"I Alone Am the One Who's Responsible": Jeffrey Dahmer and His Father with Stone Phillips, 1994

Name: "I Alone Am the One Who's Responsible": Jeffrey Dahmer and His Father with Stone Phillips, 1994
Uploaded: 2021-11-07
Duration: 36 min 27 s
Description: Nine months before his death, Jeffrey Dahmer sat with his father Lionel in a Wisconsin prison and told NBC's Stone Phillips how his crimes began, why he kept his victims, and that no one but he was to blame.

Nine months before his death, Jeffrey Dahmer sat with his father Lionel in a Wisconsin prison and told NBC's Stone Phillips how his crimes began, why he kept his victims, and that no one but he was to blame.

Subject: Jeffrey Dahmer
Recorded: February 1994
Runtime: 36:27

Content warning: Dahmer describes killing young men, dismembering their bodies, cannibalism and the sexual motive behind his crimes.

The Interview

In February 1994 NBC News correspondent Stone Phillips interviewed Jeffrey Dahmer at Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage, Wisconsin, where he was serving life sentences for fifteen murders. Phillips had spent several days with Dahmer's father, Lionel, and stepmother, Shari, whose visit opens the recording. The interview was tied to Lionel Dahmer's book *A Father's Story*, published in March 1994; Dahmer says his father had sent him a copy the week before and that he read it overnight. For much of the interview father and son sit together.

Historical Context

Between 1978 and 1991 Jeffrey Dahmer killed seventeen young men and boys, the first in Bath Township, Ohio, and the rest in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and its suburb West Allis, most of them after meeting them in bars or on the street. He was arrested on July 22, 1991, after a man escaped from his apartment and stopped police officers. In February 1992 a Milwaukee jury found him sane, and he was sentenced to fifteen consecutive life terms. In May 1992 he pleaded guilty in Ohio to the 1978 killing of Steven Hicks and received another life term.

Circumstances of the Interview

The interview was recorded about two years after his conviction. Lionel Dahmer, a research chemist, had written his book to try to understand how his son became a killer, and in it he described his own fantasies and an incident in which he found a locked box his son kept at his grandmother's house in West Allis and, after an argument, did not open it. This upload begins with the family's greetings and the crew's preparations and runs for most of its length without narration; it ends with a short narrated passage in which Phillips says that, after the interview, Dahmer showed the crew a box of the same type.

What the Interview Covers

Dahmer describes dissecting animals after a ninth-grade biology class, obsessive thoughts of "violence intermingled with sex" from about age 14 or 15, and a recurring fantasy of picking up a hitchhiker, which he says he acted on in the summer of 1978. He describes the second killing, in a Milwaukee hotel, which he says he does not remember, and says that after it the compulsion was "too strong". He says the killing was "a means to an end" and that his motive was to keep complete control of a person, and he speaks of his attempts to create "living zombies" and of cannibalism. He disputes his father's picture of him as an unusually shy child, says his parents bear no blame, and credits creation science material his father sent him for his new Christian faith. Lionel Dahmer speaks about parental guilt and his own loss of faith. Dahmer gives his account of the locked box, apologises to his father, and says the compulsive thoughts have never completely gone away.

What Makes the Recording Significant

The interview is described as Dahmer's only network television interview, and it is a filmed joint appearance in which Dahmer and his father discuss the crimes and the father's book. It was recorded about nine months before Dahmer was killed by another inmate at the same prison on November 28, 1994.

Archival Importance

Dahmer gave few interviews; the other major television interview was with Nancy Glass of Inside Edition in 1993. This recording preserves his own account of how his crimes began and his relationship with his father, at length and largely without narration.

Important Caveats

Everything Dahmer says about his motives, his memory of the second killing, the box and his conversion is his own account. His statement that race did not matter to him in choosing his victims, and his description of the backgrounds of the first five, are his claims; most of his victims were men of colour, and that pattern was much discussed at the time. The year he gives for the second killing is unclear in the recording ("1984" or "1988"); the killing is generally dated 1987. The upload is a third-party copy of an MSNBC rebroadcast (an MSNBC logo appears on screen); whether it is raw footage, an extended version or a broadcast cut is not documented, and it should not be called the full interview.

Shari Dahmer: Hi Jeff, it's Shari. How are you?

Jeffrey Dahmer: Good to see you. Good to see you.

Stone Phillips: Hi, Jeff.

Jeffrey Dahmer: Hi, Mr. Phillips.

Stone Phillips: Nice to see you. I've been spending the last few days with your folks.

Jeffrey Dahmer: Great.

Stone Phillips: Talking about a lot of different things.

Jeffrey Dahmer: Hey, you're lucky it came up on a day when there's no snow. It was snowing like crazy all weekend.

Stone Phillips: Is that right? [unclear: "No"] How are things going here for you?

Jeffrey Dahmer: Slow and steady. Nothing, uh, nothing out of the ordinary, really.

Stone Phillips: You've read the book?

Jeffrey Dahmer: Yes. Yes, I read the book. My dad sent it to me about last week, and spent all night reading it. Was up all night reading it. It was quite a surprise to me, some parts of it. Very interesting.

Stone Phillips: In what sense?

Jeffrey Dahmer: Just some of the things that were revealed caught me off guard, and just some very big surprises in it for me.

Stone Phillips: What was it that caught you off guard?

Jeffrey Dahmer: Some of his insights into what he thought of me as I was growing up.

Crew: All set? Everybody ready? Okay, let's all take a deep breath.

Stone Phillips: Your dad comes here to visit about once a month, but I get the impression that the two of you don't talk a lot about everything that happened, about the crimes in particular.

Jeffrey Dahmer: No, we don't discuss that, because it's been gone over so thoroughly in the papers and in the media that there's just really no point in going in depth into any in-depth talks about it. We talk about our family, home, how things used to be, what prison life is here, is like here now, and try to keep things as light and upbeat as possible.

Stone Phillips: Is it hard for you to go back and talk about those things?

Jeffrey Dahmer: No, not the good things. In fact, it gives me a sense of comfort to talk about the few good times there were in the past.

Stone Phillips: You say the few good times. Do you think of your childhood as having been profoundly unhappy?

Jeffrey Dahmer: No, not profoundly. My childhood wasn't, wasn't filled with any great tragedies or anything. There were good times and there were bad times. I think it was fairly normal.

Stone Phillips: Jeff, do you remember your earliest experience and earliest interest, fascination with the inside of animals? Where that came from?

Jeffrey Dahmer: In ninth grade, in biology class, we had the usual dissection of fetal pigs. I took the remains of that home and kept the skeleton of it, and I just started branching out: dogs, cats. I suppose it could have turned into a normal hobby like taxidermy, but it didn't. It veered off into, into this.

Stone Phillips: Why?

Jeffrey Dahmer: I don't know. All I know is that I wanted to see what the insides of these animals looked like.

Stone Phillips: Was there some pleasure in the cutting open of the animal?

Jeffrey Dahmer: Yes, there was. No, no sexual pleasure, but just a, it's hard to describe. Sense of power, sense of control. I suppose that's a good way of putting it, yeah.

Stone Phillips: I can sort of see a fascination for, you know, wanting to see, or for looking at the insides of animals, say, for the first time. After you did it one time, what more is to be gained by looking at another dog's inside, the second or the third?

Jeffrey Dahmer: I don't know. That's, it became a compulsion, and it switched from animals to humans. I still don't understand it. I don't know why.

Stone Phillips: What would you do with the dead animals, Jeff? You would pick the carcasses up from the road and take them back into the woods?

Jeffrey Dahmer: Take them back in the woods. Skin them sometimes. Slit them, slit them all the way open. Look at the organs. Feel them. There was a sort of general excitement for me. I don't know why. It was, it was exciting to see.

Stone Phillips: One of your dad's biggest questions is when you began to slip away, when you crossed over into this world of obsession or dark fantasy from which you just couldn't return. Can you pinpoint that? Is there a sense for when that really began to happen with you, Jeff?

Jeffrey Dahmer: I think it was around age 14 or 15. Started having obsessive thoughts of violence intermingled with sex. And it just got worse and worse. I didn't know how to tell anyone about it, so I didn't. I just kept it all inside.

Stone Phillips: Do you have any sense for where that was coming from?

Jeffrey Dahmer: No. No, I've talked with a few psychologists about it. They have their theories, but they don't have any concrete answers either.

Stone Phillips: Do you have a theory?

Jeffrey Dahmer: No, not really. I don't know where it came from. I probably will never know. But I never, I never dreamed that it would become a reality.

Unidentified: [unclear: "Apprehend"]

Stone Phillips: What was it, Jeff, that took you over the edge, do you think, and made you take this from the world of fantasy into reality?

Jeffrey Dahmer: From 15 on, I had this recurring fantasy of meeting a hitchhiker on the road, and of taking him hostage and doing what I wanted with him. About three years later, I was 18 years old, driving home. I saw this hitchhiker about a mile from my house. Thought to myself, should I stop and pick him up, or should I just keep on going? I wish I just kept on going, but I didn't. Turned around, picked him up, and that's when, that's when the nightmare became a reality. It just seemed so bizarre to me that this obsession that I had been thinking about and wanting, just, all the parts are there, and they make it possible to make it happen.

Stone Phillips: What happened after you took him to the house?

Jeffrey Dahmer: The house was empty. My mother was up in Chippewa Falls with her family, and my dad was living in a rented motel about five miles away due to the divorce. And I pretty much had the place to myself. I was drinking a lot during that time, and just, I don't know, looking for something, some way to find some fulfillment, some pleasure. And I acted on my fantasies, and that's where everything went wrong.

Stone Phillips: This was the summer of 1978, when you took your first victim.

Jeffrey Dahmer: Right. Once it happened the first time, it just seemed like it had control of my life from there on in. The second occurrence was [unclear: "1984" / "1988"], roughly. And I met this guy at one of the bars, downtown Milwaukee bars. We went back to the hotel. Just planning on getting drunk, I had put some sleeping pills in his drink to render him unconscious, and was just going to spend the night with him. When I woke up in the morning, my forearms were bruised, and his chest was bruised, and blood was coming out of his mouth. He was hanging over the side of the bed. And I have no memory of beating him to death, but I must have. And that's when it, when it all started again.

Stone Phillips: And once it started again, you found it impossible to stop.

Jeffrey Dahmer: Right, that's when the obsession went into full swing.

Stone Phillips: Did you ever tell yourself, I have to stop this, I must stop doing this?

Jeffrey Dahmer: Yes.

Stone Phillips: When it was going on?

Jeffrey Dahmer: After, after the second time, it seemed like the compulsion to do it was too strong, and I didn't even try to stop it after that. But before the second time, things had been building up gradually: going to bookstores, going to the bars, the gay bars, bath clubs. When that wasn't enough, buying sleeping pills and using it on various guys in the bath clubs. It just escalated slowly but surely. And after the second time, which was not planned, it was out of control. It felt like it was out of control.

Stone Phillips: Where did sex enter in to the killings, Jeff?

Jeffrey Dahmer: It was a big part of it. My only objective was to find the best-looking guy that I could. Their sexual preference didn't matter to me.

Stone Phillips: Did their race matter to you?

Jeffrey Dahmer: No, their race didn't matter to me. The first, the first two young men were white. The third young man was American Indian. The fourth and fifth were Hispanic. So, no, race had nothing to do with it. It was just their looks.

Stone Phillips: Was there something sexual in the dismemberment of the bodies for you?

Jeffrey Dahmer: As time went on, yes, I did get a, there was a sexual part to that. I started saving the skeletons, preserving other parts. One thing led to another. It took more and more deviant-type behaviors to satisfy my urges, and so it just spiraled out of control.

Stone Phillips: Why the cannibalism?

Jeffrey Dahmer: It made me feel like they were a permanent part of me. Besides the mere curiosity of what it would be like, it made them feel that they were a part of me, and it gave me a sexual satisfaction to do that.

Stone Phillips: Was it the killing that excited you, or is it what happened after the killing?

Jeffrey Dahmer: No, the killing was just a means to an end. That was the least satisfactory part. I didn't enjoy doing that. That's why I tried to create living zombies, with muriatic acid and the drill, but it never worked. No, the killing wasn't the objective. I just wanted to have the person under my complete control, not having to consider their wishes, being able to keep them there as long as I wanted. It's not easy to say that, but that's what the motive was.

Stone Phillips: Where did that need for control come from? Do you have any idea?

Jeffrey Dahmer: I don't know. Maybe I felt I had no control as a child or young adult, and that got mixed in with my sexuality, and I ended up, doing what I did was my way of feeling in complete control, at least for that situation. Creating my own little world where I had the final say, finding the best-looking guy that I could, and having total mastery over him for as long as I wanted. Lust played a big part of it. Controlling lust. That was the motive right there.

Stone Phillips: A lot of this came out in the course of the trial. Obviously both of you sat through this. Have the two of you sat down and talked about these things before?

Jeffrey Dahmer: No, not in depth.

Stone Phillips: This is the first time you're talking about these things with your dad here.

Jeffrey Dahmer: I've talked about it at great length with psychiatrists, court-appointed psychiatrists, psychologists, but not with my family.

Lionel Dahmer: We learned everything at the trial and in the confessions and that sort of thing, after the fact.

Stone Phillips: The two of you never really communicated all that much, did you, father and son?

Jeffrey Dahmer: Not at any deep, deep level, no. We talked about superficial things. Never really had a real deep heart-to-heart talk about what was going on inside our own minds. I was always a very private person. I didn't like to open up and share anything with anyone. I like to keep my thoughts to myself.

Stone Phillips: Why do you think that was?

Jeffrey Dahmer: Because from about 15 years on up, a great deal of my thoughts were basically unshareable with anyone. So I just closed myself off and put on a mask of normalcy.

Stone Phillips: You've read the book.

Jeffrey Dahmer: Right.

Stone Phillips: He called it *A Father's Story*. Pretty simple title.

Jeffrey Dahmer: Right.

Stone Phillips: Not a simple story, though.

Jeffrey Dahmer: No, not a simple story. Not one that was easy for me to read. But I'm glad he wrote it.

Stone Phillips: Did it hurt? Was it painful to read?

Jeffrey Dahmer: Yes, it was painful. Some parts of it were. For me, were even fun to read. There were good parts. It wasn't all negative.

Stone Phillips: Was it emotional for you reading the book?

Jeffrey Dahmer: Yes, it was.

Stone Phillips: Tell me, what kind of feelings did you have reading it?

Jeffrey Dahmer: Deep regret. Sorrow. I guess those were the two main emotions.

Stone Phillips: Is there anything in this book that you strongly disagree with?

Jeffrey Dahmer: Yes, I disagree with the description of me as being so incredibly shy and introverted. Because maybe that's the way my dad saw me, because there was so much tension in the home that I really didn't feel like being up and happy a lot of the times. But with my friends in school, I had a good time. We had, you know, good social life. And so I wasn't so extremely reclusive and self-centered as it portrays me.

Stone Phillips: Does it surprise you to hear Jeff say that he doesn't think of himself, and never did, as innately shy?

Lionel Dahmer: It did surprise me. Maybe my perception was accentuated to the extreme.

Stone Phillips: But you do recall at age six that you became more aware of tensions in the home.

Jeffrey Dahmer: Oh, yeah. That's the time I really, really remember noticing that things weren't quite right.

Stone Phillips: So it wasn't so much innate shyness as it was wanting to withdraw from tension and arguments and problems in the house.

Jeffrey Dahmer: That's how I saw it, yeah. I sort of lived in my own little fantasy world when things got too heated in the household. And I carried that over for years, I guess.

Stone Phillips: And was there violence in that fantasy world early on?

Jeffrey Dahmer: No, not early on. Not the type to show itself later, no. It was just my own little world where I had control.

Stone Phillips: Was anger a part of it for you, Jeff?

Jeffrey Dahmer: I had some anger. Probably every kid has some anger, you know, about their childhood. It really wasn't a terrible childhood, though. You know, there were a lot of good times. It wasn't a really terrible time.

Stone Phillips: So pat theories about you as a serial killer striking out to get back at your dad, for instance, [unclear: "don't bring money" / not in captions].

Jeffrey Dahmer: No, that has no truth in it. The only motive that there ever was, was to completely control a person, a person that I found physically attractive, and keep them with me as long as possible, even if it meant just keeping a part of them.

Stone Phillips: Did you know before you read this book that your dad had his own obsessions and fantasies that he had thought about, that he had dreamed of committing murder, that he had had an obsession with fire and with explosives?

Jeffrey Dahmer: No. I don't think that's the type of thing one asks one's dad.

Stone Phillips: Were you surprised to read that about your dad?

Jeffrey Dahmer: Very surprised. I didn't know what to think about it. I suppose everyone has their secret thoughts, and so it was somewhat of a shock.

Stone Phillips: You feel grateful that your father wrote this book, or do you feel put off by it? I'm just curious about your overall reaction to it. Do you feel, is the book an invasion, do you think?

Jeffrey Dahmer: No, I feel nothing but pride for him, for writing the book and having the courage to bare his soul when he didn't have to. He didn't have to get involved with trying to help me out and support me and be an emotional support for me, and I'll be grateful to him forever for it.

Stone Phillips: Did you ever consider talking to your parents, to your dad, about homosexuality? Is that something that you felt you could ever raise?

Jeffrey Dahmer: Early on, I really didn't know that much about it myself. All I knew was that it was something that was to be kept hush-hush, not talked about, not even thought about. So I just kept it all within me and never, never talked about sexual issues at all, really, with anybody.

Stone Phillips: Do you think if you had been able to talk about that in a more open way with your dad, for instance, that it would have helped, might have broken this veil of secrecy and enabled you to keep yourself from going down that road?

Jeffrey Dahmer: Well, I don't know exactly what, if anything, would have ever kept me from going down that road. Talking about it, I don't think would have made that much difference, because like I said, there were things going on in my head that I would have never opened up and talked about with anybody.

Stone Phillips: Your dad says he never realized how deeply troubled you were, because he just thought you were shy, the way he had been shy as a boy. Do you think the signs were there and he just missed them?

Jeffrey Dahmer: No, I don't think so. Because I had thoughts, I had fantasies, but there was no outward show of anything that was wrong.

Stone Phillips: You were pretty good at keeping it all inside.

Jeffrey Dahmer: Right. I kept it inside. Didn't share any of my thoughts or emotions with anybody.

Lionel Dahmer: So how would I ever know?

Jeffrey Dahmer: No, you never saw any of it, as far as I know.

Lionel Dahmer: I did not really hear from anyone about any of these activities. And that's what really strikes me now: if I would have known, what would I have done about it? I think I would have done a lot about it.

Jeffrey Dahmer: I feel it's wrong for people who commit crimes to try to shift the blame onto somebody else, onto their parents, or onto their upbringing or living circumstances. I think that's just a cop-out. My parents, my relatives had no knowledge of what I was doing. They're absolutely not responsible for any of it in any way, and I take full responsibility.

Stone Phillips: But you understand that what you did would lead your father to ask himself all kinds of questions. Where did I go wrong? Was there something I could have said or done to have prevented this?

Jeffrey Dahmer: Right.

Stone Phillips: Did I in some way create or contribute to the terrible acts my son committed?

Jeffrey Dahmer: I understand that. I just get angry with other people who think that they have a right to somehow try to blame my parents for what happened. That's not right at all. No one has a right to do that, because they're totally innocent. They had no knowledge of it. That angers me.

Lionel Dahmer: But parents, just naturally, I mean, any parent that really cares, they just, first of all, say, I feel guilty. You know, there's just feelings of guilt. What happened? What did I do? What could I have done? So that's a normal parental reaction.

Stone Phillips: Your dad has wondered about all kinds of things, from the medication that your mom was on during her pregnancy, to the fact that you were exposed to violent arguments in the home from an early age and continuing, to the possibility that he might have passed on some genetic propensity for obsession or violent behavior. Does any of that ring true to you?

Jeffrey Dahmer: I can see why he'd wonder about those things. But as far as I'm concerned, they're all excuses, because I didn't feel accountable to anybody. I didn't feel that I had to face what I had done, ever. And so there comes a point where a person has to be accountable for what he's done. Can't go around making excuses, blaming other people or other things. So I alone am the one who's responsible for what's happened.

Stone Phillips: Let me ask, when did you first feel that everyone is accountable for their actions?

Jeffrey Dahmer: Well, thanks to you, for sending that creation science material. Because I always believed the lie that evolution is truth, the theory of evolution is truth, that we all just came from the slime, and when we died, you know, that was it, there was nothing. The whole theory cheapens life. And started reading books that show how evolution is just a complete lie. There's no basis in science to uphold it. And I've since come to believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is the true creator of the heavens and the earth. It just didn't just happen. And I have accepted him as my Lord and Savior, and I believe that I, as well as everyone else, will be accountable to him.

Stone Phillips: Growing up, did you feel that you were accountable to your dad or to your mom, as the authority?

Jeffrey Dahmer: Yes.

Stone Phillips: You're in the house.

Jeffrey Dahmer: Yes, I did. I mean, they didn't let me run wild. They were, they disciplined me, and so I felt accountable to them. But afterwards, after I left the home, that's when I started wanting to sort of create my own little world where I could be the one who had the complete control, where I didn't have to [unclear: "about" / "worry about"] anyone else's demands. And I just took it way too far.

Lionel Dahmer: Well, at that period of time, I had drifted away from a belief in a supreme being. And I never, as a result, passed along the feeling that we are all accountable in the end. He owns us. And that basic concept is very fundamental to all of us.

Stone Phillips: You feel that the absence, at least for a while, of a strong religious faith and belief for some years may have prevented you from instilling some of that in Jeff.

Lionel Dahmer: That's right.

Stone Phillips: Is that how you feel?

Jeffrey Dahmer: Yes, I think it had a big part to do with it. I mean, if a person doesn't think that there is a God to be accountable to, then what's the point of trying to modify your behavior to keep it within acceptable ranges? That's how I thought, anyway. And I've since come to believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is truly God: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. They're the only true God.

Stone Phillips: What do you remember about your parents arguing when you were growing up, and what effect that had on you?

Jeffrey Dahmer: It was unnerving, depressing, made me angry sometimes. I'd leave the house, go out in the woods and sulk, brooding, you know, wondering why they had to have such a rough relationship. Most of the time they didn't seem to get along too well together. I never knew what the real underlying problems were. I didn't feel it was my place to ask.

Stone Phillips: Did you blame one or the other, Mom or Dad?

Jeffrey Dahmer: No, I didn't. I was just frustrated that things couldn't be happier around the house.

Stone Phillips: You just wanted things to be more peaceful.

Jeffrey Dahmer: Right. I never saw any real violent arguments, as far as physical hitting or anything like that, but there was a lot of yelling, a lot of tension in the house sometimes.

Stone Phillips: One of the chilling stories that your dad tells is about the box he had found. Can you give me your perspective on that?

Jeffrey Dahmer: I had a box in my bedroom closet, and it contained the mummified head and genitals of a young man I met in one of the bars down in Milwaukee. And it was a locked metal box. My dad one week came to visit and happened to see it, and we got into a bit of an argument because I wouldn't open it up. He took the locked box down to the basement and was about to smash it open.

Stone Phillips: What were you thinking as he was making his way downstairs to open the box?

Jeffrey Dahmer: Well, I was outside, and I was thinking, I've got to stop this from happening. I didn't know what I'd do or say. I didn't know what would happen. I thought, you know, it's all going to come crashing down now. But the box was never opened, [unclear: "not my dad's presence" / "not in my dad's presence"]. And so the lies continued. The whole scenario just continued for years after that.

Stone Phillips: Were there times when your dad may have been closer to discovering what was going on than even he knew? Times where you got worried that maybe he would find something out?

Jeffrey Dahmer: The box incident was about as close as it came, you know. That was just one incident. There were others. But that was a particularly nerve-wracking one.

Stone Phillips: Are there others you can share? Other close calls?

Jeffrey Dahmer: When acidified, dissolved human remains were found. They weren't, they didn't look like human remains anymore, but they were in the trash bin outside in the garage. That was one incident. And a few others I'd rather not go into right now.

Stone Phillips: Were you relieved to be arrested?

Jeffrey Dahmer: Part of me was, and part of me wasn't.

Stone Phillips: Explain.

Jeffrey Dahmer: I don't know. It's like, I don't believe I have a split personality, but you know the feeling where you're sort of glad about something, but on the other hand you're not. That's how it was. It was a relief not to have to keep such a gigantic secret that I had kept for so many years. And once I saw that I had no choice but to face it, I decided to face it head-on and make a full confession. So I am glad that the secrets are gone.

Stone Phillips: Your father told me that one of the reasons he wrote this book was in order to put down on paper what he has been unable to say to you in words, kind of reaching out to you. What do you want to say to him, having read this?

Jeffrey Dahmer: I tell you, Dad, I'm really sorry that this has happened, and I love you a lot.

Lionel Dahmer: I love you, too.

Jeffrey Dahmer: I'm sorry.

Lionel Dahmer: Don't be sorry.

Jeffrey Dahmer: We haven't always shown it a lot, but I do love him a great deal. I love you. And without the support of my folks, I don't think I would have come through this. We've opened up with each other a lot more now, since the trial and everything. There's no secrets to be hidden away, you know. I don't feel that I have to keep any secrets from him. We've come to face what's real now, instead of just glossing things over and talking about superficial things. So there's a lot more communication between us.

Lionel Dahmer: This book may serve as a further bridge between Jeff and myself, and just for that purpose, I regard it as valuable for me.

Stone Phillips: Do you feel closer to your dad, having read this?

Jeffrey Dahmer: I feel that I feel closer, in that I understand more how he was thinking, what his thoughts were, what some of his motivations were. I'm glad he wrote it.

Stone Phillips: Anything not in the book you want to say to him?

Lionel Dahmer: I can't think too clearly right now. I'm feeling pretty emotional. I think that a lot of things have been brought out in this interview that has brought us to a little bit deeper, just a little bit closer understanding as to how this all originated. Well, whenever I get emotional, my analytical side gets clouded, and I can't express myself quite as well as I would like.

Stone Phillips: Can you talk about the feelings you have? [unclear: "You feeling close?"]

Lionel Dahmer: I feel very close to Jeff, and it's going to continue until our death, and I feel good about it.

Stone Phillips: Do you think you'll ever have the answers you've been looking for, about why, what happened, and what role, if any, you played?

Lionel Dahmer: Maybe not. My primary question is the origins of it, and if something can be learned about that, it may help other people avert problems.

Stone Phillips: Is it still there, Jeff? Does it ever go away, in part?

Jeffrey Dahmer: No, it never, it never completely goes away. I'll probably have to live with it for the rest of my life. I wish it would go away. I wish there was some way to completely get rid of the compulsive thoughts, the feelings. It's not nearly so bad now that there's no avenues to actually act on it. But no, it never seems to go completely away.

Stone Phillips: So the thoughts still come to you.

Jeffrey Dahmer: Sometimes, yeah.

Stone Phillips: Are you different, Jeff, in terms of how you think back on all of this?

Jeffrey Dahmer: I would hope I'm different. I'm glad that, I'm glad that I'm in a position now where I don't feel the compulsion to do these things. I'm glad that it's over. Any words I say to the victims' families are just going to seem trite and empty. I don't know how to express the regret, the sorrow that I feel for what I've done, for their, for their sons. I can't find the right words.

Stone Phillips: After the interview at the prison, Dahmer casually showed us something a little unsettling.

Jeffrey Dahmer: Just a point of interest. That's the type of box.

Stone Phillips: This is the type of box he wanted us to know. That box looked strikingly like the one his father had found, the one Jeffrey had used to hide body parts.

Unidentified: Thank you. ---