The new Netflix series “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” has rekindled interest in notorious serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. People have now realised that the majority of his victims were people of colour. Additionally, Christopher Scarver, the man who killed him in prison, was a Black man. We’re not entirely certain, though, that he did it “for the people,” if you know what I mean.
In 1994, Scarver murdered Dahmer. In an interview with The New York Post, Scarver claimed that the execution occurred as a result of the public’s growing disgust with Dahmer’s eating habits. According to the article, he would chop off pieces to resemble dismembered limbs and then cover them in ketchup to resemble blood. To “taunt” them, according to Scarver, Dahmer would place them around other prisoners.
Scarver claimed that he took care not to communicate with him. He, Dahmer, and another prisoner, Jesse Anderson, were all released from their handcuffs, nonetheless, to clean the restrooms. The guards left them alone because they were not part of Dahmer’s personal escort. Scarver seized the chance and confessed to killing both men.
Jim Stingl of the Milwaukee Journal, however, couldn’t recall any of these specifics from Scarver’s post-murder interviews.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has further information.
Gerald Boyle, who represented Dahmer in court, doesn’t think it’s true. Steven Kohn, who represented Scarver, doesn’t either. Boyle told me, “It’s ludicrous.”
Boyle and Kohn said that Scarver made no mention of Dahmer’s prison taunts or jokes about his atrocities at the time.
He revealed to me that he had a hit list of five men because of their victims and their methods of murder, Boyle added.
Nothing in the public record, according to Kohn, supports what Scarver claims in the most recent article. He adds that during the interview with Boyle, Scarver claimed that Dahmer and Anderson had committed murder for despicable motives and that it was embarrassing to share a work detail with them.
Scarver said in the Post interview that the jail guards assisted him in planning the murder by deliberately pairing him up with Dahmer, but he provided no further details. That is a reasonable inference given the absence of Dahmer’s personal escort.
Since he killed the lunatic, I expected him to provide a more Black-power vigilante-oriented explanation. However, I’m also somewhat pleased that it wasn’t because, even if it had been THEE Jeffrey Dahmer, the mainstream media in the 1990s would have devoured and discarded the tale of a Black guy murdering in the name of civil rights. Regardless, the lunatic received the punishment he actually deserved: the scorching seat in hell.