A Father's Story

by Lionel Dahmer

But I wasn't told what these other mothers and fathers were told, that their sons were dead at the hands of a murderer. Instead, I was told that my son was the one who had murdered their sons.

And so, my son was still alive. I couldn't bury him. I couldn't remember him fondly. He was not a figure of the past. He was still with me, as he still is.

As I heard about these activities for the first time at the trial, I wondered why someone hadn't mentioned even one of these incidents to me. And even more puzzling, why hadn't I seen evidence of these things?

“Sorry," he repeated. Sorry? But for what? For the men he had killed? For the anguish of their relatives? For the torment of his grandmother? For the ruin of his own family? There was no way to tell exactly what Jeff was sorry for.

Rather than Jeff's murder being any kind of justice, it is just another example of the failure of the criminal justice system. The only message that one gets from the murder of Jeff is "Watch your back in prison!" There is no message of right or wrong. There is only a message of more murder, more hate, more craziness, and more sin. Rather than glorying in Jeff's murder, I believe anyone who is really thinking should feel humiliated that this can be allowed to happen in a super maximum security prison like Wisconsin's Columbia Correctional Institution (CCI).