Jeffrey Dahmer and Dennis Nilsen were serial killers who killed for company. When we think of serial killers who are capable of murdering, dismembering, and disposing of victims – and in Dahmer’s case even cannibalizing the remains of some of his victims – we expect to see a face of true evil.
Yet the public could not believe that these sinister acts were carried out by men living seemingly ordinary lives. Nilsen even said himself, “I am the least likely killer that I know.”
Dahmer killed 17 men and boys from 1978 to 1991. The remains belonging to at least 11 corpses were found at his Milwaukee apartment. Nilsen killed at least 12 young men between 1978 and 1983 in North London.
So, what really was behind their insatiable desire to kill?
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GRUESOME DISCOVERIES
Pictured above: Dennis Nilsen’s North London apartment on the top floor
In February 1983, Dennis Nilsen was arrested at his home in North London. Human remains had been discovered blocking the drains at the house where he rented an apartment on the top floor.
The Scottish-born serial killer confessed to murdering fifteen victims – all young men, over a period of four years. Police found in his apartment the remains of victims in plastic bags hidden in the wardrobes.
Pictured above: Jeffrey Dahmer in the news
Then eight years later, the world came to know another serial killer named Jeffrey Dahmer. In July 1991, Milwaukee police entered Dahmer’s apartment and discovered a horror scene that would haunt them for the rest of their lives…
There was a severed head in the fridge, two more heads, and a torso in the freezer, skulls in a filing cabinet, and three other torsos were dissolving in an acetone solution in a huge blue drum.
Dahmer also kept a collection of polaroids showing the victim’s bodies in various stages of dismemberment. He told the arresting officers, “For what I did I should be dead.”
DISTURBING SIMILARITIES
The disturbing similarities between Dahmer and Nilsen cannot be ignored…
- sexual preference for men
- engaged in necrophilia
- lured victims back to their homes using deception
- did not suffer physical abuse in childhood
- drinking problem
- served in the armed forces
- lived alone
- retained the victim’s body for extended periods of time
- ritual after killing
(Dahmer took polaroid’s of his victims and Nilsen would bathe and dress the body of his victims) - remains discovered on their property when arrested and they gave a full confession
ORIGINS OF DARKNESS
Dahmer and Nilsen are easily recognizable as serial killers who kill out of loneliness. Another theme we see in serial killers of this particular type is cynicism about marriage and relationships.
Nilsen’s parents separated when he was very young. His mother Betty was Scottish and his father Olav was Norwegian. Betty Nilsen warned her son that she rushed into marriage without thinking and it ruined her life. She always reminded him of how deeply unhappy being with his father had made her.
Dahmer’s parents – Lionel and Joyce Dahmer – were also bitterly unhappy together and there was constant fighting in the family home. Dahmer said he could never understand why his parents would not just love each other and be happy.
To deal with tension in the childhood home, both Dahmer and Nilsen recall wandering off for long periods of time. When alone, they escaped into their own fantasy world. This resulted in them becoming increasingly isolated, fiercely private, and distrusting of those around them.
THE LONELY KILLERS
Pictured above: Jeffrey Dahmer home video
Many studies have shown that loneliness plays a significant role in the development and continuation of violent, antisocial attitudes and behavior. From a very young age, these two serial killers experienced a state of emotional separation from others.
Long-term loneliness can lead to the development of antisocial personality disorder and they become incapable of initiating healthy interactions. The lonely killer is frightened of loving attention as they see it as a danger. They don’t want the risk of dependency and humiliation but they still crave it, as almost all human beings do. In order to deal with these difficult emotions, the serial killer creates a fantasy world.
Like Dahmer and Nilsen – lonely killers are perfectly capable of leading seemingly normal lives – yet they escape almost daily into the twisted world of their own imagination. For Dahmer and Nilsen – these fantasies spilled out into the real world with fatal results.
Pictured above: Dennis Nilsen in prison and on the front page news
The victims who were fortunate enough to survive an encounter with Dahmer and Nilsen witnessed this “split personality”. Both serial killers appear charming and kind whilst luring victims back to their homes with the promise of company, alcohol; or, in Dahmer’s case, he offered money in exchange for photoshoots.
One survivor commented that Nilsen came across like a “saint”. Then the intended victim tried to leave and it triggered the switch. Nilsen revealed his true self – a dangerous killer. This was the same case with Dahmer; he switched from a friendly personality to someone who appeared possessed – he would start rocking back and forth and chanting.
Neither of them gained a thrill from the actual murders, killing was not the fantasy they had in mind. Their distinct fantasy was to seek out the perfect partner: a perfect friend who will not leave and become both their possession and plaything. When that fantasy was broken – for example, the imagined “perfect partner” tries to leave – they turn to murder in order to possess their victim fully.
Nilsen himself said: “The victim is the dirty platter after the feast.”
FOUR-STEP SYNDROME
Pictured above: a young Jeffrey Dahmer in an alcohol-induced coma
This is why alcohol provided the perfect ally for the murders. If they both had the compulsion to kill; they would not have needed to drink so much alcohol before the killing. They had to drink in order to go through with the murder itself. Alcohol bridges the gap between resisting temptation and compulsion.
These fantasies are often repeated so continuously and vividly that the feeling of satisfaction and power erodes over time. The serial killer then seeks out new opportunities to act upon them.
Explained in ‘Sex Crimes and Paraphilia’ by Criminologist Eric Hickey
It is a four-step syndrome:
- Addiction to the images
- An increased appetite for those images
- Desensitization to the violence
- Acting out the images
Therefore, the murders are not as spontaneous as they seem; rather a chain-like effect caused by events that have manifested in their minds for a very, very long time.
Dahmer himself said, “I was completely swept along by own compulsions. It didn’t satisfy me completely so I was thinking another murder will. Maybe this one will, and the numbers started growing and growing and just got out of control.”
Biographer Brian Masters, the author of “Killing For Company” and “The Shrine of Jeffrey Dahmer”, interviewed both serial killers intensively. Masters could not believe someone is able to strip a corpse, dismember it and dispose of pieces down the toilet.
Nilsen replied: “There is something wrong with your morals if you are more annoyed by what I did to a corpse. It was far worse for me to squeeze the life out of a living man, a corpse is a thing and it cannot be hurt or suffer.”
Both Dahmer and Nilsen saw themselves as flawed, tortured souls who had no restraint or self-control. Yet, we know just by looking at their victim count that they were a serious danger to society. They both stole the lives of many young men for their own personal gratification.
