Dahmer – Monster: Why did Dahmer kill?

According to Jeffrey Dahmer, he killed because of his compulsion to kill, while the Netflix series Dahmer – Monster seems to suggest that race was part of his reasoning.

Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story is one of the most controversial series to have been released this year.

The Netflix original which premiered in September 2022, featuring Evan Peters in the title role, has been the source of many thought pieces.

Specifically, regarding his motive for killing 17 men between 1978 and 1991 before he was eventually arrested. According to Dahmer, his motive for killing was the compulsion he felt to kill.

However, the Netflix series imbues suggestive race politics into his motive as the justice system also seemingly enabled Dahmer’s actions.

Why is Dahmer – Monster so controversial?

Following the arrival of Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story on Netflix on Wednesday, 21 September 2022, a can of worms were opened.

This is as the series started receiving backlash because of the fact that through the series, Jeffrey Dahmer was romanticised as a sex symbol.

This seemingly negated the crimes that he committed, which not only included the brutal murder of 17 male, predominantly Black victims, but also included dismemberment, necrophilia, and cannibalism.

The matter of race politics came into play when viewers questioned whether his crimes were glorified due to his own race which is in sharp contrast to that of most of his victims.

Dahmer – Monster: Why did Dahmer kill?

Since the release of Dahmer – Monster, numerous thought pieces have delved into a retrospective outlook about why serial killer, Jeffrey Dahmer, killed his 17 male and predominantly African American victims.

In 1993, Brian Masters released a biography based on Jeffrey Dahmer and his crimes titled The Shrine of Jeffrey Dahmer.

The biography was written to include Dahmer’s confession interview with the police after he was arrested after Tracy Edwards escaped and reported Dahmer to the police.

The police discovered polaroids that depicted various images of the crimes that he had committed, and these were touted as the reason for his eventual arrest.

During his confessional interview with the police, Dahmer attributed his reasoning for killing his victims to “completely being swept” along by his compulsion to kill.

He asserted this fact by confirming that with the seven skulls discovered in his apartment, along with the other body parts like a human torso that was found in his refrigerator, he had planned to create a shrine that would be dedicated to himself as, “It was a place where (he) could feel at home.”

His personal motive, however, is not what Netflix wanted to highlight with the series.

Instead, it seems that the series was looking to highlight what enabled Dahmer to believe that he could kill with no consequences, despite the multiple incidents which should have resulted in his arrest way sooner than it took for the police to arrest him.

Why Dahmer killed, according to Netflix

It seems that aside from highlighting the gruesome crimes that Dahmer committed in the Netflix original series, Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story wanted to highlight the race politics that were at play.

This was displayed through Niecy Nash’s character, Glenda Cleveland, who made multiple calls to the police reporting suspicious behaviour from Dahmer’s apartment, as she was his neighbour.

Or the men of colour who escaped and attempted to report their experiences to the police, but to no avail.

The series seems to support suggestions that Dahmer killed because he knew he could get away with it due to the demographic information of his victims, who were predominantly men of colour or in need of money.

Who killed Jeffrey Dahmer?

After his arrest in 1992, after being sentenced to life imprisonment, Dahmer was sent to the Columbia Correctional Institution in Wisconsin to fulfil his sentence.

Between 1992 and 1994, it is reported that two attempts were made on his life, with the second being the one that dealt him his fatal blow to the head.

Fellow inmate, Christopher Scarver, reportedly hit Dahmer over the head with a metal bar while they were cleaning the showers. According to reports, Dahmer died on his way to the hospital.

Why did Christopher Scarver kill Jeffrey Dahmer?

While reports suggest that after his arrest, Dahmer had changed his life and had become a born-again Christian, Christopher Scarver suggests that this was not the case inside the prison.

Scarver is the man responsible for killing Dahmer after hitting him over the head with a metal bar. He suggests that Dahmer’s actions were just as repulsive in prison as they were before he was arrested.

He taunted prisoners by using food to create body parts and ketchup for blood and leaving them in public spaces for inmates to see.

Scarver believed that he could kill Dahmer because everyone in the prison had wanted him dead and made the opportunity possible when they left him, Dahmer and fellow inmate, Jesse Anderson to clean the showers unsupervised.