Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 16, 1992 TAG: 9202160087
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: MILWAUKEE LENGTH: Medium
DAHMER NOT CRAZY, JURY SAYS CANNIBAL FACES LIFE IN CELL
A jury found Saturday that Jeffrey Dahmer was sane when he killed and dismembered 15 men and boys in a horrifying quest for sexual gratification.The decision means Dahmer, who already has pleaded guilty to the murders, will receive a mandatory life sentence for each count. Wisconsin does not have capital punishment. A judge will determine when, or if, he will be eligible for parole. A hearing was scheduled Monday.
Judge Laurence Gram Jr.'s calm reading of the jury's verdict brought to a climax one of the most stunningly gruesome murder cases in American history.
As he announced the jurors' 10-2 decisions, reading off a grim roll call of Dahmer's prey, a shudder of emotion rolled through one victim's family after another in the gallery. Some shouted in pain. Others rocked with sobs. One or two smiled.
The unusual trial required only that 10 of the jurors agree.
The law also put the burden of proof on the defense to prove that Dahmer - who admitted boiling skulls, eating body parts and having sex with corpses - was insane.
To be proven insane in Wisconsin, defendants must prove they suffered from a mental disease which kept them from knowing right from wrong or made them unable to stop themselves from committing the crimes.
Dahmer sat stone-faced, as he had throughout the three-week trial.
One victim's relative said to District Attorney E. Michael McCann as he walked out of the courtroom, "God bless you. I love you, my brother." Others hugged McCann and thanked him.
"They gave a powerful, powerful argument," said Teresa Smith, Dahmer sister of victim Edward W. Smith. "They brought back the faith I'd lost in the justice system."
McCann said jurors realized Dahmer could have controlled his conduct. "This was an unusual individual, and I think the jury saw through it," he said.
Juror Karl W. Stahle said, "His whole conduct showed he was a con artist . . . and he is above average in intelligence, and that's all we went by." Stahle said the jury deliberated about five hours.
Defense attorney Gerald Boyle said he warned Dahmer beforehand to expect the worst. He said Dahmer thanked him for trying.
"I'm pretty sure that he wants to close the book on it and just live out the rest of his life as he knows it's going to be," Boyle said.
Few crimes compare to Dahmer's for sheer horror, and his trial provided an in-depth study of the mind of a killer who - sane or insane - had strayed as far outside the bounds of civilized behavior as most people could imagine.
Even his own lawyer said he was not there to excuse Dahmer's behavior, but to explain it. He insisted Dahmer's craving for sex with the dead and his fear of loneliness drove him out of control - to kill again and again, unable to stop.
"This was not an evil man. This was a sick man whose sickness rose to the level of mental illness," Boyle said. He maintained that Dahmer suffered from necrophilia, a sexual attraction to corpses.
McCann said just the opposite: Dahmer was in the grip of evil, not insanity, when he picked up young men for sex and then drugged and strangled them, in some cases first performing crude brain surgery in the vain hope of creating zombies who would serve as his sexual slaves.