Jeffery Dahmer Argumentative

Jeffery Dahmer is hands down one of the most notorious serial killers. Dahmer murdered and raped 17 victims over the course of sixteen years. He raised the bar for the most gruesome deaths in history. Jeffrey Dahmer began his life as a normal suburban kid who played with similar children in his neighborhood; His fascination with death and dark, gruesome subjects started at a very young age and grew into a strong part of his personality as a juvenile. Jeffery was born on May 21, 1960 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The profile of Jeffery Dahmer is unlike any cookie cutter serial killer, as he was not abused as a small child with the exception of claims that he was molested by a neighbor, which Dahmer said was untrue. Damher’s childhood was fairly normal. His mother Joyce had some psychological problems, but he had a loving father who tried to be communicative with his quiet and isolated son. His fascination with death started at a young age by playing with the bones of dead animals.

The most important part of Dahmer’s motivation was his own pleasure and his egotistic, overbearing control of his victim. He never looked at his victims as people; contrariwise, he viewed them as objects that he had to have complete dominion over. Dahmer never hated any of his victims. The more he liked a victim the more time he wanted to spend with them, which meant that the murder would be much more gruesome. The other prime motivator for Dahmer was abandonment; his fear of being abandoned is what he used as an approach to lure in victims by offering them money for sex or money for nude photos.

Furthermore, Dahmer’s preferred victim type was a clean-cut male. His victims ranged in age from fourteen to thirty one. Even though most of his victims were African American, said ethnicity was not necessarily his preference, as they just happened to comprise a majority of the demographic base in the regions in which he committed his crimes. The specific demeanor that he looked for was submissive and Dahmer was aware there were not many people like this, so he was not that picky. He didn’t have a lot of time to be picky, because he worked six days a week, and he wanted to fulfill his urge quickly. The sexuality of a majority of Dahmer’s victims was homosexual or bisexual men who were usually in financial distress.

In his first murder, Jeffery was home alone at the age of eighteen while his father was away on business. Dahmer lured a hitchhiker named Steven Hicks to have a beer with him. After they had sex, Steven went to leave, but Dahmer prevented him from doing so and hit him in the head with a dumbbell. This is where evidence of the abandonment issue is illustrated, as Dahmer killed the lover that he didn’t want to lose. Dahmer cut the body up, packaged it, and buried it. Years later, Dahmer came back, dug up the remains, and smashed them with a sledgehammer, spreading them around his father’s land. The meticulous disposal of the body, cutting it up, and carefully packaging it represent another important trait of a serial killer. After Dahmer’s first kill, he enlisted in the Army, which was short-lived, as he was quickly discharged for alcoholism.

Dahmer moved to Florida where he tried to find a job with no luck. Money quickly ran out. He called his father to ask for money, but he was sent a plane ticket back home to live with his Grandmother. Everything seemed to going well until his grandmother started finding odd things around his room. For instance, she discovered a .357 magnum under his bed. Dahmer didn’t kill again for nine years after Hicks. When he struck again, it was a man named Steven Tourmi who he met at a gay club called 219. They got a hotel room and proceeder to become intoxicated. Dahmer told investigators that he doesn’t remember the events that took place that night other than when he woke up and found Tourmi dead. Dahmer put the corpse in a suitcase, brought it back to his Grandmother’s basement, had sex with the dead body, and then proceeded to dismember it.

This is where investigators start to notice the necrophilia associated with Dahme’s killings. However, instead of burying the body parts, Dahmer just packaged them and threw them away. On May 14, 1990 Dahmer moved out of his Grandmother’s house into his own apartment. Dahmer’s killing spree went on with him going to gay bars and luring his victims with money for services. After luring them back to his apartment, he would drug them, have sex with them, and dismember their bodies. Dahmer always kept the skull for a trophy, while keeping the muscles for later use and smashing the rest of the body up with a sledgehammer. Another murder by Jeffery Dahmer occurred when Raymond Smith was the first to be killed in his new apartment. Raymond was thirty-three years of age and met Dahmer at a gay bar where he was lured back for the promise of money for sex.

Dahmer strangled Raymond until he was dead, and then he engaged in oral sex with the dead corpse. Dahmer dismembered his body and painted the skull grey. He then put the rest of the body in a tub of acid until all the flesh fell from the bones. Later, he used said bones as ornaments with which to decorate his apartment. Dahmer would have been caught in 1991. However, due to the incompetence of the police officers that responded to the call, he got off. A young boy, who Dahmer had lured into his apartment, had escaped. Naked and bleeding, he was seen by people who called the police. Dahmer ran after him, and when the cops responded he assured the police that he was his nineteen year old lover. The boy, unable to speak English, could not explain the details.

The police entered Dahmer’s house and noted strong smells, but they never fully investigated the scene, which would have showed all the relevant evidence. His arrest came at a time when Dahmer was averaging at least one killing per week. The man who led to Dahmer’s arrest was Tracy Edwards; Dahmer had lured him into his apartment much like the rest of his victims. However, Tracy was able to escape. After Dahmer had attempted to drug him, he noticed the gruesome photos and punched Dahmer in the face and escaped. The police saw Tracy walking down the road dazed and confused; they stopped and questioned him. He told them what had happened and led them to Dahmer’s apartment. Again, Dahmer almost outsmarted the police by telling them a sob story, but this time one of the officers noted a gruesome photo of a dismembered body on the fridge.

When the full investigation was performed, a house of horrors was revealed. His house was littered with human remains and gruesome photographs of the killings. There was a 57-gallon drum with decomposing body parts in it. The investigators questioned the neighbors as to why no one had called about the smell, and the response was he always explained it as expired meat. The forensic examination of the apartment turned up eleven bodies in total that disappeared in 1989. Dahmers trial began on January 30, 1992 and Dahmer tried to file a guilty plea of insanity, but two weeks later was found sane by a jury and responsible for his actions. The court imposed 15 consecutive life sentences for a total sentence of 936 years. During his final statement, Dahmer expressed a willingness to die. When Dahmer was moved to prison, he was offered protective custody, but he refused knowing that it was only going to be a matter of time before he was killed.

The first attempt on Dahmer’s life occurred in a chapel when an inmate tried to slice his throat, but he came out with only scrapes and bruises. On a work detail by the gym, twenty-five year old Christopher Scarver picked up a barbell and smashed Dahmers head instantly killing him. It is ironic that Dahmer died in the same manner in which he killed his first victim. In conclusion, Jeffery Dahmer was defiantly a subject of his own when looking at a behavior analysis of a serial killer. Dahmer did not fit the profile, in his youth, of a man that would perpetuate such heinous crimes, but that’s what changes the norm of behavior analysis.

Some consider him to be sadist, a pedophile, and a hedonistic serial killer, but he also desired wanted complete and total control of his victims. So, what is more powerful then eating another person’s body? By annihilating his victims and disposing of their bodies at will, Dahmer got what he wanted. He lived in the mix of the real world and a private fantasy land. Ergo, to explain why he did such things is not a simple task. Alcoholism, a never ending fear of abandonment, and a twisted love for nechrophlia fueled this beast and drove him out of control, leading to his capture.

Citation
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