Serial Killer's Soul (9 page)

Regular inmates dressed in green shirts, pants, and canvas shoes when leaving the unit to go to school, visitation, or appointments. When inmates lounged in their units or attended recreation, they could wear their own jogging suits, shorts, or T-shirts. Personal clothes had to be a solid color with no writing or pictures on the shirts, no red or black gym shoes or gang colors of any kind.

Four times a day, inmates had to stand quietly in their cells for the “count.”

Meals were eaten in the dayroom, thirty-two inmates at a time. Most dayrooms had eight tables that seated four people at each table. The food was prepared before arriving at the units. Each unit had a kitchen with counter warmers to keep the food hot. The days with huge, noisy cafeterias where all inmates ate together were over. The atmosphere for meals was similar to that of a small restaurant. Of course, prisoners restricted to their cells ate their meals alone, within the confines of four small cell walls.

During recreation time, inmates could play cards, games, watch TV, or
make phone calls, if approved, in the dayroom.

Saturday was cleaning day. Inmates cleaned their cells thoroughly and changed their linen. Each Wednesday, the unit laundry worker washed any of the inmates’ personal clothing, with inmates furnishing detergent.

Instead of school and work assignments on Sundays, many inmates attended church and afternoon Bible study classes.

Unit 2 at Columbia housed the gang unit. It was high security with inmates ranging in age from eighteen to thirty-five. About 75 percent of the inmates were African American, 20 percent Caucasian, and 5 percent Hispanic. Inmates often came to prison, already members of a gang.

Because Dahmer’s victims were minorities, he wouldn’t have survived a week in Unit 2. But the rest of us … we survived. Truth be told, life at Columbia wasn’t all that bad. If you took advantage of the education offered, the self-help programs, the Bible study classes, and the recreation, the days went by quickly.

Besides, we had a monumental trial to look forward to, thanks to the minute-by-minute media coverage surrounding anything related to the State of Wisconsin versus Jeffrey L. Dahmer.

Sigh and groan before the people, son of dust, in your bitter anguish; sigh with grief and broken heart. When they ask you why, tell them: Because of the fearsome news that God has given me. When it comes true, the boldest heart will melt with fear; all strength will disappear. Every spirit will faint; strong knees will tremble and become weak as water. And the Lord God says: Your doom is on the way; my judgments will be fulfilled! (Ezekiel 21:6-7
, TLB)

Monday, January 27, 1992, was Dahmer’s big day. He arrived in the courtroom wearing a brown sport coat and pants, a beige shirt, neat haircut, and glasses. To the world, he looked like a normal guy, not the monster we had envisioned him to be.

Family members, friends, and neighbors of Dahmer’s victims packed the courtroom. The media and a few spectators who could squeeze in filled the rest of the seats. A special eight-foot-high, bullet-proof glass booth was installed behind the defense and prosecution tables to protect Dahmer from angry spectators. So many people were interested in seeing the trial that courthouse security readied other rooms with television hookups for spectators. Every person who entered the courtroom was searched for weapons and dogs randomly checked the courtroom itself for possible bombs or incendiary devices.

Jury selection spanned the first three days. The judge and attorneys interviewed potential jurors in the judge’s chambers, away from the media and the spectators. The presiding judge was Laurence Gram Jr., from Milwaukee Circuit Court, Branch 33.

By Wednesday, attorneys selected twelve jurors and two alternates: six Caucasian men, seven Caucasian women and one African-American man. Family members of the victims were upset that the jury contained only one minority. Dahmer’s victims had been mostly minorities.

When the trial began on January 30, security increased drastically in and around the courthouse. Defense Attorney Gerald Boyle described the evidence
that would be presented along with testimony about the acts of necrophilia and cannibalism performed on the corpses.

District Attorney E. Michael McCann, the highest-ranking attorney in Milwaukee County government, represented the state of Wisconsin as the head prosecutor likely on the most important case in his career. That McCann handled the case himself, and not one of his assistants, demonstrated the magnitude of the case.

From the moment the trial began, it was an emotional roller coaster for the victims’ families. Many cried at the reading of the charges against Dahmer and, frequently, as the trial proceeded.

Boyle tried to prove that Dahmer was mentally insane and suffered from a sexual disorder that precipitated the crimes.

McCann, conversely, tried to prove that Dahmer was sane when he drugged and killed his victims.

Boyle’s lead psychiatrist in Dahmer’s defense was Dr. Frederick Berlin, an expert on sexual disorders at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Judith Becker, a clinical psychologist and professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Arizona in Tucson, and Dr. Carl Wahlstrom, a psychiatrist from Chicago, also were experts for the defense.

Representing the prosecution was Dr. George Palermo, a well-respected forensic psychiatrist from Milwaukee, who, years earlier, had been on the staff at the Vatican; Dr. Frederick Fosdal, a psychiatrist from Madison; and Dr. Park Dietz, a criminologist and clinical professor of psychiatry and bio-behavioral sciences at the University of California-Los Angeles School of Medicine.

When Dr. Dietz interviewed Dahmer before the trial, he asked Dahmer if he would agree to videotape the interview. Dahmer didn’t want him to, saying, “No, I don’t want to be videotaped wearing this orange jumpsuit and I haven’t shaved for so long. I’d look bad.”

“How about if I get someone from the sheriff’s office to shave you and we get you in some street clothes?” he asked.

Dahmer agreed. “If you can do that, fine. You can tape the interview.”

Richard Heath, chief investigator for the Milwaukee County District
Attorney’s office, present for all of Dahmer’s interviews by the various psychiatrists, brought in three of his own shirts from which Dahmer could choose. One was light pink with a white stripe, the second was a blue stripe, and the third was a chocolate brown-and-white stripe. Dahmer chose the brown one. Later a couple of the psychiatrists revealed that people with strong sexual personalities often wear brown.

(NOTE: During an interview with author Lorenz, Heath revealed the following about that interview.)

The videotaped interview with Dr. Dietz lasted four days and encompassed twenty hours of tape. Jeff smoked the entire time, switching from Marlboros to menthol cigarettes.

“What’s wrong with you?” Dietz asked Dahmer.

Dahmer paused. “I don’t know. You’re the doctor. I don’t think it’s evil spirits… and I’m not in a cult. You know I bought a table and made sort of a shrine. I’d put each victim on that table and then just sit back in my big leather chair and look at the body. It made me feel powerful. Sometimes I’d take photos of the bodies before and after killing them. I controlled them like the guy in
Silence of the Lambs
.”

“Why do you think you got caught, Jeff?” Dr. Dietz asked.

“Simple,” he replied, “I just got behind in my work, too many bodies stacking up in my apartment. I couldn’t keep up.”

Other witnesses during Dahmer’s trial included:

• The man hired to remove blood stains on the carpet in the apartment rented by Dahmer at the Oxford Apartment building at 924 N. 25
^th
Street in Milwaukee;

• The employee from a hardware store where Dahmer purchased the muriatic acid he used to dissolve human flesh from the bones of his victims;

• The man who sold Dahmer the large blue barrel he used as a vat to store body parts;

• The pharmacist who sold Dahmer the prescription of Halcyon, the drug he used to subdue his victims;

• The Milwaukee police officer who had contact with Dahmer for other offenses;

• Milwaukee police detectives Patrick Kennedy and Dennis Murphy, who interrogated Dahmer on July 23, 1991, the day after he was arrested, and who took his one hundred-and-sixty-page signed confession;

• Tracy Edwards, the young man who would have been Dahmer’s eighteenth victim, but who was able to free himself and alert authorities on the evening of July 22, 1991, leading to Dahmer’s arrest;

• Ronald Flowers, who met Dahmer at a gay bar a year or two previous to Dahmer’s arrest;

• Somsack Sinthasomphone, the brother of Dahmer’s youngest victim, Konerak Sinthasomphone. Dahmer sexually assaulted Somsack, a Laotian minor, in 1988. Because of this crime, Dahmer received five years’ probation and one year at the work-release program in Franklin in May 1989. He was still on probation when he was arrested for the murders and, amazingly, he still saw his probation officer on a weekly basis during the entire killing spree;

• Police Lt. Scott Schaefer, who arrested Dahmer in September 1988 for the sexual assault on Somsack Sinthasomphone;

• A supervisor and a plant superintendent from the Ambrosia Chocolate factory, where Dahmer worked;

• Milwaukee police officers John Balcerzak and Joe Gabrish, who returned Konerak Sinthasomphone to Dahmer’s custody in 1991 just before Dahmer killed the young Laotian boy;

• Sopa Princewell, manager of the Oxford Apartment building; and

• The manager of the Club Unicorn Bathhouse in Chicago, which Dahmer frequented ten times between April 1990 and February 1991.

And so it went, witness after witness, one gruesome tale after another.

Each day of the trial, sheriff’s deputies escorted Dahmer to and from court. Every day the officers altered routes to the courthouse, fearing someone would learn where Dahmer was and try to kill him en route.

Dahmer’s daily activities at the county jail during trial recess were limited to reading, eating, and sleeping.

Quite often during the trial, the victims’ family members couldn’t take hearing about the brutality of Dahmer’s crimes and would leave the courtroom. Others were more stoic and stayed throughout the whole ordeal.

People throughout the country watched the entire trial on a “pay-perview” basis, provided by local cable companies. People in the Milwaukee area listened daily to the trial in its entirety on WTMJ radio.

On Friday, February 14, 1992, closing arguments finished and the jury held Dahmer’s fate in their hands. The question: Was Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer insane when he killed fifteen men and boys in Wisconsin?

Since Dahmer plead guilty by reason of mental disease or defect, the purpose of the trial was to simply determine if he really
was
insane when he committed the crimes. The outcome would decide whether he would spend the rest of his life in prison (Wisconsin has no death penalty) or whether he would be sent to a mental institution.

It was Valentine’s Day afternoon, just two weeks after the trial began, when the jury deliberated for five hours and declared Dahmer sane on all fifteen counts. There had actually been sixteen murders in Wisconsin, but one body–the body of Steven Tuomi–was never recovered.

Sentencing was set for Monday, February 17. At sentencing, Dahmer read a statement in court asking that he receive no mercy. Judge Gram abided his request and sentenced him to fifteen consecutive life terms, equivalent to 957 years in prison, with no possibility of parole.

The Milwaukee County sheriff deputies handcuffed Dahmer and sent him back to Columbia.

Dahmer was returning to live among us for the rest of his life.

Stop being afraid of what you are about to suffer
–
for the devil will soon throw some of you into prison to test you. (The Revelation 2:10
, TLB)

The media witnessed Dahmer’s return to Columbia. The prison was open to them to reveal to the world where the notorious mass murderer would live out his remaining days. They saw the four guard towers, security systems, housing units with the inmates’ cells, vocational areas, and the health-services facilities.

Before entering the unit, Dahmer again surrendered his street clothing and received the prerequisite institutional clothing–the same orange uniform he had before he went to trial.

Again, Dahmer was under heavy security. He returned to the glass tank, monitored twenty-four hours a day, with two cameras in his cell. Correctional officers continued to keep journals of all his activities and conversations.

Normally from 7 a.m. until 7:20 a.m., inmates may shave, but because Dahmer was on suicide watch, he was not given this privilege. After shave time, most prisoners in Desegregation Unit 1 were allowed recreation for about ninety minutes; again, Dahmer was not permitted to attend recreation. Walking around the glass tank and reading his mail were his only forms of recreation.

Warden Jeffrey P. Endicott and other Columbia officials wholly believed their facility was suitable for Dahmer and proclaimed this to the media the previous night. One question, however, had to have been on their minds: Could they guarantee Dahmer’s safety from inmates who wanted to kill him or simply teach him a lesson?

There were still rumors, but now the rumors said Dahmer would be killed at Columbia because some of his victims had friends or relatives with inmates at the institution. The warden, security director, and deputy warden investigated these threatening rumors immediately. Security knew they couldn’t keep Dahmer on suicide watch forever and, since the general population hated him so much, Dahmer’s protection was a very consuming topic of conversation.

Every day during mail call, Jeff received bags of mail–hundreds of letters and each day the guards gave him twenty-five, the maximum allowed. The next day, in order to get twenty-five more letters, he had to return the ones from the prior day.

Life for the inmates in Units 4 through 9 seemed normal. But the lives of those housed on Units 1 and 2, the units nearest to Dahmer’s cell, changed drastically because of our unfortunate proximity–and we weren’t happy. Recreation in the gym was off-limits as was the hobby room and the music room. Even our library privileges were suspended.