Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
Hello.
Hi.
You're listening
SPEAKER_00 (00:16):
to Unpacking the
Eerie.
We've got a penchant for somedark shit.
but are routinely leftunsatisfied with the way that
these stories are told.
So here we app about scarystories and scary people.
And
SPEAKER_01 (00:28):
also the
considerations of power
dynamics, social, racial, andeconomic justice that are often
left out.
SPEAKER_00 (00:35):
Join us as we
explore the unnerving nuance,
depth, and pockets of hope.
Join us as we unpack the eerie.
We're back.
We are back.
(00:56):
Well, for returning folks, hi.
For folks who've never listenedto this before.
Welcome to Unpacking the Eerie.
Yeah, we've taken a break forabout a year and a lot of
changes have happened in betweenthat year.
Yeah, we don't live in
SPEAKER_01 (01:13):
the same continent
anymore.
SPEAKER_00 (01:14):
Yeah, Akshay, where
are you?
SPEAKER_01 (01:17):
I am in India.
I am on the other side of theworld as of like 10 months ago.
This will be our first episoderecording remotely.
The
SPEAKER_00 (01:29):
time gap is
gigantic.
I'm in fresh...
10.30am.
SPEAKER_01 (01:35):
And I'm in fresh
11pm.
But it is fresh for me becausesometimes I get like this surge
of energy at like 11pm.
I don't feel tired.
That's
SPEAKER_00 (01:48):
amazing.
I don't feel as bad for takingour sweet time.
We haven't recorded in a year,partially due to these gigantic
shifts.
Also, you know, I just want toname that the last time that we
checked in there, we weretowards the beginning of an
ongoing genocide that is stillhappening in Palestine.
We had shared a roundtablediscussion that was graciously
(02:11):
recorded by our friend Michelineand her friends and colleagues.
all Palestinian and all talkingabout their experiences coming
from different places inPalestine, but also have a
different like historicaltimeline there along with
resistance efforts.
And so if you haven't listenedto that, I'm going to do a plug
(02:32):
to, you know, please uplifttheir stories.
It was really totally share.
SPEAKER_01 (02:38):
It's a wonderful two
part series.
SPEAKER_00 (02:41):
And I think part of
the reason we decided, are
paused was partially due tothat.
I think it felt weird to becreating and promoting during a
time where our attention, youknow, maybe ought be in other
places.
And then of course we had thiselection in the United States
where we are descending towardsfascism and kind of a quick
(03:05):
pace, not that the U S wasn'talready, you know, some would
argue that we were already inlike soft fascism for a really
long time and maybe hardfascism.
in particular communities forthe entire time.
But yeah, that's like the waterthat we're swimming in.
And so we're just, we'rebringing it back.
SPEAKER_01 (03:24):
But I'm excited to
get back into it.
We decided to record thisepisode six months ago, so you
can see the pace that we'removing.
SPEAKER_00 (03:33):
Slow.
(04:03):
Keep this podcast hosted.
You
SPEAKER_01 (04:05):
guys helped me pay
for a mic.
SPEAKER_00 (04:08):
Yeah, that's very
nice.
Yeah.
Also, we do donate still 25% ofeverything that we make, every
payout that we get to a causethat's related to the topic.
So your money is not goingnowhere.
It's going places and we reallyappreciate you.
SPEAKER_01 (04:27):
Yeah, excited to be
back.
Let's hop to it.
And to dig into it.
So on July 22nd, 1991, a32-year-old man in Milwaukee,
Wisconsin, ran out onto thestreet, found a police officer
and let them know he needed helpbecause he had just escaped from
(04:50):
a man who was trying to murderhim.
Cops followed him back to theapartment that he was in.
And when they walked in, theyfound photos of dismembered
bodies, Found a dismembered headin the refrigerator.
And the home was that of31-year-old Jeffrey Dahmer.
SPEAKER_00 (05:12):
So we're covering
Jeffrey Dahmer.
This story for us often comes upin conversation because there's
such sensationalism aroundJeffrey Dahmer and it's seldom
really covered in a way thatfeels just right.
SPEAKER_01 (05:26):
So much of it is
just focused on like, why was he
like that?
And just like kind of making himinto a celebrity.
SPEAKER_00 (05:33):
Very gross.
It'll be less about the gruesomedetails.
You can find that literallyanywhere.
It'll be more about whatsurrounds it.
SPEAKER_02 (05:42):
And
SPEAKER_00 (05:43):
I'll hand it over to
you.
The context.
SPEAKER_01 (05:47):
Rewind, rewind from
91 all the way back to the
1960s.
Jeffrey Dahmer was born May21st, 1960, to Lionel Herbert
Dahmer, a chemistry student, andJoyce Annette Dahmer, a
typewriting instructor.
(06:08):
Lionel was German and Welsh, andJoyce was either Norwegian or
German and Irish.
I saw all three of those, butthey were white, a white
European.
He was...
described as an energetic andhappy child.
But when he was four, he had tohave a surgery for a double
(06:31):
hernia.
And it's noted that he justbecame a lot quieter after that.
Lionel was a chemistry studentand then later a research
chemist.
And during Jeffrey's childhoodwas doing his PhD.
So he was just absent quite alot.
Joyce was on prescription drugs,apparently, when she was
pregnant and also had...
(06:53):
postpartum and depression andother sorts of mental health
issues after he was born.
Her ex-husband says that she wasa hypochondriac and, quote
unquote, demanded a lot ofattention.
It was also the 60s, so let'skeep that in mind.
Apparently, she refused.
So her husband said that sherefused to touch Jeffrey when he
(07:17):
was a baby because she wasafraid of contracting germs.
But that doesn't really trackwith how later in life she used
to work with HIV and AIDSpatients or maybe she just like
was different by then.
So I've also seen in some placesthat his dad also might have had
depression.
He did have a brother who I'mnot going to talk about a lot
because he really doesn't wantto be associated with Jeffrey
(07:40):
and changed his name and, youknow, yeah, let him live his
life.
But between...
The ages of six and eight forJeffrey, they moved around
frequently and then they finallyended up settling in this suburb
in Ohio called the Beth Townshipof Akron.
And it had a population of about4,500.
(08:01):
So very small town vibes.
They were pretty well off.
They lived in a three-bedroomhouse with two-and-a-half
bathrooms, and it was surroundedby woods.
He and his dad had thisfather-son activity together
where they would bleachconnective tissue and hair off
(08:21):
of rodent corpses when theyfound animals that had died
under their house.
They would bleach?
Yeah.
They would bleach the bones, youknow?
Oh.
yeah kind of like what is itwhen people stuff animals
taxidermy i guess it's like kindof somewhat similar to that but
(08:42):
they would yeah find corpsesunderneath the house of like
rats and stuff and they would dothis as an activity together and
since his dad was the chemist hewas like excited that he was i
guess into science
SPEAKER_00 (08:57):
why are fucking
white people so freaky and then
they call it science Like whatthe hell is, I have a whole
tangent about this later, butthere's such freaks and they
call it science.
Yes.
Oh my gosh.
Like the body world guy.
I want to do an episode aboutthat because why the fuck?
(09:18):
Is there like an appetite forexhibits of people's literal
nervous systems and muscularsports?
They're playing music.
And I'm just like, whose bodiesare these?
It's very weird.
Just call it a black
SPEAKER_01 (09:35):
mirror episode.
Honestly,
SPEAKER_00 (09:36):
just say that you're
necrophilic related
SPEAKER_01 (09:40):
to that.
Jeffrey, when he was little usedto carry around little pail full
of bones and his family used tocall them his fiddle sticks this
is why like when people are likethere was no signs i'm like
there were signs anyways justsome quirky kid huh He's just...
So in grade school, apparentlyhe gifted tadpoles to one of
(10:03):
his...
I'm just going to share someweird stories from his
childhood, essentially.
So in grade school, he giftedtadpoles to one of his teachers
who, I guess, gave it to anotherone of his classmates.
And he felt very rejected andangry by that.
So he went to the friend's houseand...
and then killed the tadpoles bypouring motor oil into the jar
(10:27):
and setting them on fire.
They said they did not see anywarning signs at all, but he did
have a compulsion to kill andmutilate animals.
He killed his own dog.
He killed his own dog.
And he definitely was obsessedwith collecting animal
carcasses, so he would pick uproadkill and do kind of the same
(10:49):
stuff that him and his dad usedto do.
He told a psychiatrist later onthat when he was younger, he had
like a very high libido and waslike constantly fantasizing
about doing harm and also likehaving fantasies about
necrophilia as well and that ittook up like most of his day.
(11:10):
When he was 13, he was actuallyand I watched this movie that's
like, mostly just about hisadolescent life, like when he
was in high school, and they didportray this in the movie.
And for some reason, the personwho plays Jeffrey Dahmer is like
a Disney Channel star.
I forget his name, but justweird casting as per usual.
He was obsessed with this malejogger and would sometimes hide
(11:33):
with a baseball bat on on hisroute, hoping to make his first
kill.
But I think one of the timesthat he was prepared to do that,
the jogger just didn't show.
So it didn't happen.
He also started drinking quiteyoung.
I think he started drinking whenhe was about 13.
His parents also used to fight alot.
And I think when he was 17, theygot divorced.
(11:59):
And his mom left and took hisbrother with him.
And I guess he felt abandoned.
Yeah.
when that happened so that wouldhave been like his senior year
of high school so I was justsort of looking into like
whether there's been likeresearch or just like any
theories on like why he might bethe way that he is.
(12:20):
And I did find one paper writtenby this person called Tamara
Higgs that was about psychopathyand neglect.
And in it, she states how theaverage serial killer's profile
is white male, low middle incomein his 20s or 30s with a history
of childhood abuse or neglect issociopathic or psychopathic, is
(12:43):
a chameleon to his environmentand appears normal to others.
That's sort of like typicaltraits of a serial killer.
For him, I mean, his parentswere kind of preoccupied,
weren't really around that muchfor him.
There were some rumors that hehad maybe experienced sexual
abuse from a peer in hisneighborhood, but his dad said
(13:04):
that was very much not true.
So there's some just iffinessaround that.
I don't even know where thatcomes from because I don't think
that it comes directly from him.
Jeffrey.
Classic, his parents said thatthey didn't see any warning
signs, but he actually has twoout of the three McDonald's
triad, which is cruelty toanimals and fire setting.
(13:24):
He did say later on that when hewas 14, 15, he had fantasies of
death that were intermingledwith sex.
And that's sort of when he knewhe had sort of reached a turning
point.
I'm just thinking about how,like, women and girls and trans
(13:47):
kids are way more likely toexperience like severe abuse in
their families of origin, butthey are not the serial killer
profile, right?
So it's not just about whetherneglect or abuse is present.
It's also about like the worldthat we live in and who gets
enabled to do that.
(14:08):
shit like this.
I'm going to go into hisadolescent high school time now.
So he went to Revere HighSchool.
And this is sort of like when hestarts to make friends.
And that's what this whole movieis about that I watched is he
makes friends with the studentnamed John Backdorf, who was an
(14:28):
aspiring artist.
Him and his other friends formedwhat they called the Dahmer fan
club.
And so in the movie Friends withDahmer, they show this
friendship.
They just think he's funnybecause he makes ableist jokes
and pretends like he has anintellectual disability.
The movie is actually based on agraphic novel that Durf wrote
(14:52):
after all of the stuff about himcame out.
In retrospect, he says there wasalways some a darkness about him
that was really quite repellent.
And he said, I was okay hangingout with him.
If there was other peoplearound, I was never going to be
alone with him.
But they did things like sneakhim into school photographs.
He actually said that he was theone who inserted himself into
(15:14):
the friend group.
They said they found himentertaining and kind of
dangerous and unpredictable.
And for them, that was funny, Iguess.
He apparently skipped school alot and also carried around a
styrofoam cup.
Not sure what he was drinkingfrom there, but since he's been
considered to be an alcoholicsince he was like 13, I'm
(15:35):
guessing probably alcohol.
But even people that he went tohigh school with say things like
we would have just neverexpected, even though he was
clearly being very strange andconcerning when he was in high
school, too.
So I listened to this podcast.
podcast called the dark side ofthe land podcast where they
interview his they interview hisformer teacher and a former
(16:02):
classmate his former teacher wasal smeshko who taught pe and
health and coached football andbasketball and he had him as a
student twice in ninth and tenthgrade his first impression of
him was that he wasn't veryathletic wasn't a troublemaker
but to some extent seemed like aloner and didn't have a lot of
(16:22):
friends in health class.
He also seemed sort of the sameand didn't really interact with
the rest of the students duringhis senior year.
He actually found him with a sixpack of beer at like 10 AM on
the school grounds.
And he told the teacher, I gotproblems.
(16:43):
And he, So the teacher took himto the guidance counselor
because he asked to be taken tothe guidance counselor.
And he said that he wasstruggling because his parents
were getting divorced and theguidance counselor said he
seemed depressed.
And that was, I guess, kind ofit, you know.
So there were opportunitieswhere like people who were in
positions to maybe do somethingabout it.
(17:06):
Could have done more, but itseemed like they didn't.
The nonchalance
SPEAKER_00 (17:12):
is just
SPEAKER_01 (17:12):
really wild
because...
Oh, 17-year-old drinking asix-pack of beer at 10 a.m.
in school property.
Totally normal, I guess.
SPEAKER_00 (17:21):
I guess.
And then that's the response toa parent's divorce?
SPEAKER_01 (17:26):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No inquiry?
That doesn't seem normal, yeah.
No inquiry.
UNKNOWN (17:35):
Yikes.
SPEAKER_01 (17:36):
yeah so the former
classmate described him as goofy
and funny and that he would sitat their table and do goofy
stuff to make us laugh and hewould imitate people and he got
good grades and was interestedin biology he did this weird
thing once he wanted money forbeer so they paid him to play
(17:58):
pranks on people at the malllike going up the escalator the
wrong way or knocking offpeople's glasses of water in
restaurants and then he didsomething there it was just like
the way they described the storywas just really weird he went to
this health food store wherethey were giving out samples of
(18:18):
flaxseed or something like thatand he just kept taking the
samples and filling his mouthwith them and then once his
mouth was like completely fullof them he screamed I'm allergic
and then he just like spit themall out and walked away It's
weird in a bad, weird way.
SPEAKER_00 (18:34):
Yeah, where you're
like, what's going on?
Well, it's interesting because Ifind this behavior pretty
consistent with...
I'm thinking of some instancesof people who actually, I felt,
had the capacity for harm.
And the things that theyoutright did, if you were to
(18:57):
just talk about them inisolation...
feel strange.
Like they don't know how toengage in normal humor and they
make really strange jokes andpeople kind of brush it off,
especially men brush it off aslike social awkwardness or now
(19:17):
in like other spaces,neurodivergence or something
like that.
But I think that people who havebeen on the other side of more
dangerous behavior, actuallyhave a knowing, a felt sense
that there's something elsehappening underneath this weird
sense of humor.
When I was hearing the stories,I said, yeah, this person
(19:40):
strikes me as someone who feelsdangerous.
And I have actually very littleinformation about the dangerous
things that I think that they'recapable of.
But then when the story startedconverging, I felt really
validated in that there wassomething else actually
underneath the joking.
Anyway.
SPEAKER_01 (20:15):
you will find out in
due time what your gut was
trying to tell you.
And you don't always have tostick around to know why you're
having the bad feelings.
SPEAKER_00 (20:25):
Right.
You don't need evidence.
SPEAKER_01 (20:27):
No, no.
You can just get out of there.
It's fine.
You don't need to know.
SPEAKER_00 (20:32):
I think it's hard
because I saw someone post
online about one of the mostinsidious things white
patriarchy has done is toweaponize people's intuition.
you make people question theirown intuition to make them feel
like it's not valid or not real.
And then you need obscene,obscene amounts of evidence to
(20:53):
back up the idea that they couldbe right.
When our intuition actuallyevolved from like, you know,
centuries and centuries andcenturies of survival
SPEAKER_01 (21:02):
instinct.
Yeah.
It comes from our lizard brain.
That's like danger, no danger,you know?
SPEAKER_00 (21:10):
But anyway, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (21:13):
Back to JD, as I
will refer to him, because I've
never heard anyone refer to himthat way.
I don't like saying his name.
SPEAKER_00 (21:22):
Okay, JD.
SPEAKER_01 (21:24):
So this guy who they
were interviewing in this
podcast said that the last timehe saw him was a couple of weeks
after graduation.
He gave him a ride home after aparty.
And this also is a weird storybecause they live in like a
super small town in Ohio and hewas driving home from a party
and he saw JD.
walking down a completely pitchblack road at 1 a.m.
(21:46):
by himself.
And so he stopped and he waslike, do you need a ride home?
And he was like, sure.
And he said that he wasn'treally talkative and he seemed
kind of drunk.
And this guy didn't get out ofthe car, just talked to him a
little bit and then left andnever saw him again.
And he said in this interview,like he didn't kill anyone that
he knew.
They were all random people.
(22:07):
So like, I don't think he wouldhave ever done anything to like
me or anyone that we knew inhigh school.
He also said he was smart.
Interestingly, when the newscame out about him, he just saw
the last name Dahmer and hisimmediate thought was Jeff's dad
killed someone and not thatJeffrey killed someone, which I
thought was interesting.
(22:29):
Wild story that like the lastone I'll say about him in high
school there was this fetal pigthat they had in their biology
class in school that someonestole and for like weeks the
principal was like go on thespeaker at the school being like
whoever stole the fetal pigplease bring it back over and
(22:50):
over again they never found outwho it was and then when jd was
in prison he confessed that itwas him that stole the fetal pig
from their biology class andnobody knew that he was the one
that did it.
Which I'm like, maybe the personwho collects roadkill is the
person that stole the fetal pigfrom the class.
(23:12):
Like, hello, anybody there?
Yeah,
SPEAKER_00 (23:15):
what's the
disconnect?
This is so wild to me.
I guess not.
The belief in white innocenceruns so fucking deep they can't
even fucking imagine.
Yeah.
Totally.
Or the complacency in thecomment of like, it's not going
to happen to me, so I was safe,so therefore he's not dangerous
is such a common, I think,internalized narrative in people
(23:36):
with privilege.
SPEAKER_03 (23:38):
Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00 (23:38):
Yeah.
Okay.
And they were just like, he'sjust, you know, being silly, you
(23:59):
know, suspended for a few days.
He had also been talking aboutwanting to like blow up the gym
and all of this stuff.
No action, no action.
And then actually one day we hada school shutdown because a
librarian found him in thelibrary acting funny and they
asked what was in his backpack.
(24:19):
And it were all, it was all thecomponents that you would need
to create like your own.
That's so
SPEAKER_02 (24:24):
scary.
SPEAKER_00 (24:26):
Yeah.
And he had shared that he hadplans to put it under the
bleachers during one of the, youknow.
Oh, my God.
Yeah.
I remember it very vividlybecause it was the day after my
18th birthday.
And yeah, we couldn't leaveFrench class.
Librarian found him.
They were just like, it's justsilly guy.
(24:47):
And I don't know what happenedafter that.
I don't think anything didreally happen because he didn't
actually put the pieces togetherto make the bomb.
And then teachers were told totell students that he actually
didn't have a bomb and thatthere's no evidence to show that
he was going to do that becausethey didn't want parents to be
upset.
But the components are there andthe pattern was there.
And I don't know where he is orwhat he's doing, but.
(25:09):
Oh, my gosh.
SPEAKER_01 (25:11):
Terrifying.
So.
I will pass on to you to tell uswhat happens next.
SPEAKER_00 (25:18):
Okay.
So I actually don't have a tonof info, so this might be kind
of quick.
Okay.
So he's at the end of his highschool time, and...
At age 18, 1978, in BathTownship, Ohio, he commits his
first murder.
Stephen Hicks, it occurred veryshortly after he graduated high
(25:39):
school.
And during this time, he'sbecoming increasingly unstable.
His alcoholism is prettyintense.
And he becomes extremelyisolated, you know, in the
process.
Yeah,
SPEAKER_01 (25:50):
his mom had and
brother had left at this point.
And for some reason, his dad wasalso not living in their house.
So he was just kind of byhimself.
Did
SPEAKER_00 (25:59):
you watch Dahmer,
the show, the whole thing?
No, I didn't.
Okay.
I did.
I did watch it.
It took me a long time to finishit.
It was extremely hard to watch.
Evan Peters is excellent in thathe is very scary, but you
fucking hate this guy the wholetime.
There's nothing redeeming.
(26:19):
It's very hard to watch.
I think that they tried to beaccurate in the storytelling,
whether or not that happens.
I'm not really sure, but youknow, in the movie or in the
show, his dad is kind of shownas like someone who's like, he
did this taxidermy stuff withhim, but then was reluctant and
(26:40):
feeling like maybe it was hisbad that he was, you know, being
weird with the animals and thatit wasn't actually him doing
that.
And I think he did see that hehad an alcohol problem, didn't
know what to do about it.
UNKNOWN (26:54):
Um,
SPEAKER_00 (26:54):
And I think that he
is the only thing maybe keeping
him in check or distractedduring this time.
And so when he's- I mean, if hisdad is
SPEAKER_01 (27:07):
home, there's no way
he's going to bring someone home
and murder someone
SPEAKER_00 (27:12):
there.
Right.
The window's smaller wherethat's possible.
Opposite of body doubling.
Oh my God.
Yeah.
The opposite of body doubling.
Thank you, Akshaya.
Oh my gosh.
I do have some information aboutStephen a little bit that came
up.
He was born June 22nd, 1959.
(27:34):
He was from Coventry Township,Ohio, suburb of Akron.
He was described by friends andfamily as friendly, kind, and
trusting.
He was known to be an easygoingyoung man for a love of music.
He had just graduated from highschool in 1978, so he was
planning to go to college, butspending the summer having a
(27:57):
time.
Yeah,
SPEAKER_01 (27:58):
he was trying to go
to a concert.
SPEAKER_00 (28:00):
Yeah, he was trying
to go to concert.
And you know, people werehitchhiking during this time
because they were, you know.
Yeah, it's the 70s, you know.
Just trusting that peopleweren't going to murder them, I
guess.
Especially if you're a dude.
Especially if you're a dude.
Yeah, I have some thoughts onthat.
So basically, he picks him up.
(28:23):
He invites him to his house andbath for a drink.
That's typically how it alwaysstarts.
It's like, do you want to have adrink and hang out?
This guy is like, you know, I'min festival vibes.
Sure, why not?
And they were hanging out for afew hours before this guy tries
to leave.
And it sounds like JD doesn'twant him to go.
I was
SPEAKER_01 (28:45):
just going to say, I
don't know why I'm having that
image from Pearl,
SPEAKER_00 (28:52):
where she's like,
SPEAKER_02 (28:53):
why are you leaving
me?
SPEAKER_00 (28:55):
You said...
that's exactly right jd andpearl similar vibes actually
yeah right because she's likekeeping her mom's dead body and
like props her up at the chairsyeah that family's yeah that
family's german too i wonder ifthere was something true true
(29:17):
true interesting you know likemovies they don't do things
unintentionally and then there'slike a like a cultural piece to
around containment and all ofthis stuff.
But wow, I'll never be able tonot see that.
He's doing pearl shit though.
Why are you leaving me?
Yeah.
Yeah, totally.
Why did you change?
Yeah.
And they're like, what are youtalking about?
(29:38):
She's very clearly clocking thatthey're uncomfortable.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't know how many details toshare, but he was bludgeoned to
death and he was dissected andhe buried the remains behind his
family's home.
Several weeks later, he dug upthe remains and then he
dissolved them in acid.
He crushed the bones and thenscattered them in the woods.
(29:59):
Hicks was dismissed as arunaway, not someone who was
hitchhiking and going to aconcert and then going to
college, which maybe that wasthe cop's way of, quote unquote,
not wasting resources.
UNKNOWN (30:17):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (30:17):
But, you know, his
family really pushed for an
investigation that never reallyhappened.
And of course, these details,they probably found out much
later when he was in trial.
I don't know whether this was
SPEAKER_01 (30:31):
when he first buried
it in the woods or when he was
taking it to like the secondtime, but he was pulled over for
a traffic violation when he hadbags full.
in his car that had StephenHicks' remains in it.
And the cops literally asked himwhat he had in the bags.
(30:56):
And he said, it's trash that I'mtaking to the dump.
And he told them that hisparents had just gotten divorced
and that he was just drivingaround to think.
And so they just wrote him upfor being left of center driving
and then let him go and didn'tcheck the bags or anything.
That sounds right.
That's consistent.
(31:18):
Literally the first person.
And 16 more people were killed
SPEAKER_00 (31:22):
after this.
I mean, it's a really solid wayfor him to be like, oh, I got to
do this thing, and I was evenstopped, and nobody thought...
Like, I got away with it, yeah.
Right.
Like, I can do this.
Yeah, you're so right.
It's one of those stories whereI'm just like, you can see,
actually, this is like acommunity accountability issue,
because actually everybody isculpable for...
(31:43):
Right.
Right.
(32:09):
In Inside Edition in 1993, hesaid, I always knew that it was
wrong.
The first killing was notplanned.
So he was acting on impulse.
I was coming back from theshopping mall back in 78.
I had fantasies about picking upa hitchhiker, taking him back to
the house and having completedominance and control over him.
I was thinking about how when wetalked about Catherine, we're
(32:30):
talking about how patriarchy isactually at the crux of so much
of why she was able to do thatfor so long.
I still think that whitesupremacy and patriarchy are
clearly also doing a disserviceto everyone, including the main
beneficiaries, white men.
He was still made vulnerable bythe cultural expectations that
(32:51):
white men are always kind ofsafe and that, of course, he was
a runaway and he's fine.
He's probably somewhere doinghis own silly thing because
young people do that.
I think there's a disposabilitythere.
And then also white men aretaught that you can be trusting
(33:20):
because you are invincible.
So even if his intuition wasmaybe like, something's not
right, he was probably like, no.
You know, like that wasirrelevant.
He's probably like,
SPEAKER_01 (33:31):
I'll be fine.
SPEAKER_00 (33:32):
Yeah.
I'll be fine.
Yeah.
Who's going to target me, youknow?
And apparently, you know, likeStephen's parents were really
outspoken.
Richard Hicks came out muchlater when the media frenzy
happened.
And, you know, the case wasunsolved for 13 years.
They knew that something waswrong.
Yeah.
(33:53):
And they were also reallyaffected by the fact that, you
know, their son's murder waslike not really noted at all or
anybody's murder really it wasabout the sensationalism of
Jeffrey and his behavior butapparently he became a Richard
Hicks he became an advocate forstronger missing persons cases
(34:15):
and push for better supportsystems of the families whose
you know loved ones haddisappeared during that time and
beyond and so I don't know whatcame of that after but That's
his first murder, where I'm surehe's feeling invincible now.
But actually, he doesn't engagein another murder until 1987,
(34:39):
which is like nine years later.
And part of this is probablybecause the opportunities
weren't there.
Shortly after this, he gets intoOhio State, and he's there for
only one term.
He drops out because he...
Had a problem with drinking.
I think that his grades sufferedbecause of it.
(35:00):
And his father is really pissedabout it.
And he urged that he enlisted inthe army, which, you know, it's
always helpful.
Right.
It's helpful all the time.
SPEAKER_02 (35:13):
Go
SPEAKER_00 (35:14):
to the army to learn
about structured violence,
actually.
To know all that rage.
Yeah.
I mean, the military isincredibly skilled at sharpening
people's ability to dehumanizethe other, quote unquote, so
that they can be effective.
You're so right.
So, you know, another place ofculpability.
(35:37):
So he was stationed in Germanyfor some time and- Eventually he
was, again, he was dischargedbecause he had problems with
excessive drinking, not becausehe was sexually assaulting
soldiers, which he also did.
Oh my gosh.
They said he has a drinkingproblem.
He can't be here.
Wow.
But nevermind.
He was, I mean, it wasdocumented.
(35:59):
A serial rapist.
A serial rapist.
Yeah.
And again, he's like, oh, peoplegot a problem with my drinking,
but not a problem with myviolence.
And so no big deal.
Yeah.
which I'll hand it back to you
SPEAKER_02 (36:10):
for
SPEAKER_00 (36:10):
his late 20s, early
30s.
SPEAKER_01 (36:13):
Right.
So he comes back to Ohio becausehe's discharged due to drinking
in September 1981.
And he initially moves in withhis dad and his stepmom, but
only for a little bit afterwhich he moves to live with his
grandma in this place calledWest Allis, Wisconsin.
(36:37):
And apparently she's the onlyfamily member that JD liked his
grandma.
In 1982, he was working as aphlebotomist, but he was laid
off and then he was unemployedand living with his grandma.
During this time, also in Augustof 1982, he was arrested for
indecent exposure.
There's like a lot of this kindof stuff where he gets arrested
(36:59):
for indecent exposure ormolestation.
But this first time was atWisconsin State Fair and he it
was in front of 25 people and hewas fined$50 for for that.
1985 is when he starts to go togay bars and bath houses and
(37:19):
just places that a lot of thequeer community in Milwaukee is,
you know, spending time at.
So I'm just gonna create alittle more of that context and
environment and step back fromJD for a little bit.
I was really curious as to likethe lgbt history in milwaukee
(37:41):
was and i was surprised to findlike a lot of very rich history
that is part of milwaukee so ifound out about this event which
happened eight years beforestonewall called the black
knight brawl and it happened onaugust 5th 1961 at this bar in
(38:03):
milwaukee called the blackknight which was one of
milwaukee's most popular gaybars it was somewhere that was
known to be super, superinclusive of anyone and
everyone, people that weregenderqueer and also queer in
their sexuality.
And it was very rare to find aspace like this at that point of
time.
So the community was veryprotective of the space and who
(38:26):
they let in to it.
So on August 5th, four20-year-old servicemen checked
out of the tavern and wereforcibly removed.
This woman, Josie Carter, wasthere that night, stated that
they only came in to causetrouble.
They try to fight the bouncerwhen he tried to kick them out.
And so Josie, who is a blacktrans woman, went out with a
(38:51):
beer bottle ready to knock themout.
And she said that this manturned on me.
I thought I can't let him puthis hands on me.
He was big and he kept coming atme.
I thought he would kill me.
In that moment, I could fightoff an army in a bathrobe.
I let him have everything thatwas in that bottle and he went
down.
So she beat him up.
(39:12):
And so they fled the bar, butthey said they were going to
bring their friends and comeback.
So everyone at the bar basicallyjust got ready for this.
They were like, all right, we'reready to fight.
And Josie said, we did not runfrom a fight.
We did not run from nothing.
And Wouldn't you know it, thosebig ass mothers came back and
(39:33):
just tore apart the bar lookingfor little old me and my husband
because their buddy got beat up.
It didn't last very long.
It was an intense fight.
And one of the patrons of thebar had a lot of lacerations
when he was thrown through abroken window and another
experienced a concussion when hewas hit on the head with a bar
(39:55):
stool.
But thankfully, no one died.
And in the end, there was about$2,000 in losses that was
reported by the bar, includingthe bar's entire bottled liquor
inventory, an electric organ, ajukebox, and all of the windows.
The F word was used by theseservicemen to refer to people at
(40:18):
the bar and the cops came andtook them to jail, the four
servicemen.
And even said, the cops said tothem, you have no business
coming down here and harassingthese people.
During this time, there wereliterally laws that were, that
prohibited cross-dressing andhad been in like the books since
(40:41):
like colonial times.
And so the police, wereempowered to apprehend queer
folks and inspect and arrest anyindividual who they thought were
not wearing biologically genderappropriate clothing, which is
wild.
So yeah, this article that Iread, they said, today, we can't
(41:03):
even imagine the bravery andboldness that was required to
live a transgender life inmid-century Milwaukee.
And Josie Carter says, oh, I wasso proud of myself.
But when I went back to the barand grabbed the door handle.
I realized my whole finger waspushed all the way backwards.
I didn't even notice it duringthe fight.
I just kept fighting.
(41:23):
We all did.
So the area that this bar was inwas called the Fruit Loop
because there was a ton of gaybars around there.
But sadly, in 1966, this areawas demolished and a freeway was
built.
The community moved furthersouth and Milwaukee's second
(41:43):
gayborhood was formed at 2nd andPittsburgh.
By the late 1970s, there wereabout a dozen gay and lesbian
bars in this area.
So it a lot.
And I feel like a lot of peoplecame from other places in the
Midwest to Milwaukee because itwas kind of like a haven of that
area of the country.
And a lot of the queer activistsat the time compared Milwaukee
(42:06):
to New York and San Franciscoand were like trying to make it
on the same level as that forqueer folks, which I never knew
that.
Did you know that?
No,
SPEAKER_00 (42:16):
this is new to
SPEAKER_01 (42:17):
me.
Yeah.
Thank you for unearthing this.
I'm sure people who like live inthe Midwest may be No, no more
about this.
But and I'll share another quoteby Josie.
She said, I have never lived infear.
All someone can do is beat meup.
But believe me, if I see themagain anywhere, I will walk up
to them, tap them on theshoulder and say, remember me?
(42:37):
And they'll remember me.
I promise you that.
What's really awesome is in2023, they placed a historic
marker and landmark in Milwaukeethat tells the tale of the Black
Knight uprising.
And at the end of the marker, itsays, Josie's courage was a call
to action.
When the servicemen returnedlater that night, they faced
(43:00):
over 70 customers who heroicallydefended their safe space from
invasion.
In 2021, the Wisconsin LGBTQproject obtained official civic
commemoration to ensure theuprising will never be
forgotten.
This is the first markerhonoring a Black transgender
person in Wisconsin.
(43:21):
Wow.
Badass.
Yeah.
So that's some of the positivehistory.
Now I'm going to get into someof the more depressing shit
because, of course, it's the1970s.
There are was not only like abig LGBTQ community in
Wisconsin, but also the city'sBlack population had increased
(43:43):
during this period of time dueto what's called the Second
Great Migration, which is a lotof Black folks leaving the
South.
And after World War II, Blackfolks from states like
Mississippi and Arkansasmigrated to Milwaukee for better
job opportunities.
And actually, in this timeperiod, the city's Black
population more than doubled,growing from 8,821 in 1940 to
(44:08):
21,000 in 722 in 1950.
The city was very segregated andredlined and black families
lived in the north side in likehouses that were extremely
dilapidated.
And it was known as the innercore, while white residents,
(44:32):
quote unquote, fled to thecity's inner suburbs.
There was a lot of racialexclusionary policies and
redlining and predatory lendingpractices, kind of typical stuff
that kept Black people out ofother neighborhoods.
And of course, the policetargeted the Black community.
They did this by targetinginterracial heterosexual
(44:55):
relationships, which I guesswere illegal at this time,
enforcing curfews and alsoquote-unquote vagrancy laws,
which is likehomelessness-related laws.
And as the Black populationgrew, so did the white cries
that something had to be done toquote-unquote fix the city,
which they now believed was inmoral decay.
(45:15):
Of course, the media was alsopart of this, and they
frequently blamed Blackmigration to Milwaukee as the
reason for increased crime ratein the city.
And the media also helpedcriminalize the city's
residents, sort ofsensationalizing that they were
like living morally offensivelives, quote unquote.
(45:38):
Actually, in the 1940s, theMilwaukee Journal frequently
used phrases such as, quoteunquote, slaves of lust and,
quote, menace of sex perverts ineditorials discussing the
growing LGBTQ and other formsof, quote unquote, deviant
sexuality.
there was also a psych sexualpsychopath law that was
(46:02):
introduced in 1946 that wouldallow anyone who was a quote
overt homosexual to be committedto an institution until they
were cured of their quoteunquote deviancy yikes yikes so
it's like media police and thenlike legal frameworks that are
(46:26):
already marginalizing this LGBTQfolks.
And when you think about blackLGBTQ folks, it's like the
intersection of two already verymarginalized groups.
So the passage of these sexualpsychopath laws were apparently
designed to diffuse the threatof a growing minority presence
(46:48):
in Milwaukee.
UNKNOWN (46:50):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (46:51):
And Wisconsin was
among 12 states that passed such
laws between 1937 and 1950.
So, of course, by the 1960s,there's four and a half times
more police in the Black NorthSide compared to the neighboring
majority white district.
And At this point, there's justbeen years of police violence
(47:12):
against Black residents.
And one such case was in 1958,where a Black man named Daniel
Bell was murdered by a whitepolice officer, Thomas Grady.
He shot him in the back and thenplanted a knife on him.
And after a 20-year cover-up, heconfessed to this in 1979 and
(47:33):
was convicted of recklesshomicide and perjury.
And of course, because of this,there's like A huge fear and
distrust between the Blackcommunity of Milwaukee and the
police, and they often didn'treport crimes committed against
them.
Interestingly, by 1982,Wisconsin became the first state
in the country to pass sexualorientation anti-discrimination
(47:55):
legislation.
And this was because there was ahuge presence of queer activism
in Milwaukee.
And the only reason thathappened was because of the
advocacy towards it.
There was a lot of LGBTQorganizations that were present
at this point.
So I want you all to just sortof like keep this context in
(48:16):
mind as we go into Jeff, JD, andwhat he was up to in the 1980s
in Milwaukee.
I'm also thinking about the AIDScrisis.
Yeah, I was thinking about thattoo.
SPEAKER_00 (48:30):
Yeah, which I have
just a little bit on, not a lot.
So I very briefly kind of lookedover, you know, the AIDS crisis
in Wisconsin in particular, andjust like many other places in
Milwaukee, the racial disparitybetween folks who got treatment
for HIV AIDS, there's an extremegap there.
(48:51):
In 1983, people of coloraccounted for 33% of new HIV
diagnoses, access to sexualhealth services, and that kind
of thing was less available.
Sexual education and thenfollow-up treatment, not to
mention that medical trauma isso intense in communities of
(49:12):
color, especially Blackcommunities here in the United
States, that it makes a lot ofsense that people would not be
accessing their doctors.
SPEAKER_01 (49:20):
And it was quite new
at the time too.
Some people were probably likeunsure about whether it was
serious enough to warrant goingto doctors and things like that.
Yeah.
Lots of misinformation.
This,
SPEAKER_00 (49:35):
this statistic says
that by 2019 that this
percentage rose to 86%.
Wow.
So the disparities in care isstill very present.
actually.
And the people who stillcontinue not to get adequate
care are people of color in apretty intense way.
I
SPEAKER_01 (49:55):
was just going to
say, like, just even going
through this history, I feellike there's echoes of it
happening again now.
It's like this is decades ago,but there's still stuff like
this happening to the same exactcommunities.
Yeah.
And with all of the change thathas happened, there's still so
(50:17):
much violence and disparity.
SPEAKER_00 (50:20):
86% is so
significant and that far
outnumbers the percentage ofpeople of color that actually
are in Milwaukee.
And I don't have the demographicbreakdown.
They use people of color in areally broad way.
So I'm actually not sure whatthey mean by that.
Well, they note that people ofcolor in Milwaukee are also more
likely to have low incomestatus, limited access to
(50:42):
healthcare.
The areas that they're going toschool are not well-funded.
So education is under-resourced.
There's higher percentage ofpeople of color who are homeless
in comparison to the whitepopulation.
And we know that houselessnessin and of itself is a risk for
sexual violence.
(51:02):
I don't think that I worked withso many when I did DV and sexual
violence work, um, I don't thinkI worked with anybody who was
experiencing homelessness whohad not been sexually assaulted
during that time.
You know, we talk about HIV AIDSwithin the context of gay
oppression, queer oppression,which is valid.
(51:22):
And also there's all of theseother factors that people don't
ever really think about, likehow people are assaulted at like
really alarming rates.
Yeah, just like
SPEAKER_01 (51:34):
different people's
identities and their experiences
and what puts them more at risk.
And I mean, when I was doingthis research, also, I like
clocked that it was around thesame times as the HIV AIDS
epidemic.
And I was like, damn, the queercommunity in Milwaukee really be
(51:54):
going through it because notonly is there racism, The AIDS
epidemic.
But then there's also thisfucker.
Yeah,
SPEAKER_00 (52:02):
they had to be
concerned about AIDS, the
police, and Jeffrey.
The media, general society.
But yeah, during this time, thecrisis was initially labeled as
the gay-related immunedeficiency.
Yeah, grid.
Ugh.
There were calls for quarantine.
There was employmentdiscrimination.
(52:22):
People were getting firedbecause they didn't know how it
was transmitted.
And so the homophobia, veryintense.
Yeah.
and the community building,community organizing.
Wisconsin's response wasactually one of the, they were
kind of the earlier respondersto HIV AIDS.
(52:44):
They, the state formed a taskforce in 1983, which was a lot
earlier than a lot of otherplaces and implemented
confidentiality protections forHIV testing.
So they were trying to encouragepeople to get tested without
fear, or at least the people whowere pushing for this part, but
you know, That's incompletebecause they're also saying that
the health care system was notreally responsive to, again,
(53:09):
quote unquote, marginalizedgroups with HIV AIDS, especially
folks who were Black, Latino oropenly gay.
They faced barriers to basicservices.
Yeah, that's that.
Just getting hit from allangles.
Right.
And so, you know, similarly,like people were struggling
(53:30):
anyway.
People who were living in theintersections of race,
sexuality, and poverty were atheightened risk for really dying
just by living during this time.
That was also who Jeffrey reallytargeted.
There has to be like someextreme ties to like his psyche
(53:51):
and how he was like, look at howmuch they don't fucking care.
Right.
Yeah.
That made him feel like he couldreally escalate because he does
escalate in the 80s inparticular.
It feels very congruent withthis same time.
SPEAKER_01 (54:07):
Great segue.
So as I said before, around 1985was when JD started going to gay
bars and gay bathhouses and justsort of like inserting himself
into the LGBT community inMilwaukee.
Yeah.
in the north side, specificallyin a predominantly gay
(54:27):
neighborhood, a predominantlyblack neighborhood.
And what he was doing when hewent to these gay bathhouses was
he was drugging people andsexually assaulting them.
And it happened so many timesthat his membership to the
bathhouse was revoked.
And he said that the reason hedid this was he found it
(54:49):
frustrating that his partnerswould, quote, move It's
SPEAKER_00 (54:55):
honestly terrifying
because I'm like, I've always
kind of thought about roofing assuch a common, I mean, such a
common practice that we're justlike drilled into our heads to
cover our drinks.
And I definitely know multiplepeople who've been roofied and
everybody that I know knowsmultiple people who've been
roofied.
It's such a common practice.
And I always wondered what thetie between that and necrophilia
(55:18):
was, because why are you feelingroofed?
aroused by someone who is unableto respond to you yeah
SPEAKER_01 (55:27):
yeah i was just i
just was reading this book where
there's a significant plot lineof like young boys having a
group chat where they talk aboutessaying girls a lot of whom
through drugging and i'm justlike this makes me so suspicious
of like any man because i'm justlike what kind of group chats
(55:51):
you in that we don't know aboutyou know what kind of
conversations are being had andlike i know there's this what i
haven't watched adolescence yetbut i know that there's like
something called the manosphereon the internet and stuff which
is like where incels getradicalized and It's very scary.
(56:13):
It really scares me, honestly,because I
SPEAKER_00 (56:16):
feel like they're
SPEAKER_01 (56:17):
uplifting each
other's violent tendencies and
we don't know about it becauseit's happening in these private
channels at a much larger degreethan it was before because of
technology.
So it freaks me out.
SPEAKER_00 (56:30):
I always think about
this study, which maybe I've
talked about on here before.
I've definitely shared it withyou before because I think about
it all the time.
I learned about it in undergrad.
It never left my mind.
They did a study with, I think,college-age men.
I don't know what the racialdemographic was, but I would
(56:52):
assume that it was largely whitemen.
But basically what they did wasthey put like an EKG on their
brain, and they were asked tojust look at a series of photos.
And what they found was thatoverwhelmingly the men, when
(57:12):
they looked at a tool or like ahammer or like a couch, like an
object, there's a part of yourbrain that lights up and your
prefrontal cortex is dark,right?
Because you're not trying tofigure out what's going on with
the object.
But they also found that whenthey looked at photos of women,
(57:32):
especially women who weredressed in bikinis and whatnot,
they Their prefrontal cortexgoes dark and the same parts of
their brain that are assessingfor tools and objects is the
same part of the brain that'slit up when they're looking at
women.
And they did not find that to beconsistent when they were
looking at photos of men.
So there is literally abiological wiring that is
(57:54):
happening to people we raise tobe men that literally...
dulls or removes their capacityto see women as human beings.
And I think about it all thetime.
SPEAKER_01 (58:09):
And that is just
frightening.
SPEAKER_00 (58:14):
I think about it all
the time.
There's another study in my headthat I think of when they
surveyed white people withsimilar, except they were
showing them photos and videosof people who were being hurt.
They found that white people,the part of your brain that
lights up when you feel painyourself, It lights up when they
look at other white people whoare being harmed.
(58:35):
But when they showed them videosor photos of people of color
being harmed, the part of theirbrain goes dark.
Wow.
So, you know, combination whiteman.
Yes.
The suspicion is high.
And I just don't know the levelof work that you would have to
(58:55):
do to rewire your brain toreceive people differently.
The work is...
immense like you would have tobe so fucking dedicated all day
every day for most pretty muchall of your life i think which
is why
SPEAKER_01 (59:12):
probably the
quote-unquote best men that you
meet are people that have a lotof sisters or are friends with a
lot of women right because
SPEAKER_00 (59:22):
they see them as
people yeah
SPEAKER_01 (59:24):
yeah Yeah, and they
have probably rewired their
brain through those experiencesthat they've had.
Sad, disappointing.
Very sad,
SPEAKER_00 (59:33):
very scary.
I don't know.
I can never find those studies.
I look for them every so often,but I remember they were seared
in my brain.
SPEAKER_01 (59:44):
Yeah, I mean,
they're very specific, so I'm
sure that they are real andsomewhere.
But wow, thanks for sharingthat.
yeah so he was essaying peoplethat he met in bathhouses and he
had his membership revoked afterhe did this and this is late
(01:00:07):
1985 and shortly after this heactually tried to dig up a body
of an 18 year old corpse andtake it home but then he gave up
on this plan because I think heprobably didn't think it through
and lots of logistics there.
So like Shaina said, behavior isstarting to escalate.
(01:00:30):
September 1986, he is againcharged with disorderly conduct
because he is masturbating infront of two boys.
He told authorities that he wasjust urinating and And he was
sentenced to one year probationand to undergo counseling, but
I'm pretty sure that neverhappened.
(01:00:50):
Again, many instances in whichthings could have happened and
the reason why he was notreported to the police because
he was SAing people is becauseof the horrific context in
which...
Black queer community is livingin Wisconsin with no trust at
(01:01:13):
all for the police.
And I'm sure that they wouldhave done absolutely nothing
about it, even if they had.
So this comes to September 1987,when he murders his second
victim.
His name was Stephen Tuomi, hewas 24 years old, grew up in
Ontonagon in the upper peninsulaof Michigan, and he worked as a
(01:01:37):
short order cook in a Milwaukeerestaurant.
Jeffrey's goal apparently was todrug him and sexually assault
him.
What he says is the next day heawoke to find his dead body
covered in bruises next to himand that he died.
blacked out and has no memory ofthe murder happening.
I really don't know how truethat is.
(01:01:58):
He lies a lot.
He's a manipulative person.
But he ends up transporting thebody to his grandmother's house
and disposes of everything inthe trash except for the head.
I just noticed similarities toGary Ridgway in how he was
(01:02:18):
targeting sex workers because heknew that no one would care or
notice that they were goingmissing and he would be able to
get away with it for much longerin the, in that context and how
JD did the same preying on queercommunities of color and how the
police were very indifferent toviolence that was happening
(01:02:40):
within these communities andvictim blaming as well of like,
if you're gay, you know, youshould expect violence and,
because that's the quote-unquotelifestyle you're signing up for.
It was several years after hemurdered Stephen Hicks that this
second murder happened.
And after that, I think he feltreally confident in himself.
(01:03:02):
And January 1987, JamieDockstader, 14 years old, was
murdered.
March 24th, 1988, RichardGuerrero, 25, was murdered.
And March 25th, 1989, AnthonySears, 26, was murdered.
And these were all people thathe murdered while he was living
(01:03:25):
at his grandma's house.
And I will go a little more intowho these folks were later on.
SPEAKER_00 (01:03:33):
He clearly is
getting more bold and he's
clearly escalating.
And I think for a lot of caseslike this, there's always a
point at which there's anescalation because One, they
feel like they can get away withit.
But then also I think thatthere's like adrenaline chase
that happens where they're like,I want more and I want more and
(01:03:55):
I want more.
Really gruesome and horriblecome 1990.
It was already gruesome andhorrible, but you know.
He's getting experimental now.
He moved into apartment 213 at aplace called the Oxford
Apartments in Milwaukee,Wisconsin.
It's on the north side, whichAkshay mentioned is a racially
(01:04:16):
segregated area, a reallyunder-resourced area,
historically Black neighborhood.
He moved there on purpose.
He moved there on purpose.
Absolutely.
He moved there on purpose.
And I think that he had a fetishfor Black men in particular.
Like that feels really clear.
Later in his interviews, he wastalking about how he only killed
(01:04:36):
the pretty ones.
And he said it with like, Idon't know.
I remember being struck by itbecause he said it with like a
resentment feeling.
Like there was all of thisinternalized anti-Blackness and
internalized homophobia that wasliving inside of him that he
resented himself for beingattracted to Black men.
And I think that we see this alot with violence against
(01:04:57):
transgender women.
I think that a lot of the timespeople who kill them are people
who are attracted to them andthen they are angry.
An extremely violent
SPEAKER_01 (01:05:05):
projection,
basically.
It's like you hate yourself andyou're taking it out on this
person.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (01:05:11):
I'm thinking about
this quote by Alok Menon.
They have this really beautifulway of framing that that kind of
violence is occurring becauseyou hate the beauty and the
softness that you see in me.
Wow.
That you cannot locate withinyourself and that you cannot
love within yourself.
(01:05:33):
And that feels really resonant.
And this feels related.
Anyways, So this place in thenorth side becomes like the
primary sites for where all ofthe murders happen, the ones
that he's most well known for.
And this is also where the siteof that first story we shared at
the beginning or actually sharedat the beginning where he gets
(01:05:55):
caught.
12 of his 17 known targets overthe span of roughly 14 months
happen here.
here.
I'm going to just name who thesepeople are.
Akshi does have more detailsabout who these people were and
their stories that we'll sharelater on in the episode.
But for now, I'm just naming whothey were.
(01:06:16):
So May 1990, Raymond Smith, 32years old.
June 1990, Edward Smith, 27.
September 1990, Ernest Miller,22.
September 24th, 1990, DavidThomas, 23.
February 18th, 1991, CurtisSlaughter, 17 years old.
(01:06:37):
April 7th, 1991, Errol Lindsay,19.
May 24th, 1991, Tony Hughes, 31.
May 27th, 1991, Konarak SintaSomphone, I hope I'm saying that
right, who's 14 years old.
And I'm going to go deeper intohis story in just a moment.
June 30th, 1991, Matt Turner, 20years old.
(01:06:59):
I think this is July 20th.
1991, Jeremiah Weinberger.
July 12th, 1991, Oliver Lacey,24.
And July 19th, 1991, JosephBradahoft, 25 years old.
I wanted to put a spotlight onKonarak's story.
He's a 14-year-old boy.
And I think that this is a storythat we have more details on.
(01:07:22):
And so if you've heard aboutJeffrey, you're likely to have
heard about this particularstory.
Konarak was a Laotian boy.
who he was one of nine children.
And I think his family wasfinancially struggling at the
time.
And so Jeffrey lured him withthe promise of paying him.
(01:07:44):
He
SPEAKER_01 (01:07:44):
did that with a lot
of people.
Yeah,
SPEAKER_00 (01:07:46):
right.
He said, I'm going to take yourphoto.
I'll pay you.
Yeah.
And actually, he didn't knowthat he had done this to
Konorak's older brother yearsprior.
when he was like 12 or somethinglike that, he got away, but he
did, he did take photos of himand he did molest his brother.
(01:08:07):
But in, in the show again, whichI'm not sure if all the details
were aligned perfectly, but inthe show, they show him kind of
talking to his family to saythat he was going to go.
And his brother is like clearlystill traumatized from the whole
thing, but because his brothergot away and, And he did get
(01:08:28):
money, I think.
I think that he thought it wasan opportunity to bring money
back home to his family.
Yeah, I don't think he saw himas a danger in that way.
And it sounded like he waswilling to risk a traumatic
experience to bring money backto his family, which I think
just speaks to how they werestruggling at the time.
(01:08:51):
But he's a child, really.
Yeah, 14.
So, yeah.
JD, you know, has him at hishouse, drugs him.
Essentially, he's like trying tolobotomize him.
And Konarak ends up being ableto run out naked.
And he's bruised, he'sdisoriented, and he's bleeding.
(01:09:13):
So the site was really alarming.
There was nothing about thisthat looked okay.
Yeah, and he's like a child aswell.
He's a child, yeah.
UNKNOWN (01:09:26):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (01:09:27):
So Glenda Cleveland,
who I'll get to, is Jeffrey
Dahmer's neighbor, who I alsosaw in a documentary quoted
saying that he used to offer hersandwiches and she always
thought he was kind of off.
And now she thinks that thesandwiches absolutely had human
meat in them.
So she was like suspicious theentire time.
(01:09:49):
And she had made many complaintsto the police about him.
which they never ever respondedto.
Nick Cleveland's daughter,Sandra Smith, and niece, Nicole
Childress, ran into Konarak inthis state outside of JD's
apartment.
And so after they told Glenda,they called the police to
(01:10:14):
respond to the situation.
The police that showed up on thescene, their names are John
Balserzak and Joseph Gabrysch.
They assume that this was JD'slover.
He goes, oh, he's just a littledrunk.
He doesn't really speak English.
He acts like this.
He's fine.
I just want to take him back tomy house.
(01:10:36):
And the two young women who arelike, clearly like, do you see
this?
He's like, can barely walk.
He's bleeding.
He's a child are completelyignored.
And they're not only ignored,the
SPEAKER_01 (01:10:49):
police- This is so
rage-inducing.
The
SPEAKER_00 (01:10:52):
police not only
dismiss the situation, they walk
him and Konarak back to hishouse.
They said it was a lover'squarrel,
SPEAKER_01 (01:11:05):
which- Which I'm
guessing he has incriminating
shit in his apartment.
100%.
SPEAKER_00 (01:11:13):
100%.
So I think they were dismissingit as domestic violence.
Which, you know, the failure torespond to domestic violence is
high as well.
SPEAKER_02 (01:11:25):
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (01:11:27):
They never checked
his ID.
They never ran his record, whichthey would have seen that he at
least had other run-ins thatwere really...
I
SPEAKER_01 (01:11:34):
actually read that
he was...
convicted for molesting hisbrother and so they would have
realized that if they ran hisname
SPEAKER_00 (01:11:45):
right
SPEAKER_01 (01:11:46):
and i'm also just
thinking about how i just said
that this neighborhood has fourand a half times the number of
cops as any other neighborhoodin Milwaukee.
SPEAKER_00 (01:11:56):
Yeah, the
juxtaposition between this and
the over-policing and extremebrutality is really stark.
Yeah.
Yeah, and the way that I'm surethat they were probably
criminalizing queer folks aswell.
Yeah, they took him back to theapartment.
They ignored the very clearevidence that this boy was
bleeding and there was a foulsmell a foul smell that the
(01:12:21):
neighbor had repeatedly.
It's just
SPEAKER_02 (01:12:23):
so many red flags.
SPEAKER_00 (01:12:24):
I know.
So many red flags.
The neighbor, Glenda wouldliterally call and say, they're
screaming.
There's a horrible smell that Icannot describe coming through
the vents and coming outside ofthe door.
And they never responded.
And so when they brought him andthis boy back, they had to have
been able to smell that, thedecomposing bodies.
(01:12:45):
I
SPEAKER_01 (01:12:46):
bet they didn't
like, make reports that she had
stated this probably not eitheryeah because then if they had
those they would be like yeah weshould maybe not leave this
child here oh my god just
SPEAKER_00 (01:13:04):
it's not even like
incompetence it's like yeah
blatant disregard for for lifeyeah
SPEAKER_01 (01:13:10):
and
SPEAKER_00 (01:13:12):
I would go out on a
limb and say that police know
what decomposing bodies.
Of course they do.
Yeah.
More than the average person.
After they do that, theyapparently joked about it on the
police radio, a lover's quarrel,made some homophobic jokes.
And he, it said that he murderedConor Rock within the next hour.
(01:13:35):
Yeah.
The officers
SPEAKER_01 (01:13:37):
giving him also
like, more sort of like oh it's
so easy for me to get away withthis
SPEAKER_00 (01:13:44):
you know right the
evidence is there and still
nothing yeah yeah the officerswere suspended but then they
were later reinstated with backpay I have a little bit about
them because I was like what thefuck yeah there's all of these
police to respond to like themoral depravity of the city and
like sexual deviancy uh-huh Andthis is the response.
(01:14:10):
This doesn't count as sexualdeviancy, though.
I guess not.
Or it's not their problem orbusiness or I'm not really sure.
Yeah.
I
SPEAKER_01 (01:14:19):
mean, he's a white
man that's like charming and
manipulative.
And they're like, yeah, you'refine.
You're safe.
SPEAKER_00 (01:14:27):
I don't even think
he's charming.
Everybody knows he's weird.
SPEAKER_01 (01:14:30):
That's fair.
SPEAKER_00 (01:14:30):
They just don't find
him threatening.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, you already spoke aboutlike the context of the police
force at the time in the 1980s,early 1990s.
There's like a tough on crime.
Like there's a new set of toughon crime policies that were
(01:14:51):
ushered in to, you know,respond, which of course, like,
you know, the racializedprofiling, no officer
accountability.
Yeah.
and outright negligence to thethings that actually mattered.
Broader context during this timeis, you know, organizers and
activists, they were pushing toadvocate against the increased
(01:15:13):
aggressive tactics, theunderreporting of officer
wrongdoing, and the completelack of transparency in the way
that they were operating anddoing their investigations.
They were failing to takecomplaints seriously, especially
from the Black community inMilwaukee.
And Very clearly that ties tothe way that they dismissed and
(01:15:34):
dismissed and dismissed all ofthe red flags that were
happening.
There's no real way to know therates because there was no real
documentation.
They didn't.
They just didn't.
A little bit about JohnBalzerak.
He was reinstated in 1994.
In 2005, he was electedpresident of the Milwaukee
Police Association, the policeunion representing Milwaukee
(01:15:56):
officers.
He served in that role until2009, and then he was in the
Milwaukee Police Departmentuntil he retired in 2017.
Chilling.
Joseph, the other officer...
Left the Milwaukee PoliceDepartment.
He joined the Grafton PoliceDepartment in 93.
He was promoted to captain.
(01:16:17):
In 2019, he was named interimpolice chief after the last
chief retired.
And he was on the force untilOctober 10th, 2019, which is 26
years of service.
I am
SPEAKER_01 (01:16:31):
flabbergasted.
SPEAKER_00 (01:16:33):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (01:16:34):
zero consequences
zero rewards rewards yeah yeah
SPEAKER_00 (01:16:40):
uh-huh so that's
that
SPEAKER_01 (01:16:43):
speechless and
flabbergasted yeah
SPEAKER_00 (01:16:46):
yeah it's all very
enraging it's all very enraging
and it says a lot about likewe're like oh my gosh violence
and we're just living inviolence all the time
SPEAKER_02 (01:16:55):
right
SPEAKER_00 (01:16:57):
having a lot of
cherry picking about what
violence we feel is permissibleor normal.
There's this quote from GlendaCleveland.
She said, we knew something waswrong.
The smell, the screams, wecalled the cops.
They did nothing.
I'm going to give a littleoverview of the kinds of things
he did to people, not to begratuitous, but because I have
(01:17:21):
some connections to make aboutOh my gosh.
European colonists have done forover a century to non-white
(01:17:45):
bodies.
For all of his victims, a lot ofthem, he said that he wanted to
create them into zombies, quoteunquote, through acid
injections.
He kept the remains as trophies.
He typically lured victims withpromises of money or
companionship, like we said, andthen he would drug them.
He would lock them in the house.
(01:18:06):
He would kill them and he woulddismember them in the apartment.
He preserved and kept their bodyparts in this freezer, including
skulls and skin and organs.
He also cannibalized some of thebodies and then he also painted
some of their heads and put themon display in his apartment as
decoration.
He repeatedly stated that hisdesire was to keep them close
(01:18:26):
forever.
by consuming them and trying topreserve their parts.
So the way that he's sexualizingdeath and control, I think, is
very much a byproduct of oldercolonial violence.
I want to reiterate thatthroughout this period, he went
unnoticed.
Nearly all of his victims wereworking class men and boys of
(01:18:49):
color.
Not unnoticed, his neighbornoticed.
Right.
Unnoticed by people who had thepower.
Yes.
To intervene.
Yeah,
SPEAKER_01 (01:18:59):
exactly.
SPEAKER_00 (01:19:00):
But you're right.
He did not go unnoticed.
I'm sure plenty of people-Unnoticed or
SPEAKER_01 (01:19:04):
indifferent by the
people in power, we don't know.
But seems like the second one tome.
Maybe both.
SPEAKER_00 (01:19:10):
Yeah.
Because I could see people inhis community being like,
couldn't possibly, couldn'tfathom someone who was chill
with me and is like this goofyguy.
I perceive him to be sounthreatening that it threatens
my own self-concept and sense ofreality to consider that.
UNKNOWN (01:19:27):
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (01:19:27):
Right.
Yeah.
Like his high school friend whowas like, he would have never
killed
SPEAKER_00 (01:19:32):
me.
Right.
Yeah.
Like, I don't think that's thepoint, but glad you feel safe.
Yes.
And, you know, like most of themwere queer people.
Some were houseless, some wereinvolved in survival sex work,
main targets in the end beingpredominantly gay Black men.
And he gets to sustain thisbenign vibe.
(01:19:56):
They called him well-mannered,they called him soft-spoken,
they called him pleasant.
So I'm going to go on a tangentnow about cannibalism because I
think this kind of blend offetishization and brutality, all
of which is based in extremedehumanization and
objectification of non-whitebodies, is actually just really
(01:20:16):
basic colonial history.
So we're going to bring it tothe top, actually.
I first looked at the internetto be like, okay, what are
examples of cannibalism?
in European history.
And there's actually quite alot.
The first thing that came up wason the practice of medical
(01:20:37):
cannibalism.
And I found all of thisinformation about how from the
Middle Ages to through theRenaissance and maybe a little
beyond that, Europeans widelypracticed cannibalizing mummies.
Egyptian mummies were veryprized, it said.
Thousands were ground up andsold in apothecaries.
(01:21:02):
They called it mamia.
They thought it had healingproperties.
It feels like it shouldn't bereal, but all of this feels like
it shouldn't be real.
So there was a misunderstandingof Arabic medical texts, they
said, which described the use ofbitumen, which is like they say
it's a resinous substance.
(01:21:23):
So I wonder if the resin that'sused in mummification practices,
that was the thing that theysaid had healing properties, but
they're not translatingcorrectly, you know, because...
SPEAKER_02 (01:21:38):
Oh,
SPEAKER_00 (01:21:38):
God.
Yeah.
Yeah, they confuse this with theactual mummy themselves, right?
SPEAKER_01 (01:21:48):
It's kind of funny
in a dark way.
It just seems so absurd thatthey were even trying to look to
do something like this in thefirst place.
And they were like, you knowwhat this probably says is that
we should consume the mummy.
It's like, that's...
SPEAKER_00 (01:22:08):
You know, they were
living rough out there in Europe
for some time.
They were probably looking roughand smelling rough and all of
these things.
And, you know, like thepractices were just horrific.
I was reading that in theVictorian era, rat's nest comes
from literally like ladieswanted their giant hair and they
(01:22:30):
put fucking lard in it so thatit would stay up.
And, you know, you weren'tbathing regularly or washing
your hair regularly and ratswould literally make make a home
out of.
Yeah.
Oh my God.
People want to smell so bad.
It must be fucking stinky.
And everything, every, every bitof history over and over shows
that like they show up andthey're just like, they're
(01:22:52):
stinky.
They come with disease and theydo it to like communities who
have regular bathing practices.
And you know what I mean?
And so my water to clean theirbooties.
Right.
So I, I'm just like, Part of mealways feels like the act of
racism is actually just an actof envy, feeling like and seeing
(01:23:14):
that people are living better,that they're actually looking
beautiful because they're takingcare of themselves, that maybe
they're looking younger or maybethat they're living longer, you
know, because they havedifferent infrastructures.
And instead of it being that,oh, maybe they have different
practices than my people do andI could learn from that.
it becomes, oh, they have thesethings.
(01:23:37):
It must be magical.
It must be something inherentover there.
And I'm going to consume it.
It's mine.
Yeah.
You know, that feels consistent.
So yeah, they started fucking,apothecaries sold powdered mummy
as medicine.
They said it treated everything.
They said headaches, the plague,a cure.
(01:23:58):
And it was a practice for peoplefrom All social stratas, wealthy
people, poor people, they wereall looking for mummy powder
because they thought it wasgoing to fucking cure them.
This is wild.
They said internal bleedinghealed.
Internal bleeding healed.
(01:24:19):
Oh my gosh.
Absurd.
It's just like a mass delusion.
It is mass delusion.
What if whiteness is just foliade but like forever?
Forever.
SPEAKER_01 (01:24:31):
on a massive scale
yeah
SPEAKER_00 (01:24:37):
because this is so
wild it really connects to i'm
thinking about the asylumwhatever and you look at the
list and you're just likepolitical excitement menstrual
derangement this is so wild badwhiskey like yes girl what are
you talking about you know
SPEAKER_01 (01:24:54):
so It makes me think
that they're like tripping or
like high off of something.
They're fucking confused andviolent.
Yes.
SPEAKER_00 (01:25:05):
For a long time.
SPEAKER_01 (01:25:07):
Yes.
For a very, very long time.
SPEAKER_00 (01:25:09):
But, you know, we
talked about the mid...
Yeah.
In the Lizzie one, the Elizabethone, we talked about, you know,
the Middle Ages.
So gnarly.
They didn't bond with theirkids.
They're being incestuous.
Yeah.
We learned that blue eyes isactually a byproduct of incest.
They love these
SPEAKER_01 (01:25:29):
like torture
practices.
SPEAKER_00 (01:25:31):
What's with the
torture, man?
Yeah.
I went to a torture museum.
Don't ask me why I did that.
I was in Chicago.
I was by myself.
It kept popping up on my phone.
I said, you know what?
What the fuck else am I doing?
I've never gone to one of these.
It was horrifying.
Wouldn't do it again.
The vibes were very bad, butall, you know, 80, 90% of all of
(01:25:56):
the featured items andmechanisms and practices, they
were all from Europe.
And the ones it's interestingbecause the most popular torture
practices are a lot of them wereactually stolen ideas from
(01:26:17):
folklore they learned about inother countries.
So what they just go to othercountries and take the most
brutal.
Yeah.
Uh-huh.
And then they make it, they saidit's mine now.
Cultural appropriation of
SPEAKER_01 (01:26:34):
torture.
Not
SPEAKER_00 (01:26:35):
cultural
appropriation of torture.
This is just so wild.
I was like, I need to get out ofhere.
And this is so wild, but also alot of it looked like BDSM.
And I was like,
SPEAKER_01 (01:26:44):
Yes, that makes
sense.
SPEAKER_00 (01:26:46):
Like, whoa, what is
the inheritance that is BDSM and
how does it connect?
Because it would make a lot ofsense that you would have to
trick your body into receivingpleasure from pain if pain was
something that was inevitableand happening to you at really
(01:27:07):
intense levels.
Yeah.
But that's neither here northere.
If someone has some analysisaround that, would love to hear.
Okay.
Mummified remains were also usedin art.
Mummy Brown, a pigment made fromground mummies, was popular
among some European artists.
Yeah.
(01:27:27):
The artifacts, they becameprized collectibles for personal
cabinets of curiosity, and theyput them in museum displays.
This...
mummy obsession increased afterNapoleon's 1798 Egyptian
campaign, which apparentlysparked what they call
Egyptomania, a widespreadobsession with all things
(01:27:48):
Egyptian.
I
SPEAKER_01 (01:27:49):
have heard of this
before.
I recorded the first episode ofmy tarot podcast and I was going
into the history of tarot and itwas around the same time that
Egyptomania was happening andthey were like, connecting the
two of like the cards might'vecome from Egypt because it was
(01:28:10):
around the same time that peoplein Europe were flipping out
about Egypt.
That would track.
SPEAKER_00 (01:28:16):
Yeah.
Travelers, collectors, theybrought mummies back to Europe.
They're fucking grave robbing,bro.
That's such cursed behavior.
That's like cursed forgenerations
SPEAKER_01 (01:28:27):
on boats and stuff.
Like that's what, how they'rebringing it back.
Right.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (01:28:33):
Yeah.
bought them from local marketsor straight up just like robbed
graves.
SPEAKER_01 (01:28:38):
Yeah.
I just don't understand how youcan think that that's like not
going to bring such bad energy.
And that's also like just sucha, such a disrespectful thing to
do.
Like, But it kind of connectsback to if you view certain
humans as an object, then you'renot seeing them with the same
respect.
SPEAKER_00 (01:28:58):
Yeah.
So the normalization of thispractice actually expanded to
this idea of medicalcannibalism.
They were down to eat anybody.
They often sourced from thequote-unquote most vulnerable,
people who were poor, people whowere executed for crime.
(01:29:20):
enslaved people and people whowere otherwise deemed unworthy
or other in society.
They talked about how thispractice reinforced and
reflected the social hierarchiesestablished by pre-European
colonialism and slavery.
During the subjugation ofIreland, also, colonizers
(01:29:41):
exhumed Irish skulls to groundinto powder.
for sale across Europe.
And I tried to find informationabout how this was practiced
during slavery, which isreflected in their other stuff
too, like they would collecthair clippings from lynchings.
I mean, George Washington, histeeth are not wood.
(01:30:02):
His teeth are the teeth ofenslaved people.
SPEAKER_01 (01:30:06):
Oh my
SPEAKER_00 (01:30:06):
gosh.
They make dentures out of theirteeth.
And so cannibal adjacent thingshappening all the time, those
things are well documented.
And so I'm just like, you know,Jeffrey is in good company
because this is so consistent.
I have some gross stuff aboutkeeping bodies as trophies that
I could not stop thinking aboutwhen I was reading about the
things that he did to people.
(01:30:28):
Colonial forces in Africa andelsewhere frequently beheaded
local chiefs.
They frequently beheadedresistance leaders and warriors.
They would collect their skullsas trophies, and they would
bring them back to Europe assymbols of victory and conquest.
(01:30:49):
And sometimes those skulls wouldthen be displayed in museums or
kept in private collections.
Wow.
Parallels are striking.
They're striking, no?
I was like, ugh.
This is just ancestral.
He's getting in touch with hisancestors, you know.
They keep talking about likebody parts as ornamental
(01:31:09):
objects.
They also practice scalpingindigenous people, which is, you
know, interesting because Ithink that there is the lore
that white people like to putout is that indigenous people
were scalping each other andscalping them.
But actually the practice ofscalping was happening online.
by the colonizers.
It's always a projection,always.
(01:31:32):
It's always.
They institutionalized thepractice of scalping indigenous
people, British and Spanishcolonizers would.
They kept them as trophies andproof of their military
superiority, or they would bringthem back to claim rewards for
bounty.
Massachusetts issued a lot ofscalp bounties in the 18th
(01:31:54):
century.
and practiced this continuouslythrough the conquest of
California.
California actually is a site ofone of the most devastating
indigenous genocides in thecountry.
I don't feel like people talkabout it that way because
California is held up as thisliberal place.
The erasure is really intense.
(01:32:16):
And not to mention like missionsand all that, like there's so
much going on in California.
They also had human zoos inearly 19th and early 20th
centuries.
Europeans and Americansdisplayed colonized people in
human zoos.
Millions attended these,millions.
And so, you know, I'm thinkingabout like, there's the people
(01:32:38):
who do the egregious violenceand then there are millions of
people who have the appetite forit.
And I feel like that's alsoreally mirrored in the public
spectacle people have createdaround JD and his violence, or
they call them his crimes, butnot like the way that he took
(01:32:59):
human life and desecrated theirbodies and stole people of their
loved ones.
You know what I mean?
Like they're like his crimes.
There's that.
And then there's also trophyhunting and colonial game.
So beyond, you know, beyondhumans, colonizers, they also
engage trophy hunting of animalsas a symbol that they had
(01:33:23):
conquered lands and people.
Like they would bring, you know,taxidermy always rub me the
wrong fuck away.
I don't like it.
It feels disrespectful.
Oh, I hate it.
And they, yeah, they would dothis as a way to show that they
like conquered a place.
And they often, you know,displayed these in museums as
well and collecting and theywould collect like heirlooms and
(01:33:46):
whatever.
They would collect everything.
And so including people'sbodies, but also like the bodies
of animals that they exoticquote unquote animals that they
have killed that may have beensacred objects.
to the people, especially.
Yeah, it seemed like some sickjoy that they were getting.
And so I also was making theconnection to the McDonald triad
(01:34:06):
and mutilation of animals andcurious about if that's actually
rooted specifically in thesebehaviors.
Right.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
So I found a couple articles.
One is from...
a book called ConfrontingColonial Objects, Histories,
(01:34:28):
Legacies, and Access to Culture.
This article was written byKarsten Stahn.
It's called Collecting Humanity,Commodification, Trophy Hunting,
Biocolonialism.
And it starts with a story.
And this is very disturbing, butit feels relevant sometimes to
not shirk details because Ithink that there is a tendency
(01:34:48):
to minimize or choose todisappear the...
Just like depravity of colonialviolence and people are not
recognizing that this issomething that echoes through
this day.
And that actually, I don't knowthat there's a level of
reparations that is possible forthe harm that has happened.
(01:35:10):
And even, you know, even themost basic reparations, there's
always pushback.
UNKNOWN (01:35:16):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (01:35:16):
And so the story
that they open with is a chest
of Herero skulls was recentlysent by troops from German
Southwest Africa to thePathological Institute in
Berlin, where they will besubjected to scientific
measurements.
The skulls from which Hererowomen have removed the flesh
with the aid of glass shards tomake them suitable for shipment
(01:35:39):
come from Hereros who have beenhanged or who have fallen.
This Cruel and Distancedescription of the collection of
human remains by Germans inSouthwest Africa forms part of
the memoirs of an officer of theGerman Protective Force called
the Schutztrupp, published in1907.
It's connected to a popularimage, namely a colonial
(01:36:01):
postcard, which shows officersfrom the notorious Swakomund
camp loading the Herero skullsdesignated for German museums
and universities.
They say that the sober tone ofthe text and triumphant image
depicting skulls piled up likebrick stones illustrate the
dehumanization of human remainsand colonial violence and the
(01:36:21):
degrading methods of collectionand preservation creating an
entire industry of trade of bodyparts.
SPEAKER_01 (01:36:29):
Oh my
SPEAKER_00 (01:36:29):
gosh.
The mix of colonial ideology andracial science.
See, science.
They keep calling it science.
Medical cannibalism, racialscience.
It's not.
It's just depraved science.
Yeah.
At the peak of the colonialperiod prompted not only a stark
increase in the removal ofcultural objects, but also a new
era in collection of humanremains.
(01:36:52):
Thousands of remains, inparticular from allegedly
quote-unquote extinct orquote-unquote primitive
populations, were collected incolonies and transferred to
scientific, anthropological, ormilitary museums and
laboratories.
Human skulls turned into thequote-unquote holy grail of 19th
(01:37:12):
century race theory.
Human remains constitutedbiocapital.
sought by public institutions,private collectors, and colonial
administrations in order toremap the human space.
The study of crania, facialangles, or jaws served to
investigate human differencesthrough biological criteria.
This study And they put it inquotes also, colonial
(01:37:33):
corporality was driven by globalnetworks involving physicians,
curators, traders, profiteers,colonial officials, military
doctors, or missionaries inmuseums.
It was supported by colonialexpansion, Darwinist theories,
desires for anthropologicalobjectification, strife for
national prestige, or foreducational purposes.
(01:37:55):
It provided an additionalincentive for trophy taking and
collection of human remains fromburial sites, battlefields,
prisons, or internment camps.
Remains were commissioned,exchanged, traded as objects
between institutions andindividuals.
And this person names this asthe most violent emblem of
colonial conquest.
(01:38:16):
Later in the article, they talkabout how many indigenous
culture and indigenous cultureshuman remains are sacred.
And treated as people ratherthan objects, even after their
passing, connecting past andpresent.
And collectors treated remainsobviously as objects.
Indigenous populations regardedas research material for
(01:38:39):
anthropological classificationor show objects.
Many remains were collectedwithout consent in violation of
local laws, customs, and beliefsystems.
Of course.
Yeah.
They also note that thecollection of human remains
started long before the peak ofcolonial expansion.
That trophy taking has been aninherent part of warfare.
(01:38:59):
And then also, as we notedearlier with the mummies, that
was before these examples.
Bones and body parts werecollected under the umbrella of
science to explain differencesbetween nations or to classify
human races by anatomicaldifference.
That's where the practice ofphrenology comes from.
SPEAKER_02 (01:39:20):
In
SPEAKER_00 (01:39:21):
particular,
non-European human skulls became
fetish objects.
Military physicians, explorers,missionaries, anthropologists
were mandated to obtain skulls.
They were collected in militaryoperations, detention camps,
hospitals, or again, taken fromburial sites.
They also noted these practiceswere in contrast to standard
(01:39:44):
quote-unquote civilized behaviorand military codes of honor,
like these are Things that theywould simultaneously say is like
actually like not a part of thecode of honor.
And yet they had like a quotafor it still.
Yeah.
Right.
They were like morally banned,but then also practiced all the
(01:40:04):
time, you know, warfare,sometimes in alleged response to
mutilations of bodies or headhunting by quote unquote
non-civilized enemies.
So they used, they said, this iswhere I think all of the rumors
come from is that they werelike, oh no, they did it first.
No, they were cannibals.
No, they were scalping.
No, they were beheading ourpeople.
(01:40:25):
Yeah.
And I just don't think thatthat's, yeah, I don't think
that's consistent.
Right.
Said they continued by sayingtrophy hunting or mutilation
were both a cause andconsequence of colonial
conflict.
They're striking parallelsbetween colonial context.
Examples may be found underBritish, Belgian, French,
Portuguese, and German colonialrule.
(01:40:46):
silenced element of Britishcolonial practice with such
practices.
When those practices becamepublic, they were often
condemned by home audiences.
However, they formed a part ofthe rationalization of colonial
violence.
People were enraged to hear thatmaybe other communities were
doing this to their people whenactually the story was the
(01:41:07):
opposite.
And then they used that as a wayto mobilize and get a lot of
support from people back home tocontinue colonial conquest as if
people deserved Likemanufacturer consent.
Exactly.
And then they talk again abouthow they were used to crush
resistance efforts orinsurgencies in Asia and Africa.
(01:41:27):
For example, during the uprisingin 1857 in India, British
commanders condemned rebelleaders to death by cannonade.
The force of explosion mutilatedbodies and made it impossible to
perform funeral rites in theHindu or Muslim traditions.
Sometimes the skulls werepreserved.
So that feels really intentionaltoo.
I'm thinking a lot aboutPalestine and the intentional
(01:41:49):
use of bombing.
Not only are they decimatingentire lines of families, but
they're Mm-hmm.
(01:42:14):
Yeah.
After the Battle of Magdala inNorthern Ethiopia, 1868, British
troops cut hair from a corpse ofthe Emperor Tuodros II as a
trophy.
And then it later became part ofthe National Army Museum in
London.
The stories go on and on and on.
One more thing on this note thatI wanted to highlight, another
(01:42:36):
article that I found is thatwe're talking about this from a
military context, which isstructural, which is like a
tribute to governments andinstitutions.
But what's missing in that isthat militaries are made up of
individual people who go home totheir families.
(01:42:57):
And so I found another articlecalled colonialism in the decor.
We can't keep sweeping the pastunder the leopard skin rug by
Elliot Ross.
And I Elliot says around 25,000colonial officials returned to
Britain during the mid-20thcentury alone as formal colonial
rule came to an end.
(01:43:17):
Many others who had lived andworked in British colonies
outside of any government rolecame back too.
They brought all kinds of stuffwith them.
Historians Chris Jeppesen andSarah Longair discovered an
assortment of wood carvings,paintings, drums, other musical
instruments, furniture, a set ofarrows used as a hat rack.
In one home, a wash basin hadbeen kept intact.
(01:43:38):
Some items were proudlydisplayed.
Others have been stored awayfrom view in attics and
cupboards.
There were lion and leopardskins, many ivory ornaments, and
elephant feet used as wastepaper bins.
Just casual in these people'shouses.
There was a machete shattered bya bullet taken from the body of
a slain Land and Freedom Armyfighter in Kenya.
(01:44:01):
They were called Mau Mau.
In the 1950s, some intervieweesdevoted Africa rooms in their
homes or other ways ofconsciously using museum
curation and display, such aslabeling and glass cabinets.
So this is just the beginning ofthis article.
And I'm thinking a lot aboutcultural appropriation.
I don't think that when we talkabout cultural appropriation,
(01:44:22):
people are often thinking aboutthis violent underbelly.
as a part of it.
I think it offers a differentway for metabolizing the impact
of cultural appropriation whenwe see that actually it has
roots here.
So the article continues andthen talks about how Jeppesen
and Longhair interviewed morethan 30 elderly former colonial
(01:44:46):
officials in their homes acrossthe UK and found that the world
of their youth, oftenmemorialized through domestic
ornaments and furniture, wasfrequently fondly remembered as
a time and place of family andfriendship, of personal ambition
and adventure, of love, of hope,pleasure, desire, and loss.
Gosh.
(01:45:06):
They said that they also spokewith several elderly people now
living in England who had spentearly years in colonized
countries in Africa and broughtsouvenirs home.
These conversations offered away of understanding how the
colonial period is perceived indomestic settings.
German historian BrittaSchilling defines public memory
as being primed throughinteractions in the public
(01:45:27):
space, media and institutions,whereas private memory is
usually transmitted orally andoften within families.
It forms a unique archive ofstories and anecdotes.
on one hand, but also materialrelics on the other.
Cherished notions of whiteEuropean innocence and
benevolence are sustainedthrough a focus of simple
curiosity.
They then say, Oh, God.
(01:46:12):
Yeah, Klaus van Weisman told mehow his relative crossed the
Congo Basin on behalf of LeopoldII riding a tamed ox, writes
Schilling.
Hermann von Weisman, whoeventually became governor of
German East Africa, nowTanzania.
However, may he also beremembered for his
self-proclaimed acts of violenceagainst natives.
(01:46:33):
But that part, you know.
people are not really holding onto.
Other examples include Ewald andNikolaus von Puttkamer showed
shilling the researcher.
Vast Mansion, their relative,Jesko von Puttkamer had put in
the middle of a jungle duringhis reign as governor of
Cameroon.
The German government recalledhim in 1907, accusing him of
(01:46:57):
excessive spending and severityto natives during a period of
heightened indigenous resistanceto colonial rule.
But his like, you know,grandchild or whatever has this
affectionate moment where he'ssharing this photo photograph of
look at this beautiful mansionand they're all of them are like
my you know my my whimsicallittle uncle
SPEAKER_01 (01:47:19):
quirky
SPEAKER_00 (01:47:20):
grandpa guy you know
he may have cannibalized some
people but you know it was aphase
SPEAKER_01 (01:47:28):
oh my gosh
SPEAKER_00 (01:47:30):
you know we all have
that phase in college Is the
vibe.
Yeah, it is.
SPEAKER_02 (01:47:38):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (01:47:39):
They also talk about
how Germany is not alone in
fixating on colonial leaders'eccentricities and hobbies at
the expense of more troublingpolitical histories.
They talked about WinstonChurchill's home, which is now a
museum.
And the writer says there was nomention that Churchill lived
(01:48:02):
Churchill's role in causing theBengal famine of 1943.
The death toll is approximately3 million.
Visitors instead are encouragedto detail Churchill's great
fondness for butterflies.
SPEAKER_01 (01:48:15):
Feels like the
kawaiification of Japan.
100% of it.
SPEAKER_00 (01:48:23):
The kawaiification
of Japan.
Yeah, that's true.
They're like so cute, butalso...
Not too long ago.
Yeah.
Conversations.
SPEAKER_01 (01:48:33):
So cute.
Don't remember all the otherstuff.
Recasting itself through thekawaii culture to evade
historical accountability.
SPEAKER_00 (01:48:41):
You know, a lot of
accountability needs to be had.
Yeah, troubles.
Troubles in Japan.
But yeah, it's very romanticizedover there.
SPEAKER_02 (01:48:48):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (01:48:49):
The writer then
talks about how you can trace a
thread from these personalmemories to the public framing
of colonists as just wide-eyedadventurers who just happen to
possess enormous political powerover non-European people.
Cherished notions of whiteEuropeans' innocence and
benevolence are sustainedthrough a focus on simple
curiosity.
Even the most basic historicalfacts manage to slip through the
(01:49:10):
cracks in colonial families andthe nations to which they
belong.
It's the way that A man's skullcan be taken and displayed in a
museum or used to hold novels inplace on a shelf.
So a lot of parallels.
I felt very validated
SPEAKER_01 (01:49:25):
with these findings.
Yeah, a lot that you went downthis rabbit hole because it's
very insightful and telling.
SPEAKER_00 (01:49:32):
I have one more
thing.
Sorry, I'm talking a lot.
That's okay.
But this time I askedChachiBT...
Because I was having theseconnections in my head.
I said, make an argument abouthow Jeffrey Dahmer is just...
How his cannibalism and hisbehaviors are a byproduct of the
(01:49:55):
violence.
Okay, let's hear it.
And I tried to ask aboutepigenetics and stuff.
Everybody taught...
Any type of historical trauma...
And the conversation aroundepigenetics is always about the
people who have beentraumatized, who people have
colonized.
Never through the lens of whatdo you inherit when you have
legacies of conquest?
(01:50:17):
People are not researching.
Well, they're starting toresearch that, but, you know,
sparse.
But they did present these otherconcepts that feel good enough.
But I can't take credit forfinding these.
I mean...
These ideas in my brain, theconnections made chat GPT.
So, you know, I suppose theytalked about two things.
(01:50:39):
They talked about repetitioncompulsion, which is a
psychodynamic theory, right?
The drive to repeat a traumaover and over, especially if
we're they're unresolved.
Chatupiti took a metaphoricalapproach.
They said, if Dahmer's ancestorslived by consuming the lives of
other people through slavery,conquest, rape, and
dispossession, then hiscannibalism could be a grotesque
(01:50:59):
re-ritualization of those acts,metaphorically.
Yeah.
But I think also literally.
And literally, yeah.
And then...
And then Chachibiti says hedidn't need to be taught
colonialism.
It lives in his cells, hisdreams, his compulsions.
The lineage of European conquestbecomes a kind of haunted
genetic architecture, one thatreenacts itself not through
(01:51:20):
speeches, but through flesh.
And I was like, Chachibiti cannever just answer a question
straight.
No, no, no, no.
But also, I was like, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (01:51:28):
Has to be poetic.
SPEAKER_00 (01:51:31):
Well, it has
information about me.
So I think that it tries to talkto me like I want to talk to.
SPEAKER_02 (01:51:36):
Yeah,
SPEAKER_00 (01:51:37):
I do think that it
lives in his body, his dreams,
his compulsions, you know,haunted genetic architecture.
Yeah, yeah.
So they also talk about thecolonial unconscious, which
refers to like a deep seatedinternal memory of
Intergenerational trauma,collective memory, combo,
(01:51:57):
colonial unconscious.
It's this thing that we share,this unspoken legacy of
colonialism that persists in allof our psyches.
throughout society.
The legacies include patterns ofdomination, violence,
dehumanization, racialhierarchy, traumas that are not
only historical, but alsopsychological and cultural,
(01:52:18):
shaping behaviors and socialstructures across generations.
And so the connection that wasbeing made here is the idea that
people who are socialized andshaped by colonial histories may
unconsciously repeat patterns ofviolence or dehumanization
inherited from their colonialpast and could be seen as a form
(01:52:43):
of repetition compulsion oninterpersonal and collective
levels.
For descendants of colonizers,the repetition compulsion may
manifest as the reenactment ofRight.
Totally.
Yeah.
(01:53:20):
that people literally cannot andwill not believe certain things
happened and that their familymembers were a part of it.
SPEAKER_02 (01:53:27):
And
SPEAKER_00 (01:53:28):
yet there's this
embodied knowing otherwise and
like a weird like penchant forcollecting quote unquote exotic
things that they don'tunderstand, you know, why
they're doing that.
Now, you know, I'm thinkingabout nonprofit ladies who like
have too much African garb in adifferent way.
SPEAKER_01 (01:53:47):
True, true, true.
Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_00 (01:53:49):
Because what the
fuck is going on there?
Rachel Dolezal too?
SPEAKER_01 (01:53:52):
What's going on?
Never forget about her.
SPEAKER_00 (01:53:54):
Never forget Rachel
Dolezal.
She's out here still.
She's...
SPEAKER_02 (01:53:59):
Yeah, I wonder what
she's up to.
SPEAKER_00 (01:54:01):
Last I heard, she
was fired for being on OnlyFans
from a school.
Yeah, they fired her for beingon OnlyFans, not for cosplaying
black person.
Wow.
Again.
And I'm just like, if someone ison OnlyFans and they're
teaching...
isn't that just a sign that youneed to pay them more?
Yes.
Out of everything that Rachelhas done, they're asking the
wrong questions.
But anyway, always asking thewrong questions.
(01:54:25):
Yeah.
So the reenactment of traumawithin relationships and
communities, that's theconnection.
And when you
SPEAKER_01 (01:54:32):
contextualized looks
like personality.
SPEAKER_00 (01:54:35):
Exactly.
Wow.
Yes.
SPEAKER_01 (01:54:38):
Yes.
Yeah, yeah.
That's a Rashma Menekum quote.
Because they're saying that hehas like personality disorders
and stuff, but.
SPEAKER_00 (01:54:47):
That's that.
That was a lot.
A
SPEAKER_01 (01:54:52):
doozy.
SPEAKER_00 (01:54:52):
That's what I got
lost in.
That's why I was behind, becauseI got lost in this.
That's fair.
That's fair.
But hopefully it kept yourattention the whole time.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (01:55:04):
I mean, I feel like
it's very, very relevant and
very insightful.
to the story so thanks fortaking us on that journey yeah
for sure as you were talking ilike one of the last things that
i did for research was watch thetestimony of tracy edwards who's
(01:55:28):
the person i talked about rightin the beginning and i haven't
formed full connections with itbut maybe you can help me out as
i get into it so Now we're backto July 22nd, 1991.
Tracy Edwards is a 32-year-oldBlack man.
(01:55:48):
He had seen Jeffrey Dahmer acouple times before then, had
spoken to him, had said hello.
He was at Grand Avenue Mall inMilwaukee on this day with a
couple of friends drinking beer.
He said that J.D.
approached them and startedtalking to them.
J.D.
told them that he was...
in the city from chicago and wastaking care of his sick grandma
(01:56:14):
but he said he was like aprofessional photographer and
then was trying to like ask themlike are any of you guys
interested in making moneytaking nude pictures basically
modeling for nude pictures.
And then he told them like, Oh,I'm going to buy all of us like
beer, rum and Coke.
So like, let's go to the liquorstore together.
And they go to the liquor store.
(01:56:35):
And while they're there, TracyEdwards actually runs into his
brother and is talking to hisbrother while JD is with his
other friends.
Something happens where like, itends up being that his two
friends leave to go to changeand then they said that they'll
come come back with some girlsand tracy edwards goes with jd
(01:57:00):
to his apartment but jd ended upgiving his friends a fake
address which he finds out laterwhen he reconnects with his
friends so they go to hisapartment taking back routes
which jd said would be betterthe better way to do it he said
that he seemed normal at firstas they were walking there he
(01:57:21):
was talking to him about themilitary because tracy had told
him that his dad was in themilitary and had a military
family he said that he walkedinto the apartment there was a
foul odor and he asked him aboutit and he said a sewer pipe
broke so he said okay He alsodid see acid, which he told him
(01:57:43):
he cleaned bricks with.
But I guess like at this pointhe was like he was just seeming
like a really nice guy.
So I like really didn't.
think that there was anythingthat he was going to do.
So then he offered him a beerand also offered him a mixture
of rum and Coke.
It's weird because throughoutthis whole testimony, whoever it
is, I think it's the prosecutor,he's stating, you're not a
(01:58:05):
homosexual though, right?
And you didn't know he wasasking you to go back there for
homosexual stuff, right?
You didn't know he was going totake you back there to try to
kill you, but no, about thehomosexual stuff.
He takes a couple sips from therum and Coke at this point.
And then I guess JD has a fishtank in his apartment and he
says something about a fishtank.
(01:58:27):
Tracy turns to look at the fishtank.
And then next thing he knows,one of his hands is handcuffed
and Jeffrey is holding a knife.
It's actually a military knifethat looks kind of like a
machete and he has it like onhis rib.
He tells him, if you don't dowhat I say, I'll kill you.
And he, He said he seemed like acompletely different person.
(01:58:52):
Like it looked like he had adifferent face structure and a
different body.
And he looked like a differentguy.
And he repeats this over andover again.
He was at his apartment for likefour hours.
And he said every 20 to 30minutes is when sort of a switch
happens.
would happen so at this pointthey're in the living room and
jd's like let's go to thebedroom so they go into the
(01:59:13):
bedroom and he sees that there'sa drum barrel there and then he
sees that the bed is unmade andthat there's a stain on the bed
and he's trying to just continueto talk with him and sort of
being friendly as a way to justde-escalate the situation and i
guess the There was a TV in hisbedroom.
(01:59:33):
He thinks that when they firstgot to the apartment, Jeffrey
went in there and turned it onand The Exorcist 3 was playing
on VCR.
They were just watching ittogether for a little while.
J.D.
said, I mean, Tracy Edwards saidthat J.D.
one minute was nice and thensaid he didn't want people to
(01:59:56):
leave or abandon him.
and then was quiet and would bewatching the movie and was also
asking Tracy to watch the moviewith him.
This is where it gets weird.
And this is what I was likethinking about when you were
talking.
I haven't seen The Exorcist 3,so I don't know what they're
talking about, but there's apart in the movie where a
preacher gets possessed by thedevil, I guess.
(02:00:20):
He wanted to mimic that part ofthe movie and he's rocking back
and forth and chanting, right?
SPEAKER_00 (02:00:25):
From a spiritual
perspective, I do think that
something dark and sinisterhappens and opens inside of you
when you disconnect from yourhumanity in such an extreme way.
Like I think.
SPEAKER_01 (02:00:38):
Totally.
I
SPEAKER_00 (02:00:39):
think that's true.
Yeah.
Yeah.
When you're thinking about likehow in healing work we're
talking about, let's reconnectwith our ancestors.
UNKNOWN (02:00:49):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (02:00:50):
What kind of
ancestors are you getting in
contact with when you're doingthis shit, you know?
The chanting?
Very creepy.
SPEAKER_01 (02:00:56):
Yeah.
And he said that he kept doingthat.
So then at one point, JD askshim to lay down face down on the
floor and starts to get a bitmore aggressive at this point.
He said that he was trying tolisten to his heart and told him
that he was going to eat hisheart.
Okay.
And at this point had themachete pointed to his groin
(02:01:17):
area.
Tracy Edwards is really, I feellike he's really trying to
figure out how to survive thesituation.
He's multiple times asked to goto the bathroom and he does take
him to the bathroom.
Towards the end, he asked to goto the bathroom again.
And then he says, can we go backto the living room?
Because the front room has anAC.
And so...
(02:01:37):
I guess they go back to theliving room.
Tracy Edwards actuallyunbuttoned his shirt to keep JD
more at ease.
And then he said that he wasgoing out of himself.
So I'm like interpreting that aslike he was dissociating and
that he was again rocking andchanting.
And at this point, like he kindof just even let him go.
(02:01:59):
And that's when he got up and heran towards the door is like
when he was kind of in this likekind of dazed out state.
Tracy Edwards gets up, hits him,runs out the door, makes it
outside, sees Milwaukee PD andsays like, this crazy guy was
trying to hurt me.
(02:02:20):
The police then go to theapartment.
He goes with them.
This is when they find what Isaid in the beginning.
They found photos of dismemberedbodies, found a dismembered head
in the refrigerator.
They found seven skulls and fourdecapitated heads stuffed into
(02:02:40):
the refrigerator.
A 57-gallon barrel containing aheadless torso and other body
parts that was decomposing withcorrosive chemicals at the time.
He was also bleaching bones likehe had done with his dad when he
was younger.
And then for some reason, thefirst thing that he said to the
cops was, if you ever see AlSmeshko, I want you to thank him
(02:03:03):
for everything he did for mewhen I was in high school, which
is the teacher that theyinterviewed on that podcast the
teacher was the one that foundhim outside with the six pack of
beer and then took him to theguidance counselor okay yeah
yeah so he never really seemsfully there no
SPEAKER_00 (02:03:24):
i mean the amount of
drinking he's been doing since
he was 13 on top of like theextreme acts of violence have to
be yeah psychologically damagingin an extreme way.
Like I can imagine he just isnot there.
SPEAKER_01 (02:03:39):
Yeah.
I'm sure he's quite fractured interms of his, his parts and his
soul as well, which kind ofmakes sense with the like, Oh,
he seemed like a differentperson.
It was interesting that he waslike, it looked like he had a
different face, um,
SPEAKER_00 (02:03:55):
That is interesting.
But we do hear that with DID,that people's literal body
chemistry shifts.
So that's interesting.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (02:04:03):
It's surprising to
me that that was not one of the
things that he was diagnosedwith.
But anyways, I'll get into thatin a moment.
So like right after he wasarrested, he did confess.
to 17 murders and also admittedto the authorities that he ate
his victim's organs and alsoengaged in necrophilia.
On September 10th, 1991, acouple months later, he pled not
(02:04:29):
guilty by reason of insanity for15 charges to murder.
Unfortunately, one of the bodieswas never found, so they didn't
charge him.
for one of the murders, eventhough he admitted to it.
And since Stephen Hicks waskilled in Ohio, he had to go to
Ohio for another trial formurder.
(02:04:50):
The person's body that was neverfound was Stephen Tuomi, the
second victim.
I was just curious about the notguilty by reason of insanity
charge.
And so I just sort of lookedinto it.
It's still a thing.
It's called NGRI or not guiltyby reason of insanity.
(02:05:10):
But it basically asserts thatthe defendant was, quote,
legally insane at the time thatthe offense was committed and so
did not understand thewrongfulness of the actions.
In a court, what this means isthat someone lacks insight into
their mental illness at the timethat they committed the crime.
So they could have insightduring the trial that they
(02:05:33):
didn't have during the momentthat they committed the crime.
wins a trial so is declared notguilty by reason of insanity
(02:05:55):
it's not that they're free theyare committed to a mental health
facility and usually they getheld on an involuntary
indefinite psychiatric hold andoftentimes are incarcerated for
the same amount of time or evenlonger than those who are
incarcerated in prison for thesame crime and because of how
(02:06:20):
the current mental healthinfrastructure is not set up to
house people in this way.
What ends up happening is thatthere's like state jails that
end up being the place thatthese people are put and folks
(02:06:40):
have died in these facilitiesfrom neglect and abuse.
And I found out that there areonly So they get put in state
psychiatric hospital beds.
And in the US, there's only35,000 state psychiatric beds in
the whole country.
Well, his
SPEAKER_00 (02:06:58):
lawyer probably
didn't find any other.
Yes.
I mean, do you ever think like,you know, someone's got to be
the defense attorney and they'reprobably, this guy's probably
like, you know, I, this is
SPEAKER_01 (02:07:12):
all I got
SPEAKER_00 (02:07:13):
for you, you know?
SPEAKER_01 (02:07:14):
Well, what ended up
happening is actually, On
January 13th, they changed hisplea to guilty but insane, which
is now called guilty butmentally ill plea, which allows
defendants to admit guilt whilestating that they were mentally
incompetent, quote unquote, atthe time of the offense.
(02:07:36):
In jurisdictions where this doesexist, the process requires the
defendant to provide experttestimony demonstrating that
They were mentally incompetentduring the time, which is why he
was evaluated by so manydifferent psychiatrists and
stuff like this at this point.
(02:07:56):
So this meant that they did notneed to have a criminal trial
and that the court proceedingswould pretty much only be about
Jeffrey's death.
mental state.
And they only needed 10 out of12 jurors to agree on his mental
state for a verdict to stand.
So his trial began on January30, 1992.
(02:08:17):
Huge crowds outside of thecourthouse.
This is the early 90s.
So when the 24-hour news cycleshad just started.
So news outlets were alwayslooking for news to cover.
And a serial killer trial was agreat opportunity.
for them to report on.
You can actually watch hisentire trial online.
(02:08:40):
It's on court TV or on YouTube.
I watched parts of it, but notall of it.
But apparently people werewaiting in line to get seats or
get as close to the courtroom aspossible and that there was a
bulletproof glass wall betweenthe audience and where he was
seated, where the defendants andthe witness and the judge were.
(02:09:04):
During the trial, many people inthe community were really upset
with how the police had servedor not served the people of
color and gay people who werehis victims, especially what
happened with ConoracSynthesifone.
And these tensions werereflected in the courtroom.
(02:09:25):
The Room was also swept forexplosives before the crowd
filed in.
And there were seats that werereserved for victims' family
members, as well as Dahmer'sfather and stepmother.
So in his attorney's openingstatement, he states that his
(02:09:47):
client was, quote, not an evilman, but he was a sick man.
And I'm just going to talk alittle bit about go on a small
tangent about that.
So the definition ofpsychopathy, according to
psychology today, is the absenceof empathy, blunting of other
affective states, callousness,detachment, and enable them to
(02:10:11):
be highly manipulative.
They can appear, quote unquote,normal or even charming,
underneath which they lack aconscience.
Psychopath and sociopath areoften used interchangeably, but
a sociopath, I guess, refers tosomeone with antisocial
tendencies that are thought tobe rooted in social and
(02:10:34):
environmental factors, whereaspsychopathic traits are thought
to be more genetic or innate.
That said, both genetic andnon-genetic causes likely play a
role in shaping any person whohas these kind of traits.
Antisocial personality disorderdoes overlap with psychopathy,
but it's not the same condition.
(02:10:55):
A person can meet the criteriafor antisocial personality
disorder without showing thecore traits associated with
psychopathy.
Psychopaths are thought tocomprise just a fraction of
people with antisocialpersonality disorder, which is
like 1% of the generalpopulation.
Psychopathy and sociopathy arealso not like diagnostic.
(02:11:19):
terms.
They're more like sociologicalterms.
So, I mean, with thatdefinition, I feel like he
definitely fits that.
I found this article.
Who is it written by?
Mariam Malik and Dr.
Hafiz Javed Ur-Rahman.
And it was called A Killer'sPoliteness, A Discourse Analysis
(02:11:43):
of Jeffrey Dahmer's Interview.
And it basically does like acontent analysis of the
interview that he gave to insideedition in 1993 and it basically
talks about how he acts calm andis polite and presents himself
(02:12:04):
as this like composed rationaland non-violent person which
sharply contrasts with the wildand gory aspects of this crime.
They also talk about how thissort of discordancy which he
creates using strategic languagegives him the ability to shape
(02:12:25):
public's perception and shiftpublic focus from his monstrous
deeds to his humanecharacteristics that seem
relatable by using subtlety andpoliteness strategies.
He's trying to portray himselfas more relatable so that he can
get audience sympathy.
There's this theory that Brownand Levinson created called
(02:12:48):
politeness theory.
And they go into how he usesdifferent strategies from this
politeness theory to basicallymanipulate interviewers and
audiences to see him as morehuman.
And him saying like, oh, I knewwhat I was doing was wrong is
part of that as well.
And it's like he's Describinghis actions as simply wrong is
(02:13:12):
like a euphemism, right?
Because it's like wrong is notthe same as, you know, sexually
assaulting, drugging, raping,cannibalizing, mutilating.
He
SPEAKER_00 (02:13:26):
doesn't have
remorse.
He doesn't know what it means.
He's saying that he knows it'slike socially looked down upon
to be wrong.
But he doesn't feel bad.
He doesn't feel bad.
(02:13:54):
So that makes a lot of sense.
He's using language that he canconnect with, which is.
SPEAKER_01 (02:13:58):
And he also like
frames that like, oh, after I
was arrested, I told the policewhere all the bodies were and I
helped to give closure to thefamilies as though like he did
that, but he wasn't the one thatcaused the trauma and pain.
And loss to begin with.
Right.
It's like very easy for him tojust engage in this control and
(02:14:19):
manipulation.
And him being like a white man,interviewers just like eat it up
and people just eat it up andare able to like have a
cognitive dissonance betweenwhat they're seeing in front of
them, which is like this persontalking in like a monotone,
calm, polite way and his likehorrific, horrific deeds.
(02:14:43):
Control and manipulation, charm,social skills, and a high IQ are
literally all characteristics ofserial killers.
Dr.
Elizabeth Yardley, who's thedirector of the Center of
Applied Criminology atBirmingham City University,
identifies being skilledmanipulators as one of the very
(02:15:04):
common characteristics of serialkillers.
in order to present themselvesin a false light and I mean his
(02:15:26):
whole trial was about he wastrying to argue that he was like
mentally incompetent or didn'tknow what he was doing at the
time of the murders or he's likementally ill right and so this
just contributes to that samenarrative that he's trying to
push that like poor me there'ssomething wrong with me and not
(02:15:50):
like I killed 17 people.
SPEAKER_00 (02:16:14):
is implied by people
who perpetrate violence and
people who inherit conquest.
There are some studies thatsuggest there's a blunting of
affect.
There's more difficulty withguilt or empathy, or there's a
kind of distorted intimacy inchildren of perpetrators of
large-scale violence.
(02:16:34):
They found this with...
They did some studies withdescendants of Nazis
specifically.
And so...
There's some suggestion that themoral dissociation that would be
required for this kind ofdomination might rewire your
stress responses in a weird way.
Yeah, I could see that.
Which would maybe reinforcecruelty or dissociation,
(02:16:57):
disembodiment, or the impulse tocontrol.
Totally.
They did find that.
So that all paired togetherfeels like...
SPEAKER_01 (02:17:09):
yeah and the way
that he doesn't have emotional
responses to anything and justyeah no affect always yeah flat
affect always is very verydisturbing and I think we don't
get to see we like we don't everget to see the side that like
Tracy Edwards saw where thatshift happened but back to the
(02:17:33):
trial what his attorney wastrying to argue was was that he
said he had sex with corpses hecommitted cannibalism he
performed lobotomies but he alsosuffered from necrophilia which
is also not like a diagnosistechnically
SPEAKER_00 (02:17:52):
suffered from
necrophilia suffered i don't
think he was the one suffering
SPEAKER_01 (02:17:58):
no definitely
SPEAKER_00 (02:17:59):
from necrophilia
SPEAKER_01 (02:18:00):
yeah Necrophilia is
also not a diagnosis.
It's technically paraphilia, nototherwise specified in the
DSM-IV, which is used todescribe sexual arousal to
object situations ornon-consenting individuals which
are outside the range of usualsexual interest.
But notably, fellatio andtransgenderism used to be
(02:18:23):
qualified under this category aswell.
Yeah,
SPEAKER_00 (02:18:26):
the systems,
SPEAKER_01 (02:18:28):
they're homophobic.
UNKNOWN (02:18:30):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (02:18:31):
Systems are very
homophobic, very transphobic,
very misogynistic.
He said this during the trial,that he had an obsession with
the Emperor and the return ofthe Jedi, and he got yellow eye
contacts.
I don't know why this wasrelevant to the trial, but he
did say that as a way to arguethat he was a sick man.
The prosecutor outlined ways inwhich Dahmer had demonstrated
(02:18:52):
control of his behavior, likeselecting his victims
cautiously, killing them in acarefully controlled
environment, And people in thecourt heard a lot of gruesome
details about his actions andhow he lured people to his
apartment with promises of sexand money in exchange for photos
and drug their drinks and thenkilled them, mutilated them and
(02:19:15):
sometimes documented theseprocesses.
A large part of the trial wastestimony from psychologists and
psychiatrists about his mentalstate, and he had various
diagnoses proposed as a resultof interviews with him.
And also, retroactively,psychologists and psychiatrists
after the trial have proposedcertain diagnoses, including
(02:19:35):
borderline personality disorder,substance use disorder,
alcoholism, psychotic disorder,schizotypal personality
disorder, and antisocialpersonality disorder, and
necrophilia.
One of the doctors said he didnot meet the legal definition
for insanity because he knewwhat he was doing when he was
doing it.
Dr.
(02:19:56):
Park Elliott Diaz notably saidthat though Dahmer was an
alcoholic, his killings had beenwell planned and deliberate.
In addition, he pointed out thatDahmer used condoms due to fear
of contracting AIDS.
So he really planned things out,you know?
In Boyle's closing statement, hesaid of his client, he was so
impaired as he went along thiskilling spree that he could not
(02:20:18):
stop.
He was a runaway train on atrack of madness.
McCann said he's fooled a lot ofpeople.
Please, please don't let himfool you.
And the verdict was that 10 outof 12 jurors found him not
mentally ill, said that hiscrimes were organized,
premeditated, chose his victimscarefully.
(02:20:40):
He was thoughtful when it cameto storing body parts in the
refrigerator as he planned toeat them later.
He targeted men who did not havea car since he knew that missing
persons could be traced throughtheir automobiles.
Someone who is insane does nothave the ability to plan ahead
and have forethought andorganization to commit such
atrocities.
(02:21:00):
And he was then sentenced to 15consecutive life sentences and
then later tried for murder inOhio and was found guilty and
received another life sentencethere.
I'll...
go into this a little bit later,but there was also victim
statements that I watched all ofthem that were part of the trial
(02:21:21):
where family members of thevictims came and spoke to
Jeffrey.
It was honestly reallyemotional.
All of them were Black andpeople of color.
A lot of them looked himdirectly in the eye while they
were making their statements.
A lot of them cried during it.
There was one person that justcried started yelling and
(02:21:44):
screaming at him and they likepulled her out of the courtroom
and he literally just had noreaction to and he was just they
showed they would show his faceevery now and then he's just
sitting there like no reactionjust blank faced looking down
very very disturbing but i amglad that the family members had
a chance to say say their peaceto him it's like a small small
(02:22:08):
very small consolation that theywere able to have So yeah,
that's the end of the trial.
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (02:22:16):
It's been a long
time.
We'll be splitting it into two.
For sure.
We'll come back.
We'll share about more.
Okay.
And then the victims, theirstories.
SPEAKER_01 (02:22:27):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'll share about like thecommunity's response.
SPEAKER_00 (02:22:31):
Cool.
And then I was gonna talk aboutGlenda.
Wow.
Thanks for staying up so late.
SPEAKER_01 (02:22:34):
Yeah, it's all good.
SPEAKER_00 (02:22:36):
Yeah.
We're going to be back with parttwo.
SPEAKER_01 (02:22:38):
Very, very soon.
See you then.
See you in part two.
Hear you then.
Hear you in part two, or you'llhear us.
Yeah, we
SPEAKER_00 (02:22:47):
won't hear you.
Okay.
Bye.
Bye.
SPEAKER_01 (02:22:54):
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Thank you
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See you on the next one.