Are serial killers dying out?

Netflix series ‘Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story’, shares a glimpse into one of the world’s worst serial killers

The Milwaukee cannibal, Jeffrey Dahmer, killed 17 men and boys over a 13 year period.

His violent crimes involved drugging his victims, eating them, and acts of necrophilia.

He pleaded insanity in court but was later found guilty on 15 counts of murder.

Dahmer received 15 life terms for his gruesome crimes but was killed at the Columbia Correctional Institution by his fellow inmates. 

Sue Firth is a UK-based psychologist, who said these behaviours are thankfully quite rare.

“If you ever get the chance to listen to a proper interview with him, it’s quite interesting. He sounds very sensible.”

“He was actually a very repressed individual, couldn’t make a fundamental connection, didn’t have very many friends, and therefore didn’t learn social skills.”

According to FBI documents, Dahmer told investigators he tried to create “love slaves”.

Dahmer’s father claimed things changed after his son had hernia surgery at four-years-old.

After that surgery, he stopped speaking and became withdrawn. Some believe this contributed to the violence he later inflicted on others.

Firth said Dahmer’s history of trauma could explain part of his actions, although it is not an excuse.

“He certainly sounded to me as if he knew what he was doing.”

“I think the sad reality is, once you’ve got somebody who’s dead, he’s now following up with the kind of behaviour that he did as a child, which is looking at how the skull is formed, how the brain is formed,” she said.

Are we getting better at catching these killers?

From Jeffrey Dahmer, to the deadly crimes of Ted Bundy, and Joseph James DeAngelo—technology and psychological assessment is helping authorities to put these notorious criminals behind bars.

“Forensic scientists are even getting better in understanding their own psychology and their approach to crime scenes,” said Associate Professor Xavier Conlan from Deakin University.

“As forensic scientists, we’d like to say with the development of new technologies, there’s no crime that can’t be solved, it’s just that we sometimes don’t have the technology yet to solve it.”

The introduction of DNA sampling helped to catch Joseph James DeAngelo, who comitted his last murder in 1986 before being caught in 2018.

“Technology really has advanced and helps solve cold cases,” Dr Conlan said.

Forensic scientists believe there may even be some parallels between Dahmer and their own work.

“He would do things like put hydrochloric acid and inject it into the skulls of some of these later victims to try and improve his own approaches to being able to retain the bones that he’d like to keep.”

“Certainly forensic scientists and scientists look to improving their approach to being able to look after their samples,” Dr Conlan said.