📝 Conversations with a Killer: The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes: EP one: “Sympathy for the Devil”
*** TRANSCRIBED BY ME!***
[Patrickus]: “This is okay, Jeff. I mean, don’t be embarrassed about it. Am I… Am I making you feel uncomfortable?”
[Dahmer]: “No. It has to be faced, so…it’s just so bizarre, isn’t it?”
[Dahmer]: “It’s not…it’s not easy to talk about. It’s something that I’ve kept buried within myself for many years, and it’s…yeah. It’s like trying to pull a two-ton stone out of a well.”
[Patrickus]: “Okay Jeff, tell me what you were thinking.”
[Dahmer]: “I had wondered why I was compelled to do all the murders, what I was searching for that would, uh, fill the emptiness I felt. Murdering someone and…and disposing of them right away gives no great lasting pleasure or a feeling of fulfillment. And yet I still felt the compulsion to do it throughout these years.”
[Dahmer]: “I didn’t seem to have the normal feelings of empathy.”
[Patrickus]: “Did you ever think to yourself, ‘Why don’t I have feelings that normal people have’?”
[Dahmer]: “I did wonder about it. It started with fantasies, fantasizing. It always started with fantasizing, and then eventually it seemed the fantasies, uh, came to be.”
[Dahmer]: “What triggered it all? I wish I could give you a good, straightforward answer on that. If there’s any area that is, uh, to really blame, it’s my own twisted thinking. I haven’t been thinking normally for years.”
[Boyle]: “What was the problem growing up, between your mom and dad?”
[Dahmer]: “Ugh! They just couldn't seem to get along, especially on my mom’s side.”
[Dahmer]: “Just the slapping and hitting.”
[Boyle]: “Who was hitting whom?”
[Dahmer]: “Um, Mom hitting Dad.”
[Boyle]: “Whose side were you on?”
[Dahmer]: “I was trying not to be on anyone’s side.”
[Patrickus]: “How long had you known you were homosexual?”
[Dahmer]: “Uh, since I was 13, I’d say.”
[Patrickus]: “What did you do?”
[Dahmer]: “Just kissing. Lying together, in the tree house. I was about 14 or 15. And that was consensual.”
[Patrickus]: “When was the first time you thought about doing these things to a person?”
[Patrickus]: “I mean, just fantasy.”
[Dahmer]: “Yeah. Probably around when I was 18.”
[Patrickus]: “When did your parents separate?”
[Dahmer]: “When I was 18, in 1978.”
[Dahmer]: “Mom and Dad, they had their problems. There was nothing I could do to change the situation, so I just tried to find some happiness my own way, which was obviously the wrong way.”
[Patrickus]: “The day she left for Chippewa Falls, you never talked to her again?”
[Patrickus]: “How did it make you feel at that time?”
[Dahmer]: “Um, depressed, lonely, and bored. Confused, I would say. No one was at home. I saw this guy hitchhiking. I thought it would be nice to have someone around to talk with, and someone that I wanted to be with for, uh, sex.”
[Dahmer]: “That’s what attracted me. The physique…just the muscular physique. That’s…that’s the motivation.”
[Patrickus]: “You hadn’t done anything with him, had you?”
[Dahmer]: “No. I just got the sense he wasn’t interested in that at all, after a while of talking with him. So I don’t believe I asked him, no.”
[Dahmer]: “It was the first time, uh… that I did have the desire to control. I lost all feelings, so I guess I just decided to do it, whether he was, uh, gay or not. It didn’t really matter.”
[Dahmer]: “I don’t know why I hit him, except I wanted to stay with him for longer.”
[Dahmer]: “I thought, how amazing it was that I was actually doing it to another human being. It shocked me that I got to that point. And that was a feeling of excitement and control, but mingled with a lot of fear.”
[Patrickus]: “What did you do with his body?”
[Dahmer]: “Nothing. Just right under the… uh, under the house in the crawl space area.”
[Patrickus]: “Did you go down and look at him?”
[Dahmer]: “I did, yeah, once, but just looked at him.”
[Patrickus]: “What was going through your mind as you were looking at him?”
[Dahmer]: “Uh… a sort of morbid curiosity as to… what a dead person looked like. Uh… uh, curiosity mixed with a lot of fear.”
[Dahmer]: “I started dismembering him and everything. There’s something about him that I remember cutting the legs off and then the arms and head.”
[Patrickus]: “Did you touch anything?”
[Dahmer]: “I… I probably did. Liver and the heart.”
[Patrickus]: “Did it concern you at all as to why you felt such satisfaction at that time, when you were 18 years old, by using him to masturbate?”
[Dahmer]: “I’m not sure I even know why now. I got, uh, an exciting feeling out of doing that. But I did it.”
[Patrickus]: “How long did you keep him in the house with you?”
[Dahmer]: “Umm… I don’t know. Six hours.”
[Dahmer]: “Dad was living at the hotel, so I was pretty much by myself for a couple months.”
[Patrickus]: “During the time your father was at the hotel, how many times a day would you speak with him?”
[Dahmer]: “Maybe once or twice a week.”
[Patrickus]: “After that, you said you went to Ohio State?”
[Dahmer]: “For about three months. I did a lot of drinking there, so my grades weren’t very good.”
[Dahmer]: “They sent me to basic training, then field medic training.”
[Dahmer]: “I was drinking heavily near the end, so I had to move back to Ohio with my folks.”
[Dahmer]: “I was troubled about that.”
[Patrickus]: “How did it manifest itself that you were troubled by it? What were you feeling?”
[Dahmer]: “A lot of guilt, indecision over whether I should confess to it. But I just never had the courage to.”
[Patrickus]: “What were you thinking?”
[Dahmer]: “Well, I knew how horribly wrong it was and how I never wanted to have anything like that ever happen again.”
[Dahmer]: “It’s difficult dredging up these feelings and motivations, you know?”
[Patrickus]: “I know it’s really hard. If it gets too difficult, tell me, but you know why…”
[Dahmer]: “Yes, it… it… talking about it and analyzing it shows me just how, uh, warped my thinking was.”
[Patrickus]: “You ever try to develop a relationship?”
[Dahmer]: “Uh, no. I can’t say that I did.”
[Dahmer]: “Well, it was because of the home situation. I couldn’t carry on a long-term relationship where I was staying.”
[Dahmer]: “I had moved out then, to here up in Wisconsin, to help my grandma out.”
[Dahmer]: “Uh, I help her with the yard work and various chores.”
[Dahmer]: “I really made a sincere effort to change the way I was living, to change my desires. To get rid of the, uh… homosexual, uh, feelings that I had. Any sinful thoughts. Started going to church with grandma on a regular basis and, uh, tried to stifle any sexual feelings that I had.”
[Dahmer]: “My grandma was going to church every Sunday.”
[Patrickus]: “What denomination was she?”
[Dahmer]: “Uh, Protestant.”
[Dahmer]: “I, uh, was walking around Southridge and, uh, saw this mannequin that sort of caught my eye. I wanted that mannequin, so I… went in the store. There’s nobody in there, stayed there until closing time.”
[Patrickus]: “And no alarms went off?”
[Dahmer]: “No, nothing. I got the mannequin undressed, got a taxi back home, and stored it in the closet at, uh, Grandma’s house. And I used to play around with it after… dressing it up and undressing it. Pretending it was real.”
[Dahmer]: “After a week or two, Grandma happened to stumble across it. She was hanging up some clothes that she’d washed for me.”
[Dahmer]: “Yeah. She asked me what was it, where did I get it, and I gave her some story that I picked it up at… uh, they had extra mannequins they were selling. I think she called Dad, so I figured I better get rid of it. Took it down to the basement and, uh, smashed it up and threw it out in the garbage.”
[Dahmer]: “I was at the West Allis library [sniffs]… just sitting in a chair, reading a book. It was the last thing I expected, you know? I just laughed it off to myself. I thought, uh, that’s an awful feeble, uh, attempt to, uh, stumble, you know? I never saw his face or anything.”
[Patrickus]: “You’d put the compulsion to rest when you went to church with Grandma, and it came back stronger, didn’t it?”
[Dahmer]: “That’s what triggered it, I guess.”
[Dahmer]: “I at least had a job that paid halfway decent. I could look forward to free time, privacy. Started drinking again, going to the bookstores, uh… found out where the gay bars were, started going to them. What I was looking for was some live companionship, someone to spend the night with. A man I had complete control over, and to be able to do with as I pleased. Something real, uh, instead of fake like the mannequin. So that was my fantasy.”
[Dahmer]: “Little by little, I started falling away… I just, uh, gave up trying to resist.”
[Patrickus]: “What sleeping pills did you use?”
[Patrickus]: “Why did you get that prescription?”
[Dahmer]: “For, uh, trouble sleeping. I worked third shift.”
[Patrickus]: “That gave you a feeling of control?”
[Dahmer]: “Uh… well, I could keep them there longer. I could, uh, just lie around with them without feeling pressure to do anything that they wanted to do. Uh… there just wouldn’t be any… they wouldn’t make any demands on me. Uh, I could just enjoy them the way I wanted to.”
[Patrickus]: “Did you think at all about how they might have felt?”
[Dahmer]: “Yeah, I think I did, but at that point I didn’t much care. I just wanted to do what I wanted. So I didn’t care.”
[Patrickus]: “Did any of that satisfy you? As far as really getting any true satisfaction?”
[Dahmer]: “Mm-mm, it didn’t. I didn’t have control over them. I… uh, I wanted all of them, you know? And, uh, couldn’t get it that way.”
[Patrickus]: “You totally blacked out?”
[Patrickus]: “You had no idea you’d done anything?”
[Dahmer]: “No, not until I woke up in the morning. I couldn’t believe it. Shocked, uh… panicked, and, uh… very sorry that it happened because I had no intention of anything like that happening.”
[Patrickus]: “How’d you know he was dead? Did you check his pulse?”
[Dahmer]: “I was afraid, no.”
[Dahmer]: “And there was blood coming out of his mouth. Apparently, I had beaten him with my fists on the chest.”
[Patrickus]: “How did you feel after that time at the Ambassador?”
[Dahmer]: “Horrified… that it started again, you know? And I never wanted to have anything like that ever happen again.”
[Patrickus]: “How did you feel that it came forth even though you were unconscious?”
[Dahmer]: “Uh… confused.”
[Patrickus]: “Did you feel you’d started to lose control?”
[Dahmer]: “Yeah, I knew I had. Yeah.”
[Dahmer]: “The Ambassador did something… it triggered something. I wanted more. I don’t know what it triggered, but it triggered something.”
[Dahmer]: “It just gave me a sick pleasure. It dominated my thoughts, doing these things. The compulsion was stronger than any… anything else. It was a single-minded, driving force. My… desires, uh, were bestial, obviously.” [scoffs].
