There are still many confusing aspects surrounding the actions of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, even though more than 20 years have passed since Dahmer’s horrific case first came to light.
Despite the fact that he wasn’t legally insane, as revealed in Netflix’s Conversations With a Killer: The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes, something deeply disturbing drove Jeffrey Dahmer to murder, necrophilia, and cannibalism. He took unusual paths with his victims, often under the influence of alcohol. If you want to know more about these specific features, we have the essential information for you.
Did Jeffrey Dahmer have a drinking problem?
Jeffrey wasn’t just an alcoholic; He was a lifelong drinker. He reportedly began drinking heavily in his early teens to cope with his sexual orientation. He also reportedly had a reputation for showing up to high school drunk, sneaking drugs during class, and storing bottles in his locker for convenient access. According to the documentary series directed by Joe Berlinger, it is also important to highlight that alcoholism runs in his mother’s family. This is important because genetics have a crucial impact on addiction.
Six weeks after his first murder, in August 1978, Jeffrey enrolled at Ohio State University with the intention of earning a degree in business administration. However, his drinking caused him to drop out of school after three months. At his father’s urging, he enlisted in the army in January 1979, hoping that the discipline inherent in him would change his son’s behavior. However, over time, his off-duty alcohol abuse only got worse. He earned an honorable discharge in March 1981, a year before his term expired, because the military staff felt his problems would have no impact on his civilian life.
According to the docuseries, the Wisconsin native spent the majority of his money on alcohol over the years, only to unintentionally commit his second murder in 1987 while intoxicated. Although Jeffrey always said he couldn’t remember killing Steven Walter Tuomi, he admitted it was probably a beating as his hands were covered in bruises the next morning. Even that didn’t deter him, however, and it turned out he had to be drunk before he could commit 15 more murders (until 1991); As a result, he was ultimately identified as an alcohol addict.
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Was Jeffrey Dahmer a drug user?
Whenever Jeffrey brought his victims to his home, he would always use sleeping pills like triazolam or temazepam to calm them down so he could later take full advantage of them physically and sexually. He did everything from lying on his stomach to feel their bodies move effortlessly to pouring hot water or hydrochloric acid directly into their skulls to turn them into utterly helpless zombies before killing them.
Thereafter, Jeffrey attacked, dismembering and conserving parts of his victims’ bodies for souvenirs, food, or for his perverse gratification. He then arranged their bodies in various sexual positions for Polaroid photos. But it all basically starts with him delivering them water, coffee or alcohol liberally dosed with sleeping pills; the exact amount can sometimes vary.
early years
Dahmer was born on May 21, 1960 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He was the first of his parents’ two sons. His mother, Joyce Annette (née Flint; February 7, 1936 – November 27, 2000), taught people how to use teletype machines. His father, Lionel Herbert Dahmer (born July 29, 1936), studied chemistry at Marquette University and later worked as a research chemist. Lionel Dahmer’s ancestors came from Germany and Wales, Joyce Dahmer’s from Norway and Ireland.
Some sources say Dahmer was not nursed as a baby. Other sources, however, state that both of Dahmer’s parents spoiled him as a baby and toddler, although his mother was known to be tense, craving attention and pity, and argumentative with her husband and neighbors.
When Dahmer entered the first grade, Lionel spent most of his time at the university. When he was at home, his hypochondriacal and depressed wife, who was always ill, demanded constant attention and spent more and more time in bed. At least once, she used Equanil to attempt suicide. So both parents didn’t spend much time with their son. As he got older, he recalled feeling “insecure about the stability of the family” from a young age because he recalled his parents being very angry with each other and fighting a lot when he was young.
Dahmer was an “active and happy kid,” but he’s changed a lot after having surgery on two hernias just before his fourth birthday. In elementary school, Dahmer was considered shy and quiet. One of his teachers later said that he showed early signs of abandonment due to his father’s absence and his mother’s illnesses, which worsened when she was expecting her second child. Still, Dahmer had a few friends when he was in elementary school.
The family moved to Doylestown, Ohio in October 1966. When Joyce had a baby in December, Jeffrey had to choose the name for his new brother. He chose David. Lionel received his degree and that same year began working as an analytical chemist in nearby Akron, Ohio.
Dahmer was interested in dead animals from a young age. He may have been interested in dead animals when he was four years old and saw his father retrieve animal bones from under the family home. Lionel said that Dahmer was “strangely excited” about the sound the bones made and became obsessed with them. He initially called them his “fiddlesticks”. Sometimes he would search under and around the family home for more bones. He also looked inside the bodies of living animals to find out where their bones were.
In 1968 the family moved to the community of Bath in Summit County, Ohio. This address was their third in two years and the Dahmers’ sixth address since their marriage. The house was on an acre of woods, and Dahmer began collecting large bugs, such as dragonflies and moths, and the bones of small animals, such as chipmunks and squirrels, in a small hut near the house. Some of these remains were preserved in formaldehyde jars and stowed in the hut.
Two years later, while having chicken dinner with Lionel, Dahmer asked him what would happen if he soaked chicken bones in bleach. Lionel was happy that his son seemed interested in science, so he showed him how to safely bleach and store animal bones. Dahmer used these techniques to preserve the bones he collected. He also began collecting dead animals, including roadkill, which he would dissect and bury near the cabin. Sometimes he placed the skulls on makeshift crosses. One of Dahmer’s friends said he told him he was interested in how animals “fit together.” In 1975, Dahmer cut off the head of a dead dog, nailed his body to a tree, and stuck the dog’s head on a stick in the woods behind his house. He later invited a friend to see the exhibit and said he found the bones by accident as a “prank.”
Lionel taught his son how to preserve animal bones the same year that Joyce began taking more Equanil, laxatives, and sleeping pills each day. This made it even more difficult for her to talk to her husband and children.
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The teenage years and high school
Ever since he was a freshman at Revere High School, Dahmer has been known as a weirdo. By the time he was 14, he was drinking beer and liquor during the day. He often hid his alcohol in the jacket he wore to school. He told a classmate who asked him why he drank scotch in a morning history class that the alcohol he drank was “my medicine.” The staff thought Dahmer was polite, very smart, and had average grades in his freshman year, although he didn’t talk much. He enjoyed playing tennis and was in the high school band for a short time.
Dahmer found out he was gay when he turned 13, but he didn’t tell his parents. Early in his teens, he had a brief relationship with another teenager, but they never met. Dahmer later said that he began fantasizing about dominating and controlling a totally submissive male partner when he was in his early to mid-teens. His masturbatory fantasies gradually changed so that he focused his fantasies on men’s chests and upper bodies. Over time, these fantasies became mixed up with dissections. When Dahmer was about 16, he had a fantasy that he would KO a certain male jogger he found attractive and then use his body sexually. Dahmer once hid in the bushes with a baseball bat to wait for this man, but he didn’t come by that day. Dahmer later said that this was his first attempt at attacking someone and making them obey him.
Dahmer was sort of a class clown at RHS. He often played pranks, which became known as “doing a dahmer”. For example, he would bitch and pretend he had an epileptic seizure or cerebral palsy at school and in stores.
Dahmer sometimes did these things to get money so he could buy alcohol.
By 1977, Dahmer’s grades had dropped.
His parents paid for a private tutor, but it didn’t work out very well. That same year, his parents tried to save their marriage by going to a counseling center. They kept fighting all the time. In September 1977, Lionel found out that Joyce was having a brief affair. He and Joyce decided to divorce and told their sons they wanted to do it amicably. In early 1978, Lionel moved out of the house and stayed for a while in a motel on North Cleveland’s Massillon Road.
Dahmer dropped out of high school in May 1978. A few weeks before graduating, one of Dahmer’s teachers saw him downing several cans of beer while sitting near the school parking lot. When the teacher threatened to tell the principal, Dahmer told him he had “a lot of problems” at home and that the school counselor knew about it. In the spring of that year, Joyce and David left the family home and moved to Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin to live with relatives. Dahmer had just turned 18 and was still living at home with his family. On July 24, 1978, Dahmer’s parents finally separated. Joyce has to keep her younger son and gets child support.
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