Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, January 31, 1992 TAG: 9201310030
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: MILWAUKEE LENGTH: Medium
SEX COMPULSION DROVE DAHMER, ATTORNEY SAYS
Jeffrey Dahmer was compulsively driven to have sex with dead men, fantasizing about it at age 14 and finally launching a killing spree aimed at creating zombies to sate his lust, his attorney told jurors Thursday."This was not an evil man. He was a sick man," attorney Gerald Boyle said in opening statements at Dahmer's sanity trial.
But prosecutor E. Michael McCann said Dahmer was sane when he ate the flesh of three of his victims, performed sexual acts with some of their severed heads and performed crude brain surgery on others to make them his "sex slaves."
"Mr. Dahmer knew at all times that what he was doing was wrong. This is not the case of a psychotic man," McCann said.
After testimony got under way, two Milwaukee police detectives, Patrick Kennedy and Dennis Murphy, took turns reading parts of Dahmer's 160-page confession.
Kennedy said Dahmer told police he disposed of six victims' bones by soaking them in acid until they became "slushy" and then flushing the remains down the toilet.
Dahmer also said he boiled all but three of his victims' skulls in a cleaning solution to remove the flesh. "He said it takes about an hour to boil a head," Kennedy testified.
Dahmer told them he "would have preferred that the victims stayed alive. However, he felt that it was better to have them dead than to have them leave," Murphy said.
Although most of his victims were black homosexuals, Dahmer told police he didn't choose his victims because of their race or sexual preference. The victims died because they were the ones who "accepted his offer," Murphy testified.
During opening statements, a few relatives of Dahmer's victims wept silently in the courtroom and held hands. Some people had photographs of the slain family members pinned to their clothes.
Two rows behind them, Dahmer's father and stepmother sat expressionless, also holding hands.
Jurors must decide Dahmer's sanity when he killed and dismembered 15 young males in Milwaukee County. Their decision will determine whether he is sent to prison or a mental institution.
Dahmer has pleaded guilty but insane to the 15 slayings and has confessed to killing and dismembering two other young men, one in Ohio, since 1978. He was arrested July 22 when a man who said he'd been attacked took officers to Dahmer's apartment, where they found the body parts of 11 young males.
Boyle, the defense attorney, argued that Dahmer tried to control his sexual fantasies. Dahmer tried to dig up bodies from cemeteries, and he once stole a mannequin from a store.
"He was quiet, shy and alone. . . . He was very isolated. He was depressed and lonely," Boyle said. "Then he started thinking, `If I can keep them, they won't leave.' And he started thinking about drugging them."
Dahmer wanted "to create zombies, people who would be there for him," Boyle said.
McCann agreed that doctors said Dahmer "did take pleasure out of a dead body," but contended that wouldn't qualify a person as insane under Wisconsin law.
McCann quoted a prosecution psychiatrist, Dr. Frederick Fosdal, who examined Dahmer five times after his arrest.
McCann said Dahmer was in control of his mind, and cited several things Dahmer did to conceal the killings: He ground up sleeping pills to drug the men; rearranged furniture to make room for the killings before going out to find victims; painted human skulls to disguise them; and preyed on men without cars because it would be difficult to dispose of the vehicles.