“The 1978 Revere variety show, Acts from Our Attic, ran for three performances, March 9–11, 1978. The comedy troupe, the Acme Ash Company, named after the local garbage hauling company that picked up the trash in Bath, was essentially the members of the Dahmer Fan Club. All the bits were written by us. The Hitler skit was the hit of the show (CAL, The Reverie 1978).”
-My Friend Dahmer, Derf Backderf
Derf Backderf (real name John Backderf) is an American cartoonist whom most famous work is “My Friend Dahmer”, an international bestseller. Backderf grew up in Richfield, Ohio, and he attended Revere High School. He was a classmate of Jeffrey Dahmer, and one of the founders of the “Dahmer’s Fanclub”. My Friend Dahmer is the culmination of a comic book project first started in 1994, and it tells various facts and stories of a shy kid, a teenage alcoholic, and a goofball pre-murderers Jeffrey Dahmer.
If you’re interested to know more support the author and get the book!
I’m sorry for the inactivity, the reason why this blog is silent sometimes it’s because of daily commitments which take most of the time. Plus the work in progress posts are very demanding and they request lot of time and research. Currently there are four drafts ready to be continued, but the work behind them is huge and they will need days to be ready to be published. As the pinned post on the blog says, this blog undertakes to bring unique and complete contents, but for this reason it also needs lot of dedication.
Sorry for taking so long sometimes, the goal is focused on bringing valid informative articles, and this mean the activity might be compromised sometimes. Thanks to everyone who are still here, your patience is higly appreciated.
⃤
Important announcement!
Hello everyone, Pyramid here.
I wanted to tell you I’ll take a break from tumblr and from Jeffrey Dahmer’s case in general. My mental health needs a pause because it’s suffering a lot from it. I already had my personal issues and now they got worse, and Dahmer case’s not helping, but it brings lot of negativity and depression instead. Actually I only need to take a breath and a change of scenery. The comeback’s date is still unsure, it all depends on my recovery. I frankly hope it will be as soon as possible because I love to manage this blog and I still have a lot to say, I want to give my contribute because I’m so fascinated by Jeffrey Dahmer, but at the same time I don’t want to force anything and I want to take my time.
So bye for now, hopefully we will see each other again soon! Stay healthy and take care!
Grilling Dahmer, chapter 2:
I entered first and saw three more uniformed cops, all dripping with sweat. They were straddling a Caucasian male suspect, who lay face down on the floor, handcuffed behind his back and shackled at the feet. One officer had his knee firmly in the suspect's back, another held his leg-ironed feet, and the third cop wiped his face with a hanky. Their uniforms looked just as unkempt as the first officer's.
I looked at the suspect as he lay on the floor. His light-colored hair was greasy and wet with perspiration. The faded denim shirt he wore was drenched with sweat, and I noticed he was bleeding slightly from the corner of his mouth. There was an obvious rug burn on his right elbow, glistening blood red. He appeared completely defeated, but his condition showed that a great struggle brought him to that point. He was motionless but made an ever-so-faint crying whine, like that of a child or a cat in the night.
The suspect walked slowly as he tried to negotiate the leg irons. His head was bowed over his slouched shoulders, but even in this position, I could tell he was over six feet and in good shape.
The wagon pulled up to the entrance of the apartment building, so the trip from the door was quick. I assisted the suspect into the wagon and climbed in after him. The two conveying officers got in the front and drove away toward the station. No one said a word as we cruised back downtown. I eyed the suspect as we rode. Although he was a good-sized man, he appeared almost fragile, sitting hunched over and trembling slightly. At the station, he cooperated-almost zombie-like as I led him into the prisoner elevator and up to the interrogation rooms on the fourth floor.
Once inside, I pointed to the cuffs and leg irons and said, "Take these off him."
"Look, Pat, I wouldn't do that. I had to fight with this fuckhead and he's no pussy." I looked at the copper and his pudgy partner and I knew he was not kidding.
I turned to the suspect. "Hey, if you give me your word you won't act up, we can take these off."
For the first time, the suspect looked at me directly and I caught his steely blue eyes. He nodded in affirmation and I motioned again for the officers to remove his shackles.
Grilling Dahmer, chapter 22/23:
Two deputies flanked Jeff and returned him to the holding cell. I walked over to him, standing alone, locked inside. As I approached, he moved closer to the bars of his cell. I reached through and took his outstretched hand. "Pat, I want to thank you for everything you did for me," he said. Shaking his hand for what I believed would be the last time, I said, “Good luck, Jeff. Take care of yourself." Then I turned and walked away.
People always say that I must have seen evil in his eyes as I sat down face to face with him during our interrogations, and I have to honestly tell them that I didn't. I saw a very normal, ordinary guy who-when we talked about things other than his crimes seemed very much like me, like you, like anybody you would meet.
“Despite Dahmer's crimes, Kennedy describes an odd kind of kinship that developed as he genuinely began accepting Dahmer's remorse for his numerous murders, and therefore experienced some grief when Dahmer was beaten to death a few years later. Kennedy quickly adds that he didn't befriend Dahmer at all during the time they spent meeting, and never considered him as anything other than a murder suspect. He did not continue to correspond with him and, in fact, never saw him again after Dahmer was led off to serve his sentence.”
More about Kennedy perspective:
As strange as it may seem, Jeffrey really trusted Detective Kennedy, and on the other hand Detective Kennedy low-key liked Dahmer. Without the help of Kennedy, Jeffrey wouldn’t opened up so easily.
If you’re interested to know more support the author and get the book!
I wanted to thank you all for the support you showed me since I opened this blog (very few days ago). I had a very warm welcome and I met a very nice community. I opened this blog to post news, facts and informations, and the response is been more than great! Unfortunately it’s my very first approach with Tumblr, I hope I can learn fast, please be patient!
I hope the blog will last as much as it can, I’ll keep doing my best to give you the best posts and I can’t wait to see yours! Thank you all!
Remember: my goal is to make this blog an educational place only. I don’t mean to post anything about Dahmer’s glorification but informations.
Jeffrey Dahmer reaction to George Palermo misunderstandings
Context: during his trial Jeff complained about some of Dr Palermo states, writing down some notes.
Official paper where Dahmer wrote his considerations
Published notes and Jeffrey reaction, writing the notes down
Real notes source:
Jeffrey Dahmer, Stone Philips Interview, 1994
Regarding Dahmer’s behaviour in prison, there are various opinions on why he would act like that. He was known for playing with food, putting ketchup on his meal to resemble body parts; he once placed a sign in his cell “Cannibal Anonymous Meeting”; he taunted scared guards next to him making them jump by whispering “I bite”.
Following the prison staff insight, he was a model inmate, but based on Christopher Scarver’s opinion, “He crossed the line with some people — prisoners, prison staff. Some people who are in prison are repentant — but [Dahmer] was not one of them”.
However it's important to consider Scarver never really had a direct contact with Dahmer, plus he suffered from a severe mental illness, which makes his statement of doubtful authenticity.
The same Gerald Boyle, Jeffrey Dahmer’s defence attorney, stated “Dahmer was such a milquetoast. He would never have done that stuff. He killed people, but he didn't taunt people. I never saw him do anything that would lead me to believe that he would mimic the deaths that he caused. I just don't believe that.”, claiming it wasn’t the serial killer’s “style”.
On the other hand, Roy Ratcliff, the pastor who baptised Dahmer, backed up the topic saying he'd been told by prison guards Dahmer would joke about cannibalism, effectively affirming the serial killer's ambiguous behaviour.
Last seen of Jeffrey Dahmer in the prison library, 1994
On why of these actions, the theories are three:
Causing outrage to find death: we are aware of Dahmer’s death wish. He claimed multiple times he wanted to be dead, from having suicidal thoughts, to requesting for the death penalty. He was conscious of the risk of his health by being included in the general population, yet, even after people’s recommendations, he chose to be moved anyway. He wasn’t able to commit suicide himself so he provoked people to get what he wanted. Relevant information is also they didn’t find marks on Dahmer’s body, meaning Dahmer didn’t fight back during the attack, accepting his fate. He also said these words no longer before his death to the mother Joyce “It doesn’t matter, Mom. I don’t care if something happens to me”.
His sense of humour: it is known that Dahmer had a particular dark humour. During highschool years Dahmer was known as the clown/mascotte to the students at Revere High School. He staged pranks and he bleated and simulated epileptic seizures or cerebral palsy, which became known as "Doing a Dahmer". Even during interrogation, “He picked up the brown bunch and commented that they held a remarkable resemblance to a person's fingers after they had been immersed in muriatic acid for a while. He placed the banana in his mouth and chewed. "It's not bad."”(cit. Grilling Dahmer). It’s possible he was just spending time as he could.
He had become a shadow of himself: he portrayed himself as THE cannibal in an attempt to attract attention, giving people what they expected from him. He didn’t have real friends, he never had, so he kept this attitude for say “stay away from me”. He toyed with the idea of cannibal quite a bit, because he didn’t trust people. This is the insight Roy Ratcliff gave after he learnt about Jeffrey’s behaviour in prison. Roy became one of the latest and only true friends Jeffrey met.
Roy Ratcliff holding the card Jeffrey Dahmer gave him for thanksgiving
After 28 years, we don’t know why of this behaviour yet, and we will never know. All the theories above are valid, meaning he could’ve acted that way because of a mix of those reasons. Jeffrey Dahmer will find death at Columbia Correctional Institution on 28th November 1994.
The baby was born at the Evangelical Deaconess Hospital in Milwaukee at 4.34 p.m. on 21 May, 1960. Weighing 6 pounds and 15 ounces, he was 181⁄2 inches long, with auburn hair and luminously blue eyes. Lionel and Joyce were entranced by him, their life together momentarily joyous as a result. Joyce began a baby scrapbook in which his every twitch and turn were lovingly recorded, remarking that the baby ‘scared us by having correctional casts on his legs from birth till four months’, but all was fine. He would only need 1 1⁄8 inch lifts on his shoes up to about the age of six. Otherwise, he was absolutely perfect. They named him Jeffrey Lionel.
If you’re interested to know more support the author and get the book!
One evening in June of 1990, I held my first conversation with our neighbor who lived across the hall. I introduced myself to him as Vern and he introduced himself to me as Jeff.
He appeared to be very polite as he and I stood in the hall in front of our apartments. He stated he was leaving to go to the corner store to buy a pack of cigarettes and when he saw I had a pack in my shirt pocket he asked if I had a cigarette I could spare.
Of all the times I had seen this guy he was always casually dressed in faded jeans, a flannel shirt and casual shoes. He wore glasses and his hair was cut medium length always looking well groomed. He had the appearance of a college student or someone who had been to college. He was clean shaven and had boyish look.
I guess the word I would choose to describe my impression of him is intelligent, highly intelligent. He had a slim built appearing to be 6 feet tall, weighing maybe 165 pounds. I'd guess his age to be 30 or 31 years old.
Through the times that I'd see him our conversations would mainly be small talk about my car, my job, the weather, his job and the building or something of that nature. He always appeared to be soft spoken as we would stop in the hall on his way in or out of his apartment.
Never did he give me any impression that he had hang ups about living in a dominantly black building or living in the neighborhood which also was dominantly black. As time went on Pam also had begun to have small conversations with him. She also thought that he was pretty pleasant to talk to. We were neighborly with all the tenants living in the building.
Being that I was the only black man at my place of employment and Pam being raised in Madison where blacks were few, neither she nor I had a problem with him being white. Our typical conversations went something like this whenever we would talk to each other in the hall.
"What's happening?"
"Hey Vern, not much."
He would notice that I would be just getting in from work most of the evenings when we'd see each other...
"How was your day?"
"Not too bad," I'd reply. From earlier conversations in our passing, I had informed him that I was a Draftsman. He like-wise told me he worked 3rd shift at a chocolate factory downtown and that he's been employed there for a couple of years.
"Do you have to punch in tonight?"
"Yeah, got to pay rent."
"Talk to you later," I'd respond. His reply was... "yeah, take care."
There had been various other conversations and I must admit talking to him made me feel appreciative of our small conversations. I felt sad for the guy living alone, never seeing him associate with anyone or have friends visit him at his apartment.
Amongst all of the tenants in the building Jeff stood out the most, not only because he was white but to me because he never had visitors or a girlfriend which to me appeared strange but not the type of out of the way strange. He was always alone.
He didn't own a car therefore, his means of transportation was the city bus. After becoming acquainted with him, we'd see Jeff standing on the bus stop or getting off the bus walking towards the apartment building.
He appeared to be weird to the other tenants but I never thought of him as such because of the fact that the area where we lived was nothing but a danger zone and keeping to himself was a safe thing to do. It was not safe for anyone walking that didn't fit in.
It was no surprise to see Jeff wearing his light gray jacket walking at 9:00pm through someone's backyard or taking a short cut through the alley headed towards the Oxford Building. He'd walk among dope peddlers to have them approach him and ask him "you looking..?" "You straight..?"
Meaning do you want to buy drugs but He would either shake his head negatively or ignore the peddlers all together.
He would be approached by addicts trying to con him in any way possible for money and women working the streets would confront him with offers of sexual pleasures for money but he would ignore them all.
I recall once telling Pam that I thought he had a lot of heart to live in this area. He never showed any sign of being fearful, he didn't have a kick ass type of attitude. It was more of an "I don't bother you and you don't bother me" type of attitude.
In June there was a series of burglaries and apartments in our building were broken into. Everyone was on lookout for any strangers walking through the halls. The police were called and they questioned everyone that lived in the building to see if anyone may have seen anyone or knew anything. Two apartments were broken into and everyone in the Oxford Apartments had high concerns about the break-ins.
The tenants began to look out for each other's apartments when the tenant was away. I had two of my nearest neighbor's phone numbers and I had also given them our number to inform each other when we were going to be out of our apartments. Our neighbor Jeff had gotten a phone but said he had it for only a week or so because he couldn't afford the bill.
"Hey Jeff, we're starting to look out for each other's apartment due to the break-ins. Give me your telephone number so that we can call you to just let you know when we're not going to be in so that you can keep an eye on our apartment."
"Vern, my phone was turned off because I'm having a hard enough time paying my rent and feeding myself, so there's no reason to give me your phone number. I do however intend to get a burglar alarm for when I'm away at nights working. There's no way I can afford to have my stuff ripped off and there's no real security around here that I trust."
"Yeah, it's getting pretty tough around here." I said.
"Yeah Vern I know what you mean. Any news about the guys' stuff that was stolen?"
"None! You know how that goes."
"Well I'll talk to you later."
"Sure Jeff, later."
Extract from Vernell Bass’ book “Across the Hall”, chapter 2. If you’re interested to know more support the author and get the book!
The twenty-inch bar that Christopher Scarver used to beat Jeffrey Dahmer to death.
The crime scene photograph of the bathroom of Columbia Correctional Institution where Jeffrey Dahmer was killed.
On the morning of November 28, 1994, Dahmer left his cell with other two inmates to conduct his assigned work detail. At approximately 8:10 a.m. Dahmer was discovered on the floor of the bathrooms of the gym suffering from extreme head wounds: The inmate Christopher Scarver beat him to death hitting him with a bar. His head had also been repeatedly struck against the wall in the assault. Although Dahmer was still alive and was rushed to a nearby hospital, he was pronounced dead one hour later. Dahmer’s official decease was set shortly after 9 A.M.
Source: Monster: The True Story of the Jeffrey Dahmer Murders, book by Anne E. Schwartz
Long time no see, how are you? Almost two months have passed since my inactivity here, and I must say I had huge results. I feel better and I’m doing so good. Jeffrey Dahmer’s case interest is been so much reduced and moderate, I can happily say it’s not an obsession-like thing, it was so unhealthy. Now the big question is what to do with this blog, I considered it almost as an exaggeration, something I could avoid, yet I have some things more to post. I decided I can post some things Dahmer case related without obligation, just when inspired. But because of this I can take my time not considering this blog a “job” (-never has been but still).
As always this blog was born and still wants to be an informative blog about Dahmer, I disassociate myself from some questionable behaviors from some people of the community and most of all I don’t condone anything Dahmer did, this is a purely educational place only. Thanks to everyone who stayed with me till now, see you soon with more content!