DAHMER DETECTIVE-Robyn Maharaj

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potential murder scene. The Milwaukee Cannibal, the Monster of Milwaukee, as Jeffrey Dahmer would come to be known, was the serial killer who drugged, photographs, strangled, sexually assaulted, dismembered, and in some cases cannibalized seventeen young men during a three

year period in a small, one bedroom efficiency apartment. Dahmer detective the interrogation investigation that shocked the world, goes inside the police interrogation room, where Kennedy spent long days during six chaotic weeks with Dahmer as he confessed to his life as a serial killer, while the world's media clamored outside for information and confirmation the story of one of

the most notorious criminals of the twentieth century. The book that we're featuring this evening is Dahmer Detective, The investigation and interrogation that shocked the world, with my special guest, journalist and author, Robin Maharaj. Welcome to the program, and thank you to for ingreding this interview Robin Maharaj. Thanks Dan, Thank you very much. Robin. This is for our audience.

This is an exclusive. This is the very first time that Robin has been officially interviewed about this debut book she's co authored, and an incredible for everybody that's interested in Dahmer or thinks they know anything about Jeffrey Dahmer. This is the definitive book that you need to know and find out about. So let's jump right in there immediately. How did it come to be that you met Pat

Kennedy found out about this manuscript. How did it come to be that you were in the right place sort of fateful event that you would come into contact with. Pat Kenny tell us a little bit about that.

in most of them. After the Dahmer case. He was sort of Milwaukee PDS go to guy on the Dahmer case, and so I got in touch with him actually through a film he was in that was out in twenty twelve. It was called The Jeffrey Dahmer Files, and he was featured in that. He was one of sort of three people that was interviewed about the Dahmer case. It was him, it was a neighbor, and then it was the medical

examiner in Milwaukee. So I sent sort of a fan letter, if you will, but mostly just in terms of how I thought that you know, it was him specifically who actually got Dahmer to talk, and that you know, I really thought he had done a marvelous job on the case and a good job in the interview for this film, and I just thought, you know, that would be the end of it. But he actually got in touch with me. He emailed me back, and that began a dialogue that

we had for a couple of months. And in the course of that dialogue through email, I asked if I could interview him for a magazine article that I was even more interested in writing about Dahmer the more I learned about him from Kennedy. And he said, well, in the course of this messaging back and forth, that he actually had a manuscript and he said, you know, because I was a writer and had done a lot of work with writers and editors, that you know, he would love for me to read it and just sort of

give him some feedback. And this has been a manuscript that he had kind of written immediately after the Dahmer case, just to kind of get it all off his chest and out of his mind, I guess. And then he kind of would work on it for a little bit and then go put it in the drawer for a bit and then kind of come back, and he had brought it out again to be featured for this film and just to kind of reacquaint himself with some of the facts of the story, and so at this point

he was really interested in having me read it. So we actually agreed to meet in April of twenty thirteen, and I went down to Madison, Wisconsin for their film festival where the Jeffrey Dahmer file was being featured, and we had a wonderful interview and time together and wonderful conversation about Dahmer and about a lot of other things

as well. I just found Patrick to be fascinating in terms of his work before he became a detective, during his time in homicide, of course, the Dahmer case, and his relationship with jeff Dahmer, and then everything he did afterwards, because for then on he was known as the Dahmer detective and got interviewed a lot about it, had to talk about it a lot, and so he was sort of forever known in association with this very famous case.

So I went down and we had this interview, and I agreed to look at his manuscript, and he agreed to be a subject in my interview for this magazine article, and he gave it to me, and I came home and I was starting to read it, and five days after the first time that we met, I learned that he had a heart attack. He had a fatal heart

attack and died. So I went on after about three or four months to write this article and then I didn't really do anything with it for a while because I wasn't really sure if I should or I could, because it really shocked me. Even though I didn't know Kennedy that well and I only met him for the first time in Madison, I just, you know, I really connected. I really bonded with him, I think over the course

of our conversations. And so I went ahead and did the article, had it published in Crime Magazine dot com, and then began to be in touch with his widow, Patty, and she and I decided that, you know, it'd be a wonderful tribute to Patrick and a wonderful legacy for him just to have this book come out. So I began working on it as an editor, and then I had my own part to put in there as well.

meets Jeffrey Dahmer. And as you vividly portray in the book, let's take us back to a story that people think they know, or they've heard, or they heard different renditions of, but the Lawatian boy that runs out into the middle of the street in despair. Tell us, as you describe again vividly in the book, about that scene in your book.

in some kind of distress. A woman grabbed something off of the back of her chair, I think it was like a windbreaker or something, and she ran over with it, and she was trying to speak with him and trying to kind of get from him, you know, what has happened, Why are you out here, and what's going on? And he was slurring, he was slurring his words, and he

wasn't really able to communicate with her. So she sort of looked over and found that another neighbor had called the police and they were on their way, and certainly probably could have, but some people were sort of just any around, and there was definitely witnesses, you know, to what was going on, most people not really wanting to probably get involved, wanting to see what was going to

on fold but not necessarily get involved. But this woman did get involved, and so she was trying to help him, and so she was sort of sheltering him a little bit and again just sort of trying to kind of keep him still until the police could get there. But he was probably obviously trying to get away a little bit. But police show up and they kind of come up to the scene and she starts telling them, you know,

this boy's in trouble. I think he's been assaulted. Seems to have some like blood on him, and you know, some scratches and things, and he just he looks like he's a bit disheveled here. And they tried to get from the boy, you know, sort of who are you, what's going on? And he isn't really able to communicate with them either. Again, he's slurring, he's reverting back to his native tongue and not even really communicating in English.

But I mean they can obviously see that there is something that's going on here and that things are not right. She's sort of trying to say to them, you know, this is a boy and he's in trouble, and they're sort of waiting to kind of maybe just gather about some more information, sort of out of the scene or

out of the corner of their eye. I'm sure they notice that there's this other man they are probably approaching them, and he sort of walks right up to the scene and asks what's going on, And so they are trying to explain to him, and a couple of people recognize that this is a man that lives in the building where the boys come out of. They can sort of

verify that. But he's trying to tell the police that this is not a boy, this is not a teenager, that this is actually a grown man nineteen years old, and it's his boyfriend. He's saying, you know, he's drunk. I just left him passed out in our apartment where we live. I went out to get more beer, holds up a six pack to prove, you know, there's this story is legit, and there sort of seems to be

conflicting stories happening. There's what the woman's telling them, or trying to tell them, what the man who is telling them, and he's really trying to convince them, and is very convincing. I think to say, you know, yess, my boyfriend he's not a kid. I can prove it to you. I have his identification upstairs in my apartment if you'll just

follow me. So the police bring the boy back up to what turns out to be Jeffrey Dahmer's apartment, and they're going to the apartment and they're just sort of arm on each side of this boy, lugging him up to the apartment as well, because he's still very stumbly. He's seemingly intoxicated. And they get to the door of two thirteen of the Oxford apartments and they go in.

Now the police sort of just sort of stand on the other side of the threshold and the guys, the man of the apartment goes and he's looking for identification, flipping through things, and the police are just sort of trying to get their story straight. So they have to because they know they're gonna have to stall out some kind of paperwork and a report, but they basically want to sort of wrap this up as quickly as they can.

The man sounds really legit, you know, he doesn't have identification, but he's showing them some photographs of the man of the Yet what he's saying is a man. It's actually a teenage boy, you know, without a shirt on, looking happy. He's got a drink in his hand, he's smiling for

the camera. So there's they're thumbing to these pictures that look okay, like maybe this guy's story is on the level, and essentially, long story short, they end up leaving the boy there and believing Dahmer's story, and they go and Dahmer kills him within half an hour of their leaving. So there is the initial police call, which is, you know, there's a young guy out on the street naked, he

looks like he's in trouble. Then later there is another call and it turns out to be the aunt of one of the two girls, or no, it's actually the mothers or one of the two girls that was also helping this lady. And she's very concerned because she says, you know, I'm sure that this kid goes to my you know, my niece's school and they know him from the street, and he's not a man. He is a boy.

And the police are just basically brushing her off. You know, we've done all we can now, can't get involved in these little domestic squabbly thing type things. You know, it's not up to us to judge anybody's lifestyle. And she's not really saying any of that at all. She's basically saying, you know, are you sure, are you absolutely positive that this is not a boy, And they assure her and basically wave her off, and that's the end of that so you know, here in hindsight, of course, is the

opportunity where he could have really been stopped. That happened in May. He wasn't caught until July, and four men died in that period of time.

people to come back to his apartment. So tell us how Jeffrey Dahmer and Tracy Edwards meet.

So if he felt like he wanted to be social and he needed to sort of be out and about with people, I guess them all was a good place for him to go, and so he would sort of go there also for cruising and sort of seeing and meeting guys that he would find attractive. And as you say, he did have seemed to have a tight and it talks about it quite extensively and several times in the interview with Kennedy, and that is that he really really loves muscular slight men that are tall and just sort

of have really lean and good looking muscles. If you had ever seen pictures of his apartment, apparently he had quite a bit of artwork that kind of featured muscles, mostly African American men, And that was definitely what he would look for when he would go out to the clubs, to the gay clubs and pick up a lot of men when he would go to the mall, that's the

kind of body type that he was looking for. He would his ruse or his way of sort of seducing would be saying things like, you know, you've really got a nice looking body. I mean, I think what it would be is mostly like an exchange of glances. Maybe first a smile, kind of a little joke or whatever

have he just to kind of introduce themselves. But eventually, within a couple of minutes or more, he would get to that point where he would feel comfortable enough to say to them, how would you like to come back to my apartment. I'd love to take some photographs of you. You know, you can have some drinks, maybe watch a movie.

You know, I'll pay you fifty wore one hundred and fifty dollars, depending on what he had in terms of money that he could do with, and so I'll offer anywhere between fifty dollars and one hundred and fifty dollars. If the guy was really really good looking, in someone that he was very attracted to, then it would of course be more money. So money was always a good incentive.

Sometimes it would really be the thing I'm sure that would may be the main enticement, but also possibly does the opportunity to have a couple of free drinks with the guy, and you know, there was any kind of sexual seduction that would be a little bonus perhaps, but that was sort of his come on. That was sort of his way of getting these guys interested and coming back to his apartment.

So there's what does Tracy Edwards notice immediately as he gets into that apartment building itself or near Jeffrey's apartment, and then tell us the rapid transition from things that were not untowards on the way there, everything seems much different quickly. Tell us about that.

a nice looking, decently dressed, blonde guy, blue eyes. You know, he's not an unappealing looking man, so you know he was there were sort of interests, I guess on both sides, But I think that in his mind, whatever was going to happen was going to be, you know, some semi harm most fun. But as they get into the apartment, and as soon as they get through the door of two thirteen, he's just overwhelmed by this horrendous spell. And you can imagine. I mean, it's like end of July,

very hot, very humid. This is like a little apartment, one bedroom apartment with a window air conditioner, so you know, there's already gonna probably be uncomfortable and unpleasant, and he just walks in and just is overwhelmed and just almost knocked out.

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but he's not doing anything about it. So kind of just brushes it away and brushes it off. So they get into the apartment and Jeffrey's busy locking the door, and much later in his conversations with Kennedy, he would say, you know, as soon as I had that door locked, these guys were mine, mine to mine, to control, whether he would kill them or not, you know, it would be for later decisions, but as soon as they were locked in his apartment, he felt that, you know, it

was they were his. So Edward said, you know, he almost noticed immediately that there was a change in Jeff that he had gone from this sort of happy, you know, quiet, kind of reserved polite guy to sort of there was a darkness about him. And he really couldn't put his finger on it, but he just really felt like, you know,

he needed to lighten the mood a little bit. So Jeff poured him a drink and just hand it in this drink and had a beer for himself, and he said the drink tasted awful, and he really just sort of fit a little bit at it to be polite, but didn't really drink too much of it. And he said that Jeff was kind of quiet. He put in

this movie. They were sitting there watching the movie there, you know, kind of he was trying to engage Jeff and some conversation, asking him about where he worked and you know, kind of things he liked to do for fun, and there really wasn't much a conversation coming from Jeff's side of the side of the couch. But I guess he said, you know, I want to take some pictures and I want to let's get you to take your

shirt off. So Tracy complied, he felt that he had to, and then Jeff wanted to move things into the bedroom, so he did, and next thing, you know, there's a knife in Jeff's hands, and so Tracy's you know, probably really wondering how did this get to this point this quickly?

But yeah, over the course of several hours, there was sort of this back and forth of being in the bedroom, being in the front room where the air conditioning was and where the movie was playing for him, trying to calm Jeff down, but to sort of give the impression that he wasn't going to leave, you know, that I will be here and everything's cool. You know, you don't have to worry about having the knife. You know, you

can even put it away if you want. And he said that Jeff was just kind of like walking back and forth, and he was kind of like mumbling and enchanting a little bit, and he just sort of kept walking back and forth. And of course Jeff is drinking this entire time, so he's just getting more and more uberated, maybe not even noticing really that Tracy has not taken

this drink that has been laced with drugs. So this was really kind of a reversal of all of the other engagements that he had had with most of them and that he killed. He would drink, but he would sort of stay in control, whereas his victims would be very healthy, athletic, usually men that would come to his apartment and then be basically drunk drug to a true drink and tablets that he would put in them. So

it was kind of the opposite going on here. So Tracy, after several hours, says to himself, I have to get out of here or I'm not going to survive this. And so he punches Jeff and just manages to get out of the bedroom, get out of the apartment, get all the door locks, the undone, and just bolt gets out of there. And he still has a handcuff that Jeff has put on earlier in the evening attached to

his arm, but he does manage to escape. And I think in his testimony and then stories that he's told afterwards articles, he has said that he just like felt that Dahmer was right behind him that entire time, And you could only imagine, you know, like he's supposed to be starting to think the smell of that apartment. Who knows really what he all thought, you know, because it's a weird little apartment with all these bodies. We eventually

find out. But I mean, just jeff was a very strange guy and just suddenly in the apartment he changed. And yeah, he definitely felt like his life was in danger, and it very much was.

You know, he sort of just thought it out and just said, you know, the more I appease this guy, the better, you know, I just I can sort of I mean, I think he just sort of felt like the more I can sort of just calm him down, then there'll be more of an opportunity for me to you know, punch him, knock him over and at least have a chance to possibly escape.

you know, takes us to get these things off my arm. So, recognizing that they weren't Milwaukee Police department issue, they said, well, we need to get whoever has the key to them to get them off. So they take them back to Dahmer's apartment after much persuading, and they're standing there. Now Jeff has been knocked out and he's still very, very

drunk from all the beer that he's been drinking. It's probably very late, it is after midnight, and there's these cops standing there with the guy you know that he's just punched them and escaped. So they say, this fellow has handcuffs on his arm. They want he wants them off. Where's the key? So they come in and they of course can smell, you know, the same thing that Edwards had smelled hours earlier and that everyone in the apartment

was complaining about. And you know, Jeff is sort of fumbling around and you know in the back of his mind he's thinking, I don't have the key, like I don't know where the key is, because he's never needed the key anytime he's handcuffed somebody, they've been a victim that he can cut their arm off to take the handcuffed off, So he's never needed the key. So I'm sure he's thinking to himself, how am I going to

get out of this? But the more time that the cops are there, the more things are just really feeling weird odd. That smell is getting to them. Starting to look around a little bit, they see there's a stack of some polaroid pictures of men in various stages of undressed. Then they're starting to see pictures of bodies and body parts and viscera, and so one of them just yells grab them, so they get him down onto the ground.

He's wrestling around and he's really you know, trying to resist, but they get him down, and of course they call it in and that's basically how the police stop Jeffrey Dahmer.

then tell us what those police find. And then, as you talk about in the book, what's the call that Pat Kennedy gets, They, as you looking.

that this is real. And they that's, you know, that's when they realize this is a serious, serious case and that you know, like this isn't just a run of a mill kind of a thing that's going on. This is something that they've never ever dealt with before. They start to uh, well, I don't know. At that point, with just these two officers there, you know how much they really started to look around because you start to

hear of the things that they're finding. But that's really when more officers arrive and they you know, the forensic people are showing up, and Dahmer's actually already in custody at that point and he's in the interrogation room with Kennedy. But yeah, they find these big drums in his bedroom that have torsos and limbs. They find in the freezer there are pieces of flesh that are wrapped up that

he is cut up and played almost. They find more heads, they find skulls, They just finding like you know, I mean, it's a horror movie really. I mean, this is the difference between a serial killer who leaves his body parts around for the police to find and the whole community and neighborhood and city is aware that there's a serial killer on the loose. This is actually finding the killer and finding all of the bodies and then getting the whole story. You know. So it's very that's in a

way makes it very unique. But Patrick actually was working the third shift. So he's showing up for work and just kind of getting settled in with a cup of coffee, and his partner shows up, and then they get a call from their captain saying, you know, we just got a call. You guys are up next, and it sounds like it's a homicide, something about ahead in the fridge. Probably nothing, it's probably a prank, but you have to

go check it out. And so that's the call they get, and they're you know, kind of you know, puzzled about it, figuring it's probably just a big joke, even making jokes about the whole thing. So they get out into this hot, hot night in their car, you know, getting to the scene. They get to the apartment and immediately they're overwhelmed by

the smell. And I think it's something that all cops say, you know, once you smell once, you know it, and that's the smell of decomp And so they go up to the apartment and you know, Pat very nicely explained sort of everything that unful that he sees it when he first walks through that door.

sort of talk his way out of a bad situation. So, you know, initially that might have been instinct number one. I think instinct number two for him was to shut down and actually say nothing at all, not ask for anything, not say anything, and basically just sort of clam up. And you know, he was always a very quiet person, so this would not be an unusual tack for him to take. I think what actually got him to open up and you sort of do think, why wouldn't he

ask for a lawyer? Wouldn't that be the first thing out of his mouth? But his first reaction, I think was to please Kennedy. This guy comes in, he's asking him if he wants coffee, do you want some cigarettes? Sort of is buddying up to him, and it's really

nothing at all what Jeff was expecting. So I think he very quickly just really bonded and connected with him and wanted to please him, and so he just sort of started to tell his story and that Kennedy very wisely played it perfectly by sort of letting him talk, you know, asking some questions, nothing too hard, but really just kind of saying to him, you know, there's nothing you can say that you've done that's going to upset me.

I am just I'm not here to judge you. I'm just here to get your story.

the first time. He's like down on the floor in handcuffs and right there, you know, Kennedy is assuring him, but he's going to be okay because Jeff thinks, are you going to beat me up? Too? And you know that was the first thing that Kennedy said, is no, I'm not going to beat you up. You know, I just want to talk to you.

interrogation part of the day. You know, he just sort of came to kind of like the guy, and I know it really bothered him sort of on some levels, and it took him a really long time to I mean, if I think if you use the word friend, I think he would cringe a little. And he didn't want to think of it as a relationship necessarily. But I think in the end he really did say it was a relationship because we did talk, and you know, like,

I like the guy. You know, there's a lot of other guys, bad guys that I've met that I don't like, that I hate, but this guy, you know, he was okay because he was he was polite, and he was

to talk and he was willing to help them. He was willing to talk to them about who his victims were, because back in ninety one, if you think about it, you know, they didn't necessarily have all of the tools available to them forensically to identify all of these these victims, and in some cases there was nothing left of the victim,

or very little left of the victim. And so jeff was really instrumental in actually bringing you know, some relief possibly to those family members who are wondering whatever happened to our uncle, our brother, our son, our dad.

the whole bit. So he recognized in his talking with Jeff pretty early on that Jeff had a serious drinking problem and was able to say, you know, to himself, I can connect with him on this, and that was what they did talk about. He didn't I don't think he actually came out and said, you know, Jeff, if

you hadn't been drinking, this wouldn't have happened necessarily. But he did say, you know, in his experience, alcohol has sometimes played a big part in a case, especially a case of homicide, and that, you know, it's something that he was able to use to get Jeff to open up.

And the whole religious and religion in their lives. Kennedy was Roman Catholic, Jeff was raised Lutherans, but they had a lot of conversations about God and the existence of God, and you know the part that religion played in their life. And Jeff really felt that, you know, when he abandoned religion and stopped going to church and stopped talking about the Bible and Jesus to his grandmother that that's when

things kind of started to fly for him. You know, he didn't blame that lack of religion on anyone but himself, but you know, he said that when he stopped fullocusing on you know, living the good life, living a better life, that that's when things sort of spiraled out of control. So they did talk about that quite a bit as well.

And Pat very early on in his life had actually wanted to be a Catholic priest, and he actually started to attend preseminary classes and that was sort of the direction that his life was leading, that he was actually going to become a Catholic priest. So the idea of the confessional model, I think was something that appealed to him and that you know, he actually just would naturally incorporate into any conversation that he would have with a

suspect Damber or otherwise. So I think that you know, he he just sort of used his natural innate abilities and his own experience to kind of connect with this suspect, and it worked very quickly. You know, it was within that first night that jeff was just basically telling him about everything that he had done.

unique in that respect. So what exactly does Jeffrey Dahmer talk about specifically, and how does he talk to Pat Kennedy about his crimes and his victims and what he has done and his fantasies.

I'm going to kill them. In his case, he claimed that he loved all of his victims, that he wanted his victims to be with him, and that he didn't want them to leave. He didn't want them to abandon him. So that was why he would choose to kill them, because then they would be with him, you know, for the rest of their life, so that he would have

them till the end. And so when he's talking to Kennedy about these victims, and that's exactly what pat had said to him, you know, he said, the only thing you could maybe even do to kind of have any kind of show of remorse and to show that you are sorry for what you did, you know, and for to have people believe that, is to help us to identify these people, because then you're at least giving those families, you know, a reasonable story to what happened to them,

because right now these are all men that just disappeared. And so we we can give them some I hate to use the word closure, but we can give them

some you know, understanding of what happened to them. And so, you know, Dahmer readily agrees to do this, and I mean part of it is a fact that he can sit there and talk to them, and you know, Kennedy time after time, you know, startles him by not being shocked and surprised, Like he just continues to listen and ask questions, but not say, Jeff, what a horrible thing that you did, or why would you do that? Or you know, I mean when he did ask that, it

was more just out of a curiosity. It wasn't to place blame or to judge him at all. And yeah, I mean, Jeff just basically kind of goes through you know, every time he would go out, he would pick somebody up, he would bring them home. He didn't know the names

of the victims. So they were doing this all through photography, through pictures that the families had brought in of their missing loved one of the apartments of the sorry, the photo that they found in his apartment, and in some cases police photos that they had of people who had been previously arrested. So this is how they were basically identifying these victims. And yeah, he was basically telling them the story at the pickup, what he would do, whether

they were drinking, and whether he drugged them. You know, sort of how it all unfolded, why he would kill them, and what he was doing specifically with each of the bodies, because there was a progression, Like initially he was just sort of dispatching these people, these men. Then he was sort of trying to keep them alive a little bit because he just felt it was such a waste to kill them. So he was drilling holes in their head to try and make kind of zombie boyfriends, if you will.

And so, you know, as they're discovering things, as the medical examiner is telling them things, they're asking jeff about it, and then he's explaining as they go.

the men like, he tried to keep their skulls. He tried to keep some of their body parts bones. I mean, they found a lot of bones in his apartment. So that was actually what he needed in order to remind himself of what he had done. And he was using these, you know, to masturbate the photographs that he had taken, not only of the men alive, but of the men dead. And so you know, this was all part of his

basically his sexual addiction, which was necrophilia. I mean, that was his paraphilia, which was that he liked, well, he liked incapacitated men. That's what he really wanted to sleep with, was men that who would not ask anything of him, but that he could do whatever he wanted. To them, but it almost always ended when most of these pickups with you know, the man dead.

And again it was more sorted towards the end I think of his killing spree, but he certainly, I mean, he had flesh and body parts in his freezer, and I mean when the officers were unpacking these things, they're saying, it looks like cuts of meat, and it's very much almost prepared that way too, according to Patrick, and the investigation that they did, you know, that was pretty much all he was consuming in the last months before they

caught him. They found condiments, and they found like vegetables and sort of side dishes that you would have perhaps, but I mean the only meat he was really eating was human flesh. And you know, I think he didn't talk about this initially, he claims. Dahmer claims that you will really sure whether it would matter in terms of, you know, like I'm telling you about all the men I killed, does it matter you know, whether I cannibalize them or not. And then he also said, I didn't

want you to think less of me. You know, he was worried about that might be too taboo, that they would eventually just say, okay, and that's enough, we can't take any more of this. But once again Kennedy was able to find within himself and the other detective that helped him, of course, with all this, to really just kind of go ahead and move past it. And of course they did ask him, and again it was really about this. I wanted to keep them with me.

he was dealing with that. Things weren't really going very well with them at work, and in fact, he knew that he was going to be let go because he's did so much work. He would sort of try and do all that he was doing with these men from the pickup to the disposal all over the course of the weekend, but then sometimes that wasn't enough, and so he was actually killing maybe two men a week, and so it was really things were just really sort of

spiraling out of control, and he knew it. I mean, he just knew that he was getting sloppy, he was getting lazy about things, but he didn't really do anything to you know, turn it.

suit from a human suit. Anyway, you could talk about what you said about Silence of the Lambs and then the uncanny art imitates life sort of coincidence in terms of timing, and then from there tell us what the media's response was to this story in little old Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

People love that movie now even now. And but yeah, the irony of the psychiatrist, the serial killer and then what is going on with the skinning of victims. So as soon as the whole Jeffrey Dahmer's story came out, People Magazine, I think the week after had a true silence of the Lambs horror story in this little apartment in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, And it was really like how could he have gotten away with this for so long? That

was really the main focus of the story. Who was this guy and how did he manage to kill all these people without you know, really anyone having any kind of knowledge that there was a serial killer in their mist So, yeah, there was definitely sort of this whole as you say, our art imitating true life going on at that time in ninety one, And yeah, Wisconsin I mean, the other interesting thing about that is that the whole Ed Genes story, which also took place and he was

in Plainfield, Wisconsin, many many decades earlier, but that movie was actually also the inspiration for one of the inspirations for Silence of the Lambs. So it does kind of go full circle a little bit. And you know, yes, the state known for dairy production, bearit to production and happy days, you know. Now it's still forever now marred by the Daughner story.

reason to not tell you everything. Now interesting about you know, another little connection with the Silence of the Lambs and how big of a role the FBI played in that, because of course Foster's character is, you know, trained to be an FBI agent, and it's sort of all over the movie. While in Milwaukee, Murphy, Dennis Murphy and Patrick Kennedy kept getting visited by these two agents from the FBI who were absolutely convinced that Dahmer is snowing you.

He's laughing at you, He's no, there's no way he's telling you the whole story. And in fact, you know, you guys might even be suffering a little bit because you're getting too close to and they kind of lasted off and they said, you know, you can lay your information. The FBI agents really wanted to interview Jeffrey Dahmer, but they said, you know, we have him first, and then it's up to his lawyer to decide if he's going to talk to anyone else in authority, and so they

FBI kind of walked away empty handed. But they Kennedy and Murphy believe the Dahmer told them everything because they were able to identify certainly, like through the photographs and Dahmer's sort of an uncanny were a collection of dates and what missing reports were made and when people were last seen, and so they were able to confirm everything. Like they said, you know, he wasn't always necessarily forthcoming with information, but if they asked him a question, they

always felt that he was telling them the truth. And I mean several times along the way they tried to fool him, They tried to trick him. They really tried to get him to somehow admit to something that he hadn't done so that they could turn around and say, Haha, Jeff, we caught you in a lie. But you know, every

time they did, he came. He came clean, basically. And so I think that Patrick, you know, never doubted that they got the entire story because again, you know, he would admit to all of this, admit to all the things that he did. And I think that, I mean, we get a lot in this book, but I mean there's probably things that Kennedy just felt he could not even express in writing that he learned about Dahmer. And he said, if he's willing to admit to all of this,

then I don't have any reason to believe he's holding back. Now.

Pat Kennedy's able to compartmentalize. He can feel empathy, but it's a job and he's a professional. So just tell us about that, because it's interesting what you write how Pat talks about this relationship.

such a heavy case. So there's all this pressure. And then there's things going on at home in terms of his marriage and you know, living with kids. They were all sort of preteen and teenage. This is actually a remarriage, so you know, there's sort of that a little bit of stress there too. So there's all this going on. His wife is worried, you know, are you going to be driven to go to the bottle because of all of this. She's worried that he's not going to be

seeking professional health like through therapy. You know, he's confident that he's got it under wraps, under control, and there is no issue with that at all anyway, So you know, it's that's not really a reality pressure necessarily, but he you know, he's he's got all of this sort of on his head as this case is going on, So there has to be a certain amount of relief when it's gonna finally come to an end and he doesn't have to deal with a Dahmer story anymore. He's going

to go to prison forever and that's that. So there is this meeting. You know, Dahmer has been he's actually admitted to the to guilt, so it wasn't an though they had to prove that he was guilty. He pled guilty. What was up for debate was whether he was insane or not. And of course his lawyers are saying he's insane, prosecutors saying he knew exactly what he was doing and he should be held responsible for that. He of course

was found sane. And so there is this little meeting in the back of the judges quarters where he's going to sell and Patrick goes in and they do have sort of a chance to say goodbye and a handshake, and you know, the sort of whole thing kind of comes to an end, and you know, everyone is cheering the paper. I've got their story. The media is all, you know, abouz because this is now sort of the

final chapter of this very long story. The city feels as though it can now start to heal and repair itself a little bit and just put this kind of mess behind them, you know, families can move on. And you know, I'm sure in many ways kind of just further felt that was the end of it. I mean, he knew it was a case making, career making, you know, opportunity. But you know, I just you can't live at that pitch for so many weeks, and it was certainly many

many weeks. I mean, there was the initial six weeks of the interrogation, the daily sitting in the room with Jeff and getting a story. But then there was sort of this downtime while everyone's preparing for the case, and he goes back to the night shift, no longer on day shift, and then it's the trial, you know, and it's basically the decision. So then he's back on day shift and he's running witnesses around and basically just being

available should anyone need him. So it was again this very big sort of moment what was going to be the decision, and then sort of the aftermath of that. But as I said earlier, I mean he did become sort of a go to guy at Milwaukee. I mean everyone wanted to talk to him. Kennedy is a great storyteller, so he's a very good interview and you know, he actually was there, he sat face to face. He was the detective that Dahmer insisted on talking to.

would talk to and do interviews. But at some point before say, the documentary, it seemed that there was less interest and then it seemed to go in waves in terms of interest in Jeffrey Dahmer, and hence that the documentary again years after the crime.

It was just a matter of identifying the victims and finding out why, like finding out what turned this pretty ordinary, average, almost boring guy who worked in a chocolate factory into this you know, sort of sexual predator killer. So there was that, and I guess the amount of time that goes by too, Like this is a twenty five year old case. Now this summer is the twentieth anniversary of his arrest, so you know, there's lots more new crimes

that have occurred in that period of time. So you know, it's like anything, I think that sort of comes in waves. I think as people learn about him and hear about him. I mean, there's like twenty year olds now who don't know who Jeffrey Dahmer is, and they're interested in reading this book because they want to sort of hear it

from the historical point of view. They want to sort of place it back in ninety one and just sort of see how police sort of did their job and how this all kind of came together in that time frame.

I mean there's lots of interesting facts that come out of it, but instead of just a very un new visual way that he came to be known, you know, and yeah, you know you hear Jeffrey Dahmer. Most people know who you're talking about, because, as you say, he's in the legions of serial killers. He's really high up there.

wasn't his upbringing. So again, what there was no didn't seem to be any trigger, we'll say, and not so other than you know, so, did Pat in this interrogation pose that question to Jeffrey, how did you come to or or did he have that pose that question to himself? In the Is there an answer to the why?

you know, he didn't have an abusive background. He didn't have parents who didn't love him or give him enough attention. You know, he had a dad that worked pretty hard and wasn't around a lot. He had a mother who had some mental problems, that suffered from depression and anxiety, but hospitalized a few times. I think it was not sort of one thing that led him to become what he became. I think it was the fact that he

did spend a lot of time alone. Apparently he was a really lonely kid and didn't have a lot of friends, seem to have a hard time with being around people and be around kids his own age. In school, he was always sort of the weird kid, the quiet, shy guy. You know, would ocasionally play a prank and try and be funny, but most of the time, you know, people just kind of ignored him. He's kind of the invisible kid.

And I think that, you know, there was sort of that he was drinking at a pretty young age, like by his late teens or mid teens, he was drinking pretty much every day. So I think that the fact that he was drinking it probably did affect him, and maybe it inhibited him a little bit in terms of or disinhibited him a little bit in terms of taking chances later on when he was killing and killing regularly. But in terms of yeah, I mean, it was really

his sexual desire. Like he was very, very sexual in terms of you in masturbateed a lot, and he seemed to fantasize a lot. So this loneliness and the fantasy life somewhere and there it became very sexual, and it became kind of dark and then violent. Not that he wanted to impose violence on anybody, but basically what he wanted to do was to find a man that he was attracted to, incapacitate that man, and then do whatever

he wanted to them sexually. So you know, these fantasies in this darkness sort of stayed with him, and he tried to curb it. He tried to, you know, kind of make it go away and just sort of try and ignore it, and it just sort of kept coming back. It kept overwhelming him and to the point where you know, he acted it out on it when he was eighteen and says and seemed to be quite horrified by what he did. And in fact, it stayed with him, the

guilt of that for all of his life. And he managed to go nine years nine ten years between his first killing and the second time that he killed, and then around that time he was kind of like, he kind of well that the second time. Actually he claims it was an accident because he was in a hotel room with a man. They were both drinking and having sex, but then he woke up in the morning and his

arms were bruised and the guy was dead. He has no recollection of he did, but he freely admitted I must have killed the guy, because you know, I just don't remember it. I blacked out afterwards and I had no memory of it. But he took full responsibility for it. So then there became this path where he was sort of trying to stop himself, but he couldn't stop himself. And then, you know, finally he just sort of agreed to abandon and he stopped capacity that he might have had,

and then he was on a regular cycle. He got into this habit of going out to the clubs, drinking, watching these good looking men dance, trying to do a seduction, try and encourage them to come back to his apartment and it just became his routine, that was his social life essentially.

And he wanted to really sort of take what they had learned from the Dahmer case and sort of try to make improvements, provide better training for officers, because he said, you know, we have all these mistakes that were made in terms of you know, the police leaving a victim in Dahmer's hands and then that kid basically being killed, you know, within half an hour of their leaving, the police leaving, and so they wanted to train and he said,

you know, I know exactly how it happened. He knew those offs, and he said, you know, the training that they had kind of dictated that it kind of go

down the way it went down. He wasn't excusing the neglect that I think he felt went into the case, and I think he thought that, you know, of course, hindsight is always twenty twenty, but if he'd been there, you know, he probably would have tried to ask some more questions, try to ascertain a little bit more information, and not just sort of simply left after just a few minutes of sort of getting some more answers out of Dahmer and trying to get some more answers out

of this kid. Like you think he thinks he might have or possibly could have done a little bit more. But basically, his overall observation of that whole situation was that, you know, they police were listening to the white guy that looked and sounded like they did, and that they couldn't understand this kid anyway, so they really kind of focused more on what Dahmer was telling them, even though there was a woman there and a couple of teenage girls who were trying to say to the police, you

know know, like, listen to us. He is a kid. You know, we know him. He goes to our school, and they just were not really you know. He feels that they were not trained to kind of take in the whole thing and to actually know the community that they're policing. So these were things that he wanted to sort of try and take away from the Dahmer case

and used to improve things with police in general. So after he retired, he actually went down to South America and spent some time there working with police and trying to get a program together, which is the Police Athletic League, And essentially it's a program in the state that is geared towards getting police more involved in the communities that they are policing and to working with kids and young people and to try and encourage healthy choices and healthy

decisions in terms of choosing a legit life and a life of crime, and to sort of be there not as the police necessarily, but to sort of be more of a part of the community. So in terms of what's going on in the States right now, it's actually quite interesting because these are all issues that we're dealing with, or they had to deal with back twenty five years ago. But you know, he was really really committed to police

having a more positive presence in the community. So he really sort of tried to do a lot where there's projects where he would travel and talk about this Police Athletic League. The reason they called it the Athletic League is that initially it was very focused on sports, and so Pat Kennedy, being a former basketball player at six

foot seven, was very passionate about that. So he actually organized street games with kids in the community in the inner city of Milwaukee, and you know, his coach Kennedy as he's running up and down the streets blowing his whistle and getting the kids involved. And you know, he was very involved with another establishment through his church where he would go and it was like an open door cafe and people could come in and have at least

one hot free meal a day. And you know, he just really loved being you know, even though he tired from being a police officer, I think he was just a heart in his heart a cop, and so he was sort of at the very end, but he did go on also to teach criminology at two universities in Wisconsin, and so you know he was really involved in criminal justice long after he retired from MYPD.

going to be available until the end of July. But people can place orders I think right now if they want to, and yeah, it's going to be available in bookstores and basically any way that you get your hands on a book. E copies will be available shortly and also possibly an audiobook. So yeah, there's gonna be multiple ways and mediums of the book's going to be available.

But if people contact me through that Gmail address, poison Very Press at gmail dot com, then I'd be happy to answer any questions that they might have, and if anyone, once they've read it, if they want to review it and send me a copy, that would be awesome too.

from Jeffrey Dahmer. Very very incredible book. Thank you very much, Robin for coming on and talking about it today.