217: Dahmer with Robyn Maharaj

00:02:45:24 – 00:03:06:03
Dan LeFebvre
The series kicks off by showing how Jeffrey Dahmer was caught in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in the year 1991. And according to the first episode, Dahmer picks up a man named Tracy Edwards at a bar. They go back to his place where Dahmer ends up pulling a knife. After Tracy starts to notice some red flags going off and then he sees as an opportunity to escape.

00:03:06:05 – 00:03:25:23
Dan LeFebvre
Tracy, that is. And he manages to make his way out of Dahmer’s apartment, runs into a police car. He tracks down the two cops, and then they return to Dahmer’s apartment with Tracy Edwards there. And while doing a search of Dahmer’s apartment, they find photographs of dismembered bodies. I think one of the cops is like, wait a minute, this is real.

00:03:25:23 – 00:03:25:29
Robyn Maharaj
Yeah.

00:03:26:15 – 00:03:30:00
Dan LeFebvre
How well did the series do showing how Jeffrey Dahmer was ultimately arrested?

00:03:30:17 – 00:03:46:20
Robyn Maharaj
Well, you know, I think it’s just an exact moment that is made for cinema. Like you can kind of imagine it. Like how I sort of see it is sort of depends on where you pick it up. Like, is it, you know, Edwards escaping and kind of getting out in the hallway, getting outside and then flagging down these cops?

00:03:46:20 – 00:04:00:21
Robyn Maharaj
Or is it just, you know, him flagging down the cops? But wherever it is, you start. And I think that the series did it beautifully. You know, it’s very much, you know, him talking to the cops. I just want these handcuffs off. I don’t want to cause a lot of trouble. I just want to be able to get on with it.

00:04:01:01 – 00:04:14:21
Robyn Maharaj
And it was just sort of the chance of them looking at and say, well, we don’t have a key. We need to get the guy who has the key to get these unlocked. And they had to really in truth, they had to really kind of talk him into coming back with them because he said this guy is crazy.

00:04:14:21 – 00:04:17:08
Robyn Maharaj
And, you know, I just I don’t want to go back there. It smells bad, you know?

00:04:17:19 – 00:04:19:11
Dan LeFebvre
And said yes, absolutely.

00:04:19:11 – 00:04:39:10
Robyn Maharaj
So you know, that scene of them sort of just standing there outside of the apartment with Tracy kind of behind them. And, you know, he’s sort of looking away and not really wanting to make eye contact with Dahmer. Dahmer standing there. And he’s been drinking a lot. So he’s really kind of unbalanced. And, you know, like suddenly he’s opened the door to these two uniformed police officers.

00:04:39:19 – 00:04:56:26
Robyn Maharaj
I think they handled it beautifully. Like, I think they just did it. And as I said, it’s a moment made for cinema. There’s just a lot going on there and everything that would just you could you could just picture it happening. And it really I think it really was perfectly done in terms of how it really occurred. They’re saying to him, you know, this guy just wants his handcuffs on.

00:04:56:26 – 00:05:05:07
Robyn Maharaj
Let us come in. We’ll just we won’t take much of your time, but as soon as they walk through that threshold is really when, you know, sort of the Dahmer story unfolds.

00:05:05:16 – 00:05:21:16
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. Yeah. The first thing that caught my attention was that he went back with them. I was like, why would they take him back? I didn’t even I mean, I know they kind of mentioned it briefly in the series talking about the key, but it sounds like that was what they really were after, was the key to unlocking that this guy was handcuffed.

00:05:21:17 – 00:05:33:26
Robyn Maharaj
Yeah. You got to wonder, why didn’t they just leave him in the car, you know, and then they go up and say, well, you know, your hands up there. But anyways, they brought him up there and that’s maybe they just thought, you know, we’ll just deal with this right at the door and then kind of everyone can get on with their lives again.

00:05:34:03 – 00:05:49:22
Robyn Maharaj
But yeah, they walk through that door and of course they noticed that since right away that smell and that, you know, a lot of police officers say once you smell that, you never forget it. And that’s but yeah, first they’re just kind of, you know, like this is kind of a strange guy, kind of a strange place. But they do see these photographs.

00:05:49:22 – 00:06:05:02
Robyn Maharaj
And I remember the detective in real life saying, you know, or thinking to himself like, where did this guy get pictures from the morgue, you know, like how did he find pictures of the morgue? And it wasn’t until he realized this is the same room that we’re standing in that he, you know, suddenly said something like, grab him.

00:06:05:14 – 00:06:10:21
Dan LeFebvre
Oh, okay. So it was noticing like that that being in that apartment like this looks familiar in the picture.

00:06:11:04 – 00:06:17:23
Robyn Maharaj
Right. Right. That sofa pattern where there’s ah, there’s this dismembered unit stretched out like, you know, this, this is right here.

00:06:17:23 – 00:06:35:25
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, yeah. Wow. Wow. In the second episode of the series, it kind of starts to go back in the timeline and start to show some of Dahmer’s early life. And there are scenes of his mother and father arguing with each other right in front of a young Jeffrey. At that point, we see his mother’s taking a lot of prescription pills.

00:06:35:25 – 00:06:52:03
Dan LeFebvre
His father leaves the house for days at a time. And when he is home, one of the hobbies that interests Jeff is when he and his father pick up roadkill and experiment on the dead animals, dissecting them and so on. How well did the series do showing Jeffrey Dahmer’s early life?

00:06:52:24 – 00:07:07:23
Robyn Maharaj
Again, I think this is really well-done. I didn’t really know like I sort of I read somewhere, you know, maybe last year that they were going to cover sort of Dahmer in high school and that they were going to sort of then show, you know, sort of how he made his way to Milwaukee and then really began his crime spree by that time.

00:07:07:24 – 00:07:29:02
Robyn Maharaj
So it’s a little bit, you know, kind of surprised to see that they had footage of a young Jeff Dahmer, like a young kid. But I think it was important that they did that, because I think that a lot of people kind of look back on that time as they do. I think any kind of serial killer, you know, they kind of want to go back as far and just kind of see like what was going on there that may have led to this kind of behavior, you know, in the future.

00:07:29:23 – 00:07:49:12
Robyn Maharaj
And yeah, I think the interest in road kill, the way they portrayed his relationship with his dad, I remember Kennedy telling me that he found Lionel to be very strange, like they actually did meet their paths crossed in Milwaukee once Dahmer was arrested. And he said, you know, he’s kind of a strange guy, you know? And he thought that it was Kennedy had two sons of his own.

00:07:49:12 – 00:08:06:18
Robyn Maharaj
You know, if I had a young son like that who was sort of interested in this or showing an interest in this, I would ask some questions and maybe find out a little bit about why there was this interest. But as Dahmer said, you know, later on when he was being interrogated, you know, I was interested in the insides of dead thing.

00:08:06:19 – 00:08:24:15
Robyn Maharaj
That was sort of how he portrayed it. And it began at this young age. I think that’s important. And I don’t know that they didn’t say this in the series, which was good, and that was that Dahmer never killed any animals. Like he would find dead animals, but he never actually, like, found, you know, found a live animal and tortured it to death.

00:08:24:25 – 00:08:42:10
Robyn Maharaj
It was all dead animals already. Things that you would find on the side of a road or in woods near where he lived. And yeah, his dad also recalled a memory, and I think they sort of showed it, although they didn’t really they were really sort of portrayed as much as they could have, I suppose. And that is that he remembers Jeff as a young boy being interested.

00:08:42:11 – 00:08:57:15
Robyn Maharaj
They were playing kind of cleaned up some rocks and bones of like little dead animals that were on the property. And he remembered the sound, Jeff, liking the sound of these bones hitting this sort of tin bucket and they were collecting it. And and he really liked the sound of that. And so that’s how he kind of got interested in doing that.

00:08:57:15 – 00:09:16:07
Robyn Maharaj
Is he kind of like putting them in the bucket and down, but the interest in chemicals and and all of the sort of the science side of it, because of Lionel’s background and because of his own interest and his own career as a chemist, he thought he had a little protege on his hands. You know, he thought this was something he should encourage.

00:09:17:05 – 00:09:41:17
Robyn Maharaj
So he thought, you know, like, oh, well, I’ve got somebody who’s interested in this. I will sort of answer his questions if he’s asking me, you know, how what kind of chemicals do you need to take the skin off of the bone? You know, other parents might be saying, I want to know that, whereas in Lionel’s case, he sort of thought like, oh, okay, well, you know, I will teach him this, I will show him and I will teach him and kind of get his interest, you know, that it was sort of his interest in all of these kind of things.

00:09:42:05 – 00:10:00:29
Robyn Maharaj
The interest that the relationship between the parents, between Lionel and Joyce, I mean, was that, you know, nowadays we sort of look at it in terms of quality time, like but I think in their case, you know, when he was home and they were together as a family, all Jeff really remembers was them fighting, having lots and lots of fights.

00:10:00:29 – 00:10:14:04
Robyn Maharaj
And they would fight in front of him or they would say, go to your room. We know where we have to talk about something here that’s serious. So he spent a lot of time on his own. There was kind of a gap between him and his brother. There was only the two boys. And so, you know, I think sent to his room.

00:10:14:04 – 00:10:40:15
Robyn Maharaj
He didn’t have you know, he fantasized a lot. He you have a lot of time on his hands and and, you know, kind of a weird interest in sort of the inside of bed things. And so yeah, I mean, you know, people sort of like I’ve been watching some of the forums of things about the show and a lot of them say, oh, you know, if only he had had had had better parents, things like that kind of if maybe they think that the series is trying to show that there was some, I don’t know, fault there somehow or if maybe he had had different parents, it wouldn’t have turned out the way that it

00:10:40:15 – 00:10:56:23
Robyn Maharaj
did. But I think from what I’ve read and from what I understand, they actually were pretty good parents. Like, they just didn’t get along, you know, and they did fight a lot in front of him. And and as you mentioned, and as they indicated in the series, like Lionel was on a lot, he was a very, very hardworking guy.

00:10:57:15 – 00:11:19:03
Robyn Maharaj
And he spends a lot of time away from home. I think the time that he was there, he was sort of half spent time with his sons and then half, you know, fighting with his wife. And then Joyce, I mean, it was very it’s very well documented that she had issues with mental illness. So I was a little bit surprised that I didn’t really know or remember that she’d taken a lot of prescription drugs during her pregnancy.

00:11:19:19 – 00:11:33:15
Robyn Maharaj
But I do remember I remember reading a lot of stories, hearing a lot about when she would be at home. You know, she wasn’t you know, Jeff had this thing about of being abandoned, you know, and it’s like, well, you know, he had two parents. Why would he feel like that for the most part of his growing up years?

00:11:33:15 – 00:11:52:16
Robyn Maharaj
I mean, it wasn’t until he was late in high school that they actually separated and each with their own way. But, you know, it’s like, well, if she was medicated or if she was in a in a psychiatric hospital where she was sleeping a lot because of all the pills she was taking, that’s a form of abandonment. You know, it’s not the same as just like I’m leaving and I’m never coming back.

00:11:52:24 – 00:12:07:11
Robyn Maharaj
It’s she was there, but how present was she? You know? So I think, again, he spent a lot of time on his own and a lot of time thinking about things and and a lot of times are wondering why isn’t if I don’t my parents get along? He always would say at a very young age, like I’m never getting married.

00:12:08:06 – 00:12:25:11
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, no, I mean, that makes sense. And you you definitely see a lot of fighting. And the impression that I got there was one scene there where we do see a Joyce doing something on the bed, like with pills in there and they’re fighting there. And then right in front of Jeffrey, a young Jeffrey, Lionel gets up and walks out of the house and be like, I’ll be back in.

00:12:25:12 – 00:12:40:06
Dan LeFebvre
I remember the timeline. He said, you know, a week or two weeks or something like that. And the impression I got was he just couldn’t wait to get out of the house. I mean, it may have been legitimately for work. Yeah, he didn’t really talk much about work in that episode, but yeah, the impression was he just didn’t he didn’t like being.

00:12:40:06 – 00:12:54:06
Robyn Maharaj
Right home was not a happy place. I don’t think, you know, for for any of them really. Like I think because of some of her illness, you know, illness and her anger and I had other things too, you know, like, you know, I think yet blame one parent or another. I think it was issues all the way through.

00:12:54:15 – 00:13:00:17
Robyn Maharaj
But yeah, I don’t think that he really particularly liked being at home because of the relationship that he had with Joyce Speigel. I mean.

00:13:01:11 – 00:13:22:02
Dan LeFebvre
That makes sense. In the third episode of the series, we see Jeffrey Dahmer’s first murder and the way it’s depicted in the series, he picks up a hitchhiker named Stephen, invites him to come back to his house for a few beers. We were left some weights and then he offers to drive Stephen to this Pegasus concert that he’s wanting to go to and back at the house.

00:13:22:02 – 00:13:35:03
Dan LeFebvre
And you mentioned the abandonment issues that’s actually kind of brought up there. They Stephen says, oh, we should get going to the concert. And he’s like, No, let’s just hang out a little bit more. He doesn’t want to be it sounds like he does want to be abandoned and he ends up killing Stephen with a dumbbell from his weight set.

00:13:35:21 – 00:13:38:12
Dan LeFebvre
Is that how Dahmer’s first murder really happened?

00:13:38:12 – 00:13:56:21
Robyn Maharaj
I think very much. I think very much so. I think from what they pieced together, from what Dahmer told them, that that’s very much the way it happened. It was all about like I don’t think it was an intentional murder. I don’t think when Dahmer saw this young guy on the side of the road and pulled over as he was hitchhiking and said, you know, hey, where are you going?

00:13:56:24 – 00:14:13:15
Robyn Maharaj
Maybe I’ll give you a ride. I don’t think his idea was at all about, you know, I’m going to kill this guy at the end of the night. I think it was really about he was lonely at this point. He was had been spending a lot of time at the house by himself. His mother had taken off to Wisconsin with his younger brother.

00:14:13:21 – 00:14:33:12
Robyn Maharaj
His dad had already moved out of the house and on with his new girlfriend and spending a lot of time with her and away from the home. And so Jeff was there by himself. And so he saw this young guy who he thought was attractive looking and said, you know, he kind of liked to hang out with them and really kind of lured him with every sort of possibility of drinking, maybe some cannabis, you know?

00:14:33:12 – 00:14:49:24
Robyn Maharaj
Well, let’s wait and watch some TV or whatever. And I’ll even take you to the concert you want to go to. So, I mean, how could the guy say no? I mean, it was just like a perfect package there. So yeah. So he went back there and, you know, they hung around and talked and just kind of did whatever they were going to do.

00:14:49:24 – 00:15:02:20
Robyn Maharaj
And yeah, the time Steven was kind of like ready to go, Jeff was just like, you know, please don’t go. You know, we can hang on a little bit longer. We’ll take us out long to get to where you need to go. And Steven is saying, look, I’ve got friends who are waiting for me. I really want to go.

00:15:02:20 – 00:15:22:10
Robyn Maharaj
And it was him trying to prevent him from leaving. And the way it that that is in fact, what happened. He had weights kind of lying around the living room. He was doing that. I think he was lifting weights after he graduated from high school and drinking a lot. And so this happened to be just there. It was a convenient tool weapon that he could use to keep the guy keep the guy there.

00:15:22:27 – 00:15:27:15
Dan LeFebvre
So it sounds like it was more just more convenience then when you trying to keep him from leaving.

00:15:27:15 – 00:15:28:02
Robyn Maharaj
Exactly.

00:15:28:13 – 00:15:48:05
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. You mentioned that the mother and father there and some many impressions I got from that episode was they both left the house thinking that the other parent would be there with Jeff. Yeah, we see. You know, Jeff said Lionel returning to the house and he’s kind of surprised he finds out there’s no one else there. Jeff was alone in this house for well over a month.

00:15:48:05 – 00:15:57:09
Dan LeFebvre
I think they say something like five or six weeks. And and that was at least according to the series. That’s basically how he was able to murder Steven without anybody noticing.

00:15:57:09 – 00:16:15:20
Robyn Maharaj
Right. Is that true? That is true. And in fact, when I met with because I did read this story, of course, and I had this theory that when I met with Kennedy back in 2013, sorry, 2013, I wanted to kind of float it by him and see what he thought. And he sort of like look back. He said, actually, this is actually a really good theory.

00:16:15:20 – 00:16:41:04
Robyn Maharaj
What I had proposed was that like I at that point in the marriage, like, they were just so angry with each other, particularly Joyce with Lionel, because not only did she feel abandoned, but he had already moved on with another woman. And so she was just like they weren’t speaking to each other. And so I think the scene of Jeff’s dad, Lionel, already having left the house, the family house and the mom, they’re packing up the car with the younger son.

00:16:41:04 – 00:17:00:18
Robyn Maharaj
Get in. And I think she actually said to Jeff, you know, call your dad, tell him that we’ve left and that he can come home. Now, I think she actually sort of told them, instructed him, suggested to him, you know, call your dad now, then we’re going. And that he purposely didn’t call his dad because it kind of gave him a little bit of freedom.

00:17:00:18 – 00:17:17:03
Robyn Maharaj
You know, he had this whole big house to himself that he had food in the fridge at that point. He had a bar, you know, that was drinks. So he was obviously unable to go and get drinks. I mean, he could go and get beer if he wanted. He had a car. But I think he just sort of was, you know, like looking at this is an opportunity, you know.

00:17:17:03 – 00:17:31:11
Robyn Maharaj
So I think he purposely didn’t call his dad and his dad, again, was sort of moving on with his new life and just happened to come by and visit and say, hey, where’s Mom? Where’s Dave? And he said, Oh, well, they left. Oh, well, how long ago did they know? So it all kind of unfolded at that point.

00:17:31:21 – 00:17:38:28
Robyn Maharaj
But I think to have Lionel know that Joyce was gone, I think he probably would have come back to the house because he was living in a motel at that point.

00:17:39:17 – 00:17:54:17
Dan LeFebvre
Which I mean, if they didn’t have a good relationship and they didn’t really want to talk Joyce and Lionel, I mean, like if they didn’t really want to talk to each other, I could see how, like, Joyce would kind of relay the message through the kids, like now. Okay, Jeff, you call your dad and tell him I don’t want to talk to them to do that.

00:17:54:23 – 00:17:58:24
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, yeah. You hear that kind of stuff happen a lot with relationships are not going well.

00:17:58:25 – 00:18:13:08
Robyn Maharaj
Exactly. And I mean, I at it, but I proposed it to Kennedy. He kind of said, you know, I could totally see Jeff doing that. You know, he was sort of he can be quiet and he could be, you know, only give information when it sort of suited him. Be a little on the cagey side. I mean, he’d been hiding a drinking problem.

00:18:13:08 – 00:18:26:03
Robyn Maharaj
You know, I don’t know how well he was hiding it from his parents, but I mean, they didn’t seem to know that he had been drinking or was drinking as much as he was at that point is don’t forget, this is just after he’d graduated from high school, but he had started had started drinking way earlier than that.

00:18:26:12 – 00:18:42:15
Robyn Maharaj
So, you know, I guess they I guess when she left and I’m thinking, you know, if she said something to him like call your dad, that she just assumed that he he what, you know, because Lyle and just had a good relationship and you know if he she’s not there, then Lyle probably would been more inclined to want to come home.

00:18:42:16 – 00:19:04:08
Dan LeFebvre
Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. If you go back to the series in the fourth episode, it covers a lot of time. It doesn’t really specify if it’s weeks, months or years, but it starts with Jeff’s dad, Lionel, and this new stepmom, Sherri enrolling Jeff in Ohio State. While there, Jeff has terrible GPA. I noted it down was like 0.4 or five GPA.

00:19:04:08 – 00:19:24:09
Dan LeFebvre
Like terrible GPA get expelled. They Lionel and Sherri, just don’t seem to really know what to do with Jeff. And so he decides a dad decides to send him to the Army. We don’t see a lot of time of Jeff in the Army, but we do find out that he gets honorably discharged and after he returns home, he has even more troubles.

00:19:24:09 – 00:19:41:10
Dan LeFebvre
He loses a job at a meat market after exposing himself at the state fair and he gets a job at a blood plasma center. I think while there there was actually they actually mentioned, well, he’s applying for the job. I mentioned that he was a medic in the Army and that’s how he gets that job. How did the series do showing some of these key points in Dahmer’s life?

00:19:42:00 – 00:20:02:22
Robyn Maharaj
They did a good job. I think one of the things that they sort of did very well, you know, and I guess it’s the sort of the actor, you know, and as well as the direction given to him. But, you know, just from what I gathered, you know, he had no real ambition. He had no motivation. He didn’t seem to have any desire or, you know, oh, I want to go off to school and become this, you know, like you didn’t sort of have anything like you said, it was just sort of drifting.

00:20:03:11 – 00:20:27:09
Robyn Maharaj
So, you know, that’s very much true. It was all, you know, him being aimless and his dad and Sherri kind of just pushing him, you know, and and one of the things that I kind of really kind of I realized, I guess watching the series, I mean, I sort of knew this, but it was really pointed it out very well, was that, you know, Jeff really didn’t I mean, it wasn’t that they forced these things on him per se, but he just went along with, you know, oh, we’ve decided that, you know, you should go off to Ohio State.

00:20:27:09 – 00:20:42:15
Robyn Maharaj
So we did all of this, you know, signing you up, doing all this. What? Oh, okay. I’ll go there. And he essentially drank himself out of college. You know, that was the problem. Like he didn’t really attend classes that that’s why he had such a low GPA. You know, they liked him out because after a semester they were just like, you’re not coming to class.

00:20:42:15 – 00:20:59:20
Robyn Maharaj
And, you know, it’s don’t seem to have any drive to do change your behavior at all. So that didn’t work out. So then his parents, you know, his dad and his stepmom, I think they once said, I saw in an interview that that will maybe the Army will kind of make him mad at some of them and give him some discipline, give him some direction.

00:20:59:20 – 00:21:21:23
Robyn Maharaj
And so they thought this is a good opportunity. So they signed, you know, took him down, enrolled and signed him up for the Army. And again, just kind of just, oh, okay, yeah, let’s just do it. And I think for him, that was very much, you know, the path of least resistance. He didn’t want to get in big fights with his dad, but particularly and I mean, they knew at this point that it was, you know, he was drinking a lot and that drinking was his problem.

00:21:21:28 – 00:21:39:10
Robyn Maharaj
So, you know, they were encouraging him to do all sorts of things. You got to stop drinking. You got to go to meetings, try to get therapy. Him along with the grandma, go to church. You know, this will help you to get this drinking problem behind you. And then you can move on with your life. You know, you can get moving in forward and actually maybe figure out what you want to do with your life.

00:21:39:10 – 00:21:56:25
Robyn Maharaj
But yeah, I think that they captured it really, really well. There was one thing that I don’t remember them talking about at all, and maybe it was for good reason, and that was that when he left the Army because he was in Germany at that point when he left and was just sort of sorry, was honorably discharged, they said to him, Where do you want to go in the States?

00:21:56:25 – 00:22:13:10
Robyn Maharaj
We will fly you wherever you want to go. And he said Florida. He ended up in Florida for a little while. So he was down there for I’m not really sure how long, you know, maybe not quite a year, but he was working at a south sandwich shop and he was or a sub shop, I guess, and he was delivering sandwiches and that was kind of his job for a while.

00:22:13:17 – 00:22:32:10
Robyn Maharaj
But again, just all of his money went to drinking and so eventually he was evicted from where he was living and he was on the beach for a while, like living on a beach for a while. And then some rats kind of freaked him out on that time and he had no money. So he called his dad at that point and he said, you know, I’m back in the States and I’m living in Florida.

00:22:32:20 – 00:22:47:11
Robyn Maharaj
And his dad said, Why Florida? And he said, Well, it’s warm down here. So I just figured it would be easier to live and he said, Can you send me some money? And Dahmer’s dad said, Well, we were not going to send you money, but we will send you a plane ticket, come back to Ohio. So that’s what he ended up doing.

00:22:47:11 – 00:23:00:27
Robyn Maharaj
So he got on a plane, came back to Ohio. And I remember reading somewhere, Lionel, saying as soon as he saw them, saw him at the airport, when they went to meet him, he could see his eyes were glazed over and that he’d already been drinking, you know. So he said it wasn’t even the middle of the day.

00:23:00:27 – 00:23:17:23
Robyn Maharaj
He’s already been drinking. So I guess I guess it was around this point that they had him in Ohio, you know, college had not worked out. The Army had not worked out. So they said, you know what, you need a fresh start. You should go to Milwaukee, live with grandma, give her a hand, you know, help her around the house and do things with her.

00:23:18:00 – 00:23:31:15
Robyn Maharaj
And also, you know, get on with whatever it is you’re going to do with your life. You know, maybe a fresh start is what you need. So that’s kind of how that storyline took off. But yeah, they I don’t think they really talked about his time in Florida and maybe it was just because it was, you know, he can’t cover everything.

00:23:31:27 – 00:23:49:01
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. Yeah, it was pretty brief. There was a point that I remember him calling his his dad line on the phone, almost kind of begging to come home. And at least as far as is portrayed in the series, it seems like Lionel was real hesitant for that. But it sounds like maybe there was maybe it wasn’t necessarily that case.

00:23:49:01 – 00:23:52:25
Dan LeFebvre
If it was actually Lionel’s sentencing, it could be like, oh, okay, come back on.

00:23:52:25 – 00:24:09:09
Robyn Maharaj
Yeah. Okay. Well, I think he figure, you know, if we send money, you know, he’s just going to have just use it all to drink. He’s not going to use it in a rant or whatever. So we’ll get another call in three weeks saying I need more money. So I think they figured it’d be easier to kind of handle him a little better manage Jeff as he was, you know, at least closer to home.

00:24:09:15 – 00:24:25:00
Robyn Maharaj
But I think once he got back and they realized, like, what? You know, like he’s just he’s a burnout, you know, like he doesn’t have the drive that certainly the dad had. So they were just kind of, I think a bit let loose ends. They didn’t know what to do. You know, here is this young guy and he just, you know, whatever they’d say to him, like, what do you want to do?

00:24:25:00 – 00:24:34:18
Robyn Maharaj
Like, what is you see when you see yourself doing it? He didn’t have any ideas. He didn’t know what he wanted to do, but he was just I mean, he was an alcoholic and that was all he wanted to do was just have money to drink.

00:24:34:18 – 00:24:58:18
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. There is another murder that we see featured rather prominently in episode four, and that’s when Dahmer gets kicked out of a local bathhouse for drugging people. And so he rents this expensive hotel room. He takes another man that he met at a bar there, and then he kind of accidentally drugs himself and sort of he ends the wrong drink, but then he wakes up and finds that apparently he had killed the man in the hotel room.

00:24:58:18 – 00:25:03:15
Dan LeFebvre
So it seems like another kind of accidental death. Did that really happen in the way that we see it in the series?

00:25:03:15 – 00:25:21:07
Robyn Maharaj
Yeah, it did happen. Yeah. He kicked out of these bathhouses and he was told not to come back anymore. And but he met this guy, and he was really, really attracted to him. For whatever reason. I don’t remember. He just didn’t want to take him back to his grandmother’s house. Then he wanted to have more time with this, this fellow.

00:25:21:19 – 00:25:41:03
Robyn Maharaj
Anyways, they ended up at this hotel and yeah, they were sort of drinking and partying. And at some point Dahmer passed out and he remembers waking up that morning and he said, you know, this guy was lying there. He was told he had bruises all over him. He had looked like he’d been beaten. That’s Dahmer himself. You know, his arms were sorry.

00:25:41:03 – 00:26:04:10
Robyn Maharaj
He had bruises on his arms. He had blacked out and he didn’t remember. But he said to the cops, I must have killed him. I must have killed him. I don’t remember doing it, but I must have killed him. So he ended up staying another day and night, sort of seen another day at the hotel. He went out and bought a suitcase and brought it back, a very large suitcase, brought it back and took the body out in this bag.

00:26:04:15 – 00:26:18:08
Robyn Maharaj
And apparently he had said to he ended up taking it to his grandmother’s house in a taxi. And when he rolled it out to the front of the hotel and the cab showed up, he was helping them. The cabbie was helping him put it into the trunk. And he said to him, Man, what do you have in here?

00:26:18:08 – 00:26:24:21
Robyn Maharaj
A dead body? And Jeff said, Yeah, you mean course. The guy thought it was Joe, right? So, yeah. Yeah. So he brought.

00:26:24:24 – 00:26:25:05
Dan LeFebvre
It. Yeah.

00:26:25:26 – 00:26:30:15
Robyn Maharaj
Yeah. So he brought that body back to his grandmother once where he dismembered it and got rid of it.

00:26:30:25 – 00:26:51:00
Dan LeFebvre
Wow. Wow. Yeah, I think we we don’t see that for a day with the guy helping him into the taxi, but we do see the suitcase part fitting in there. Yeah. And you mentioned the grandmother. We do see in episode five, we see Jeff living with her. Her name is Catherine. And while he’s there, his murders continue. He brings people back to his grandma’s house.

00:26:51:00 – 00:27:09:23
Dan LeFebvre
He drugs them, he kills them there. There’s at one point they kind of switch the series, kind of switches back and forth between the interrogation and between the things happening and Evan Peters version of Jeffrey Dahmer even mentions to the police that he thinks his grandma knew that there was something going on, but she didn’t want to dig too deep into it.

00:27:09:27 – 00:27:26:13
Dan LeFebvre
He, as he said, too, because of his lifestyle and the impression that I got is watching this, you know, the grandmas seem to be very deeply religious. She doesn’t really want to admit that Jeff is gay, so she ignores all the guys that he keeps bringing over. I also got the impression that she probably knew there was something going on just from the acting that was there.

00:27:26:14 – 00:27:47:24
Dan LeFebvre
Was there that you probably knew something was going on, but she probably just thought that he was sleeping with these guys and not murdering them. Is it accurate to walk away from the series that that with that impression of Jeffrey Dahmer’s time living with his grandmother, that she kind of didn’t really want to know what was going on, but probably didn’t even anticipate that it was as bad as it was.

00:27:48:15 – 00:28:13:14
Robyn Maharaj
Yeah, absolutely. I think that wherever she could just for her own sake, probably, you know, sort of turned a bit of a blind eye. You know, I think she suspected a lot, as you sort of are saying. But yeah, she just kind of didn’t really want to face it. She didn’t want to to believe it, I think. And I mean, I think that the grand I felt really bad for the grandmother, actually, and it was really, really well done with the series.

00:28:13:14 – 00:28:29:16
Robyn Maharaj
I thought the woman theme is Michael Learned. I played the grandmother and she was just fabulous because what she kept doing and I think this is true, as Catherine was, she kind of kept saying, like, you know, you got to stop drinking, Jeff. You know, you really have to come back to church. You should come to church with me on Sunday.

00:28:29:16 – 00:28:50:16
Robyn Maharaj
And both she and Lionel would sort of have this belief that if only you would meet the right girl or him being gay, this wasn’t going to happen. But they, you know, really, really felt that that was going to be part of the answer to Jeff being better, you know, to to maybe it would be enough to make him motivated to quit drinking, that he would feel like, Oh, I have somebody in my life that I want to be with.

00:28:51:01 – 00:29:07:07
Robyn Maharaj
But they were all convinced that if he just met the right woman, he would be okay. You know, he would stop having all these troubles as far as what was going on in her house. Like, you know, there was strange noises. They were strange odors and, you know, smells that were coming up from her basement in her crawlspace.

00:29:07:15 – 00:29:24:22
Robyn Maharaj
So she was constantly asking Jeff, like, what is going on down there? Like what is happening? And he would just blame it on his taxidermy hobby. And these men that were kind of coming in and out, I think he was able to I mean, he was really a con artist, right? Like, I mean, he was able to convince a lot of people of a lot of things.

00:29:25:02 – 00:29:43:24
Robyn Maharaj
Maybe it was just because he was very sort of boring, almost. He was so bland that people would sort of say, well, you know, like he’s just he’s just drab guy, so, you know, you’re not going to be doing anything out of the ordinary and so they kind of, you know, it’s just sort of as I said, I think particularly with her, sort of turned a blind eye to it.

00:29:44:01 – 00:30:00:10
Robyn Maharaj
And I mean, even when they would talk about his arrest and some of this trouble with the police, I think she kind of downplayed it a little bit. Maybe he said, oh, well, you know, it was it wasn’t my fault. And she would want to believe that about her grandson, you know. So but yeah, I think that I think it was really, really well done.

00:30:00:10 – 00:30:19:07
Robyn Maharaj
And I think it did show it gave an opportunity to sort of so show his temper is sometimes he would get very frustrated with her when she would go in and apparently, like she did, throw away that mannequin that he had. And he got very upset with her about that. But it also allowed us to sort of see the Dahmer character, if you will, with some tenderness.

00:30:19:08 – 00:30:32:21
Robyn Maharaj
You know, like you said, it was kind of like a couple of scenes of him sitting there having dinner with her on a TV tray and there watching game shows, you know? I mean, yes. I mean, yes, he’s a serial killer and whatever. But I mean, I think he genuinely loved his grandmother. I think he generally loved his family.

00:30:33:09 – 00:30:47:29
Robyn Maharaj
So I don’t know what that’s worth, but but that one scene, though, like I think what had happened and I think that they did want to involve the grandmother a little bit more in that scene with the young man who was there. And she’s like, I’m not going to go away. I want to I know that that didn’t happen.

00:30:48:09 – 00:31:08:12
Robyn Maharaj
And what had happened was she had heard some noises in the basement and she came down to kind of investigate this one evening. And a man that Dahmer had brought home and had dropped, drugged, was stumbling around and he was naked. And so he kind of ran into Catherine I the he was trying to get upstairs and she was kind of coming downstairs.

00:31:08:12 – 00:31:41:12
Robyn Maharaj
So she was, of course, frightened and thought they had an intruder in the house. So she’s like, just just call the police. So he managed to get this guy back downstairs dressed and outside. He said, Yes, grandma, I’ve taken care of it, but I will call the police because she insisted. So he did call the police while they were waiting for the police just took this guy down the street and just left him on a bus stop, like kind of passed over, you know, Pat passed out and just sort of leaning over, thought back to the house and was there when the police came to take this report of this intruder that happened to be

00:31:41:12 – 00:31:44:07
Robyn Maharaj
in their basement. Uh huh.

00:31:44:18 – 00:32:04:01
Dan LeFebvre
Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah, that is different. I think in the series they show that he, the grandmother stays there all night after he gets drugged and they do take him to the bus stop. But then after the cops come and because of him, his name I think was Ron Flowers in the series, he talks to the nurse and like, Oh, there’s this crazy guy that drugged me.

00:32:04:01 – 00:32:09:09
Dan LeFebvre
And she’s like, You need to talk to the cops. Yeah. So it sounds like that was a little, little made up for.

00:32:09:09 – 00:32:24:06
Robyn Maharaj
Yeah, I think it was sort of some creative license. I think it was also maybe build a bit of tension, you know, in terms of like there was sort of this they should have been aware that there were these warning signs and there were there were definitely warning signs, but I think they kind of played that one up a little bit.

00:32:24:06 – 00:32:49:28
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. Yeah. Well, in episode six of the series, we see Jeff meeting an aspiring model named Tony Hughes at a bar. And this is the first time that we see Jeff starting to put drugs into the drink like we’ve seen happen before. And then he stops. The two seem to hang out quite often. Jeff claims to like Tony a lot, and later, when Lionel and Sherry visit, Jeff talks about how things are turning around for him.

00:32:49:28 – 00:33:07:01
Dan LeFebvre
He got a promotion at work. He’s quit drinking alone. He has a new friend. He says he’s happy and there seems to be something different about Tony. And after I was I was watching this for the first time, my friend actually pointed out she was watching it with me, that they dedicate an entire episode to setting up Tony.

00:33:07:09 – 00:33:26:16
Dan LeFebvre
While earlier in the series, we saw multiple victims, particularly, you know, Jeff’s grandma’s house is almost you’re seeing bodies being drug. You know, we don’t really know anything about them, but there seems to be something different. The series kind of focuses on there being something different about Tony as well. Why do you think the series focused more on Tony Hughes than some of the other victims?

00:33:27:17 – 00:33:48:18
Robyn Maharaj
Well, a couple of things. I guess, you know, there wouldn’t have been enough time really to kind of give the same kind of focus for every single victim because there were so many. Right. And I think with Tony, you know, he’s he’s a sympathetic character. You know, because of his hearing impairment. And and I think that it’s also been said about him that he had a great personality.

00:33:48:18 – 00:34:10:01
Robyn Maharaj
He was lots of fun and always sort of like the center of attention than any party that he happened to be at. And so I think that he was a great character that they could work with. Again, here’s another area where they kind of blended things a little bit. You know, when they talked to Adam or about Tony, he didn’t really kind of express any kind of like, Oh, this was a good friend of mine or I really remember.

00:34:10:05 – 00:34:27:21
Robyn Maharaj
He’s like, Oh yeah, the deaf guy remembers that about him. And the whole idea of him spending a lot of time that did happen but was with another victim. So I think here they kind of they kind of meshed a victim with a storyline which was of Jeff actually meeting somebody who he did spend quite a bit of time with.

00:34:27:21 – 00:34:41:12
Robyn Maharaj
That was actually over the course of a weekend, this guy had come in come in from, out of town and just met him at the bus stop and said, Hey, you know, I just got off the bus. I’m here. I want to see some of the sights of Milwaukee. And just like, hey, I lived here all my life, I’ll show you around.

00:34:41:12 – 00:34:58:09
Robyn Maharaj
And then that ended up being where they went out for coffee and they had a meal together. And Jeff brought him back to his apartment and they watched a movie and then they would went out shopping. And it was for Jeff. It was actually like a real relationship. He said, you know, that was really the closest thing I’ve ever had to a relationship.

00:34:58:09 – 00:35:14:12
Robyn Maharaj
When he was talking to the police afterwards and he said, of course, by the end of the weekend, this guy had to go back home, he had to go back to his life wherever it was that he had come from, to get back to his job. And, you know, people that would miss him. And he said, that’s when I killed him.

00:35:14:26 – 00:35:33:06
Robyn Maharaj
So he went, that whole idea of him leaving again, the whole idea of being abandoned, that was too much. And so Jeff ended up killing him and ending his life. So the Tony character is real. There really wasn’t a character or I should say a person that that character is based on. But again, they kind of meshed the stories.

00:35:33:06 – 00:35:51:00
Robyn Maharaj
And I think the reason that they did that was, I mean, it was it gave them some really interesting things to do. Like there was a whole bunch of that theme of that episode, I remember. That was why it, you know, so they got to give him a chance to do some really interesting creative things. And, and again, I think it was because of the vulnerability of that particular victim.

00:35:51:20 – 00:36:13:07
Robyn Maharaj
People really, I think, were impacted by that. I had a lot of people who told me or when I would talk about it with them, that they they really felt something for that episode, partly because it sort of showed a side of Jeff who you can see like he really, really did want a relationship. I mean, he he really did want to have somebody in his life a companion, but he just was not willing to let that person go.

00:36:13:25 – 00:36:33:14
Robyn Maharaj
And he wanted to be had that person be completely compliant. You wanted that person to just do whatever it was that he wanted to do. So he really needed a victim. That was and that was, again, where he was showing and this is early this episode, but later on him drilling the brains or the skulls of these victims because he wanted to kind of have a zombie boyfriend.

00:36:33:15 – 00:36:52:12
Robyn Maharaj
You know, he wanted somebody he would argue with him or confront him or question him, or he could just leave and do whatever he wanted to do and come back. And this person would be there, no questions asked. And he could do whatever he wanted to do sexually with the body or the person. But so yeah. So I think on a lot of levels, you know, people really felt for that Tony character.

00:36:53:01 – 00:37:05:12
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, yeah, it definitely did that. You pointing out with him, him being death, it definitely did add a different element to that episode. It kind of like with them writing the notes back and forth together, you know, added a whole nother another dimension.

00:37:05:12 – 00:37:21:00
Robyn Maharaj
Yeah. And that part is true because he doesn’t remember. He doesn’t remember recalling that to the police that. Oh yeah, that guy, that desk I remember we had to write out notes to each other. So that did happen. But I think his experience with 20 was like a night. Like, I think that they were together for a night and that he ended up killing him later on that night.

00:37:21:21 – 00:37:40:24
Dan LeFebvre
Okay. Going back to the series in episode number seven, it’s something we haven’t really talked about, but we do see throughout the series Glenda Cleveland and episode seven really focuses on her involvement in the story a lot. According to the series, she’s Jeffrey Dahmer’s neighbor and we see her throughout because she calls the cops on him all the time.

00:37:40:24 – 00:37:58:25
Dan LeFebvre
Whenever there’s something that’s weird going on, she’s hearing weird things. She’s smelling things. The cops just pretty much ignore her. And she has to endure the noises, the smells even scream sometimes, you know, coming from Dahmer’s apartment, how well did the series do showing Glenda Cleveland’s storyline?

00:37:59:25 – 00:38:14:12
Robyn Maharaj
This is another one where they kind of blended two people to make one. And, you know, and I mean, it’s not that it was done in error. It wasn’t that anyone’s sort of, you know, neglected to do their research. I think it was just for the sake of simplicity that they kind of made two people in real life.

00:38:14:12 – 00:38:38:17
Robyn Maharaj
One person there was a couple actually, that lived right across the hall from Jeff is a couple named Pamela and Vernell, as I think Pamela has since passed away. But and they befriended Jeff and he lived right across the hall from them. So they kind of would run into him a lot, you know. And when he first moved in, I actually met Pamela in 2013 because she was featured at a panel discussion about a Dahmer film.

00:38:38:17 – 00:38:58:13
Robyn Maharaj
Then I happened to go down and that’s when I met and interviewed Patrick Kennedy when we were going to start working on this book together. But yeah, so I met her. She said, you know, like it really struck her when she first saw that he had moved in because she said 99% of the people that lived there were black people or African-American people or people of color.

00:38:58:13 – 00:39:10:03
Robyn Maharaj
And he was like this all white guy that lived there. So she said, you know, he kind of stood out a little bit. And the fact that he was right across the hall, they would have this little chit chat. I mean, they wouldn’t say they were very friendly, but they kind of got to know him a little bit.

00:39:10:22 – 00:39:31:14
Robyn Maharaj
And she was the neighbor that would complain about the smells, the sounds, the sounds and the strange things, the noises that were coming in the middle of the night. I don’t know if she was necessarily calling the police every time, but she was certainly contacting the caretaker. So she was complaining pretty regularly to the caretaker of building and saying, can’t you do something about it?

00:39:31:19 – 00:39:44:16
Robyn Maharaj
You know? And the caretaker would come and talk to him and say, like, what is it that’s went on in your apartment? And he would always have a story. Oh, yeah, some meat went bad. Oh, I had a fish tank and the fish died. I’m taking care of it. So he would always be sort of reflective of it.

00:39:44:16 – 00:40:04:24
Robyn Maharaj
But we always have a ready as a reasonable answer as to why his apartment had this horrible odor coming from it. The Glenda Cleveland person was there is a real person was a real person, and she actually lived in the building. I think it was right next door where Jeff was and she was the neighbor.

00:40:05:05 – 00:40:06:01
Dan LeFebvre
So not even in the same.

00:40:06:01 – 00:40:18:21
Robyn Maharaj
Not even in the same building? No, Linda, actually. Yeah, she lived in this other building, but it was right there. And I mean, I think they kind of came to back and forth. I think she knew people from that building and they all kind of knew her. They’d all kind of hang around in the front of the building in the summertime, you know.

00:40:18:27 – 00:40:33:27
Robyn Maharaj
And in fact, Pam, Pamela would say sometimes that she and Jeff would actually share a beer or have a cup of coffee together on the front stoop of their building. So that’s kind of how our cigaret, you know, so they were trying to hang around a little bit and she said, you know, he was quite shy but always polite.

00:40:34:11 – 00:40:53:21
Robyn Maharaj
But yeah, she would complain to him and again, you know, always happy stories. So back to Glenda. She’s the one that lived next door and she’s the person that when the young boy comes out of the apartment, out of Dahmer’s apartment, she sees him on the street and he is naked and he is stumbling around and he seems to be a little bit inherent.

00:40:53:21 – 00:41:07:05
Robyn Maharaj
And so she goes over to him and says, Are you okay? What happened? Get somebody to get like a windbreaker. And they put that around him. She’s the one that gets on to the phone and calls the police and says, you know, we’ve got this young guy down here. Looks like someone beat him up and he come down.

00:41:07:23 – 00:41:27:05
Robyn Maharaj
So she was there. She was the neighbor that was talking with the police when Jeff came up with the beer. It’s like, what’s going on? And and they’re saying, well, this young man, you know, he seems to be in trouble. Oh, no, no. That’s my boyfriend. He lives with me. You know, I could take you upstairs and show you his ID, and there she’s the one that’s saying, no, no, no.

00:41:27:05 – 00:41:48:27
Robyn Maharaj
Like, you know, he’s a boy. It’s not a male. He doesn’t live in this building. And she’s sort of fighting with the police and they’re trying to listen to Dahmer and they’re sort of trying to silence her. And so eventually of forces the series portrays, they do eventually believe Dahmer and say, okay, let’s go upstairs, show us, you know, whatever you have of his that proves that he is with you and he doesn’t find it, force it.

00:41:49:04 – 00:42:10:12
Robyn Maharaj
But he finds some photographs that he had taken earlier in the evening of this young boy drinking beer, toasting, looking very happy and cheerful. So they say, okay, clearly this is your boyfriend. So they left him there. And Glenda is also the person who called the police later on that night to find out what happened. Because, you know, as far as she knew, they took him upstairs, but she didn’t know what happened after that.

00:42:10:12 – 00:42:26:21
Robyn Maharaj
So she was saying, like, are you sure that that is a man? I guess because I’m I’m pretty sure that he’s actually like a young boy. And then he goes to school with my niece and her friend and their cop is, again, just you know, ma’am, ma’am, you know, we can’t get involved in all of the domestic things.

00:42:27:05 – 00:42:45:11
Robyn Maharaj
You know, we’ve taken care of it. Don’t worry. Don’t worry. We’ve taken care of it. So. So that Glenda Cleveland woman was very outspoken. So she and she was very much she was the one calling the police. But the Pam Bass, who they don’t really talk about, they don’t get that that person a character. But I think that that’s where that comes from.

00:42:45:11 – 00:43:04:10
Robyn Maharaj
And Pam is actually the one that did eat a sandwich that Jeff prepared for her. But I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know what happened. I don’t know whether it was really a chicken sandwich or what it was because he might have been annoyed with her because she would phone the caretaker and complain about him. It might have just been a gesture of being neighborly.

00:43:04:10 – 00:43:05:29
Robyn Maharaj
I don’t know if anyone really knows.

00:43:06:04 – 00:43:16:06
Dan LeFebvre
Wow. So she but she did actually eat it because I think in the series Jeff hands Glenda the sandwich and she’s like, I’m not going to eat that. No. Because she knows, like, the smells and all that kind of stuff.

00:43:16:06 – 00:43:30:23
Robyn Maharaj
Yes, yeah. Yeah. They kind of really pressed that scene and I don’t think it was anything like that. I think one time he happened to come out, she was sitting outside of their building, you know, one nice evening or whatever. And he happened to have two sandwiches and he just made his omelet and I think they just ate it.

00:43:30:27 – 00:43:36:24
Robyn Maharaj
And it wasn’t until much later that she was kind of wondering about it, but she said it tasted okay to her.

00:43:37:02 – 00:44:02:20
Dan LeFebvre
So wow. There is another plot point in episode seven. That’s when Jesse Jackson comes into his house and he’s fighting civil right for civil rights. And in the dialog, Jackson says that Dahmer’s case is now, quote here a metaphor for the social ills that plague our nation. And he points out the bad policing, underserved communities, the low value assigned to young black and brown men, especially if they happen to be gay.

00:44:03:03 – 00:44:07:22
Dan LeFebvre
Was the series correct to suggest that Jesse Jackson became involved for those reasons?

00:44:08:13 – 00:44:25:15
Robyn Maharaj
Well, it’s kind of hard because I was thinking about this question and, you know, I sort of I wouldn’t want to question Jesse Jackson’s motivations. I mean, I think it was sort of a I mean, what was a perfect crime, if you will, to lay out all of those things that he wanted to say about all those things that you just mentioned.

00:44:25:24 – 00:44:45:09
Robyn Maharaj
So, I mean, it was sort of a custom made thing for him to go and have that platform to say, you know, this just just gives you an example of, you know, white privilege. And, you know, how come these people weren’t being listened to? You know, I mean, he was a spokesman, but I think he was also an important person that came to that community at a time when they really needed some leadership.

00:44:45:09 – 00:45:01:25
Robyn Maharaj
They wanted to hear what he had to say. They wanted to hear that someone was listening to them finally. But, you know, I think one of the things that struck me about that episode that I thought was kind of interesting because, of course, this movie or this series, I should say, was made in, you know, when 20, 20, maybe 20, 21.

00:45:02:05 – 00:45:25:15
Robyn Maharaj
And of course, since then, in the 30 years since Dahmer, you know, there’s been a lot of examples of racial injustice and a lot of examples of, you know, police taking their frustrations or whatever it is, their racial prejudice out on African-American people. So I mean, there was a couple of things that they quoted Jesse Jackson as saying that I think, you know, I mean, it was very appropriate.

00:45:25:19 – 00:45:35:16
Robyn Maharaj
I don’t think he actually said it at the time, but it sort of felt like, okay, we have this whole history, you know, and it was very profound because it’s kind of like, gee, in 30 years, how far have we really come?

00:45:35:22 – 00:45:52:10
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, no, that’s that’s a great point. And I, I would I wouldn’t have put that without realizing how much time has passed and things that he would have actually said. But it is I mean, it is a great point that I think it’s it’s a sad reality. We haven’t come that far that they’re still, you know, having that conversation in there.

00:45:52:10 – 00:46:06:15
Robyn Maharaj
That’s right. And I know, like even, you know, Kennedy, like, I mean, I talked about him with him about this at length, you know, and I mean, like he was the first to admit that, yeah, a lot of mistakes were made. He pointed to the training that was given to cops and sort of how they did screening and all of that kind of stuff.

00:46:06:24 – 00:46:36:29
Robyn Maharaj
And so, I mean, he stayed with the police for ten more years after this Dahmer case, like he was there until 2001. Then he retired from Milwaukee Police Department and he actually went back to school and became a criminologist and wanted to teach. And it didn’t it didn’t have that teach for two universities. So he was actually very committed to training new people, going into law enforcement with his ideas and using the Dahmer case as an example of sort of, you know, like why did they listen to the white guy who was telling them this story?

00:46:36:29 – 00:46:55:11
Robyn Maharaj
Was it because he looked like them? Because he sounded like them, because he was reasonably detached and kind of calm? You know, why did they sort of feel it was so easy to brush these other people off? Why didn’t they listen to what they were saying? So, you know, he was the first to admit that there were some things errors made that Donald could have been taught a lot earlier.

00:46:55:15 – 00:47:17:21
Robyn Maharaj
And people have been paying a little bit more attention and they sort of done the things that they should have done, like after they returned that boy to Dahmer’s aunt. And, you know, there’s there and the are and I mean, there is a tape of this where they’re kind of joking around and, you know, talking about having to, you know, delousing or whatever, because they’d just been in this apartment at lot and this particular apartment building where they returned the gay lover back to his boyfriend.

00:47:18:00 – 00:47:46:23
Robyn Maharaj
And he said, you know, like, why didn’t they run Jeffrey Dahmer’s name? Why were they so busy making jokes and, you know, having a good last? Why didn’t they run this thing? Because then they would have seen that he had actually a prior record with molestation for it with a young person. So, you know, he said those are the kinds of things that, of course, hindsight, you know, but he really wanted to use other cases, but some cases to do with the Dahmer or some instances with the Dahmer case, to use it as a teaching method for the future.

00:47:46:27 – 00:48:02:16
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. Yeah. I think we even do see a little bit it wasn’t in the car, but we do see the two cops as they’re leaving Dahmer’s apartment after taking the boy back up. They’re like, Oh, I need to go take a shower or something like that. Yeah. And I think Dahmer uses the excuse of, Oh, it’s just gay stuff, you know?

00:48:02:16 – 00:48:07:11
Dan LeFebvre
And using that is because it seems like he knows that the cops will leave him alone. Yeah.

00:48:07:22 – 00:48:25:28
Robyn Maharaj
Yeah, he kind of he kind of describes that they just want to get out of there as soon as they possibly could. As soon as he heard that, you know, I mean, of course, now things are different, you know, but at that time, you know, the attitude towards, you know, what they would consider to be a gay, homosexual, domestic incident, you know, I think it would be much different now.

00:48:26:16 – 00:48:28:07
Robyn Maharaj
We would hope we would.

00:48:28:14 – 00:48:52:23
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, we would hope so. I think you go back into the series, we have talked about them a little bit, but in episode eight it’s actually entitled Lionel. So it’s named after Jeff’s father and he’s trying to grapple with everything, the realization of what his son is, and he ends up blaming things on his ex-wife, the pills that she took during pregnancy with Jeff, the fact that she wasn’t around much doesn’t really like to focus on the fact that he wasn’t around very much.

00:48:53:15 – 00:49:14:27
Dan LeFebvre
And there’s even a line where Jeff mentions the taxidermy, and as soon as Jeff brings it up, Lionel’s there with him. He immediately denies it, saying, Oh, this, none of this is my fault. I didn’t do this. Don’t don’t blame me for this. And the impression that I got was while Dahmer’s really seemed he felt guilty about his son being a murderer, but he’s also simultaneously trying to cast that blame off on somebody else.

00:49:15:18 – 00:49:17:12
Dan LeFebvre
Is that a pretty accurate takeaway?

00:49:17:18 – 00:49:38:26
Robyn Maharaj
Yeah. Yeah, I think so. You know, and I you know, I don’t have children, so it’s hard for me to kind of comment. But I mean, I imagine if I had kids and I had somebody, you know, a child who had done that, what Dahmer had done, you know, you have this sort of this horror of, you know, wanting to blame something or someone, but also feeling that guilt, you know, like absolutely having that guilt.

00:49:39:18 – 00:50:10:20
Robyn Maharaj
And I mean, in terms of that whole taxidermy thing and kind of that interest in and roadkill and whatever, I mean, you know, he can’t he can’t deny that he encouraged that interest, you know, in in it. But, you know, it’s hard to know whether not that really how much that really contributed to it. I do know that when Storm or I was, you know, in custody and he was seeing like psychiatrists and they kind of proposed the idea of, well, you know, maybe it was because he was sort of doing all these strange things in this little shed that they had on the property, which is where he kept all of his chemicals and

00:50:10:20 – 00:50:28:10
Robyn Maharaj
jars of things. But, you know, these things that were taking the fur off the bones and they said, you know, when most young men that age or, you know, interested in dating and going out there and being social, he was sort of like in this little space, doing these very strange things at at a time when he was maybe going through puberty.

00:50:28:10 – 00:50:51:01
Robyn Maharaj
And so they kind of tried to make this connection of, you know, maybe these things matched and that the idea of something in the viscera of something dead sexually stimulated him, you know, and I remember R.C. Lionel kind of glommed onto that, like he kind of really glommed onto that in terms of, okay, well, I might have encouraged him to do this, but it was maybe the timing of it.

00:50:51:01 – 00:51:07:09
Robyn Maharaj
Maybe we shouldn’t have carried it off into his teenage years, which is really when he was doing that. I think that was kind of one of his pastimes, was actually just sort of experimenting with these strange things. But it was because he was very isolated. You know, he was very I mean, when I say isolated, I don’t mean they kept him isolated.

00:51:07:09 – 00:51:24:09
Robyn Maharaj
I mean, he was just a very lonely, shy guy. He was very introverted. And that’s also actually how Lionel was like. I remember seeing him in an interview and him saying that when he was just eight, you know, he didn’t have a lot of friends. He didn’t he found it very hard to make friends or hard to be in social situations.

00:51:24:27 – 00:51:41:29
Robyn Maharaj
Maybe Joyce was kind of the same way, too. They don’t really kind of say too much about how she was in terms of social socials situations. But I know certainly Lionel and I think he thought that Jeff took after him, but he said, you know, as he got older and kind of got into university and and got out into the world, you know, he learned how to socialize.

00:51:41:29 – 00:51:59:25
Robyn Maharaj
He learned by taking interest in other people and asking them questions. That’s how you form dialogs and bonds with people. And he just hoped that Jeff would get to that, that he would mature to that point where he would be like his dad, maybe shy and introverted and kind of a loner as a young person, but that he would kind of grow out of that stage.

00:51:59:25 – 00:52:16:22
Robyn Maharaj
I wanted to go back to that part about blaming. And, you know, I mean, I kind of either I forgot or I didn’t really remember that much about how many drugs she was taking during the pregnancy. I mean, they talked about that a lot in the series. And and maybe it’s a way to sort of say, well, you know, maybe that did contribute to the way he was.

00:52:17:04 – 00:52:34:08
Robyn Maharaj
One of the things that they sort of turned around in the series, it was actually Lionel who wanted to have Jeff’s brain examined after he was killed in prison. And it was Joyce who didn’t want to have that happen. So they ended up doing an autopsy of his brain. I think in the series they say that it never happened.

00:52:34:08 – 00:52:39:20
Robyn Maharaj
But in the in the actual truth, it did happen. And they found Dahmer’s brain to be completely healthy.

00:52:39:22 – 00:53:15:18
Dan LeFebvre
Wow. Yeah. Yeah. I think they mentioned him being incinerated at the very end there in the series. Yeah. Something as you as you’re talking about Lionel there, it kind of struck me that him almost wanting to cast off that blame or, you know, to have it not be his fault, you know, that aside from being a parent, it’s also kind of ties with another theme that we see throughout that we talked about earlier where he’s having, you know, Jeff, go to a house state and go to the Army and find a girlfriend, find somebody to fix this for you instead of trying to kind of make or have him take on the responsibility of doing

00:53:15:18 – 00:53:24:27
Dan LeFebvre
it himself for his own sanity, because he wants to try to find somebody else to to fix it for him. And so he wasn’t able to do that. And so now when he finds it, obviously it’s not my fault, right?

00:53:24:27 – 00:53:25:11
Robyn Maharaj
Yes.

00:53:25:17 – 00:53:27:07
Dan LeFebvre
These people didn’t do it. That kind of that kind of.

00:53:27:08 – 00:53:45:00
Robyn Maharaj
Yeah. Yeah. You know, I get the feeling from I did read Lionel’s book, you know, and the one that he wrote and they talked about him writing in the in the series, you know, and I always it was always struck me like he really, genuinely loved his sons. He genuinely loved Jeff. But I think he got very frustrated with Jeff.

00:53:45:00 – 00:54:03:24
Robyn Maharaj
And I think that, you know, he would get irritated by him. And and obviously, the drinking was a big issue. He just really felt that that was that was sort of the the ills of all of his troubles and all of his problems. And to a great deal. It was you know, I mean, I think that Jeff, you know, wouldn’t be such a have been such a washout had he been able to get a handle on this drinking problem.

00:54:04:01 – 00:54:19:16
Robyn Maharaj
But, yeah, you’re you’re right. Like I think of when things were good, you know, he was really pleased and happy and when Jeff would visit and he’d be in a good mood. You remember very vividly when they first saw Jeff after he returned from the Army. I think he came back for a visit sort of during his time in the Army.

00:54:19:22 – 00:54:34:24
Robyn Maharaj
And they were so impressed, you know, like he was all buff and built and, you know, his he was eating really well and he wasn’t drinking. And he just they said, you know, we’ve never seen him look so healthy, you know. And then he went back and then, you know what? However long it was later he’s back in the States.

00:54:34:24 – 00:54:51:08
Robyn Maharaj
And, you know, he was living on a beach and he’s obviously been drinking again. So and when they talked to him about it, like what happened in the Army? Well, you know, he was doing really well in the beginning. He was really, really kind of keeping it up and being very disciplined. But then there were bars in Germany so that he started to frequent them.

00:54:51:08 – 00:55:04:24
Robyn Maharaj
And then there we go. He’s just starts drinking all the time. And that just sort of seemed to be a pattern. And so, yeah, I think Lionel was as much as he loved his son, I think he was very frustrated with his son. And I don’t know I don’t know whether he really knew how to fix them or deal him.

00:55:05:01 – 00:55:20:00
Robyn Maharaj
Because there’s also the thing of to like maybe 30 years, if it was happening now or had happened now, you know, if they would have encouraged him to go to therapy or to see somebody see a psychologist or somebody to help you, at that time, it was kind of like, you know, let’s just have these other things that will maybe fix him.

00:55:20:03 – 00:55:32:24
Dan LeFebvre
Well, go back to the series. In episode number nine, we get some perspective from the victims families because we see them giving their impact statements in court. How well do you think the series did showing things from their point of view?

00:55:33:23 – 00:55:53:29
Robyn Maharaj
I think they did it really well. That one, I think for me was a little bit hard because at that point, like I think since I saw the series, the director, Ryan Murphy, has come out to say, you know, he actually did contact the families. He said apparently he had reached out to 20 different family members and that, you know, he didn’t have a he didn’t get a response from anybody.

00:55:53:29 – 00:56:15:25
Robyn Maharaj
Prior to that, though, I saw the episode and I was still under the impression because the news that I had read at that point was that the family felt that they’d been left out. They had said that all no one contacted us and we didn’t have a chance to participate or be a part of it. So that episode for me was hard because I was under the impression that they, you know, that this was sort of done, just done without their knowledge, per se.

00:56:16:00 – 00:56:39:22
Robyn Maharaj
And I remember particularly the woman who just sort of lashes out at Jeff in court. She kind of comes towards the table and they have to sort of shut everything down and protect him and get him out of the courtroom. And she’s like, she wants to kill him and she’s calling him the devil. That woman was interviewed not too long ago and she said it was the most surreal thing to see herself, you know, in that scene, which, you know, took place a long, long time ago.

00:56:40:06 – 00:57:02:01
Robyn Maharaj
But to sort of see it acted out in something that’s, you know, essentially for entertainment. So, yeah, the whole idea, I mean, it was hard. It was really hard to sort of hear those victims and having to because, you know, it’s like one thing to lose a family member to go to a homicide. And I actually do know what that’s like because I had an uncle who was killed in Trinidad about ten years ago.

00:57:02:17 – 00:57:21:18
Robyn Maharaj
But to have that person be the victim of someone as that, even at that early stage, that notorious, you know, everybody in the world knew Jeffrey Dahmer’s name. And to have your family member associated with that, I mean, it just must have been horrible and awful. And and I mean, to have to relive it, you know, like, I mean, Dahmer just doesn’t go away.

00:57:21:18 – 00:57:38:06
Robyn Maharaj
You know, he’s sort of always, you know, like every five years or so, I say there sort of seems to be something new. About five years ago, there was a film that came out about him in high school. And you know, it just documentaries and everything that comes out about him. And it’s just it must just be awful that they can never kind of turn that off, you know?

00:57:38:06 – 00:57:43:07
Robyn Maharaj
So I feel very bad. But I do think that they handled it well. I think it was an interesting episode.

00:57:43:26 – 00:58:09:04
Dan LeFebvre
The final episode, episode number ten, and that one we see Jeffrey being baptized. He’s in prison. He’s being baptized at the same time that another serial killer, John Wayne Gacy, is put to death. And then another inmate, Christopher Carver, ends up killing Dahmer and saying that he was told, do that by God. And then at the end of the whole series, we see going to Cleveland, talking about how the city tore down the apartment complex.

00:58:09:04 – 00:58:20:14
Dan LeFebvre
She’s pushing for a memorial to Dahmer’s victims. And then there’s text at the very end of the series, says there is no park, no memorial. It was was ever built for Dahmer. 17 victims. Is that all true?

00:58:21:14 – 00:58:48:10
Robyn Maharaj
Yes, that is true. The fact that he was beaten to death by by that fellow in prison. Gentleman, Christian. Christian. Sara Christopher Stauber. Sorry. And he was there actually with another inmate there in the showers, which I think that’s how they portrayed it in in the series. And it was a wait, which actually was a good incidence, because the very first murder weapon that Dahmer used was actually a bar from a weight that and that was what was used to beat Dahmer in prison.

00:58:49:06 – 00:59:06:11
Robyn Maharaj
I don’t know whether they really touched on it at all, but when they get the autopsy afterwards on his body and the coroner gave his report, he said there was no defensive wounds on Dahmer, the other fellow who had been killed that day, he had bruises all over his arm because he was trying to block these blows. And Dahmer didn’t have anything on him.

00:59:06:11 – 00:59:23:20
Robyn Maharaj
So he basically allowed that guy to kill him, which I think they kind of hinted at. I think they kind of showed it that way, that he was basically beaten and beaten down to the ground and then just the guy just kept beating on him. But that was a very you know. I mean, the police all thought that was quite interesting that Dahmer kind of allowed himself to be killed like that.

00:59:23:20 – 00:59:47:25
Robyn Maharaj
As far as the the memorial. Yeah. I mean, it is true that the city saw the building down. There was a wealthy person in Milwaukee who I think took all the contents and they did kind of get rid of it. I think it was all incinerated. It there has been talk. There’s you know, there’s this idea of having a park or a memorial for all of the victims, which I think in theory is a wonderful idea.

00:59:47:25 – 01:00:09:14
Robyn Maharaj
I think that those victims do deserve to be recognized and remembered. But there’s always this danger that it’s going to become a place for people who are so-called fans of Jeffrey Dahmer to accumulate, and that it’s going to be more about Dahmer than it’s going to be about the victims. And do they really want in Milwaukee for there to be a place that is kind of recognized as well?

01:00:09:14 – 01:00:21:13
Robyn Maharaj
These are where all these crimes took or a lot of these crimes, not all of the crimes, but a lot of these crimes took place. So there’s this really fine line. You know, I think that a lot of people think that is as lovely as a tribute and a would be and should be that they should have something.

01:00:21:18 – 01:00:45:07
Robyn Maharaj
Because it sounds awful. It sounds awful that there’s nothing for the victims of that. DAHMER But at the same time, you could see how easily it would be a place for sightseers, onlookers, people who really follow true crime to just come and congregate there. In fact, one of the things that Pat Kennedy’s widow, Patricia Kennedy, because Kennedy and I didn’t actually get to work on this book together like he and I met in 2013.

01:00:45:17 – 01:01:01:10
Robyn Maharaj
And we had an interview because I was interviewing him for an article about Dahmer. That’s kind of how we met. And Kennedy said, Oh, well, you know, I’ve got all these notes and things, reports and whatever that I would love to do something with. I just kind of have them on the desk drawer. I take them out every so often, work on it, but I really need someone to give me a hand with this.

01:01:01:10 – 01:01:17:29
Robyn Maharaj
And I had actually done that kind of work previously, so I offered to help him. I said, Well, I’ll help you shape it into a manuscript. Well, five days after we met and had this interview and dinner, he passed away. He had a heart attack and died. So I did my article and then his and I actually kept in touch quite a bit after that.

01:01:18:13 – 01:01:33:02
Robyn Maharaj
And she just said, you know, you did a nice job on this article. You know, I think you should just do whatever you can with those notes because she said, I’m a nurse. She said, it’s just going to go back in his desk drawer. I’m not going to do anything with it. So she said and I wanted Patrick story to be told, so I was very much in favor of doing something with it.

01:01:33:16 – 01:01:53:24
Robyn Maharaj
But she told me that you know, years and years later, after like 25 years after Dahmer, she was actually in a gondola in Venice. And the fellow who died was saying to, I can tell you’re from America. And she said, Where do you live? And she said, Milwaukee. And he said, Oh, Jeffrey Dahmer. So that’s the first thing for a lot of people.

01:01:53:24 – 01:02:11:26
Robyn Maharaj
That’s the first thing. So in Milwaukee is, you know, it’s a fair sized city, but it’s not a huge place. And to have this constant reminder, this this constant thing about Jeffrey Dahmer, it just must be so awful for so many of the people that live there. So as sad as it is that there is no tribute, I kind of understand why.

01:02:11:26 – 01:02:23:00
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, I could see especially what you were saying before, where you know that if his story keeps coming up every four years, that’s just going to be another set of people that are going to want to go there because of Dahmer, not because of the victims.

01:02:23:00 – 01:02:42:01
Robyn Maharaj
Right. Well, and especially now after sort of seem like, you know, I don’t know if you’ve been following any of this, Dan, but with this series, like, there’s all these, you know, people talking about it and oh, he’s so cute and who he’s so charming. And it’s almost like they’re kind of glamorizing him, romanticizing him. And I just think that, you know, that must be really awful for the victims.

01:02:42:01 – 01:03:00:25
Robyn Maharaj
But then what does that do for those people who have, you know, they’ve kind of meshed the actor with the you know, that the person, Jeffrey Dahmer. And it’s now a character. And I think people you know, people dressing up for Halloween as him. Right. So I kind of worry and would wonder what would go on at a memorial for the victims when really, you know, so much of the interest.

01:03:00:25 – 01:03:04:06
Robyn Maharaj
I think that those that would go out would be people that are there for Dahmer.

01:03:04:08 – 01:03:20:17
Dan LeFebvre
Jeffrey Dahmer, I know you kind of talked about the victim side. I know there have been a lot of reactions to the series from the legal side that the victims families or the gay community have reacted to the series. It’s clear that this story’s affected a lot of people. Do you have any thoughts about people’s reactions to the Netflix series?

01:03:21:13 – 01:03:41:05
Robyn Maharaj
Well, you know, I I really I totally understand it. You know, and I kind of kind of go into this with the idea that, you know, there must be some people who may never, never want to hear Jeffrey Dahmer’s name ever again. You know, and and it just kind of keeps coming back and coming back. And so whether it’s a book or a movie or a documentary, I think it is still an important story to tell.

01:03:42:00 – 01:03:57:28
Robyn Maharaj
So, you know, as much as I know there’s backlash and, you know, there’s been a lot of people from various communities who have really kind of come out against this assault saying, you know, like this is just kind of about glorifying it or glamorize, as you noted, in a really bad way. Like I remember when Netflix first kind of put it out there, they actually had that.

01:03:57:28 – 01:04:16:28
Robyn Maharaj
It was like an LG, LGBTQ show, you know, like that was sort of how they labeled it, you know. And I guess they got backlash right away, which I was glad. And they said, you know, this is not the representation we’re looking for here. You know? And so I can definitely see how there has been some flashback or backlash to that.

01:04:17:23 – 01:04:36:00
Robyn Maharaj
But I think it’s really important. You know, I think it’s as important story to tell because it with things, even though it is a long time ago, it deals with issues like loneliness and bullying and isolation. And those are all things that really, you know, it resonates and still resonates today. And I think there are things that we can learn, you know, learn about a story like that.

01:04:36:00 – 01:04:53:04
Robyn Maharaj
And a lot of people have studied the Dahmer story as they study other serial killers with the idea of, is there anything we can do to prevent the next Jeffrey Dahmer, the next serial killer? So so, you know, as I mean, I just sort of say to people, you know, if you’re not interested or if you find it offensive or, upsetting, just, you know, don’t watch it.

01:04:54:05 – 01:05:10:02
Robyn Maharaj
It’s hard, though, because, I mean, it sort of seems to be especially when it first came out, it seemed to be absolutely everywhere. Everyone was talking about it. But I know, you know, other people are kind of like I kind of watched it a bit, a little bit of it. And it’s like, I don’t want to see anymore, you know, because they know it’s a true story and they realize that, you know, this is going to be too upsetting.

01:05:10:14 – 01:05:35:18
Dan LeFebvre
Understandable. But like you’re saying, there’s things we can learn from it. I think one of the big kind of takeaways I took from this from the series overall was like with law enforcement, how they just allowed a lot of things to happen that if they had done things like you were talking about, you know, the cops in the car like actually run Dahmer’s name, if they had done things, then there might not have been as many victims or, you know, they might have been able to stop things sooner.

01:05:35:23 – 01:05:39:26
Dan LeFebvre
If they had if they had done things the way they should have done.

01:05:39:26 – 01:05:57:28
Robyn Maharaj
Things, that’s right. Yeah. And I mean, you know, and there’s an interesting dichotomy there where, you know, and they talk about, you know, he was photographing this young boy, you know, and he was in trouble and he was in court. And the guy the judge, you know, and this did happen, you know, like the judge could have sentenced him, you know, to some prison time for it, to some pretty severe prison time for that.

01:05:58:06 – 01:06:10:25
Robyn Maharaj
But he said, you know, you look like a nice man. You know, you’ve got a job. You know, I don’t want to make up for the rest of your life. So we will work it out so that you can do a work release. You know, you’ll spend most of your time in prison. When you’re not in prison, you’re at work and then you report back.

01:06:10:25 – 01:06:25:01
Robyn Maharaj
Right. You know, so he was given these opportunities. I’m not saying that that’s easy to do necessarily. But, you know, there was he was not only very lucky and that he was able to talk himself out of a lot of things. But, you know, people just kind of took a look at him and just figured, you know, this guy is so harmless.

01:06:25:22 – 01:06:30:21
Robyn Maharaj
You know, he’s just you know, he’s not going to hurt anybody. You won’t hurt a fly and and they were so wrong.

01:06:31:04 – 01:06:46:26
Dan LeFebvre
Well, thank you so much for coming on to chat about the Netflix series. Dahmer For listeners who want to learn more, I would highly recommend they check out your book called Grilling Dahmer The Interrogation of the Milwaukee Cannibal that was with Patrick Kennedy notes, as you mentioned there, I’ll make sure to add a link to your book in the show notes for this episode.

01:06:46:26 – 01:06:54:07
Dan LeFebvre
But before I let you go, can you share something from your book that somebody who has only watched the Netflix series might not know about the true story?

01:06:55:02 – 01:07:12:00
Robyn Maharaj
Well, there’s two things I was going to mention that I thought that I find to be quite interesting about it, and they didn’t touch on them in the series, as far as I can remember. Well, the first of all, the first one was when he was in Ohio and he was first pulled over with police because his car was kind of swerving on the highway.

01:07:12:16 – 01:07:25:28
Robyn Maharaj
In this show, they show it with two police officers. It was actually only one police that pulled him over in real life. So he but he pulled them over and he’s like, you know, you were kind of swerving. Have you been drinking? Jeff says, Oh, well, I had a couple of beers earlier, you know, what are you doing out here at this time of night?

01:07:25:28 – 01:07:41:16
Robyn Maharaj
And he notices these garbage bags that contain body parts and he notices these big garbage bags in the back. So he’s kind of flashing his, you know, light on them and what’s that all about? And he’s like, oh, well, you know, I was just going to take these to the dump. Then he starts with the sad story. You know, my parents are going through a divorce.

01:07:41:16 – 01:07:58:24
Robyn Maharaj
My mom’s really upset right now. I’m just trying to help her and make her feel better by, you know, kind of clearing out some stuff that she’d been bugging me about to get to the dump. So, you know, the cop, I guess, could have done a little bit more there, begin to search at his word, took his license and just said to him, I’m not going to write you a ticket.

01:07:58:24 – 01:08:15:17
Robyn Maharaj
I’m going to let you go. The dump is closed now because this was like at midnight. So and you can’t leave these bags outside the gates. You might as well just go, huh? So we sent him on his way. Okay. So flash forward now to Dahmer’s court in Milwaukee. And he’s with the cops there and he’s sort of talking about the various crimes that he’s committed.

01:08:15:25 – 01:08:38:26
Robyn Maharaj
And he lets it out that, oh, well, you know, the very first guy killed was actually in Ohio back when I was 19 years old. So he relays the story of the Stephen X murder. So, of course, the police in Milwaukee say, well, we got to find out about this. So they phoned Ohio Police Department and talked to a police officer there and say, well, we’ll send somebody out and we’ll get the details and then we can look into it.

01:08:38:26 – 01:09:00:25
Robyn Maharaj
So they bring a cop in from Ohio to Milwaukee with these pictures of people that are missing from around the same time that he’s talking about hoping that Dahmer can identify him. Well, lo and behold, it’s the same police officer that came to Milwaukee that had pulled him over in Ohio. So this cop is sitting in the place with the police in Milwaukee and he’s looking at this guy.

01:09:00:25 – 01:09:14:17
Robyn Maharaj
You know, it’s like 13, 14 years later and he’s saying, you know, this story about this being pulled over and the garbage bags, this all sounds familiar. And he realizes I was the cop. I was the highway cop that pulled him over. So the cops afterwards, when he’s telling me.

01:09:14:17 – 01:09:15:11
Dan LeFebvre
Purely coincidental.

01:09:15:11 – 01:09:33:28
Robyn Maharaj
Absolutely. That he’s he’s telling Patrick and Dennis Murphy, the two police officer from Milwaukee, who are investigating Dahmer, the story he says, I’m the one that pulled him over. So Murphy, you know, slaps them on the back and says, man, you got to stop this whole thing back then. And apparently this cop green, you know, and Pat said, no, no, no, don’t worry about it.

01:09:33:28 – 01:09:49:20
Robyn Maharaj
He said, this guy, he could talk his way and lie. And I mean, he fooled a lot of people. So don’t take it personally, don’t you know? I mean, obviously, a guy I’m sure felt guilty to some extent, but he said, don’t worry about it. He said he was he’s a really, really good cop. So, you know, he was he he was able to fool a lot of people.

01:09:49:28 – 01:10:11:03
Robyn Maharaj
So that was one. The other one was what I mentioned earlier about Dahmer living in Miami for a period of time after he was sent home from the Army. And this time that he was in Miami happened to be at the same time that Adam Walsh was abducted and murdered. And Adam Walsh first being the son of John Walsh of America’s Most Wanted.

01:10:11:08 – 01:10:33:23
Robyn Maharaj
And in fact, that’s why he got into that whole area. I think of law enforcement and crime busting was because of what happened to his own son, Adam. Was that when they captured Dahmer and they had him in custody and they were saying and they of course, they found a head in Dahmer’s fridge. And when Adam had been found, all they found of Adam was his head, his his he had been decapitated.

01:10:33:28 – 01:10:50:18
Robyn Maharaj
So They found his his head. So as soon as they heard that and they realized, oh, my God, he had spent some time in Miami, and it was around the same time that Adam was abducted, they thought maybe he was responsible for Adam Walsh’s abduction. So they sent pictures to the police and they said, you know, ask him about this little boy, Adam.

01:10:50:24 – 01:11:04:12
Robyn Maharaj
So, of course, Dahmer looks at them and he says, Well, that’s a little kid. You know, I’m not interested, little kid. And they police in Milwaukee said to him, well, don’t forget that 14 year old boy. And he reminded them, well, I thought he was older. I didn’t realize he was 14. I thought he was more like 19 or 20.

01:11:04:19 – 01:11:23:13
Robyn Maharaj
But he said, I’m not interested in little kids. But they the people and the police in Florida, they did actually send some police up because they wanted to talk to Dahmer about the Adam Walsh abduction. And, of course, he denied it and said it wasn’t you know, I didn’t have anything to do with that. And then many, many years later, they basically they figured out who they think did it.

01:11:23:13 – 01:11:26:08
Robyn Maharaj
And that was Otis Toole, who was a serial killer as well.

01:11:27:00 – 01:11:44:12
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, they didn’t mention that at all. I mean, that from they didn’t really show much from the investigation side of, you know, the police departments from other other places coming in. There was, like I mentioned earlier, they did kind of cut back and forth between the interrogation there, but it was always of the same room and and that.

01:11:44:12 – 01:11:54:02
Dan LeFebvre
But yeah, I can imagine that I didn’t think about it before, you know, him living in different places. That makes it even more complex of a of a thing to try to figure out. Yeah.

01:11:54:14 – 01:11:55:12
Robyn Maharaj
Yeah. Well, I.

01:11:55:13 – 01:11:57:16
Dan LeFebvre
Think. Can you even take Dahmer at his word for it?

01:11:57:16 – 01:12:24:16
Robyn Maharaj
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think it’s pretty standard procedure. I think that when they do find a killer like, somebody who’s killed a number of people, that they kind of go back in that person’s history really, really detailed and they say, how where else has this person lived? Are there any other unsolved crimes similar to what we have found that this person doesn’t like their M.O. and, you know, and they try and see if that they can close some cases based on because of this person’s like living history, basically where they lived.

01:12:25:12 – 01:12:28:11
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, that makes perfect sense. Thank you again so much for your time, Robyn.

01:12:28:12 – 01:12:38:19
Robyn Maharaj
Thanks very much. Dan, I loved being on your show.