1. What was Dahmer’s childhood like? At the beginning, infanc
y his father claimed that everything was “perfect”. He was the first child born to Mr. and Mrs. Dahmer on 21 May 1960. He at a young age showed interest in dead animals, his father cleaning out of the crawlspace skeletons of small rodents, the noise they made going into the bucket peaked his interest. From there he moved on to finding road kill and dissecting it in his backyard (this occurred when the family moved to Bath, Indiana when Dahmer was seven years old. His parents had noticed his antisocial tendencies and that he may need to be included more so when his baby brother came they allowed him to name him. By high school he was considered the class clown and was a model student, but only if he was interested. One of his classmates said that he could be a straight A student if he applied himself. The year of his graduation his parents divorced and his mother took his brother and moved to a different state. His father had already moved to a hotel, this left Dahmer alone at his parents’ home essentially abandoned at 17.
2. How did alcohol affect him? Alcohol was a crutch that Dahmer used to quiet the deviant sexual fantasies that plagued him at the beginning of puberty. In high school he drank hard liquor at school, this eventually lead to him being an outcast. As Dahmer grew older the only thing that helped his conscious after the first murder was alcohol. This most attribute to helping in the less than lucid state commit the heinous crimes in later years.
3. What kind of student was Dahmer? By high school he was considered the class clown and was a model student, but only if he was interested. One of his classmates said that he could be a straight A student if he applied himself. The year of his graduation his parents divorced and his mother took his brother and moved to a different state. His father had already moved to a hotel, this left. The students also joked that when someone did something crazy that it was “doing a Dahmer” He also was on the tennis team but not to play to socialize.
4. When did Dahmer become a killer, in other words what was the turning point? He picked up a hitchhiker, hung out and drank beer, then the hitchhiker was ready to leave and Dahmer hit him with a barbell and choked him. Afterwards cutting him up and placing him in a trash bag, then put him under the house.
5. How was Dahmer caught? Someone was lucky enough to get away, he was charged with sexual assault, and the police searched his home.
6. Do you feel his parents were responsible for what happened to him? Yes and No. His mother had obvious mental problems, and his father wanted him to get away with everything. He had no support. His mother abandoned him and his father thought he did no wrong.
7. If you were on the jury would you feel he was legally insane? NO, he knew the difference between right and wrong, hence the excessive alcohol abuse. He drank to dull his conscious.
