Jeffrey Dahmer, otherwise known as the Milwaukee Cannibal, is by far one of the most disturbing killers in America’s, if not the world’s, history, having confessed to the rape and murder of 17 young men and boys between 1978 and 1991. Some of which he consumed. Forensic psychologists and true crime fans alike are intrigued by what motivates a man like him and we have to wonder why Jeffrey Dahmer wanted to eat his victims.
Unlike many other killers, Jeffrey says he didn’t have a “profoundly unhappy” childhood. He told NBC in 1994 that his childhood was “fairly normal”, though his parents Lionel and Joyce are said to have been neglectful. In an interview with Oprah Winfrey in 1994, Lionel admitted to being largely absent throughout his son’s formative years, that he was an “emotionally distant” father, but working hard and providing for the family was his way of showing love.
At age four, Jeffrey underwent a double hernia removal operation and Lionel says his little boy was never the same. Jeffrey apparently became withdrawn and developed an interest in animal carcasses, which his father initially encouraged because, as a scientist himself, thought it showed his son possessed a scientific mind. So how did Jeffrey Dahmer go from being a seemingly normal boy to someone obsessed with the idea of killing, dismembering and eating some of his victim’s body parts?
Cannibalism is extremely rare in the world of serial killers. Of some 2,000 serial killers–that is, killers defined by their multiple victims over a period of time–it’s estimated only between five and 10 are cannibals. Dr. Eric Hickey, professor of forensic psychology at Walden University, told A&E that cannibals are different from psychopathic killers. While psychopaths (and a note here that not all psychopaths possess violent tendencies) tend to struggle to make meaningful connections with others, those with cannibalistic urges develop extreme attachments. “Cannibals tend to feel really insecure and can’t have normal relationships,” Hickey said.
“Eating their victims gives them a sense of power because their victims can never leave.” That certainly seems to align with the theory that Jeffrey was dealing with abandonment issues stemming from early childhood. When Lionel and Joyce divorced in 1978, both accused the other of “extreme cruelty and gross neglect of duty,” per an LA Times article from 1991, and other people that knew Jeffrey from a young age painted a much darker picture than his parents’ anecdotes. “He was tortured and lost at a very early age,” Martha Schmidt, a sociology professor at Capital University in Columbus, Ohio, who knew Jeffrey in high school. “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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