Serial Killer's Soul (8 page)

Jeff’s new home was an observation cell. At Columbia, this is a “tank” made of bullet-proof glass where Dahmer could easily be monitored twenty-four hours a day, both by correctional officers positioned in a booth in front of his cell and by the two cameras inside the cell. The officers watched Dahmer for any suicide attempt and documented everything he did or said.

The glass-tank cells are the same size as regular cells but with some major differences. In the glass tank, the beds have straps attached, used to restrain
prisoners to the bed, if necessary. The bed is in the center of the cell and there is no sink or toilet. The floor is a concrete slab. There’s a literal hole in the concrete for the prisoner to urinate or defecate. When the prisoner finishes their “business,” the guard flushes the makeshift toilet from
outside
the cell.

While inmates are in observation cells, they wear only underwear and T-shirt and are not allowed any recreation. Meals are the same as in the other units, although glass-tank prisoners can’t to leave their cells to eat. Meals are served through “trap doors” in the cells and, during delivery, inmates must stand toward the rear of their cells.

During his time in the glass tank, Dahmer emerged only for showers, medical appointments, and haircuts. There’s a barber chair near the officer’s booth where inmates get haircuts every two weeks from barbers who visit units escorted by security officers.

Inmates
are
allowed paper and personal hygiene items. Each inmate received one razor each week for shaving but must return it after each shave. Prisoners in the glass tank can only shave while an officer observes.

Dahmer had only a mattress, paperback reading materials, and twenty-five letters a day. This seems like a lot of mail, more than someone could actually get, but after Dahmer arrived, he started getting more mail than any other prisoner. He received letters from people living across the United States and in many countries worldwide. Many people wrote simply to ask for his autograph.

From September through December, before his trial began, Dahmer received an average of five hundred letters a week. Prison rules, however, are very clear: a prisoner may only have twenty-five letters in his possession at any given time, no matter how many letters he receives.

Dahmer’s “fans” and other curious correspondents sent money, various articles of jewelry, and photos of themselves. Every day the mail contained
bags
of letters for Dahmer. One day word spread that a woman sent him one hundred pairs of shoes and a watch. The shoes apparently were returned because they weren’t shipped directly from the store where she bought them. The rule is that any item you receive from a retail store must bear the store’s official stamp or sticker; no handwritten return address. Supposedly, he kept the watch.

Dahmer was allowed one ten-minute phone call each week. He could not smoke, have electronics (radio or TV), or have metal objects inside his cell. His meals were the same as ours. Many people on the outside who haven’t experienced prison have a skewed idea of what prison food is like. Just to clear this up, it’s actually quite substantial.

Breakfast was standard fare with cereal, eggs, pancakes, breads, juices, coffee, and dairy. Lunch was a main entrée, vegetable, and dessert. Supper at Columbia was another full meal also including a dessert. The food in prison always provided variety and amount of food each prisoner received was more than ample. Nobody goes hungry in prison, that’s for sure. Now you know why some guys look forward to prison life …“three hots and a cot.” Most of us eat better in prison than people outside.

While Dahmer was in the glass tank, his meals arrived on Styrofoam trays with plastic cups and utensils since he could not have metal objects in his cell.

The inmates, known as “swampers,” clean the facility. I had a friend who was a swamper in the area near Dahmer’s cell. He would often overhear security officers talking about our resident prison celebrity. My swamper friend said Dahmer’s favorite meal was chicken and grits. He said when Dahmer was through eating chicken, the officers always searched his entire cell to make sure they got all the bones back from the chicken. They had to make sure nothing remained in his cell that could be used as a weapon or a suicide tool. A chicken bone may seem innocuous to normal people, but prisoners can be some of the most creative individuals you’ve ever met.

Every time Dahmer left his cell for any reason, all movement anywhere in the prison temporarily stopped. All inmates, regardless of whether they were at school or jobs, coming and going to or from visits with friends and family, or out for recreation time, were not allowed to walk in the prison hallways while Dahmer was out of his cell. Once we figured out why all movement stopped, movement that was very limited to begin with, the prisoner resentment against Dahmer grew.

On September 10, 1991, Dahmer had his arraignment in the Milwaukee
Circuit Court. With handcuffs attached to a belt and feet in shackles, he was transported to Milwaukee. During the arraignment, the judge or court magistrate explains to the accused the exact nature of the charges brought against him and explains his constitutional rights, including his right to a trial by jury.

Dahmer pleaded not guilty “by reason of mental disease or defect.” A trial by jury was scheduled for January 27, 1992, before Judge Laurence C. Gram Jr. at the Milwaukee Circuit Court.

Dahmer returned to Columbia.

During the months before trial, Dahmer’s family never visited him, nor did his attorney. Two of Boyle’s assistants did visit for information sharing; Wendy Patrickus and Ellen Ryan discussed the proceedings. During their visits, guards handcuffed and shackled Dahmer and posted armed officers outside one of the two visiting areas used by the desegregation unit.

Various court-appointed psychologists and psychiatrists also came in waves to evaluate Dahmer. Security was such a big deal that any visits were more difficult than usual.

That fall I was living in Unit 6. One of my prisoner friends, “Shug,” had a job in maintenance. One day he was outside painting the prison’s window frames and screens, which included Dahmer’s cell window. Shug, who is an African American, said that when Dahmer saw him at the window, he hollered, “Get away from my window, nigger.”

One of the inmates painting with Shug told Dahmer, “If you weren’t locked in there, you wouldn’t say that.”

They said that Dahmer walked away and didn’t say another word. Again, whether this actually transpired or not is known only to those involved.

At the end of December, Dahmer returned to Milwaukee County Jail for his trial.

In general, the prison population wasn’t sad to see him go. At least for awhile, during the trial, life returned to normal at Columbia.

Through you I am saying to the prisoners of darkness, “Come out! I am giving you your freedom!” (Isaiah 49:9
, TLB)

Some people think prison life is a dreary, boring existence where inmates sit in their cells day after day, awaiting the next meal or nightfall so they can sleep away their sentence. It’s not like that at all.

Inmates at a maximum-security prison in the ‘90s and beyond were not “prisoners of darkness,” like it says in Isaiah. Today’s prisoners are, for the most part, in modern, well-organized mini-community. Various evaluations of prisoners provide information about them and great efforts are made to rehabilitate them, usually through educational opportunities.

When I first arrived at Columbia Correctional Institution in 1991, the Program Review Committee (PRC) recommended I be moved to the general population and enrolled in school. After being transfer to four different units, I ended up in Unit 2, Cell 35–a single cell on the east wing.

In September 1991, about the time Dahmer arrived at Columbia for the first time, I started school at Adult Basic Education, which provided high school education, and a computer class in Principles of the Adult Literacy System (PALS). I also learned to work on Apple computers. In addition to the three academic and computer programs I enrolled in, Columbia also offered vocational training programs where prisoners can earn a diploma from Milwaukee Area Technical College. Some of those programs include a Building Services Program, a Custodial Services Program, and a Graphics/Painting program. The theory is that, with an education and vocational training, a life on the outside is more viable.

Columbia had a library with approximately 10,000 books, including a large reference collection, Spanish language, current fiction, and many popular Western novels.

The library also had nearly thirty-five newspapers and magazines. There was a law section with current books for inmates working on their court cases.

Being in prison didn’t mean you were completely cut off from society. For me, it was easy to keep up with the outside world just by reading the daily newspapers and watching TV.

During the weeks after Dahmer left for his trial, I spent much of my time reading my Bible and attending chapel services. The Wisconsin prison system provides religious services for many different religions. At our facility, there were seven services: Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, Jehovah’s Witness, Wiccan, and Native American Sweat Lodge.

That last one, the Native American Sweat Lodge, was interesting. Prison officials put up a tent outside for the Native Americans, built a fire under rocks, then poured water over the hot rocks to make the tent fill with steam; hence the name “Sweat Lodge.” I never did witness the service myself, but I had some Native American acquaintances in prison who told me about it.

In addition to religious services, the prison provided weekly Bible studies held by volunteers who came to the institution from various local churches.

There were also programs and support groups, just like those you could participate in on the outside, designed to help prisoners work through some of their issues. I attended Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous. Others groups included a child-molester group for those who committed sexual assault on a child, a social skills group, the Process Therapy Group for inmates suffering some sort of distress such as depression or anxiety, and an Anger Management group. The men in these groups had be an active participant. If you don’t earnestly participate once you get in, the instructors don’t let you come back.

In addition to those weekly meetings and other activities, some inmates had work assignments. Badger State Industries offered printing jobs for some of the men, but mostly jobs were institution work assignments including recreation or canteen assistance, maintenance, school clerk, teacher’s aide, custodian, library clerk, chaplain clerk, laundry, food service, and living unit service. In the ‘90s, these jobs paid between eight cents and forty-seven cents an hour, depending on how the administrative staff rated the job. Usually the inmates doing these jobs
had life sentences or were trustees.

Columbia offered an arts and crafts room for leisure-time activities. Many inmates went there to draw, work with leather or beads, or learn knitting or crocheting. A music room provided various instruments for those interested in playing music. Inmates could have their own instruments in the music room. There was also a gymnasium for indoor exercise or inmates went outside from May through September to run, or play tennis, horseshoes, basketball, baseball, or use the outside free weights. On special occasions during the summer, especially holidays like Memorial Day, Fourth of July, and Labor Day, they had cookouts outside.

Columbia also has a health service department with a full staff of doctors, nurses, dentists, psychologists, and psychiatrists. If inmates need medical assistance, there is always a professional there to help.

There were ten housing units at Columbia when I was there. Each unit had four tiers, two floors on the west wing and two floors on the east wing. Most units had sixty cells, some single, some double. Each cell was equipped with a metal bunk bed, desk and stool, plus a sink and toilet. The cells were eight feet wide by twelve feet long.

In addition to the regular units, there were two desegregation units, also known as solitary confinement or the “hole.” I’ll share more about the desegregation units later.

There was a reception/orientation unit with six single cells. Each new prisoner stayed in one of these cells while being introduced to the program, the physical plant members, and staff. Each prisoner received a ten-dollar credit to spend in the canteen until his money arrived. A prisoner’s money generally came from friends and relatives, from savings he had before he went to prison or earnings from a prison job.

The length of stay on the reception/orientation unit ranged from one day to one month, depending on how long it took the staff to decide what regular unit was appropriate for the prisoner for the long term.

Within ten days of arrival, all prisoners met with the Program Review
Committee. The committee reviewed your background, achievements, and interests along with recommendations made by the assessment and evaluation committees. Finally, they assigned you to a unit and educational program.

Each housing unit at Columbia had a unit manager, a social worker, security supervisor, and unit officer staff sergeant, along with two or more security officers. Other staff members included an education representative, psychologist, health service representative, and recreation leader. Prison life today isn’t what it was decades ago. Today each prison has a battalion of professionals on staff to see to prisoners’ needs and safety.

Forms were available in each housing unit for inmates to fill out if they wanted an additional interview with any member of the staff. Inmates also filled out forms if they wanted medical attention, help from the librarian, or even a haircut.

We also had a form to make a telephone call. We were limited to two ten-minute telephone calls each week.

Friends and relatives could visit Columbia residents three times a week: two three-hour visits on weekdays and one two-hour visit on weekends.