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Evan Peters' Netflix show, Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, has left the world curious about the serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. Peters featured in the shoes of the s*x offender and cannibal killer, who was convicted of 16 prison terms.
He was accused of murdering and dismembering several men over a period of 13 years, with the youngest victim aged 14 years old.
The limited series premiered on Netflix on September 21, 2022, and garnered the ire of netizens. Several individuals were furious at the negligence of the police in failing to tend to a call for help, probably because it was raised by a black woman, Glenda Cleveland.
Contrary to social media users, the late Milwaukee Police Detective Patrick Kennedy felt otherwise about the serial killer and even called Jeffrey Dahmer a friend in an interview.
Kennedy was the first to question Dahmer about the murders that the latter had committed, and was later joined by Detective Dennis Murphy. Together, they conducted numerous interviews with the accused, some of which spanned over 12 hours a day.
Read on to learn more about why interrogating the serial killer, necrophiliac, and cannibal, Jeffrey Dahmer was one of the more pleasant experiences for Detective Patrick Kennedy.
Detective Patrick Kennedy believed Jeffrey Dahmer was very polite
Homicide Detective Patrick Kennedy was one of the few police officers tasked with getting Jeffrey Dahmer to confess to his crimes. Dahmer was arrested in July 1991 after Tracy Edwards escaped his apartment and called the police.
When Kennedy arrived at the apartment, he saw Dahmer pinned to the ground. Other police officers asked him to check Dahmer's fridge, where he found severed heads, limbs, and other body parts.
The accused even said in the series, "For what I did, I should be dead."
Kennedy studied criminology shortly after his tenure as a police officer. He also co-wrote the book Grilling Dahmer along with Robyn Maharaja. In an interview with A&E TV, Maharaja said:
"Ultimately, he (Kennedy) said, out of a lot of the bad guys he helped put away, arrested, or taken to interrogation, Jeffrey—albeit a serial killer—was actually one of the more pleasant experiences. Not so much because of what he was hearing, (but because) he was very polite."
Maharaja reminisced about his conversation with Kennedy and said that the latter believed that Dahmer's personality oscillated between remorse and selfishness.
Kennedy was also aware that Dahmer had a history of struggling with alcohol addiction. During an interview in 2012, Kennedy said that the combined factors of a troubled childhood, absent parents, and coming to terms with homosexuality led Dahmer to develop obsessions with dead animals, drinking, and his sexuality.
He was also diagnosed with multiple mental illnesses.
He said:
"From very early on, he developed this idea of keeping his own little secret world, and it was comfortable to him."
In the same interview with B.Y.O.D. Kennedy mentioned academic work on serial killers, including testing and conducting MRI scans of their brains. He mentioned that a study found that the frontal lobes in the brains of serial killers have very little activity.
He added:
"It's changed my attitude about what is evil and what is not evil. Could it be that some day in the future we may find the problem in the brain that causes pedophilia, or that causes s*xual violence?"
Kennedy recalled having breakfast with Dahmer and bringing him the newspaper to read what the public said about him. Calling him a friend, he said, "I started to like the guy and feel more sorry for him. He was a pathetic soul."
Kennedy had also lent Dahmer his son's shirt and coat before his appearance at the trial so that the serial killer did not look disheveled.
He said:
"When it was over, back in the judges' chambers, he folded the clothes really neatly and tried to hand them back to me through the bars."
However, Kennedy did not take the clothes because he was aware that nobody would touch them.
Shortly after, Dahmer was convicted and sent to the Columbia Correctional Institution in 1992. He initially remained in solitary confinement but was later shifted to a lesser secure unit with more people around upon his request.
Dahmer was bludgeoned to death by fellow inmate Christopher Scarver in 1994.
Six months prior to this, Kennedy said that colleague and friend Dennis Murphy had visited the prison and met Dahmer there. Murphy had told Kennedy about Dahmer mentioning to him about being shifted out of solitary confinement because he was going crazy. Dahmer was also aware that this step could get him killed.
Kennedy said that he did not know how to feel after the news of Dahmer's death broke.
He said:
"Everybody was cheering. When I went home that evening, I didn't really know how I felt. I kind of wondered, 'How should I feel about this?' I guess I was kind of sad. Not because I liked him so much, but because he was a human being like everybody else."
Kennedy died of an apparent heart attack in 2013.
All the episodes of Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story are currently streaming on Netflix.
