54that got mixed in with my sexuality and
14:59i ended up
15:01doing what i did was my way of feeling
15:04in in complete control at least for that
15:06situation
15:08creating my own little world where i had
15:10the final say where i could completely
15:12control a person a person that i found
15:15it physically attractive
15:17and
15:19keep them with me as long as possible
15:21even if it meant just keeping
15:23a part of them
15:26one of your dad's biggest questions is
15:28when you began to slip away
15:32when you
15:34crossed over into this world of
15:37obsession or dark fantasy
15:41from which you just couldn't return i
15:43think it was around age 14 or 15.
15:47i started have having obsessive
15:50uh thoughts of
15:55violence
15:56intermingled with sex
15:59and it just got worse and worse
16:02i didn't know how to tell anyone about
16:04it so i didn't i just kept it all inside
16:07something about this house right here
16:09one of the things jeffrey kept inside
16:11early on was a bizarre teenage
16:13fascination with dead animals this from
16:16a boy who 10 years earlier had played
16:18fiddlesticks with a bucket of animal
16:20bones lionel took us back to the
16:22neighborhood in ohio where his son's
16:25strange rituals began
16:27he
16:27rode around on his bike
16:30took
16:31containers garbage bags and so forth and
16:33collected roadkills and brought them
16:35back and examined them
16:38it was something lionel says he never
16:39knew about until the trial one of the
16:42biggest things that i've been wondering
16:43is
16:44just how on earth
16:46how it got established with
16:49entrails you know with
16:51the sides of dogs or foxes as you
16:54uh made your way around the neighborhood
16:56on i think it started started maybe
16:58started out as just uh childhood
17:00curiosity
17:02just to see
17:04what it looked like inside or right
17:07and uh something something went wrong
17:10was was there some pleasure in in the
17:13cutting open of the animal yes there was
17:17no no sexual pleasure but just uh
17:24it's hard to describe
17:26a sense of power sense of control i
17:28suppose that's a good way of putting it
17:29yeah
17:30it's impossible to know why jeffrey's
17:32obsessions progressed from roadkill to
17:35humans
17:36but it didn't take long
17:38during our visit back to the old
17:39neighborhood lionel showed us where the
17:41stalking began when jeff was 14 he rode
17:44his bike
17:45over here from his home a couple miles
17:47away
17:49at this location hid in the in the trees
17:51in the bushes
17:53with a sawed-off
17:54baseball bat waiting for a jogger to
17:56come by and what was he gonna do well he
18:00was going to hit the jogger over the
18:02head with the baseball bat make him
18:04unconscious
18:05and lie with him
18:07lie with a motionless body
18:11do you remember at age 14 hiding in the
18:13bushes alongside that road
18:15thinking about attacking a jogger yes
18:18yeah i remember doing that
18:20so that's the point at which it shifted
18:22from
18:23from animals
18:25to people
18:27uh years 14 or 15 in that area yeah
18:31he never attacked any joggers but it was
18:33on these same roads at age 18 that
18:36jeffrey now struggling with alcoholism
18:39picked up a hitchhiker named steven
18:40hicks and brought him home
18:43the house was empty
18:45jeffrey's parents had recently divorced
18:47and he was home alone
18:49i wish i just keep on kept on going but
18:51i didn't turned around picked him
18:54up and uh
18:57that's when
18:59that's when it the nightmare became a
19:01reality
19:02what happened after you took him to the
19:04house
19:05um
19:06we talked
19:08had some drinks
19:13i knocked him out
19:15and
19:21that was that was the first time
19:25in august 1978 about a month after the
19:28hicks murder
19:29lionel and sherry jordan his girlfriend
19:31at the time went to check on jeffrey
19:34what was the scene like when you came
19:35into the house and saw him he had a dead
19:38look in his eye
19:39and he just looked extremely sad
19:42he was wondering aimlessly about the
19:44house he was very uncomfortable
19:47his mother had moved out
19:49he he was it torn between the two
19:51parents he was a lost child
19:55was this about some kind of desire to
19:58keep these people with you
20:00not to be abandoned not to have them
20:03leave
20:05i think it
20:07that did play into it
20:09but
20:10there is a big element of wanting
20:11complete control over someone total
20:14control
20:18not having to
20:19to consider their wishes
20:21being able to keep them there as long as
20:23i wanted
20:25and
20:27that that was a big part of it
20:30lust played a big part of it
20:32controlling lust once
20:35it happened the first time
20:38it just seemed like it had control of my
20:40life from there on end i that
20:43it
20:44was a major part of my thinking from
20:46then on did you want to try to stop
20:49yes i tried i tried to stop
20:52and the killing did stop for a while
20:56but jeffrey says in 1984 while living
20:58here at his grandmother's house in
21:00milwaukee his violent compulsions
21:02consumed him once again
21:04one night cruising these bars in
21:06downtown milwaukee he met a young man
21:09and took him to this hotel
21:11i had put some sleeping pills in his
21:13drink
21:14to render him unconscious
21:17and
21:19was just going to spend the night with
21:21him
21:22when i woke up in the morning
21:26my forearms were bruised
21:29and his chest was
21:31was bruised and blood was coming out of
21:33his mouth
21:34he was hanging over the side of the bed
21:36and
21:37i have no memory of beating him to death
21:40but i must have
21:42and that's when it when it all started
21:44again and once it started again you
21:46found it impossible to stop right that
21:48that's when the the obsession went into
21:50full swing
21:53my only objective was to find the best
21:55looking
21:56uh guy that i could i went to bath
21:58houses
21:59i went to bars
22:03shopping malls
22:05their sexual preference didn't matter to
22:07me
22:09did their race matter to you no their
22:11race didn't matter to me the first the
22:13first two
22:14young men were white the
22:17third young man was american indian the
22:19fourth
22:20and fifth were hispanic
22:23so no
22:24race had nothing to do with it it was
22:26just
22:26their looks
22:29was it the killing that excited you
22:32or is it what happened after the killing
22:34no
22:52one of those failed experiments to
22:54create a living zombie was conducted on
22:56this 14 year old boy
22:58jeffrey had drilled a hole in his head
23:00and poured in acid a crude attempted
23:02lobotomy that none of his victims
23:04survived
23:22was there
23:24something sexual and the dismemberment
23:26of the bodies for you
23:40so
24:02this
24:32how did jeffrey dahmer get away with his
24:34murderous acts for as long as he did
24:36as we found out talking to both him and
24:38his father
24:39jeffrey was not only a highly efficient
24:41predator he was also a consummate liar i
24:45had to do a lot of lying a lot of
24:47covering up a lot of
24:50pretending
24:52were there times when your dad may have
24:55been closer to discovering what was
24:57going on than even he knew
24:59the box incident was about
25:01as close as it came
25:03the so-called box incident happened in
25:051989
25:06when jeffrey had already killed at least
25:08five young men
25:10it was a about a one foot square box
25:14metal and wood box my dad
25:17one week came to visit
25:20and happened to see it and
25:22wondering what was in it he didn't know
25:24nobody knew and i said jeff open it up i
25:28just want to see what's in there we got
25:30into a bit of an argument because i
25:32wouldn't open it up and i said jeff open
25:35it up or i'm going to just take it down
25:38into the basement and get a screwdriver
25:40or something and open it up i was
25:43i think i've got to stop this from
25:44happening he
25:46got angry very visibly agitated i
25:50thought
25:51you know it's all going to come crashing
25:52down now
25:53not
25:54fathoming what could be in that box
25:57i said okay
25:59just
26:00open it up tomorrow then and then let's
26:02get rid of it whatever it is
26:04what was in the box the mummified
26:07head
26:08and
26:09genitals of
26:11a young man i met in one of the bars
26:15down in milwaukee
26:17but the box was never opened
26:20not my dad's presence
26:23and so
26:24the
26:25lies continued and so did the murders i
26:29didn't have to be accountable to anybody
26:32i felt that i could keep it in my own
26:34secret little world
26:36keep everything under control
26:38um and would never have to deal with the
26:41consequences
26:42and so things just
26:44progressed from bad to worse
26:47your dad has wondered about all kinds of
26:49things from the medication that your mom
26:50was on during her pregnancy
26:52to the fact that you were exposed to
26:54violent arguments in the home from an
26:56early age and continuing
26:59to the possibility that he might have
27:00passed on some genetic propensity for
27:03obsession or violent behavior
27:07does any of that
27:08ring true to you
27:11i can see why he'd wonder about those
27:13things but as far as i'm concerned
27:15they're all excuses
27:17i feel it's
27:19wrong for people who commit crimes to
27:21try to shift the blame onto somebody
27:23else onto their parents or
27:25onto their their
27:26upbringing or circle living
27:28circumstances i i think that's just a
27:30cop out
27:32i take full responsibility
27:35how do you feel about what you did
27:37i'm glad that it's over
27:39um
27:41there's nothing any words i say to the
27:44to the victims families are just going
27:46to seem trite and empty
27:50i i don't know how to express
27:53the regret the sorrow
28:00that i feel for what i've done for their
28:02for their sons
28:04uh
28:05i can't find the right words
28:08is it still there jeff
28:11does it ever go away in part no never it
28:13never completely goes away
28:16i'll probably have to live with it for
28:18the rest of my life
28:20i wish it would go away i wish i
28:22there was some way to completely get rid
28:24of of the the compulsive thoughts the
28:26feelings
28:28it's not nearly so bad
28:30now that there there's no
28:32avenues to to actually
28:34act on it
28:36but no it never seems to go completely
28:38away so the thoughts still come to you
28:41sometimes yeah
28:44when our interview at the prison ended
28:46jeffrey said goodbye to his father
28:48but on his way back to his cell
28:51something caught his eye just a point of
28:53interest that
28:54that's the type of box
28:56this is the type of box exactly yeah a
28:59little bigger that's exactly what it
29:00looked like
29:40[Music]
29:44you

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This page contains the full transcript of JEFFREY DAHMER - SERIAL KILLER - ORIGINAL INTERVIEW #balancescalesofjustice by Balance Scales of Justice, generated from the public captions YouTube serves with the video. The transcript has 3,884 words across 722 segments, with the original timestamps preserved so you can click any line to jump to that moment in the embedded player.

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