jeff dahmer :: essays research papers

It's the first week of February and jury selection has begun. Nearly 450 press passes have been distributed to about 100 media outlets from around the world -- from Spain to England to Akron, Ohio. Even when psychologist Judith Becker recounts his lonely and sometimes tragic childhood, Dahmer doesn't show a moist eye. But Becker's anecdotes of the killer's pathetic youth seem to move the audience. She tells of how Dahmer, as a young boy, found a snake and took it to his garage to keep as a pet. The snake, though, wound itself around the spokes of Dahmer's bike and once he went for a ride, the new-found pet was killed. Becker says Dahmer wondered why, of all places, the snake had to go into the spokes and lose its life. A wave of sympathy for the boy Dahmer seems to pass over the spectator section. The audience is snapped out of any sympathetic mindset when the psychologist goes on to tell how young Jeffrey encouraged a childhood friend to put his hand in a hornet's nest. There are only ladybugs in there, Dahmer assured the boy. The friend did what he was told by Dahmer and, of course. was stung. The anecdote prompts Channel 12 reporter Angle Moreschi to let out the loudest guffaw of the courtroom. Even the families of the victims who pack the spectator seats seemed moved by Dahmer's childhood memories, as told by the psychologist. Their sympathy isn't for the killer, though, but for his parents. At day's end, many of them walk up to the Dahmers and talk briefly. As they leave, some of the victims' relatives grab Mr. and Mrs. Dahmer and hug. Lionel and Shari Dahmer sit in the back row, the husband in the aisle seat. They often hold hands during the trial; Mrs. Dahmer, though, sometimes takes notes. For what? Who knows. One afternoon, the defendant's stepmother decides to do her nails and it's enough of a routine change that television cameras capture the "event." The Dahmers try their best to avoid contact with the media and, surprisingly, the reporters oblige: Nobody hounds them for comment. "You could just see how pained his father felt about this," observes one reporter of Lionel Dahmer. While being taken from his cell to the courtroom each day, Dahmer says little to his escorts, if anything. In time, the deputies begin to carry on as if the prisoner is oblivious to their presence.