Was Jeffrey Dahmer Insane

Jeffrey L. Dahmer, after confessing immediately to numerous heinous murders over a ten-year period, was sentenced to fifteen consecutive life sentences in February 1992. In his trial, Dahmer declared to the judge, “This has never been a case of trying to get free. I didn’t ever want freedom. Frankly, I wanted death for myself Even though he admitted to murdering, dismembering, and cannibalizing seventeen men, and is known.” as one of the nation’s most notorious serial killers, Jeffrey Dahmer is not considered insane at the time of his crimes. Born in Milwaukee in 1960, Dahmer was a recluse. He never had many friends and he was a mediocre student. After graduating, Jeffrey joined the Army and served in Germany, but was discharged for

His next victim was James Doxtator in January of the next year. James was fourteen, a Native American, and Dahmer lured him to his apartment by asking him to pose for nude photos. After he had sex with the boy, drugged him, strangled him and dismembered him, Jeffrey smashed his bones with a sledgehammer. He had two more victims after James, which he killed similarly. But then, in the spring of 1989, Dahmer was arrested for molesting a thirteen-year-old boy, and ended up in a one-year work-release program at the Milwaukee Community Correctional Center. Just after his work-release term ended, Jeffrey strangled Raymond Smith, who was thirty-two, and dismembered Edward Smith, who was twenty-seven. His killing streak went on and on; luring in mostly dark-skinned gays from bars; having sex with them; drugging them; beating them; strangling them; dismembering them. Dahmer killed ten men between September 1990 and July 1991. Finally, on July 22, Dahmer tried again with Tracy Edwards, who broke away, and found help. The police finally arrested Dahmer. Upon searching his apartment, the police found eleven human skulls, a full skeleton, packages of male genitals, preserved and frozen hearts, muscles and innards, and a blue barrel of acid for leftovers. After his arrest, Jeffrey confessed immediately to all of his crimes, “I carried it too far, that’s for sure,” Dahmer told the

Dahmer was very bright; he knew how to get away with his killings: he chose more disposable victims. This is how he got away with murdering for as long as he did. No one noticed when homosexual minorities went missing. After his arrest, and even after Dahmer had done sixty-plus hours of confessing, he pleaded guilty but insane before the trial. Numerous psychiatric experts talked with and examined Dahmer, and all of them would testify that Dahmer knew right from wrong. Dahmer knew exactly what he was doing each time he killed, and he knew it was wrong. One psychiatrist alleged that Dahmer had proved his sanity by “remembering to reach for a condom” before copulating with his “dead corpses” or their dissected body parts (I Carried It 3). The psychiatrist testified that Dahmer’s capacity to delay gratification and his capacity for impulse control showed he could conform his conduct to social norms (I Carried It 3). Although this information seems true and logical, there were still some psychiatrists who disagreed and seemed to be defending Dahmer. One Italian-born psychiatrist, for example, explained his doubts that Dahmer had actually eaten any of his victims, despite evidence from Dahmer’s apartment, as well as, Dahmer’s confession to having “tenderized, sautéed, and sampled of the heart, biceps, and thigh muscles of several appealing victims out of curiosity”; the