Serial Killer's Soul (6 page)

The first day after my trial, I wasn’t really in the mood for talking; honestly, who would be? I really wasn’t in the mood for doing much of anything. I was depressed and, despite knowing I was responsible for all this, I felt sorry for myself. This Levy guy didn’t let my lack of interest stop him from talking to me.

Levy tried to get me to open up by peppering me with questions. When I chose to answer him, which wasn’t often, I answered him bluntly. I didn’t feel like making friends; I wanted to be left alone. After hours of his seemingly aimless questions, he asked me if I had ever known “the goodness of the Lord.” I wanted to chuckle. If I was a God-fearing man, would I really be in the place I was in? I told him I hadn’t; religion was never part of my life.

Levy was the first person I’d ever met who fit the description of “filled with the spirit of God.” He actually seemed to have the Lord in him, emerging from every pore in his body and every word he spoke. Levy told me about Jesus. Levy talked to me, taught me, and helped bring Jesus into my heart.

My life was never the same from that moment forward.

After Levy broke down my walls, I realized he was someone with whom I could relate. He was a black man, about my age, who had lived a hard life. He didn’t talk about his past; he just talked about how the love of Jesus had saved him. I saw Levy as a mentor and a teacher. He had the peace and wisdom of an old man and whenever he talked I couldn’t help but listen.

Levy was happy
all
the time. He didn’t let anything bring him down. It
was as if his whole being radiated … something. Levy loved life and he loved his Lord, and he couldn’t wait to share that happiness and peace with anyone who wanted to listen or was still enough to listen. I was drawn to everything Levy told me because I wanted the same happiness I saw in him. I wanted to learn how I could be happy and finally free from all the bad things in my life.

One of the first things Levy told me was, “Prayer will change you.” I wondered how, at that point,
anything
could change me. I was preparing to spend ten years in prison and, to be honest, when I looked back on my life, I didn’t see much hope for a better future.

Levy wouldn’t give up. He taught me everything he possibly could in those ten days. “Read the Bible,” he’d say, then he’d read it with me. Sometimes he wrote down specific verses and told me to read them later, when I had more time.

Levy told me the Bible contained everything we needed to know in order to live a good life and be happy. He told me about Jesus Christ and how he died for my sins, even my armed robbery and drug abuse.

I never found out why Levy was in prison but for some reason, I assumed he was in there for life. Inmates hardly ever talked about their crimes, mostly because they don’t want to think about them. No one in prison is guilty, you know? Prison is full of “innocent men,” to hear them talk. Many inmates are depressed about their sentences, especially those locked away for a long time. Dwelling on your crimes and your sentence just makes you miserable.

Learning about faith from Levy helped keep my mind off bad things. He said if I just believed that the Son of God came down to this Earth and died on the cross for my sins, I, too, could gain eternal redemption. I didn’t know if I could believe him. I had done a lot of bad things. Granted, I may not have been as bad as some others; but regardless, if there is a God, was he at all interested in me?

Levy reiterated that no matter how bad I’d been in the past, no matter what I’d done, God could and would forgive me. He said I could still earn a place in heaven for all eternity if I was truly sorry for the bad things I had done and believed in the goodness of God and his Son.

I was skeptical.

Levy didn’t give up. The fact that I kept listening and trying to learn reflected that I wasn’t giving up on myself for once either. Eventually everything Levy said started to make sense to me. Eternity sounded like a lot longer than the ten years of prison I was facing. I began to think that maybe I could serve my time in prison more productively. I started to dream dreams of getting out early for good behavior. I wanted to begin a new life on the outside, a life with God and Jesus Christ as my role models. I began to believe that having faith in Jesus was the answer, the only answer.

Levy came to me at a low point in my life. I was spinning ever faster on a downward spiral to nowhere. If it hadn’t been for Levy, I would have spent my prison time thinking up new scams until I could start my life of crime and drugs all over again. Levy taught me to have faith–in God and in myself. He taught me to appreciate the goodness in all people and to see Jesus in every face.

Even though I was only with Levy for ten short days, I believe he saved my life and soul. He brought me into the company of God. He gave me a role model; he gave me a father I could love, and who would love me back unconditionally. The more I learned about the goodness of God, the more I wanted to learn.

I believed God sent Levy to me. For the first time in my life, I felt happy and whole, and knew that I was on my way to a new life and better things.

I was transferred to the Dodge Correctional Institution in Waupun, Wisconsin, on February 16, 1990. All inmates assigned to the Wisconsin prison system go to Dodge first. That’s where each inmate receives a formal recommendation in terms of custody level, institution assignment, and individual program needs. Each prisoner also receives a complete physical examination by a doctor, nurse, psychiatrist, and psychologist.

Within a month, the Program Review Committee (PRC) evaluated me. They considered the crime I committed and my background, achievements (not many), as well as assessed my physical and mental well-being. They recommended the Wisconsin Resource Center in Winnebago, Wisconsin, a maximum/medium-security institution. I stayed there from March 27, 1990, until April 26, 1991.

While I was in Winnebago, I read my Bible and attended church services.
On September 16, 1990, during services in the prison chapel, Chaplain Gary Lee asked if anyone was ready to put away the life of crime and drugs and follow Christ. I thought about Levy and what he had done for me, how he’d opened up a new world, a whole new way of living. I stepped forward and said, “I’m tired of this life, Lord. I’m ready to follow you for the rest of my life.”

At that moment I allowed myself to be reborn into a community of faith that serves only one master, Jesus Christ. I not only dedicated my life to God and his Son, but I also stopped using drugs.

In February 1991, I saw the PRC again and they recommended I choose where to serve the rest of my time: Dodge Correctional Institution in Waupun, the Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage, or the Green Bay Correctional Institution in Green Bay.

I prayed about the decision. Something kept nudging me to accept Columbia. I’d heard the time there wouldn’t be easy, that it was a strict place. But a little voice in my head kept telling me Columbia was the right place.

I prayed specific prayers. “God, do you have a reason for me to be in Portage? You must. I feel you pushing me toward it. I’ll request Columbia. I know you’ll show me the reason when I arrive.”

On April 26, 1991, I arrived at Columbia. Located just off Interstate 39 between Madison and Stevens Point, the Portage facility is a maximum-security prison in the Wisconsin countryside, surrounded by fields, farmhouses, and country roads. It was peaceful there, in the middle of nowhere.

I beg you
–
I, a prisoner here in jail for serving the Lord
–
to live and act in a way worthy of those who have been chosen for such wonderful blessings as these. (Ephesians 4:1
, TLB)

My temporary room was a single cell in the orientation unit at Columbia Correctional Institution, and I could leave my cell only for meals in the dayroom.

The next day, April 27, 1991, the psychologist who would ultimately decide how I spend my time at the facility interviewed me. She suggested placement on “SMURF Unit 6”. After the unit manager, social worker, and psychiatrist interviewed me, Unit 7 actually became my home.

Three months later, on July 23, I was returning to the unit after recreation time when I noticed staff standing around the television, watching the news. I remembered the time: it was 2:30 p.m. Milwaukee police arrested a man for murdering a number of young men and boys.

The man’s name was Jeffrey L. Dahmer.

We learned that at 11 p.m. the previous evening, cops arrested Dahmer at his Milwaukee apartment. Officers, homicide investigators, and medical examiners examined the contents of every room in his apartment and confiscated boxes, photographs, papers, freezers, plastic barrels, power tools, knives, kitchen equipment, and human body parts. As we watched the TV in the dayroom, the unit psychologist predicted that whoever this guy was, he’d end up at Columbia with us.

I went back to my cell to watch my own thirteen-inch black-and-white TV. I wanted to learn more about this man, Dahmer.

As the story unfolded, the man and his crimes became the main topic of conversation throughout the prison. No matter where we were–in the gym,
in the library, outdoors, in our cells, the dayroom, classrooms, anywhere in the prison–all anyone talked about was Dahmer, speculating about the crimes and the nature of the man who committed them.

I was fixated with the case. From that day on, I watched everything I could about the gruesome murders. I read articles in the daily newspapers to keep up with the events as they unfolded. Dahmer confessed to killing seventeen men and boys and performing sex acts on them. I read all the grisly details the paper was willing to print.

Photographs and fingerprints complete, Dahmer was sent to the county jail in downtown Milwaukee. I knew that place well. The cells were small, five feet wide and eight feet long. Each contained a steel bed attached to the wall plus a stainless-steel toilet and sink and one small shelf on the wall.

Dahmer received the customary gray paper jumpsuit, his regular clothing confiscated. Prisoners were given paper so they couldn’t rip their clothes up and hang themselves in their cell, like I had tried when I was jailed.

The jail itself wasn’t that old, built in the early 1950s, but it sure felt and looked dated on the inside. It was in the Safety Building, which was six stories tall. Three floors were used as the jail, which held about five hundred prisoners. The rooftop was used for recreation, for jogging, or just standing around in the fresh air.

An antiquated morgue was in the basement. The basement also was used for discipline purposes for inmates who violated rules. During recent years, the jail housed prisoners from the House of Corrections in Franklin, Wisconsin, who were in Milwaukee for court hearings or trials, or for holding men with probation and parole violations.

Inmates in the county jail were often on lockdown twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. It wasn’t a pretty place. Peeling paint and graffiti covered the walls of every cell. In the winter the place was blazing hot in some places and freezing cold in others because old-fashioned radiators “heated” the jail. I remember being cold in my cell when I was there because I had no blankets or sheets, just a four-inch-thick blue mattress on top of the steel slab bed.

The only sounds were cell doors, clanging when they opened or closed,
or the faint wail of police and fire sirens in the distance. That old county jail was also infested with two things I really hated: mice and cockroaches. It was the most uncomfortable place I’d ever been, so crowded that sometimes inmates slept on mattresses on the dayroom floor.

A few inmates in jail with misdemeanor offenses got jobs within the jail system. These men, called “trustees,” usually do general cleaning or assist with meals. When I was there, the trustees were paid about fifteen dollars a week.

Rumor spread at Columbia that even though smoking was not allowed anywhere in the county jail, Dahmer could smoke because he was being cooperative during his confession. Dahmer had not only confessed to his crimes, he gave details including the victims’ names, where he met each man or boy, how he killed them, and what he did with the bodies.

When the Columbia inmates heard that rumor, they were livid. Regardless of behavior, nobody let
us
smoke in our cells. It didn’t seem fair, especially when our crimes weren’t nearly as bad as Dahmer’s.

We learned later that the rumors were just that–rumors; Dahmer never smoked in jail. The only time he smoked was when various court-appointed psychiatrists, psychologists, doctors, attorneys, and members of the clergy interviewed him for hours at a time. All of those interviews took place in either Judge Gram’s chambers or in the library next to his chambers. Officials let Dahmer smoke during his interviews, but never in the jail itself.

Another rumor was that the guards at the county jail brought Dahmer hot
restaurant
meals after his hearings. I remembered during my stint there that, if I missed any regular meal time, all I got was a bologna sandwich and black coffee.

The truth, which I again learned later, was that the only people who brought Dahmer anything to eat from the outside were his attorney, Gerald Boyle, and Boyle’s assistants. The meals they brought him were usually only sandwiches and candy.

But the gossip mill made it sound as though Dahmer was living it up in jail.

With rumors of preferential treatment running rampant, the inmates at
Columbia took an early dislike to Dahmer because they were jealous of what they thought he was getting rather than hating him because of the horrendous things he had done. Somehow, that seemed backwards. The new recreation was inventing crude jokes at Dahmer’s, and his victims’, expense.

“Do you know how much Dahmer’s bail is? An arm and a leg.”

“Do you know what kind of shampoo Dahmer uses? Head and Shoulders.”

The local newspapers started providing more grisly details about Dahmer’s crimes. Shocking a community of prisoners isn’t an easy thing to do, honestly, but the brutality of Dahmer’s crimes truly stunned us. Once again, the details of Dahmer and his crimes were the talk of the prison day after day.