My Friend Dahmer, Part 1

[cyberghostface]

This is a graphic novel about Jeffrey Dahmer written from the perspective of someone who was friends with him in high school.

I'm not sure where to even begin with what might be triggering given who it's about. That being said they don't show any of the murders but they are alluded to.

 

Comments

[squarepole]

Thanks for posting this. Been curious to check it out.

[commodus]

In truth, I don't see the point in this. After what he did, why should anyone care about the sob stories of his life? In general, I wish society wouldn't obsess over people like Dahmer, because they don't deserve to be remembered.

[mastiff]

Really? It seems like a pretty insightful look at the warning signs that were ignored by the adults... and his peers didn't have anyone to talk to. The author saw that something was terribly wrong, and had no idea of what to do. I'm guessing he's still shaken up about it, maybe feeling guilt, and trying to sort out those thoughts and feelings.

The value of this book isn't about justifying or excusing Dahmer... it's that people can recognize the signs early, and maybe society can avoid another Dahmer.

[arilou_skiff]

The problem with these "warning signs" thing is that they tend to be rife with false positives. IE: A lot of traits show up in serial killers, but far from all of the people with those traits are going to become serial killers.

[mastiff]

Sure. But don't you think that if a kid is, say, collecting and dissolving animals in acid in a shack in the woods, that maybe it's better to be on the safe side and tell someone? That it might not just be a phase they're going through?

[janegray]

Sure, but if they tell someone, what exactly is that someone gonna do? It's not illegal to dissolve animal corpses in acid. "My FBI agent" meme jokes aside you can't put somebody under constant long-term surveillance either (especially when you consider that it can take decades for them to go from creep to criminal), and "having a talk" with sociopaths generally leads to sociopaths that are better at lying.

[mastiff]

It may not be illegal to dissolve bodies in acid (depending on the region), but it's also not normal behaviour either; especially once someone starts killing animals for entertainment.

So if nothing else, it's worth "having a talk" to record that these "talks" are getting more frequent, and the behaviour escalating. Now that school shootings have become ubiquitous in America, these signs are taken much more seriously than before, and investigated more frequently. Ignoring the signs isn't really an option anymore.

I'm kinda nostalgic for the time when it was.

Dahmer went on to kill and cannibalize young men unchecked for 13 years. In one case, his 14 year old victim escaped, naked and bleeding, but was brought back to the apartment by the police who ignored the kid's protests, laughing at the lover's quarrel. Dahmer killed the boy after they left. A lot of families could have been spared a lot of pain if the pieces could have been put together much sooner.

[wizardru]

"Ignoring the signs isn't really an option anymore.

I'm kinda nostalgic for the time when it was."

True, that. On the other hand, that same time is how so many sexual abusers and murderers were able to act with impunity for so long. To me, one of the reasons for stories like this is to indicate how stuff actually happened: not to excuse it, but to understand it. And maybe to redesign the system so it doesn't happen again. And yeah, in the age where we've come to accept that school shootings are something out of a Stephen King story, but are a real, actual depressing reality? Yeah, the signs should no be ignored.

[mastiff]

There's a series on Netflix right now called Mindhunter. Its a good in-depth look at how the Behavioral Science Unit (BSU) started in the FBI in the 70s, when Manson and Son of Sam were dominating the newspapers.

In short, it's about a young FBI agent who wasn't satisfied just picking up the pieces after these types of murders, but wanted to understand why killers seemed to be getting crazier. He ends up interviewing many of these murderers in prison, and coins the term "serial killer".

It's very dark, but fascinating. I found it especially interesting because the BSU is the unit featured in Criminal Minds, a show I strongly dislike because it features "freak of the week" cases where deviant psychology is on display as a mainstream form of family entertainment.

Mindhunter is a reminder that people are incredibly complicated, and murderers take years to catch, not just 47 minutes plus commercials.