On February 15th, court reconvened to hear the verdict. Dahmer was ruled to be sane and not suffering from a mental disorder at the time of each of the 15 murders for which he was tried. Three months after his conviction for 15 murders in Milwaukee, Dahmer was extradited to Ohio to be tried for the murder of his first victim, Steve Hicks. Dahmer pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a 16th term of life imprisonment on May 1st. Dahmer was then transferred to the Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage, Wisconsin.
He had just graduated high school, so Dahmer was fairly young. At this point, his dad had moved away and his mom, following the divorce, leaving Dahmer an empty house to fulfill his curiosity of murder. He picked up a hitchhiker, Steven Hicks, and took him to his empty parents’ house. Dahmer relaxed with him and made him feel safe. When he wouldn’t do as Dahmer wanted, he hit Hicks in the head and strangled him to death with a barbell.
Dahmer received a five-year probationary sentence. He was aloud to work during the day and return to the prison at night. He ended up only serving 10 months. Few years later Dahmer had a run in with law enforcement again when Dahmer’s neighbor called to report a naked boy running through the neighborhood. When police showed up Dahmer stated that they were lovers and the boy had too much to drink so they escorted them home.
Jeffrey Dahmer was a famous murderer from 1978 until 1991. During the time he was free he killed seventeen men by meeting them at gay bars, bus stops, and other places, promising them sex or money if they followed him home. Upon arriving to his house Jeffrey would give them drugs that were laced with alcohol before suffocating them to death. He would take pictures of the men after he killed them and proceeded to have sexual intercourse with their dead bodies. Dahmer went so far with these killings that he kept some parts of the bodies as souvenirs such as, their genitals, tongues, and skulls.
In the Edmund Kemper cases, he used a gun in 3 out of 8 killings. Meanwhile, in the David Berkowitz cases, he used a gun in all 6 of his murders. Kemper stabbed and strangled 4 of the 8 murders. Kemper killed his own mother by hitting him with a hammer and slicing her throat. Kemper never had any eye witnesses, however it was not the same for Berkowitz.
Based on Freud’s mental development this dream could have malformed his ego, super ego and id, because it deals with him feeling inadequate, and something missing as a child. His father Lionel noted, that Dahmer seemed to grow inward and would sit for hours without emotion(Dahmer, 1994). There has been no information provided about Jeffery being the victim of sexual abuse, the bickering between his mother and father was intense. This fostered his feelings for being alone and unwanted. It is suggested that because of these feelings, it was easier for him to turn to murder and evil thoughts.
Because of this unique characteristic, the audience can connect with characters on a more personal level, witnessing the development of characters throughout the story, or rather, a coming of age. Backderf, having experienced this coming of age with the serial killer, knows Jeffrey Dahmer was more than a monster; he was a shy, disturbed young man whose thoughts coerced him into madness. As a result, Backderf conveys the timeline of Dahmer’s downfall through panels and subtle narration that allow the audience to feel sympathy for the demonized Dahmer. For example, Backderf utilizes a common comic strip technique known as a “splash page” with great regularity. These pages contain a single image that convey a dramatic emphasis on certain scenes.
Two guys charged with murder. No eyewitnesses. Lots of forensic evidence – blood, fingerprints, hair. Elmore gets a three-day trial, no meaningful defense. Simpson’s goes on for months.
Ed actually picked up many hitchhikers and released them ("Edmund Kemper Biography" 1). He did this mostly to see if he was able to keep his sanity and resist his urge to kill. He picked up two females and drove them to where they wanted to go (“Murder, No Apparent Motive). He even went passed where he killed his first two victims (“Murder, No Apparent Motive). He was able to resist the urge to kill and dropped them off safely, being sane he whole time (“Murder, No Apparent Motive).
He succumbed to a many days of questioning by the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division, and less than about a month later was formally convicted by the Army of the murders on May 1 of 1970. However, on June 5, 1970, Colonel Warren V. Rock requested that he hear the evidence against Jeffrey MacDonald. Once he reviewed all of the evidence and wrote a 90 page report regarding it, Colonel Warren V. Rock recommended that all the charges against MacDonald should be dropped because they were “not true” on October 13, 1970. Jeffrey MacDonald was honorably discharged from the army and returned to his home state, New York. After he returned to New York, Jeffrey MacDonald continued his work as a doctor.