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6 Confessing the Unspeakable Dear Mr. Fleming, As you may know I am Lionel and Shari Dahmer's agent, and I am in receipt of your fax of May 6th to the Dahmers. Regretfully, what you propose would conflict with our current Hollywood plans, and we must therefore respectfully decline your offer. Yours, Joel Gotler. (Letter to Patrick Fleming, whose documentary film To Kill and Kill Again, focuses on a model developed by California State University to represent the relationship between physiological, psychological, and cultural factors involved in the "making" of a serial killer) A psychologist working for the Wisconsin Department of Corrections says, "There may be some psychological dynamics to [Dahmer's] confessions . There could be some relief in being caught. Whatever pain he had is finally over. Or there could be some charge for him for all this confessing" (quoted in Schwartz 150). Whether Dahmer experiences relief or a charge from his confessions, it is clear that we, as his confessors , experience the latter as we replay his .story time and time again. And readers of the magazine True Police Cases can read it for less than fourteen dollars. An advertisement selling "TheJeffrey DahmerConfessions " (copied, it says, from official files ofthe Milwaukee Police Department ) notes how the product will tell "how he lured, drugged, killed, had sex, and dismembered their bodies" and that you can "Order your copy for ONLY $13.95" (August 1992). Confession can be good business for confessor and confessee alike. And sometimes the act of confessing seems more exciting than what is being confessed. Suddenly everybody seems to have something to confess , to have, in other words, one of the things it takes to acquire celebrity status. But Dahmer has one of the best and biggest stories of them all. His attorney is confident that Dahmer's 169-page confession is "the longest confession in the history of America" and suggests that "this is a man who wanted to rid himself of this after he was arrested" (Larry 100 Confessing the Unspeakable King Live, 17 February 92). If Dahmer rids himself of his story, where does it go? "Dahmer could be making everything up or saying things in an 'eagerness to please' " (Los Angeles Times, 4 August 1991, A22), says John Liccione, a psychologist at the Milwaukee County Mental Health Complex. What is it Dahmer could say that would please his listeners? When Dahmer's neighbors in a poor Milwaukee community are offered fifty dollars for interviews by television networks and three hundred by national tabloids (The Washington Post, 7 August 91: B2), there must be pressure to get the story right, to satisfy the particular demand . And of course, like Dahmer's neighbors, we have no trouble in describing the nature of that story, in describing what it is we like to hear. Henry Lee Lucas knew what that was. The Texas "drifter" confessed to killing 360 people across the country and was believed, without forensic evidence or witnesses to support his story. "The greatest serial killer of all time" (Confessions of a Serial Killer), the subject of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, now says he only killed one and made up the rest in consultation with the Texas Rangers: "Every time they brought a murder case in ... I accepted it" (Confessions of a Serial Killer).1 Demonstrating a reversal of the traditional relationship between police and criminal, Donald Leroy Evans of Galveston confesses to killing more than sixty people, and police "are still attempting to prove his claims" (Davis 1991, 169). Dahmer insists on telling his story, one which the police can only partially verify: "The accounts of Jeffrey Dahmer's deeds come from his own mouth. There are no known witnesses , and in some cases there is no physical evidence to verify the statements written down by the police" (Dvorchak and Holewa 77). The FBI tells u-s that serial killers are "very cooperative during the interview . You just can't shut these guys up. They just want to talk about their crimes" (House 22). And we are good listeners. There is power in confessing, in having a good story-so much that for some it is apparently worthwhile to own up to things they didn't do. The storytelling spree gains as much fame as the killing spree. Confined to his cell, with only words and his imagination to pass the time, Lecter demands that Starling tell a story to match his. Watching the movie, we can see that...

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