On the 14th December, 2024 (thanks to a free ticket courtesy of a kind stranger on Reddit) I headed to The Vaults in London, Waterloo for the local Serial Killer Exhibition.
Previously held in Milan, the exhibit was marketed as “a fascinating journey into the minds of serial killers”1 and encouraged visitors to “look beyond the myths [to] uncover the scientific truth of how real criminal minds work.” Hosting over 1000 true crime artefacts, the exhibition included serial killer-penned letters, artwork and reproductions of notorious crime scenes.
While some reviews had found the whole thing to be in questionable taste, others were impressed by how informative it had been. I was generally curious, yet my main interest (somewhat unsurprisingly) was in the few Dahmer-related items I’d heard were going be on display.
Though the Dahmer section ultimately turned out to be a mixed-bag of rare insights and misinformation (despite its myth-busting premise), it was nevertheless an opportunity to further explore the case, its perpetrator and some of the inaccuracies surrounding his story.
The following is an explanation, and evaluation, of the Dahmer information and items featured at the Serial Killer Exhibition.
Dahmer Biography and Information Boards
Handprint Sent to Penpal
Letter to Grandma
Envelope Mailed to Jason Moss
Glasses
Bible Signed by School Children
Kitchen Reproduction and Bloodied Mattress
Life-Size Shrine
Dahmer Biography and Information Boards
Throughout the exhibit there was a ton of information on offer, including within the Dahmer section.
For no additional cost, visitors could scan a QR code linking them to a brief audio biography of their chosen killer.
Dahmer’s story (narrated with a deep and dramatic British accent) was as follows:
Though accurate for the most part, I was disappointed to hear Dahmer’s 17 victims immediately reduced to 16.
Other errors included:
- The implication that Dahmer had relived the pleasure of the murders themselves in the way a sadist might’ve, despite Dahmer notably finding no thrill in the actual act of killing. “The killing was a means to an end,” he’d told Dateline in 1994. “That was the least satisfactory part. I didn’t enjoy doing that. That’s why I tried to create living zombies.”
- The not entirely accurate reconstruction of Dahmer’s kitchen
- The fact that Dahmer’s computer (a barely used Myoda LT3500 laptop which he’d intended to sell) had actually been found on the floor of his living room following his arrest – and more than two skulls had been collectively found in his closet, filing cabinet and in the computers old box
- The claim that Dahmer’s trial had taken place in 1991, instead of 1992 (when he’d stood trial in Milwaukee and then Ohio)
An accompanying information board also claimed Dahmer had been sexually abused at the age of 8 (despite this theory ultimately remaining public conjecture – though Dahmer himself openly denied it); that he was born in West Allis (despite being born in Milwaukee); and (in a separate section detailing the intelligence of serial killers) that he had an IQ of 145 – which would’ve placed him as a borderline genius. Dahmer’s actual IQ was noted, multiple times by psychiatrists, to be merely above average.
Most obnoxious, however, was the beaming face of 19-year-old victim Errol Lindsey misidentified as 31-year-old Tony Hughes.
It seemed rather tacky to border Dahmer’s victims around a collage which included the severed head and hands of one of them. No further information was provided about any of these unique individuals, besides their name and age – and it later struck me that the misinformation wasn’t just irritating, it was an additional affront to the young men who had died at the hands of the subject. As though the background to their demise wasn’t worth paying closer attention to.
Handprint Sent to Penpal
During his relatively brief time in prison, Dahmer received thousands of letters from all over the world. Some looked for friendship or romance with the Milwaukee Cannibal, while others wanted to help save his soul.2
Dahmer wrote back to quite a few people. Sometimes he wrote out poems or song lyrics for them, oftentimes he sent multiple penpals the same exact observations and anecdotes, word-for-word. Regularly he attempted to solicit money which would help pay off his family’s ongoing legal fees or allow him to purchase various items such as books, cigarettes, cassette tapes and a typewriter. On very rare occasions, Dahmer sent select penpals an outline of his hand.
Due to Dahmer’s notoriety, letters from him have long been in high demand amongst collectors, researchers and the morbidly intrigued. Yet where there’s a market for expensive items, so too is there an opportunity to exploit it – and both letters and hand tracings attributed to Dahmer have been faked and forged over the years.
This deception has also extended to alleged Dahmer handprints, where the creator covers their hand or finger in ink and applies it onto paper as a memento.
*
Having seen this particular handprint online before, it had long been apparent that this was yet another Dahmer fake. The wobbly, almost cartoonishly spaced, ‘Jeff Dah m er’ evoked the unnatural stroke and rhythm of forged handwriting – while the unusually curved, drawn-out arms of its J and F’s appeared characteristic of overthought application.
This was particularly noticeable when compared to legitimate examples of Dahmer’s print:
Four examples showing the natural flow, tighter spacing and more compact lettering of Dahmer’s handwriting
The cursive ‘Hi there! Love, Jeff’ appeared more genuine at a glance, but up close I saw the inconsistent thickness of its lettering and pressure-mark indentations on the paper – as though the writing had been intensely traced and overly retouched,3 or applied with fluctuating confidence.
Characteristics of forged handwriting and examples marked on the exhibited print
I was also able to get a closer look at the details of the prints themselves and compare them to the official print taken from Dahmer’s right index finger during his police interrogation:
There appeared an immediate difference, with the core of the exhibited print leaning further to the left than the more vertical police one. However, not being able to put my observations into more technical terms, I broached my enquiry to a forum specialising in forensic science – and was confidently told that the prints were not a match.
In the [exhibited print], the delta is not in frame. Whereas in the [police print] the delta is very close to the core. If the [exhibited print] would’ve been of the same finger as the [police print], the delta would’ve easily been in frame.
It also looks like the ridge count between the core and delta is off. You’re looking at a much lower ridge count of 1 or 2 [in the police print]. We’re also not seeing that ending ridge above the core in the [exhibited print]. And while the delta is not easily discernible in the [police print], we can assume that the ridge count is higher in the [exhibited print].
Encouraged by my new friend to get a second opinion, I directly emailed a forensics specialist who – though they identified the delta elsewhere – provided the same conclusion that the prints did not come from the same finger.
Because measuring the authenticity of such a piece also requires looking at the sum of its parts (in this case, both the handprint and handwriting) casting doubt on the print means half that piece is compromised. If the authenticity of the writing were obvious, the fingerprint discrepency could be argued to be excused somehow (or vice versa, had the prints matched).
However when there are questions raised about both, that’s a big red flag (made up of two red flags here) and the piece becomes untrustworthy as a whole.
Some of the misinformation on the walls also confirmed that the exhibit wasn’t always the most reliable source, either – and that it was therefore not unlikely that some questionable items had been overlooked the same way certain ‘facts’ had been.
It was vindicating to know my initial instinct had been right, but also frustrating that this forgery had not only made its way onto public display and into the Dahmer narrative, but presumably been sold and resold to people under the impression that what they were purchasing was legitimate.
There are many arguments against the sale and ownership of ‘murderabilia’ (a separate post would be required for such a topic), but I believe people are ultimately entitled to get what they think they are paying for – if only for the green-light it may otherwise give to other types of scammers.
Letter to Grandma
Undated, but evidently sent in 1978 during his time at Ohio State University (given the mention of mid-terms and Columbus), Dahmer’s two-page letter showcases the affection he had for his grandmother, Catherine.
Dahmer had enrolled at Ohio State to major in business just two months after the murder of his first victim, Steven Hicks. His time there was fleeting and he dropped out before the start of the second semester, too plagued by thoughts of what he’d done to Steven to do much besides drink in a bid to blot them out (the undated letter perhaps indicative of its sender struggling to keep track of those days in a drunk haze).
Dahmer’s roommates would later recall him as erratic and unpredictable – spending many an hour laid out in his top bunk, singing along to ‘I am the Walrus’. On one occasion, he stacked all the furniture up in a corner of the room and covered the walls in pizza. On another, he kicked at the wall of the bathroom, damaging its tiles in a turmoil which oscillated between inner and explosive.
While Dahmer’s letter attempts to reassure his Grandmother of his confident performance during the midterms, the reality was he barely attended class and his grades were so poor that he, his father, and Ohio State, soon agreed his college experience had been a bust.
After dropping out of college, being discharged early from a two-and-a-half-year stint in the army, and spending some time in Miami, Dahmer ended up living with his grandmother for six years shortly after receiving a municipal citation for drunken disorderly conduct in Bath, Ohio. This mutually beneficial arrangement meant keeping Grandma company, tending to her garden and helping out with various other chores in exchange for room, board, and – as Dahmer’s parents optimistically hoped – Grandma’s good influence. Dahmer later described her as:
“What you could call a perfect grandmother. Very kind, goes to church every Sunday, easy to get along with, very supportive, loving. Just a very sweet lady.”
However Catherine Dahmer eventually grew unnerved by her grandson’s strange behaviour, including the discovery of a mannequin in his room and his late night company with men. This subsequently led to him moving out for a while, before returning briefly after his arrest for Second Degree Sexual Assault of a minor in 1988. On the 14th of May, 1990, he moved out of Grandma’s for good – to the now infamous Oxford Apartments.
By then, unbeknownst to Grandma, Jeff had murdered three men in her home.
Envelope Mailed to Jason Moss
Most known for his correspondence with John Wayne Gacy, Jason Moss began writing to incarcerated killers after a long-term interest in true crime. It was an interest that would later lead to him becoming a criminal attorney.
Posing as a lonely gay man to lure Gacy and Dahmer into a response, the 18-year-old Jason figured he could learn more about killers if questioning them in the guise of one of their victims.4 Though he was left emotionally scarred from his experiences with Gacy, Jason managed to obtain a few letters from Dahmer beforehand. In Jason’s opinion, Dahmer was a “new species of deviant.”
Out of the three letters Dahmer would come to send Jason, the first was relatively formal in thanking the teenager for getting in touch, and entreated a subscription for gossip tabloids and gay magazines. Dahmer also requested a photo of his potential new penpal, which Jason obliged. From there, Dahmer’s attention was predictably caught by the sight of, what he described as, the young man’s “great swimmer’s build.”
“You certainly do have a handsome face,” Dahmer typed in his second letter (contained within a Valentine’s Day card depicting a well-sculpted, nude man with full-on erection), “I’m impressed.” He then advised Jason how best to pose for the next pictures – instructing “full body shots… lying on the bed, hands behind your head, with your chest fully inflated [and] reaching high for the ceiling.”
“There’s nothing more erotic than a handsome young man with a rock hard body and a slim tapering waist,” Dahmer drooled. “It’s a shame someone as good looking as you has to cover anything up… Please try to send as many good photos as you can.”
Dahmer’s enthusiastically warm flattery then switched to a calculatingly ice-cold coyness, as he promptly expressed his need to be careful with whom he replied to. “Many people write to me hoping to get an autograph,” he wrote. “They promise so much but deliver so little. I’ll be happy to accommodate you in the future, if you’ll accommodate me.”
Jason had hoped that continued correspondence would mean earning Dahmer’s trust, which could in turn lead to a potential prison visit with the man whose crimes Jason found so “alien.” However the direct requests unsettled him and Jason was concerned Dahmer was getting “too close, too fast.”
Regardless, Jason sent another photo and bought himself some space from the incarcerated killer by telling him there were upcoming exams to prepare for. Dahmer’s third reply came almost immediately, empathising with the need to focus on one’s studies but imploring Jason not to forget about him.
“Let me know when you’re ready to pursue a serious relationship,” Dahmer added – with the sledgehammer subtlety of a man unfamiliar with conventional courtship, and rushing to bypass the natural formation of normal human involvement. “As long as you have the time without distraction, I would be more than open to it.”
Dahmer was murdered in prison before Jason had the chance to write to him again. Twelve years later, Jason died from suicide at the age of 31.
*
Being in close proximity to a typed envelope sent to one of Dahmer’s most (in)famous penpals was interesting – yet something about it didn’t seem right.
Was it the wavy uneven edge, which didn’t quite fit the frame and which brought to mind a hastily cut sheet of A4? The thinness of the paper when compared to similar envelopes? Or was it the strangely faded and patchy, almost-grey, ink – which didn’t seem to match the dark black letters usually printed on Dahmer’s typed envelopes?5 I tried to dismiss such skepticisms by reminding myself of the waning effects of sun exposure and that, occasionally, envelopes are cut open and have only their recipient and sender addresses preserved.
The faded, patchy ink (on both type and postal marks) appears comparable to printer ink – which fades much faster than pen or typewriter pigment
Typed envelopes sent to two of Dahmer’s other penpals, with minimally faded black ink
Once home, however, I double-checked the exact dates of Dahmer’s correspondence with Jason and found that the exhibited postmark of November 7th, 1993, inexplicably failed to conform to the dates documented elsewhere:
- Dahmer’s first letter to Jason was dated the 27th of January, 1994
- The envelope of Dahmer’s second letter / Valentine’s Card, was postmarked the 9th of February, 1994.
Original mail from Jeffrey Dahmer to Jason Moss
It’s extremely unlikely Dahmer was able to time travel from within the walls of Columbia Correctional Institution and send his first letter to Jason two months before he’d even written it.
Another numerical oversight then leapt out at me:
The 22 cent stamp on the exhibited envelope was inconsistent with the 50 and 29 cent stamps usually used by Dahmer.
In fact, a quick visit to the USPS website confirmed it would’ve cost 29 cents for him to have mailed a domestic letter in 1993. The stars-and-stripes stamp on the exhibited envelope was issued in ’85 and valid for just three years, prior to a postage increase rendering it insufficient for a letter to Jason in Nevada.
Sources: USPS & Mystic Stamp
Though the Post Office may have overlooked 7 cents, when combined with the other questionable factors of the exhibited envelope, the likelihood of its legitmacy is considerably undermined. As a fellow researcher colourfully remarked: “The totality of the circumstances has led me to fall on the side of fucking fake.”
While I don’t have a definitive explanation, it’s not implausible that a knock-off envelope (including fake postmark) was crafted on the computer, printed onto paper affixed with an old stamp (allowing a wavy cancellation-type mark to be printed on top), then raggedly cut and framed without any real attention paid to the timeline of Jason’s story.
Jason’s own notoriety within the true crime community would’ve made such an envelope an especially marketable piece – worth decent money and, therefore, the effort to fake.
Though disappointing, it’s a known fact that letters and envelopes from infamous killers have long-been faked by less than savoury individuals looking to earn a quick buck or cheap clout. These can then fall into wider circulation as such ‘letters’ continue to change hands among more naive, or too trusting, collectors.
However, if anyone is willing to provide an explanation for this discrepancy (be it tangible proof or just a personal theory), please comment or get in touch!
Glasses
Needing glasses since fifth grade, Dahmer’s distinct aviators have long become his most recognisable feature in pop culture.
Dahmer took a -5.50 / -5.25 prescription, and was shortsighted enough without his glasses that taking them off in court allowed him to detach from his surroundings and spectators. “I felt uncomfortable looking anyone in the face,” he later told reporter Nancy Glass. “I didn’t want to see anyone’s face clearly. It helped me to dissociate myself from what was happening.”
Over the past few years, at least three pairs of glasses allegedly worn by Dahmer have fallen onto the market or ended up in museums.
The laborious research of u/mussybanglor in 2022 concluded that at least one of these pairs was most likely owned by Dahmer’s father, Lionel. Mussy later drew parallels between Lionel’s glasses and another of the ‘Jeffrey’ pairs.
It would be futile to try and match that comprehensive level of investigation already carried out, and I could add no more insight into whether the pair here were actually Jeffrey’s or not. I was a little sceptical, given some of the other items and Mussy’s research, but took them with a pinch-of-salt. Their initial source had obtained them via Lionel’s caregivers, so there was a legitimate connection to the Dahmer family, regardless, and not just a pair recently ordered off eBay.
Even if they were Lionel’s, that still would’ve been pretty significant given his prominance within the case and the information he’d provided regarding Jeff’s life. Lionel’s book, A Father’s Story, is generally regarded as one of the more unique insights into true crime due to its exploration of not only the acts and formative years of a serial killer, but the self-reflections of a man who inadvertently sired one.
Bible Signed by Children
Though a Bible signed by children of the congregation and sent to one of America’s most notorious serial killers sounds like something one might find in a Flannery O’Connor story, it was just one of many religious materials sent to Dahmer during his incarceration.
Through various Christians, penpals, and (in one incident) a fellow-former Revere High School student, Dahmer acquired a pretty substantial amount of Bibles. He favoured the King James Version – a preference he firmly argued to his prison reverend, Roy Ratcliff – and was stubborn about using what he believed to be “the most accurate Bible translation,” as opposed to Roy’s New International Version.
Dahmer was also concerned about the prison grape juice not being a sufficient enough substitute for communion wine. Roy assured him that the Lord understood the inmates situation, regardless of what Bible he chose or what grape drink he used, and that the only thing that mattered, “is that you have set your heart to serve God and obey Him as much as possible.”
This relationship with God had waned throughout Dahmer’s earlier life and at times he’d dabbled in the occult – despite his best efforts to walk, what he referred to as, “the straight and narrow.” In his trial’s final statement, Dahmer cited a lack of spiritual guidance as contributing to his crimes. “I should have stayed with God,” he’d told the court. “I tried and I failed and created a holocaust.”
He became more receptive to religion during his incarceration and was fully devoted come the time of his baptism in the Spring of ‘94. A few months later, during an interview with Stone Philips and Dateline, Dahmer posed the rhetorical question:
“If a person doesn’t think there is a god to be accountable to, then what’s the point of trying to modify your behaviour to keep it within acceptable ranges?”
The Bible on display was acquired by Canadian ‘murderabilia’ kingpin Cult Collectibles via Lionel Dahmer’s former caregivers. An accompanying note revealed that Dahmer’s name had been misspelled ‘Dalmer’ on the imprint of its personalised cover.
Kitchen Reproduction and Bloodied Mattress
Away from the more ‘official’ Dahmer artifacts was a loose interpretation of Dahmer’s kitchen, re-imagined with a dash of b-horror creative licensing.
A mattress had also been doused in copious amounts of fake blood and propped up against the wall.
It was only when I got home and watched another video about the exhibit that I realised I had totally missed the small blue barrel next to the mattress. Meant to duplicate the much larger 57-gallon drum Dahmer had used to dissolve body parts – and from which the remains of three people were retrieved.
Life-Size Shrine
Done with the Dahmer section, I made my way through several rooms set to music not out of place in a Modern Warfare lobby, before exiting the ‘cyber crime’ area and being met with a life-scale interpretation of Dahmer’s skeleton shrine.
One of Dahmer’s original shrine drawings 
“Jeffrey purchased a black table for a temple that he was going to build. It was to be an area of worship to give him more control financially, socially and in every area of his life. It was to be a centre for “gathering energy.” – Dr. Judith Becker 
“I was trying to get in contact with the spirits.” – Dahmer on the motive for his shrine 
“I have this black pedestal and I had a black round top on top of it, and I had the skulls set up on top of that, around it. It was just a remembrance of the people. A keepsake of each one of them. It was my own private little world. I had complete control. That’s about the ultimate control you can have.” – Dahmer 
“In the company of flickering lights, incense, ghosts, and silent comforting eyeless grinning skulls, Jeff Dahmer would finally be in peace.” – Brian Masters (‘The Shrine of Jeffrey Dahmer’) 
WENDY PATRICKUS: Did you feel, by keeping the skulls (and if you would’ve actually accomplished this shrine), that you would’ve felt less lonely? Like you were being kept company? That they were there? DAHMER: I think that must have, yeah, been my thinking. 
‘If [the arrest] had happened six months later, that’s what they would have found.’ – Dahmer
Dahmer explained his shrine – a black altar set with human skulls, flanked by two full skeletons and overseen by a plaque of Dionysis6 (not included in the replica) – as:
“A place for meditation, where I could feel I was drawing power from an outside source. A place where I could feel at home.”
When asked what the shrine was a shrine to, Dahmer replied: “Myself.”
Although it never materialised beyond the idea he sketched out for his lawyer and two psychiatrists, Dahmer had been certain “it would’ve been real [in] another six months,” had he not been arrested. Given the array of bones he’d collected before then, it wasn’t an unlikely estimate.
“On the level of pure untouchable madness, Dahmer’s shrine was to be his mansion of ecstasy,” author Brian Masters wrote in his 1993 bestseller, The Shrine of Jeffrey Dahmer. “[A place] where he would ‘go out of’ his quotidian identity and mingle with the spirits who understood him. They might well be the spirits of the people he had killed, people who knew him better than anyone in the world. Indeed, the only people who knew him as he really was.”
By 1992 (and once the bubble of his isolated fantasies had been burst by his arrest) Dahmer began to think the shrine idea “ridiculous.”
*
Standing in front of the replica, illuminated by the same blue fluorescence he would’ve been, really hit home the depth of Dahmer’s disorder (though I had to force my imagination to look past the goofy artificialness of some of the skulls and the cartoonishly oversized incense cones).
From an aesthetic point-of-view, it looked really cool and I wished I’d been able to somehow steal it away and reassemble it in my own home. If it had been a Halloween decoration it would’ve been interesting enough, but imagining it as a 3D depiction of Dahmer’s real vision made it undoubtedly more significant. It verged on the incomprehensible to think that, had he not been apprehended when he had been, a very similar display would’ve been installed in Dahmer’s small apartment – with no artificialness.
Feeling the demented gravitas of Dahmer’s design was one of the more unique experiences I’ve had as a researcher, and I appreciated that it had been here in the UK, where any kind of ‘experience’ related to the case is rare.
I stayed looking at it for a lot longer than I’d care to admit on a public blog, then returned a few more times to stand and look at it some more. At times feeling a mix of awe, horror and disgust – as well as a sad pity for both Dahmer himself and the very real people whose bones would have rested at his temple.
Final Thoughts
Overall, I was a bit disappointed with the Dahmer section.
The questionable penpal items and some glaringly inaccurate infomation gave it an amateurish quality which took away from the genuine handwritten letter, personalised Bible, and the impressive insightfulness of the replicated shrine.
It was the shrine which most made me think it had still been worth a visit, however. The glimpse it had offered into Dahmer’s peculiar private world, as a tangible display of his madness, was striking. It only strengthened an existing belief that Dahmer had spiralled down in sickness, into an isolated insanity.
Unrelated to Dahmer, the section dedicated to executions was notably well done and featured life-size replicas of the gas chamber, electric chair and lethal injection gurney, among others. There was a sterile and cold claustrophobia to the gas chamber which made me keen to avoid that particular cause of death in favour of something a little more outside! Various other sections contained various other life size figures – including Victorian anatomical models, mummified bodies, delightfully creepy mannequins and a wheelchair bound model of Mrs. Bates – all of which were really cool. The range of topics covered was also impressive.
Though some reviews criticised the prescence of giggling, selfie-taking serial killer ‘stans’, it has to be said that, on the evening I went, the crowd had been quietly respectful of their surroundings and the subject matter.
Yet the tone of the exhibit itself was off at times. Though one can argue whether-or-not displaying particular artefacts and replicas in the first place is an edgy or educative affair, there was something markedly tasteless about things like serial killer stickers being sold in front of a poster displaying their real victims. If the exhibit had wanted to embrace a schlocky horror-themed campiness and sell an ironic kind of souvenir, the same effect might’ve been achieved without so directly undercutting any respect for the victims it professed to have. Or disbanded entirely in favour of selling more true crime books.
Coincidentally, it was the photos of the 17 young men whom Dahmer had murdered who had the misfortune of being reposted in the gift shop. Where every single piece of Dahmer-related ‘merch’ had sold out – although plenty of items printed with the face of John Wayne Gacy still remained.
Sources:
- Serial Killer Exhibit
- The Last Victim by Jason Moss (1999)
- Dark Journey, Deep Grace by Roy Ratcliff (2006)
- The Shrine of Jeffrey Dahmer by Brian Masters (1993)
- Letters from Jeffrey Dahmer
- u/mussybanglor
- Dateline
- Dahmer’s military files
Special thanks to Edmond, Kathleen and Steve 🙂
Footnotes:
- Quoted from: https://serialkillerexhibit.com ↩︎
- Some of this fanmail was actually featured in a later section of the exhibit dedicated to people who write to inmates. In two of the letters, a buxom blonde woman named Carolyn (her photo included) professes her love for Dahmer and demands to know when he will write back. “I was so glad to see you on the Inside Edition interview,” she wrote. “I was worried you weren’t eating good and would be too skinny. I was pleased to see you looking healthy and handsome as always. Hearing your voice was wonderful. My heart went pitter patter.” The next letter, dated the next day, is shorter but more urgent in its desperation for a response. “I know you have a heart, so please write me and let me know something,” Carolyn implores. “Certainly writing me can’t be that bad? Just consider it. I would be grateful to hear from you.” Presumably Dahmer did not have the heart to write back ↩︎
- Such wording may have been copied in its entirety from a genuine Dahmer tracing or it may have been the composite of several examples of Dahmer’s words put together, printed out and traced over (eg: A ‘Hello’ from one place, the ‘Love, Jeff’ from another) ↩︎
- Jason also wrote to Charles Manson claiming to be a supporter of Manson’s ideology ↩︎
- Despite being 30-odd years old, the ink on Dahmer’s letters and envelopes is seldom faded, be it typed or handwritten. Most collectors preserve such items carefully, and both ballpoint and typewritten script generally remains intact for decades. On the other hand, ink from a computer printer fades much faster – or may have been printed with low cartridge in the first place ↩︎
- There’s various debate about whom Dahmer’s wooden plaque (visible in official MPD photographs of his apartment) depicts. Some people believe the figure is Dionysus (the Greek god of intoxication, hedonism and madness) or his Roman counterpart, Bacchus. Other people have cited it as the Green Man – a symbol of rebirth and the cycle of new growth that occurs each spring. Other suggestions have included the back piece of an antique North Wind chair, a hybrid goat-man, or simply just some kind of goblin. I personally believe it depicts Dionysus and suspect that Dahmer (who was relatively read in the occult at one point) would’ve been drawn to its familiarity either consciously or subconsciously. Although there’s also a very likely chance he’d just thought it looked cool ↩︎
Wow, did I enjoy that! That was a post worth waiting for! It was as good as going, with a ton more information to boot. Your research and support for your options and perspectives are so deep and detailed. There isnt a blog anywhere that compares to this. I feel like I owe you the price of a ticket!!!
PLEASE keep this content coming. Cant wait for the next one… THANK YOU!
I love this so much <3
Thank you for such kind feedback. I'm so happy you enjoy my work and that you find it interesting! It's hard to tell how it comes across to other people sometimes 😅 Your comment is definitely the kind which encourages me to keep posting such things more publically though. I hope you will enjoy the next post too (whenever it may be lol)
The attention to detail in this post is amazing, Sophie. You manage to empathize so well with the victims while also humanizing Dahmer. It’s also very rare to see posts examining the authenticity of Dahmer letters in such depth.
As a special favor, do you think you will post a transcript of Dr Dietz’ testimony?
Wow, thank you so much! I truly appreciate your comment and kind words. It means a lot that you take the time to read it 😊
You’ll be pleased to know that I do intend to do a transcript of Dr. Dietz soon(ish)! His testimony was very long – and across multiple days – though, so it will have to be divided into several parts over time.
There is some of Dr. Dietz’s transcript up now: https://controloutofcontrol.blog/trial-transcript-testimony-from-dr-park-dietz-part-1-of/
This is BRILLIANT
I saw the handprint too, and always thought it looked sketchy AF. Thanks for clarifying why!
THANK YOU!
I’m so glad someone else saw it that way as well. Each time I see it shared by someone claiming it’s Dahmer’s hand I want to comment like “hey, not to be That Guy but…”
But there’s no way to make that comment without being That Guy 🌚
Wait! So the whole time the handprint was fake???! ;-; i saw peopel making videos about it, saying it was real! Are you sure?? Why was it on display if it is fake?
Yes, I am 100% sure. For the reasons laid out in the post. That’s not Dahmer’s handwriting, nor is it his fingerprint.
It’s easy for people to take such things at face value, especially if they don’t have a specialised interest in the subject. I’m aware this is a relatively niche area of research which, frankly, many people just do not care about. Even many true crime fanatics will approach those kinda things with an “oh, that’s cool!” and then just move on and not give it a second thought. But I didn’t think that would make for as interesting a blog 😛
And as for why it ended up on display: Unfortunately that kind of thing happens all the time as fakes fall on the market // the true crime circuit and change hands among naïve, or too trusting, collectors. Exhibit curators are only human and people make mistakes. It would be very hard for me to notice if a John Wayne Gacy letter was fake and I’d probably be easily misled into believing a Gacy forgery was real if it was presented in an ‘official’ context. It’s only through being so familiar with the Dahmer case, his writing and his character that the Dahmer ones stand out.
(sorry, long answer! Hope that helps though!)
This is really informative. I thought the print was real at first, but I think it’s certainly sketchy seeing the handwriting side by side. Is there any chance at all it might be real? You said it’s not, but I am just wondering
Thank you! 💘 I’m so sorry it’s taken a while for me to reply. I got a lot of comments today and missed some of the earlier ones.
I guess there is always a remote possibility, right? If only because the only person who could confirm it for sure has been dead for 30+ years. However something like this needs to be measured by the sum of its parts.
Here we have only the handprint and the handwriting to make an assessment, and questions have been raised about both. Questioning the fingerprint based on the mismatched ridge count and delta effectively means 50% of what we have to work with (the fingerprint) is now called into doubt. Questioning the unnatural lettering; the signs of indendation and the other strange handwriting signs means the other 50% of what we have to work with is also called into doubt.
If the authenticity of the writing was clear, we could perhaps excuse the fingerprint discrepency somehow. And vice versa to excuse a handwriting discrepency if the fingerprint was 100% confirmed.
But when there are questions raised about both, that’s a massive red flag (made up of two red flags) and the piece is untrustworthy as a whole.
Like I said in a previous comment, I am 100% sure this is fake based on those two things alone (let alone with contextual clues which call into question the reliability of the exhibition as a source in general – such as the misinformation on the walls, etc.)
(sorry for the long reply! I hope that helps though 🙂 )
Thank you for this post, sophie. It already seemed strange they were posting misinformation with the photos on the wall.
No worries! Glad you enjoyed it. Yeah, I guess that should’ve been a sign that some things might be a bit questionable. There was also stuff like parts of a bin bag claiming to be from Ted Bundy’s ‘murder kit’ – but someone on Reddit pointed out that the box contained a website URL, which wouldn’t have been around back in the 70s when Bundy was killing.
Hey. Jst wanted to say this post is great. I’m so sorry some people don’t want to know the truth.
Hey, thanks. Yeah, that was pretty rough. I got a few more comments but, tbh, i’m not feeling like responding to them right now. Thanks for being nice though x
Who donated the stuff to the exhibit?
there were a few people who donated all kinds of things to the exhibit in general (not going to name names). Not all the dahmer stuff came from the same source, if that’s what you’re asking
Didn’t the items have a certificate of authentication with them?
No, not all of them. Just the Bible (in the Dahmer section) and a couple of other items scattered around elsewhere.
To be honest though, whether an item does or doesn’t have a CoA doesn’t mean much. Not all real items come with CoA’s, and fake items sometimes do. Amongst a lot of oldschool collectors, CoA’s are laughed at because all they really amount to is someone saying: “I promise this is real!” They’re not a legal document and there has been some controversy amongst ‘murderabilia’ collectors because CoA’s were accompanying fake Gacy paintings a while back from a well-known shyster, among other things. The real proof of authenticity is in the credibility of the seller and the research that goes into determining the context and plausibility of the item itself.
Additionally, one of the old ‘True crime Authentication’ services was at the heart of some scandal some years ago. I don’t want to go into it much on here, but the bottom line is those services themselves can be ran by anyone. And those people may or may not be on-the-level, and they may or may not be experts on every criminal or item that they are asked to vouch for.
Just an example, but my own Dahmer letter didn’t come with a CoA, yet it was obtained via a friend who got a bunch of them directly from Mary. She didn’t need to do a CoA to convince him it was real because she herself was the authenticated source.
I saw you asked a few more questions but I think they’ve been addressed elsewhere. I will say that the handwriting thing is obviously also a huge indicator. It was also no skin off my back had I been proven wrong by the forensic experts as I’d already seen and touched the handprint in person, so would’ve been stoked to hear it was legit!
Just remember that some people are always jealous of pretty girls, no matter what.
Ha – thanks. I’m not so sure that is the reason for anything with me, but I appreciate the compliment x
if you get a chance could you just say whether you think this is real? https://ibb.co/bS0ggy8 It is a postcard that they said Joyce sent to Jeffrey in prison.
Hey, thanks for your comment 🙂
I’ve seen that before and, yes, it does seem entirely legit. IIRC, it was one of several photos which had been sent to Dahmer in prison (from various people) and then sold as one lot. Whoever got that sure got a great deal, because I suspect if it had been realised to be Joyce’s writing before it was listed, it would’ve sold for a lot more!
The handwriting matches examples of Joyce’s handwriting (as seen in Jeff’s baby book) and she used to sign her messages with “love and light.” Some people before said that it seemed weird to send a photo of ones son in court to him in prison, but Joyce was known to be a little eccentric at times. That aside, she most likely just wouldn’t have had many photos of Jeff as an adult, given how they hadn’t seen each other for some time prior to his arrest. Objectively, it can pass as just a nice close-up image of him, as the court background is not visible.
It might have also been a way of showing that she was playing an active role in reading about him in the press and keeping him in her thoughts – despite the ghastly circumstances. Regardless of what he’d done, Jeff was still her son and that photo and message seems like she is proud of the good that she still sees in him, and wanted him to see too (as well as taking a maternal pride in having made a handsome son lol).
It would also be a particularly niche item to try and forge – especially as it wasn’t even the main focus of the listing.
So, tl;dr answer: Yes. It’s legit.
I 100% believe the print is fake. The handwriting is ridiculous (did Jeff even have access to a pencil then?) and the ridge count of the print is clearly different. Great research, Dahmer Detective! ps, enjoyed your comment about the Joyce card
Thank you, Abz! I appreciate it 🙂
It’s funny, because even though one person explicitly said one of the prints lacked comparative value, their consensus still was the same as that of those (over five other people) who didn’t detect a comparative issue, and who still identified the same ridge counts and delta discrepency.
I didn’t mention it in my main post – because it relies on presumption to do a lot of heavy lifting (as opposed to the more objective facts of the handwriting and print comparissons) – but the cheap-looking way the print is displayed (sticker label; frame obscuring ‘Jeff’s’ writing – perhaps to intentionally hide it) is also a bit of a red flag. Cheap presentation often means cheap value – considering the financial cost of real Dahmer ‘relics’ or the historical (even sentimental) value they have for the people Dahmer might’ve sent them to, and the pride people often take to showcase such items pristinely. I think you know exactly what I mean!
And yes. He had access to pencils in his cell at the time of his death (according to documents from CCI).
All i know is your blog is cool and your research is class. Post more Park Dietz stuff.
😆
great post! Thank you for this! I always though his name looks super weird on that thing.. Was there any mailing envelope with it, or a name of the pen pal it came from?
Thank you so much! 😊 Yeah, it reminds me of those goofy cut signatures that claim to have been sent from Dahmer – and yet have never had one iota of a source behind them, even among older collectors. They just basically appeared one day and fell onto the market suspiciously.
No, there was no envelope accompanying it. That wouldn’t always be a red flag in itself (not every real letter comes with its accompanying envelope) but it sure doesn’t add anything more to the credibility of this particular piece. There was also no name anywhere, but not all of the few known Dahmer handprints or tracings came with names on them, in fairness. This one, sold on Supernaught many years ago as a consignment piece, did not:
However that is also a good example of Dahmer’s natural ‘Jeff Dahmer’ print compared to the wobbly, spaced out, elongated and pressured lettering from the exhibit.
Thank you for replying! I have been checking in to see if you had done LOL! Wow, I have never seen that particular print before! Thank you for sharing… It’s interesting to compare it to the others. Love those finger details!
You’re welcome! Thank you for checking out my page 😃
I saw a video where someone said the letter to grandmother katherine was sent from Jeffs time in the military 🤦♂️
#FakeNews 🌚
Definitely sent from his time at Ohio State!
Interesting but fails to address one critical piece of information. Nothing about the ”Milwaukee Cannibal” story is actually real and it has recently been exposed in the popular book Jeffrey Dahmer Uncovering The Case For Innocence. The people behind this story are diabolical.
The ‘popular’ book which has a whopping 3 reviews on Amazon and none on Goodreads? The ‘popular’ book which was written by a person who never worked on the case and which was self-published by a company who charged the ‘author’ themselves a minimum of £399 to have printed (£799 if one chooses the ‘with distribution’ package)? The ‘popular’ book ‘published’ by the same company behind such literary greats as: 30 Ways to Improve Your Golf, Controlling the Beast Within and Freddie the Spider Goes to the Seaside? And whose line up of front covers mostly resembles an explosion at the ’98 Windows Clipart factory? The ‘popular’ book which is currently ranking 4,603 in Serial Killer books and 10,325 in Murderer Biographies on Amazon? The ‘popular’ book whose own publisher realised they’d overpriced at £31.99 so who is now selling it on discount at £23.39? The ‘popular’ book whose author stands so firmly behind, they cannot even put their own face to it? Settle down, Brian Masters.
Still, I’m glad you found my work interesting! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧
(I won’t be publicising anymore of your conspiracy comments, but I think Park Dietz & Associates are still on the edge of their seat awaiting your sermon)
How do you know the writer didn’t work on the case? Or is that just an assumption? Really, people should question this story more, and it’s good that they are finally doing that. It’s in the public domain which is positive. And no-one is challenging it. Why is that? Why have all the ‘Dahmer’ collectibles suddenly disappeared from all these popular collectibles sites? What have even a couple of popular books about the case suddenly disappeared? What happened to the ‘Psych Reports’ that you can’t find anywhere for sale all of a sudden (the one that mentions Jeff’s Polymyositis disease which blows the whole fable apart). Etc. Just questions.
Babe, no one is “challenging it” because very few people have read it. And because it would be like wasting energy trying to convince someone the sky is blue when they’re screaming over-and-over that it’s green.
The reports stopped being printed effectively due to a contract ending.
Jeff was treated with steroids for Polymyositis and – given his manual labour at Ambrosia and his time spent playing tennis in school – we know it wasn’t something he struggled with lifelong.
You are polite, but I’m truly not going to entertain your disrespectful conspiracy, “Jeff Dahmer was innocent” nonsense anymore.
(Edited to add: In case it looks like I’m just being incredibly rude to someone from an outsiders perspective, this person is part of a group who believes the Dahmer case was a hoax and that Jeffrey Dahmer was innocent and is still alive – among other things 😳)
Have read your blog yesterday. Some of details were new for me, it was nice. About book you mentioned here, I have it and still reading. Well, I really glad I got it..a lot to digg in really. As i understand, “Uncovering the case for innocence” have been released only for a coupl of months ago, in December 2024, and already caused so much reaction. Funny.
Thank you! I’m glad you found the blog informative 🙂