When journalist Nancy Glass locked eyes with serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, she understood he was distinct from any other murderer she had interviewed.
Glass, a producer who has won six Emmy awards, conversed with the twisted cannibal Dahmer in a TV interview in 1993. This interview occurred just a year before Dahmer was killed by another inmate in prison.
This marked the first time the serial killer participated in a public interview since receiving a life sentence for the murders of 17 men and boys. The interview was broadcast on CNN’s Inside Edition.
Speaking to The Sun, Nancy, who has interviewed other murderers and criminals in her illustrious career, explained what made Dahmer the most chilling of all to speak to.
She said: “My first impression of Dahmer was how normal he appeared.
“It makes you think that anybody could be capable of crimes like this.
“If he had acted like a maniac, I would have been more relieved.”
She said Dahmer was “not charming”, but at the same time, “you wouldn’t have picked him out of a crowd”.
Although she doesn’t know exactly why Dahmer agreed to an interview with him, she believes one reason was simply that he was “lonely” and “wanted to talk”.
Getting an interview with Dahmer was no easy task.
It took more than a year and a half to secure the exclusive, building a relationship with the murderer and his family.
Nancy, now 69, said: “He wanted to talk to somebody and he had gotten used to talking to me.
She made it clear there were no conditions for the interview – and that she would let him speak.
In this way, he revealed his true evil self.
Nancy said: “His mind is not like yours and mine. He was so twisted.
“The only thing that is fair is the truth. I’m not there to prosecute him, but by telling the truth, people realise what evil was there, and the intentionality of it.”
She added: “I’ve interviewed other serial killers, and he wasn’t like any of them.”
Nancy recalled an interview with Joel Rifkin, who murdered between nine and 17 women between 1989 and 1993.
She said killers usually blame something or someone for pushing them to commit their crimes.
Let’s not sugarcoat this, he was a psychopath. I had no sympathy whatsoever
Nancy Glass
In contrast, she said, Dahmer “put his crimes on himself. He knew what he did”.
Through speaking to him, it was clear he was “sad” at his predicament.
She said: “He stayed up all night and slept all day because he couldn’t face the daylight.
Although in the interview, Dahmer says sorry for his crimes, Nancy believes he “didn’t understand what that meant”.
She went on: “Let’s not sugarcoat this. He was a psychopath. I had no sympathy whatsoever.”
Throughout their interview, which resurfaced in the wake of the Netflix limited series Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, the killer never lets the mask slip, maintaining a polite, almost shy facade throughout.
For Nancy, who had read all of the depositions and knew details of Dahmer’s murders too gruesome to be shared with the public, the contrast between his calm demeanour in front of her and what he had done was even more chilling.
Cannibal’s warped collection of body parts
TWISTED cannibal murderer Jeffrey Dahmer kept a stomach-churning collection of body parts in his ‘house of horrors’, including a severed head in his freezer and a huge drum full of male torsos.
After Dahmer was eventually arrested in 1991, he admitted to saving human leftovers and freezing the parts for him to eat later.
But beyond his sick cannibalistic desires, ‘The Milwaukee Monster’ confessed to his grotesque plans to build a “bone altar” out of the skeletons of his victims.
Crude, childlike drawings revealed his rough designs for such an altar, including painted skulls and skeletons arranged around a black table, incense, and a chair arranged in front it for sick rituals.
“It’s so baffling how anybody could be so cruel and do such terrible things,” she said.
“There are crimes of passion and crimes of revenge, but this was the intentional destruction of human life.
“You ask, how could anybody be this way?”
In the aftermath of her bombshell interview, Nancy said Dahmer and his family were furious with her.
Dahmer’s parents even complained to Nancy: “You’ve made him look like a monster!”
But as Nancy responded, Dahmer “made himself look like a monster”.
She added: “I don’t want a criminal to be pleased with their portrayal.”
Today, Nancy is CEO of Glass Entertainment Group and has more than 22 TV shows and podcasts currently in production in the US.
In the years since she has spoken further to Dahmer’s family.
“They are still unhappy with the interview,” she said, “but they’ve come to terms with who he is.”
Just a year after the interview aired, Dahmer was killed in prison by a fellow inmate in Wisconsin – where he was serving 16 life sentences for his vile murders.
Dahmer’s chilling spree
Dahmer is known to have murdered 17 times, with many of his victims being gay and from an ethnic minority background.
His first victim was 18-year-old Steven Hicks, who he killed in June 1978 after luring him back to his house for drinks.
Steven was strangled with a dumbbell before Dahmer dissolved his body in acid and crushed his bones with a sledgehammer.
It wasn’t until November 1987 that the killer struck again, when he killed 24-year-old Steven Tuomi, who he had met at a gay bar.
Three months later, in January 1988, Dahmer murdered 14-year-old James Doxtator, who had run away from home just two days before he met his killer.
The serial killer was now on a streak, murdering 22-year-old Richard Guerrero in March 1988, and 24-year-old Anthony Sears one year later – whose head and genitals Dahmer kept as “trophies”.
After being imprisoned for a year for sexually assaulting a 13-year-old, the killer struck as soon as he was out, murdering 32-year-old sex worker Raymond Smith in May 1990.
In June 1990, Dahmer murdered 27-year-old Edward Smith, an acquaintance of his, before stashing his body parts in his freezer.
Then in September 1990, he struck twice, killing Ernest Miller and David Thomas, both aged 22.
The following year, in February 1991, Dahmer offered money to 17-year-old Curtis Straughter to post nude, only to drug, strangle and cannibalize him.
In April 1991, Dahmer killed 19-year-old Errol Lindsey, after drilling a hole in his head and pouring acid into his brain.
May 1991 saw two more killings – Anthony Hughes, 31, and Konerak Sinthasomphone, 14 – with Dahmer repeating his drilling “experiment” on Konerak.
Over June and July 1991, Dahmer murdered Matthew Turner, 20, Jeremiah Weinburger, 23, Oliver Lacy 24, and Joseph Bradehoft, 25.
But his luck ran out on July 22 of that year, when 32-year-old Tracy Edwards – who had been lured to his house – managed to escape and alert police.
