Perhaps the first sign that something was seriously amiss with Jeffrey L. Dahmer came in 1975, when he was a teen-ager. A group of boys walking in the woods behind the Dahmer home found the head of a dog impaled on a stick, the police chief in Bath Township, Ohio, said recently.
The boys were so shocked at the sight that they took photographs, but they did not tell the police until Mr. Dahmer was arrested two weeks ago in Milwaukee, the Police Chief in Bath Township, John Gardner, said. Eric Tyson, who grew up across the street from the Dahmer home, said neighbors had also found frogs and cats impaled or staked to trees, and knew that young Dahmer kept animal skeletons in a backyard shed, near his pet cemetery.
For forensic psychiatrists, such a fascination with death and cruelty to animals is an almost predictable sign in the lives of people accused of being serial killers. As of yesterday, Mr. Dahmer had been charged with killing 12 people in Milwaukee, and the police said he had confessed to the killing of 5 more. Each of the charges against Mr. Dahmer carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison.
"Murderers like this very often start out by killing and torturing animals as kids," said Robert K. Ressler, who developed profiles of serial killers while an agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation's behavioral sciences unit.
