A Father's Story

by Lionel Dahmer

So much so, that in the vast majority of cases, he had not been able to reach orgasm unless his partner was unconscious.

It would allow me to turn them into hypnotized zombies, so that I could do whatever I wanted with or to them.

She obeyed instantly. I remember that I felt exhilarated as I watched her, felt truly powerful, truly in command of another human being. Junie was doing everything I asked. She was hypnotized; however, she fell off the chair and woke up.

remember how much I liked controlling her, and how much I enjoyed, however briefly, that sense of giving commands and having them instantly obeyed. I remember all of this as an event in my psychological history that suggests how much, even as a boy, I had yearned to control other people, how powerless I had often been made to feel in the presence of people I did not control.

I found out recently that, amazingly, Jeff was allowed to be without supervision for some twenty to forty minutes with a man who had previously attacked other people at another Wisconsin prison using make-shift weapons. This man also repeatedly threatened to kill white people. One report in July 1994 described this person together with a threat on Jeff specifically, but CCI personnel concluded that it was not substantive.

I guess I felt as if I betrayed Jeff, as well, when he asked me one day, "Dad, how come your book didn't have more of the happy things we did together?" He was referring to the two years of 4H we shared raising lambs, building fences for them, planting gardens, hiking in metropolitan parks, sharing science fair plans, etc. My weak reply was that the book was intended to show a limited focus, a spiraling downward. Jeff said, "It sure did that all right."