"The Person to Blame Is Sitting Right Across From You": Jeffrey Dahmer's Inside Edition Interview, 1993

Name: "The Person to Blame Is Sitting Right Across From You": Jeffrey Dahmer's Inside Edition Interview, 1993
Uploaded: 2018-11-27
Duration: 17 min 12 s
Description: In his first television interview, recorded in prison in January 1993, Jeffrey Dahmer told Inside Edition's Nancy Glass that he killed to "possess" his victims, that he alone was to blame, and that he would probably still be killing if he had not been caught.

In his first television interview, recorded in prison in January 1993, Jeffrey Dahmer told Inside Edition's Nancy Glass that he killed to "possess" his victims, that he alone was to blame, and that he would probably still be killing if he had not been caught.

Subject: Jeffrey Dahmer
Recorded: 1993
Runtime: 17:12

Content warning: Dahmer describes murder, dismemberment, cannibalism and experiments on living victims; the report refers to the murder of a 14-year-old boy and the sexual assault of a 13-year-old.

The Interview

In January 1993, about 18 months after his arrest, Jeffrey Dahmer was interviewed at Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage, Wisconsin, by Nancy Glass of the syndicated newsmagazine Inside Edition. It was his first television interview. Inside Edition broadcast it over several nights in February 1993 and released this 17-minute report on YouTube in 2018. Dahmer answers calmly and at length. He says he killed not out of anger or hatred "but because I wanted to keep them with me", and that "the person to blame is sitting right across from you".

Historical Context

Between 1978 and 1991 Dahmer killed 17 men and boys, one in Ohio and the rest in Wisconsin, most of them in Milwaukee. He was arrested on July 22, 1991, after Tracy Edwards escaped from his apartment and stopped a police car. In February 1992 a Milwaukee jury found him sane, and he was sentenced to 15 consecutive life terms; in May 1992 he pleaded guilty in Ohio to the 1978 killing of Steven Hicks and received a sixteenth. The case caused anger in Milwaukee because many of the victims were Black, gay or both, and because police officers had returned 14-year-old Konerak Sinthasomphone to Dahmer in May 1991, shortly before he killed the boy.

Circumstances of the Interview

The report intercuts the prison interview with Glass's narration, archive footage of the apartment and the Milwaukee protests, a fragment of what appears to be police audio from the night Konerak Sinthasomphone was returned, and short statements by two men who escaped from Dahmer, one of them Tracy Edwards. Glass's narration says Dahmer was serving "999 years"; his sentence was in fact 15 consecutive life terms in Wisconsin and one in Ohio.

What the Interview Covers

Dahmer describes the unplanned killing of the hitchhiker Steven Hicks in 1978; the nine years when, he says, there was no "opportunity"; and the killing of Steven Tuomi at the Ambassador Hotel in Milwaukee, which he says he did not remember. He talks about photographing his victims, keeping skulls and skeletons, a planned "altar", cannibalism and his attempts to create a "zombie-like state" by injecting his victims' brains. He describes the routine of the bars and bath clubs and the drugged drinks, the film Exorcist III, the head he kept in his locker at the Ambrosia Chocolate factory, and the night of his arrest. He says the killings were not racially motivated and that he still has "the old compulsions".

What Makes the Recording Significant

This was Dahmer's first television interview, recorded about a year after his trial. Its lines were quoted in the press when it aired ("I can't think of anything that would have stopped me"). He gave one other major television interview, to Stone Phillips of Dateline NBC in 1994; this one is the earlier and the more detailed about his methods.

Archival Importance

The report preserves Dahmer's own account of his motives and methods, his statement of sole responsibility, and his view that nothing would have stopped him, alongside the voices of two of the men who escaped him. Dahmer was killed by another inmate at Columbia Correctional Institution on November 28, 1994.

Important Caveats

Everything Dahmer says about his motives, his memory of the Tuomi killing and race is his own account. The narration's "999 years" is wrong (see above). The 13-year-old boy whom Dahmer molested in 1988 (he was convicted in 1989), and whose brother he later killed, is not named in the video and must not be named or identified on the page. One escaped victim is also not named. The upload is an edited report, not the complete interview.

Jeffrey Dahmer: I desensitize myself to it. I, I don't know, I went to great lengths.

Inside Edition Anchor: He is pure evil, but you'd never know it by looking at him. But when you hear him, that's another story. His killing field was Milwaukee, and he got away with murder for more than a decade. But how could any of this happen? For the first time ever, Nancy Glass is here inside the world of Jeffrey Dahmer.

Nancy Glass: Bill, when I sat down opposite Jeffrey Dahmer for this interview, I wondered what he would tell me, how hard it would be to get him to discuss his horrific crimes. What I found was that he was very forthcoming. He volunteered details that may be difficult to hear. I began by asking what he wanted from the men he picked up.

Jeffrey Dahmer: I had these obsessive desires and thoughts, wanting to control them, to, I don't know how to put it, possess them permanently.

Nancy Glass: And that's why you killed them?

Jeffrey Dahmer: Right, right. Not because I was angry with them, not because I hated them, but because I wanted to keep them with me. And as my obsession grew, I was saving body parts such as skulls and skeletons.

Nancy Glass: Jeffrey Dahmer is recalling his monstrous past. Almost two years ago in this little apartment in Milwaukee, police discovered the grisly remnants of one of the most horrible crime sprees in American history. Jeffrey Dahmer, an unassuming chocolate factory worker, would eventually confess that he had seduced, murdered and dismembered 17 young men. He even ate some of his victims' body parts. He instantly became the center of worldwide media attention, a serial killer unmasked. There were protests and press conferences in Milwaukee as people tried to understand how this could have happened in their midst.

Nancy Glass: How did Jeffrey Dahmer get away with murder after murder for 13 years? How did the boy born into a hard-working, middle-class family turn into the worst kind of monster imaginable? In this exclusive interview, we put those questions to Jeffrey Dahmer himself. We met with him at the maximum-security prison where he is serving his sentence of 999 years. For the first time, he talks about his crimes and gives us a chilling look inside the mind of a serial killer.

Jeffrey Dahmer: It's a process that doesn't happen overnight, when you depersonalize another person and view them as just an object, an object for pleasure instead of a living, breathing human being. It, it seems to make it easier to do things you shouldn't do.

Nancy Glass: The reason why Jeffrey Dahmer was able to get away with his crimes was because of just what you are seeing here. Jeffrey Dahmer is intelligent and articulate. That is what makes him so frightening. But if you listen carefully to his words throughout this interview, you realize it is a thin disguise.

Nancy Glass: You do sound, though, like the kind of person who could have said to himself, "This is wrong. [unclear: "I must stop" / "I'm a stop"]."

Jeffrey Dahmer: I always knew, though, that it was wrong, but after the, the first... The first killing was not planned. I was coming back from the shopping mall, back in '78. I had had fantasies about picking up a hitchhiker and taking him back to the house and having complete control and dominance over him.

Nancy Glass: The hitchhiker's name was Steven Hicks. He was just 18. Jeffrey Dahmer took him to his parents' house. There, he strangled him with a barbell. He dismembered the body and hid it in a drainpipe. It was Jeffrey Dahmer who gave those details to the police in his confession.

Jeffrey Dahmer: No one, no one had a clue as to what was happening for, for over a decade.

Nancy Glass: During that time, Jeffrey Dahmer joined the Army and was sent to Germany. He was eventually discharged for a drinking problem and returned to Ohio. Nine years after Steven Hicks's murder, the killing began again.

Nancy Glass: What happened to you in the nine years in between, that you were able to stop, that you were able to control yourself?

Jeffrey Dahmer: Just wasn't an opportunity to fully express what I wanted to do, to do. There was just not the physical opportunity to do it then. And I started, when I moved to Milwaukee in '81, I started reading pornography, going to the bookstores. Eventually that led to frequenting the gay bars. And then I, one time I brought this young man back to the hotel room, the Ambassador Hotel. Was just planning on drugging him and spending the night with him. I had no intention of hurting him. When I woke up in the morning, he had a broken rib here. [unclear: "It was" / "I was"] heavily bruised. Apparently I had beaten him to death with my fists.

Nancy Glass: And you have no memory of it?

Jeffrey Dahmer: No memory of it. But that's what started the whole spree all over again.

Nancy Glass: Dahmer says he snuck the corpse of his victim, Steven Tuomi, out of his hotel room in a suitcase. Then he took it to his grandmother's house, where he cut up the body and put it in plastic garbage bags.

Nancy Glass: When you killed these men, afterwards, were you repulsed? Were you upset?

Jeffrey Dahmer: No. At the time it was, it was almost addictive. It was almost a surge of energy. I wouldn't have to worry about any of their needs or anything. I just had complete control of the situation.

Nancy Glass: But Jeffrey Dahmer was out of control. The urge to kill had overpowered him. As police later learned, he wasn't satisfied with his victims' death. He wanted more.

Nancy Glass: Why did you photograph them?

Jeffrey Dahmer: It was my way of remembering their appearance, their physical beauty. I also wanted to keep something. If I couldn't keep them there with me whole, I, at least I felt that I could keep their skeletons. And I even went so far as planning on setting up an altar with the ten different skulls and skeletons.

Nancy Glass: And what was the purpose of the altar going to be?

Jeffrey Dahmer: Uh, as a sort of memorial. A point where I could, I don't know, it's, it's, it's so bizarre and strange, it's hard to describe. A place where I could collect my thoughts and feed my obsession.

Nancy Glass: When the bodies were still in your apartment, there was no time when you would see them and say, "This is grotesque. What have I done?"

Jeffrey Dahmer: There were times. There were times, but the compulsive obsession with doing what I was doing overpowered any feelings of revulsion.

Nancy Glass: This man, with a quiet, almost shy demeanor, became a master manipulator who was able to lure strangers he met at gay bars to his apartment. He was even able to con the police into returning a 14-year-old boy to him after neighbors called 911, upset that the child was in the street, naked and bleeding. Dahmer convinced the police that he and the boy were simply having a lovers' quarrel.

Police Officer: [unclear: "Intoxicated" / "Executed"] boyfriend of another boyfriend. [inaudible] [unclear: "It wasn't a child, it was an adult" / "wasn't a childhood open"].

Nancy Glass: After the police left, Jeffrey Dahmer murdered that boy, Konerak Sinthasomphone. This man says he had a near-fatal encounter with Jeffrey Dahmer.

Survivor: He wanted to take some picture of my back. He hit me with a [unclear: "rubber" / "Robert"] hammer on my neck.

Nancy Glass: He was lucky to escape, because by then the killing had become almost routine.

Nancy Glass: Before you went out to pick up a man, was there any kind of ritual you went through?

Jeffrey Dahmer: I'd go to the nightclubs, drink, watch the striptease shows, and if I didn't meet anyone at the bars, I'd go to the bath clubs and meet someone there, offer them money, and we'd go back to the apartment, have a few drinks. I'd have the sleeping pill mixture already prepared. Person would drink it, fall asleep, and that's when they would be strangled.

Nancy Glass: Watching the movie Exorcist III was also part of his ritual. It put him in the mood for murder.

Jeffrey Dahmer: I felt so hopelessly evil and perverted that, that I actually [unclear: "derived" / "derives"] a sort of pleasure from watching that tape.

Nancy Glass: Did you like feeling evil?

Jeffrey Dahmer: No. No, I didn't, but I tried to overcome the thoughts, and it worked for a while, but eventually I gave in.

Nancy Glass: While Jeffrey Dahmer may say things today that make it seem like he understands what went on in his mind, he does not. All he can do is tell you what happened, but he cannot stop whatever it is that drove him to kill in the first place.

Nancy Glass: Do you still feel those same urges? Do you still feel that compulsion, that obsession?

Jeffrey Dahmer: I wish I could say that it just left completely, but no, there are times when I still do, still do have the old compulsions.

Nancy Glass: Jeffrey Dahmer says as time went on, his mind became more and more warped, and yet he was clever enough to continue to elude police and lure young men to his apartment. We should warn you, the details are very graphic.

Jeffrey Dahmer: I started having these obsessive thoughts when I was about 15 and 16, and they got worse and worse.

Nancy Glass: What were your fantasies about?

Jeffrey Dahmer: They were sexual fantasies of control, power, complete dominance. They became reality.

Nancy Glass: Was there pleasure in that fantasy?

Jeffrey Dahmer: There was excitement, fear, pleasure, all mixed together.

Nancy Glass: Jeffrey Dahmer fulfilled his fantasies by murdering and dismembering 17 young men. In time, his desires became more extreme, his deeds more grotesque. Listen to him talk about the most unnatural things in the most matter-of-fact of ways. That's when you realize that none of it has touched him.

Jeffrey Dahmer: I was branching out. That's when the cannibalism started, eating of the heart and the arm muscle. It was a way of making me feel that they were a part of me. At first it was just curiosity, and then it became compulsive. Then I tried to keep the person alive by inducing a zombie-like state, by injecting first dilute acid solution into their brain, or hot water. And it never did completely work.

Nancy Glass: Could someone like you be stopped? Could you be helped?

Jeffrey Dahmer: No, I was, I was dead set on going with this compulsion. It was the only thing that gave me any, any satisfaction.

Nancy Glass: He became so warped by his evil impulses that he even took a victim's head with him to work at the Ambrosia Chocolate Factory.

Jeffrey Dahmer: I kept the mummified head and skull of one of the victims in a carrying case in my locker at work.

Nancy Glass: Were you almost flaunting it?

Jeffrey Dahmer: Yes, but that's how strong the compulsion was. That's how bizarre the, the desire was. I wanted to keep something of the person with me.

Nancy Glass: Jeffrey Dahmer exhibited some disturbing behavior early on. He began drinking heavily as a teenager, dropped out of college, was arrested for indecent exposure, disorderly conduct, and fondling a 13-year-old boy. Tragically, one of his murder victims would be that boy's brother.

Nancy Glass: Do you know what started it? Was there any kind of incident that you can remember?

Jeffrey Dahmer: To this day, I don't know what started it, and the person to blame is sitting right across from you. That's the only person. Not parents, not society, not pornography. I mean, those are just excuses.

Nancy Glass: His macabre 13-year crime spree finally ended when this man, Tracy Edwards, brought the police to the infamous apartment. Like the others, he had gone there with the promise of money.

Tracy Edwards: He was listening to my heart, because at a point he told me he was going to eat my heart. At that point, I hit him and I ran.

Nancy Glass: What was the turning point for you that made you suddenly realize that you had done something terribly wrong, something you should be sorry for?

Jeffrey Dahmer: It was the night of the arrest. [unclear: "I have" / "They have"] no memory of what happened during the six hours before the last victim ran out of the apartment. [unclear: "I heard" / "They heard"] a knock on the door, and the police were there with, with the last victim. They asked me where the key was to the handcuffs. I was, my mind was in a haze. I sort of pointed to the bedroom, and that's where they found the pictures, and they yelled, "Cuff [unclear: "them" / "'em"]." I was handcuffed. And it was just the realization that there was no point in trying to hide, hide my actions anymore. The best route was to help, help the police identify all the victims and just make a complete confession.

Nancy Glass: When it was revealed that most of the victims were Black or homosexual, people in Milwaukee were incensed. Many felt that was why he went after them, and why the police didn't seem to care when their families reported them missing.

Nancy Glass: Ten of your 17 victims were Black. Were they racially motivated?

Jeffrey Dahmer: It was not racially motivated. It was not [unclear: "sexual preference" / "a sexual preference"]. It was just to find an obsession with the best-looking young man I could find.

Nancy Glass: While you just heard him say that his sexual preference had nothing to do with the killings, he has not come to terms with his homosexuality.

Jeffrey Dahmer: Never understood it. There was no use trying to fight it, because I couldn't rid myself of it. It was, it was too powerful and persistent.

Nancy Glass: Do you dislike it?

Jeffrey Dahmer: Yes. It's caused a lot of problems for me. A lot of conflicts and unanswered questions.

Nancy Glass: The conflicts remain with him, and so do his compulsions, but in prison he finally cannot act on his savage desires.

Nancy Glass: If you were out on the street now, would you still be committing the crimes?

Jeffrey Dahmer: Probably. If this hadn't happened, there's no doubt, I probably would be. I can't think of anything that would have stopped me.