Lionel Dahmer Stood by His Son Jeffrey, Even After the Serial Killer’s Death (2024)

Jeffrey Dahmer murdered at least 17 men between 1978 and 1991, becoming known by notorious nicknames like the “Milwaukee Monster” and the “Milwaukee Cannibal.” Despite this, his father, Lionel Dahmer, insisted that his son “was not born a monster” and tried to follow through on a promise to stick by Jeffrey no matter what.

Lionel, who died Tuesday at age 87 in Medina County, Ohio, didn’t shy away from speaking about his son’s heinous acts or the potential circ*mstances that might have compelled them. Although it’s clear he held compassion for Jeffrey up until his death, Lionel’s reflections suggest he also felt some degree of responsibility for his son’s crimes.

Lionel believed he might have missed warning signs

Lionel, a chemist, and his first wife, Joyce Flint, had no indication something might be wrong with their son Jeffrey, born May 21, 1960, until he underwent a double hernia operation at age 4. After that, the boy became increasingly withdrawn, particularly after the birth of his younger brother David.

In his 1994 book, A Father’s Story, Lionel questioned if his son’s shyness was an initial precursor to his future criminal behavior. Years later, he told television host Larry King, “One of the things I’d like to tell parents is don’t disregard shyness. Things can be fomenting in that young mind... talk deeply and intensely. It’ll come out, I think, eventually.”

Lionel also wondered if Jeffrey’s behavior was possibly hereditary. “As a scientist, [I] wonder if [the] potential for great evil... resides deep in the blood that some of us... may pass on to our children at birth,” he wrote in his book. Additionally, he worried prescription drugs Joyce had taken during her pregnancy might have affected Jeffrey’s brain development. According to March of Dimes, some medications can cause problems, including birth defects, low birthweight, preterm birth, and learning and behavior problems later in life.

In addition to his growing solitude, Jeffrey showed an unusual interest in the macabre. According to Brian Masters’ book The Shrine of Jeffrey Dahmer, he collected large insects and animal skulls and preserved them in jars of formaldehyde. Lionel later recalled in a 2022 interview that Jeffrey, then around 12 to 14 years old, began to exhibit unhealthy sexual fetishes around this time.

However, any immediate concern was overshadowed by Lionel and Joyce’s deteriorating relationship. According to Women’s Health, they underwent a tumultuous divorce in 1978, with neighbors sometimes calling police to break up their fights. While they feuded for custody of David, 18-year-old Jeffrey—who also had a drinking problem by this point—was eventually left to live by himself with no money, no food, and a broken refrigerator. It was around this time, shortly after he graduated high school, that Dahmer bludgeoned and strangled his first victim to death.

By the time he was arrested for good in July 1991, Jeffrey had committed at least 16 other murders. He was sentenced to 16 consecutive life terms in prison the following year.

Looking back, Lionel eventually concluded that he operated on “a level of obliviousness, or perhaps denial, that was scarcely imaginable.”

Lionel felt Jeffrey “was just like me”

Jeffrey reportedly adjusted well to prison life at the Columbia Correctional Institution in Wisconsin. He was initially kept away from the general inmate population but eventually integrated more fully. According to Oxygen True Crime, Lionel and his second wife, Shari, were the only regular visitors Jeffrey had in prison.

In a video interview while Jeffrey was incarcerated, Lionel revealed he originally hoped his son would be placed in a psychiatric institution for treatment but changed his mind as he learned more about the facilities. He said their prison visits always started with a hug. “It seems like in the last year, he’s looked even more forward, he seems visibly pleased that we’re going to visit him,” Lionel said in the interview.

While this suggests their conversations were cordial, at various times Lionel also tried to gain a better understanding of his son’s motives and secrecy. “What’s been really puzzling me is how come I just didn’t know anything about this?” he once asked Jeffrey, according to audio tapes from the 2023 Fox Nation miniseries My Son Jeffrey: The Dahmer Family Tapes. “I pretty much was doing things in my own little world,” the killer responded.

Lionel also admitted to having “weird thoughts” in his childhood and asked his son if he experienced something similar. “You’re just like me, Jeff,” he concluded.

Lionel feared for his son’s safety in prison, and those concerns proved justified. On November 28, 1994, inmate Christopher Scarver killed Jeffrey and another prisoner with a metal bar, later claiming that “God told me to do it.”

Lionel went to court to honor Jeffrey’s final wishes

After Jeffrey’s death, Lionel fought to provide some degree of closure for himself and his son. Jeffrey’s body was placed in state custody pending the outcome of charges against Scarver. The latter pleaded no contest in May 1995 and was sentenced to a life term.

Per Jeffrey’s wishes, most of his remains were cremated that September, and the ashes were split between his parents. But according to The New York Times, the Dane County, Wisconsin, medical examiner’s office preserved the killer’s brain at his mother Joyce’s request. She wished to have the organ examined to determine if biological factors actually influenced Jeffrey’s crimes. “I want something useful to come from the nightmare,” she told the Associated Press. “This is the last and only thing I can do.”

Lionel, conversely, wanted to cremate the brain to honor his son’s wishes and put “the whole thing behind him.” The dispute went to court and was finally resolved in December 1995, as a Columbia County circuit judge ruled that Dahmer’s brain should also be cremated during an hour-long hearing.

Lionel reportedly stayed “very angry” about Jeffrey’s death

Lionel tried to live as much of a normal life as he could but even within the last two years couldn’t escape the enduring spotlight surrounding Jeffrey. In September 2022, Netflix released Dahmer—Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, a dramatized retelling of Jeffrey’s life starring Evan Peters as the killer. The series was an immediate hit for the streaming service, surpassing 1 billion hours viewed in less than two months and garnering 13 Emmy nominations.

Following the show’s release, “hostile and aggressive” fans showed up at Lionel’s Ohio home, according to the New York Post. As a result, Lionel considered suing Netflix over the series as well as Conversations with a Killer: The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes, for which he claimed the streaming giant never requested permission to use tape recordings of his son. He also felt the two programs glamorized elements of his son’s life and strayed away from the facts.

Lionel also continued to mourn his son’s death. In an October 2022 interview, Lionel’s caretaker told The U.S. Sun that he became “very angry” every time he heard Scarver’s name. “As far as I know, and the last I talked to Lionel, he believes the guards looked the other way and and let [Jeffrey’s death] happen,” the caretaker, identified as Jeb, said.

Lionel’s frustrations were just one of the final examples of how he tried to keep his word from a 1994 interview with Oprah Winfrey. “I still love my son. I’ll always stick by him—I always have,” he said.