Jeffrey Dahmer’s father has revealed what he suspects to be the reasons as to why his son became a serial killer.
The serial killer's story has been known for years, but now the horrendous details of his slayings are coming back into the limelight due to the new Netflix series, Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.
The ten-part series follows the notorious Milwaukee serial killer - played by Evan Peters - who raped, murdered, and dismembered 17 people between 1978 and 1991, many of whom were young men, typically of Black, Asian, or Latino descent.
In the series, Dahmer's dad, Lionel - played by Richard Jenkins - speculates that medication taken by Jeffrey's mother, Joyce, may have played a role in their son's behavior - although that has never been officially backed up by science.
Per JOE, in one episode, Lionel says: "You do know that pills are what started this whole thing. How many pills you think she was on when she was pregnant with him? Thousands. She was on sleeping pills, sedatives, and seizure medication."
Speaking about Dahmer's mother, Lionel added: "She never even held him. She scared the s*** out of him. And then she just left. She got in her car, she drove away, she left that kid in that house all summer."
It appears the comments made in the show were influenced by an interview the 86-year-old made during an interview with CBS Inside Edition a few years ago, as reported by the outlet.
"My ex-wife had been taking about 26 tablets of different medications about one month after becoming pregnant," he said, before assuming about what possible psychological effects this could have had on an unborn child.
The father - who is the author of A Father's Story - has often tried to articulate why he believed his son became a serial killer in various talk show appearances.
In an interview on Good Morning America in the 1990s, Lionel said what he felt could be the reason for Dahmer's actions: "The closest I could come to why - to give some type of causality for all this - is that I think it was a cumulative thing."
"I think there were several events in his life starting with the hernia operation, his concern about having his penis being cut off which he expressed to his mother at the time, I didn't even know about that until the trial in February '92.
"That plus a blow to the back of the head, plus I don't know these various incidents, going around and getting roadkill. All these things came to a cumulative ending and it hooked on, I firmly believe it hooked into his sexuality at age 14 or 15," he explained.
"There really were no overt signs," he stated about his son's early behavior, adding, "he wasn't foaming at the mouth or talking to himself in his sleep, or acting in a weird fashion."
Lionel reportedly stayed in regular contact with his son and visited him in prison alongside his wife Shari. In the interview he said the killer was a "very wonderful little boy" but that he was "very shy" and "very reclusive" during his youth.
However, he urged parents to keep track of their children's behavior even if they don't show alarming signs: "That's another thing that I would like to come across to parents, even if their child seems innocuously shy try to draw out their concerns and anger."
"Because if they don't talk to anyone there's no reality checking at all, and what they can't distinguish between fantasy and reality," he added.
According to The Tab, in his book, Lionel also blamed himself for not allowing himself to emotionally embrace his son during his early years.
"As a scientist, I wonder if the potential for great evil resides deep in the blood that some of us may pass on to our children at birth," he wrote.
Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story is out on Netflix now.
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