Jeffrey Dahmer - Antisocial Personality Disorder

Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer (May 21, 1960 - November 28, 1994) was a serial killer, as well as a sex offender. He was charged with murdering 17 men and boys, in particularly gruesome ways. Some of his methods included rape, necrophilia, cannibalism, an dismemberment. As a young child, Dahmer did not display any characteristics of being different, but that began to change when he was about ten years old. Between the ages of ten and fifteen years old, he did not display any interest in social interactions, and became very withdrawn. He would bike around his neighborhood looking for dead animals, and would do very strange things with them, such as putting a dogs head on a snake. In 1982, Dahmer moved in with his grandmother in Wisconsin, where his behavior became increasingly strange. He was arrested twice for indecent exposure, once after he was caught masturbating in front of two young boys. Foul smells began protruding from his basement, and his grandmother kicked him out. His first murder was in 1978, where he picked up a young man named Steven Hicks, and then bludgeoned him to death with a barbell after sex, then burying the body in his backyard. Nine years would pass until his next victim, Steven Tuomi. After Tuomi, his murders began to increase more and more in number. He usually picked his victims up in gay bars, and then killed them after sex. Finally, after attempting to murder Tracy Edwards, Edwards fled from his apartment and flagged down two police officers, who came to investigate the apartment and found severed heads in the refrigerator, a decomposing body in the bedroom, an severed hands, penises, and heads. Dahmer was arrested and sentenced to 15 life terms, totalling 957 years. He was killed in prison by another inmate, who bludgeoned him to death with a barbell.

Jeffrey was suffering from what is known as Antisocial Personality Disorder. This is defined as a pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of others that begins in childhood, and continues on into adulthood. Deceit and manipulation are some basic components of this complex disorder. People diagnosed with Antisocial Personality Disorder are usually labeled psychopaths, or sociopaths as well. Most people with the disorder have no regard for other people whatsoever, and are very likely to use people for their own profit or pleasure. This is Dahmer's case exactly - he was going to bars and lying to men; manipulating them so that they would go home with them, where he would later murder them without a second thought. Antisocial Personality Disorder is found in 3% of males, and 1% of females. People with this disorder can function in society, and appear very normal in many cases, but they have a deep, dark mind that is not usually exposed to anyone else.