Jeffrey Dahmer`s sanity when he killed and dismembered 15 young men became the central issue Monday as he changed his plea from not guilty to guilty but insane.
The switch means the proceedings will be much shorter than anticipated because the prosecution is relieved of having to present evidence in the murders. When jurors are seated in two weeks, the trial will move straight into its second phase, with defense attorney Gerald Boyle bringing in mental health experts to testify that his client was insane.
None of this, however, was of much consolation to the victims` relatives who were present in the courtroom Monday.
”I`m really upset,” said Janie Hagen. ”He`s not insane. This man needs life in prison.” Hagen is the sister of Richard Guerrero, whom Dahmer has admitted killing in the basement of his 87-year-old grandmother`s West Allis home in March 1989.
”All of us want him to go to prison and take the punishment like a man, if that`s what he is,” said Carolyn Smith, sister of Eddie Smith, who disappeared in June 1990.
The outcome of the sanity hearing will determine whether Dahmer spends his life in a state prison or a mental institution. If Boyle fails to prove his case, Dahmer could face 15 consecutive life sentences in prison. Wisconsin does not have capital punishment.
”The judge has in effect found him guilty of the 15 homicides. But he doesn`t enter a finding of guilt at this time to allow consideration of the question of responsibility,” said Thomas Hammer, an associate law professor at Marquette University.
Under Wisconsin law, inmates at mental institutions can petition for release every six months.
Dahmer, 31, a former chocolate factory worker, was arrested last July 23, when a partially handcuffed teenager who had escaped from him led police to his apartment. There, officers discovered heads and other body parts that they linked to at least 11 young men.
It was the worst case of serial killings in Wisconsin history. Four of the victims were or had been Illinois residents.
At Monday`s hearing, Dahmer, freshly shaven and unmanacled, wore an orange jail jumpsuit as he repeatedly acknowledged he fully understood the significance of the decisions he was making.
In changing his plea, Dahmer waived his right to question the circumstances of his confession, made voluntarily to police, and to challenge their search of his apartment. Without his confession, police would not have known about most of 17 killings that Dahmer has admitted.
Boyle acknowledged that the prosecution had a powerful case.
”I`m comfortable that each and every one of the homicides is provable beyond a reasonable doubt,” Boyle told Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Laurence Gram Jr.
Relatives of the victims were critical of the lack of detail they say they have been given about the fate of those who were killed.
They also were critical of suggestions by Boyle and Milwaukee County District Atty. E. Michael McCann that moving directly to the sanity phase of the trial would spare them the pain and discomfort of hearing details of the murders if the prosecution was forced to present its case.
”They shouldn`t speak for me,” Smith said. ”I want to know what happened to my brother from the time Jeffrey Dahmer met him to the time he killed him.”
Shirley Hughes, mother of Tony Hughes, who was last seen May 24, echoed Smith.
”I want to know what happened. How did he die? I want to know everything. We have a right to know,” she said. ”This is something we have to live with every day of our life. We get up in the morning with this; we lie down with this.”
