Salient: DID

I lost count of the number of times that Jeffrey Dahmer and his father Lionel say 'accountable' during the MSNBC interview below (top video).

Unemotional Jeffrey Dahmer and his repressed father are interviewed by Stone Phillips. Dahmer says of his murdering young men, "My relatives had no knowledge of what I was doing."
Dahmer avoids explaining his killing young men and boys (during blackouts) by answering a question concerning any abuse (violent arguments in the home) that Dahmer might have suffered by stating, "I wonder about those things, but as far as I'm concerned they are all excuses. . . they didn't know I was doing it, so they are not accountable for what I did." (Not knowing about someone's actions does not equate to total lack of responsibility.)

Jeffrey describes becoming accountable for his behaviors after his father sent him creation "science" material that convinced Jeffrey that he was accountable to God. "Evolution cheapens "life" because we die."

Lies in Genesis can usually be relied upon for more stupidity than the juxtaposition of dinosaurs and hominids. Here's their contribution to 'discussion', a quotation that they probably fondly imagine says it all:

‘If a person doesn’t think there is a God to be accountable to, then—then what’s the point of trying to modify your behaviour to keep it within acceptable ranges? That’s how I thought anyway. I always believed the theory of evolution as truth, that we all just came from the slime. When we, when we died, you know, that was it, there is nothing…’ Jeffrey Dahmer, in an interview with Stone Phillips, Dateline NBC, Nov. 29, 1994.

What rot! Death makes life all the more precious because death is permanent. Jeffrey's parents 'disciplined him' and he felt accountable to them, but sought control of his own life once he had left home. Once free of observation, he set about his cannibalistic spree. Father, Lionel, whom Jeffrey has verbally exhonerated of accountability, says that he "feels guilty".

How very moving (to nausea) when Jeffrey and his father say that they came back to God after the events and Jeffrey's imprisonment.

The religionist fundamentalists will no doubt interpret this interview as a sign that only religious belief can confer a sense of moral . . . accountability.

Let's take a look at the likeliest mechanisms at play when Jeffrey repeatedly "woke up" beside the dead bodies of boys and young men he had killed. When Jeffrey says that he woke up to events for which he was amnesic, he was describing dissociation. Most serial killers come from severely abusive childhoods, typically suffering physical/sexual/emotional abuse in the home or extended family. This man was not merely a conscience-deficient sociopath, Dahmer admits to losing time during which he was dissociated and not in executive control of his actions.

Why? Young children cope with repeated traumas by repressing conscious memory of the events, but the experiences dramatically affect their psychological development. Ultimately, traumatized elements of the dissociative personality system emerge to reenact the sexual/physical activities that generated those aspects of the personality. The chief personality may not be consciously aware of the activities that culminate the sequence initiated under the influence of uncontrollable urges.

Considering the fact that Jeffrey Dahmer's pattern fits the typical profile, it struck me that he was evasively providing a well rehearsed account of his supposedly God-found accountability. What a fecolith that is! It's was so convenient to claim to obey God once he'd been imprisoned.

Contrary to what creationists on Creation 'Science' Evangelism may want to believe, the fact is that a boy from a family in which his "disciplinary" parents 'lost religion' around Dahmer's crimes, suggests that they were religious while Dahmer was growing up. And look at the result!

"Here's what makes that really funny: Dahmer's father is a creationist who has lectured widely on creationism and raised him as a creationist. Oops." Ed Brayton

Exposure to religion during his childhood (whether or not Jeffrey ever accepted the fact of biological evolution or was merely lying about this too) did not leave Jeffrey acting accountably. Religion failed. Creationism after the fact is merely pandering to the interviewer, and probably to prison authorities, and probably to God so that he can avoid Eternal Damnation. Dahmer was beaten to death in prison on November 28, 1994.

"The FBI gave the standard profile of a serial killer, He is a person with few friends. He became much more religious just before he started murdering people. After reading all the available studies I could find and studying all the articles in the newspapers for over 30 years, I find what is most outstanding is Serial killers were sexually inhibited by their strong religious upbringing. Nearly all serial killers are very devout men who were raised by members of Pentecostal sects, fundamentalist Catholics or were 'hard-shell' Baptists and Methodists." Studies after study show serial killers are a product of this environment, not genetics. You can find much information on serial killers being sexually inhibited and there views on sex and religion at http://www.crimelibrary.com/serials/what/whatlust.htm." P.O. Brian, Serial Killers