Lionel Dahmer

Lionel Herbert Dahmer (; July 29, 1936 – December 5, 2023) was an American chemist and author best known for being the father of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. Lionel has been a controversial figure since his son's crimes came to light, accused along with his first wife of neglecting Jeffrey while he was a child.

Early life and education Lionel Herbert Dahmer was born in West Allis, Wisconsin, on July 29, 1936, to Herbert Walter Dahmer (1903–1971), a high-school math teacher and barber, whom Dahmer described as "a good father, as caring and concerned as any child would wish," and Catherine Jemima Hughes (1904–1992), an elementary school history teacher. Dahmer was of German ancestry by father and Welsh ancestry by mother.

Dahmer received his primary education and secondary education at local Wisconsin schools and enjoyed a relatively good childhood. Dahmer enrolled in the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1954 and obtained his BS in chemistry in 1959. Dahmer married later that year, on August 22, to a 23-year-old teletype instructor named Joyce Annette Flint (1936–2000).

Family and career In A Father's Story, Dahmer related that, from the very beginning, their marriage struggled due to Joyce's poor mental health and irascible and tempestuous behavior and his own inability to fully keep up with it. Shortly after Joyce got pregnant, she began to suffer seizure episodes, apparently from their neighbor's kitchen's foul odors, which caused them to move out to Dahmer's parents' home, shortly before their firstborn's delivery in early 1960, to receive attention from his parents. During the latter months of the pregnancy, Joyce suffered from increased mental breakdowns and seizures, which, according to her doctor "were rooted in Joyce's mental, rather than physical state" and which aggravated her already severe prescription barbiturates and morphine addiction, to the point of taking as "many as twenty-six pills a day" and being constantly sedated to ease her pain. Decades after, he reflected about the long-lasting and eventual terminal effect in his marriage:

During the early years of Jeffrey's life, Dahmer's academic responsibilities and, later on, long work shifts prevented him from spending enough time with his wife and children. Shortly after Jeffrey's birth, Dahmer received a Master of Science degree from Marquette University in 1962. Later, he enrolled at Iowa State University, where he earned a Doctor of Philosophy degree in October 1966. He described himself as average, and even considered himself a mediocre student:

After divorcing Joyce in 1978, Dahmer married Shari Jordan, and moved to Granger, Ohio. In between his time at Marquette and Iowa Universities, Dahmer worked for PPG Industries.

Jeffrey was nonetheless released earlier in May 1990.

Dahmer relates in his book how he struggled to comprehend the scope of his son's crimes. Dahmer chronicles that the morning of July 23, 1991, he called Jeffrey's apartment to check on his son after he had missed a visit to his grandmother in West Allis. He was then informed by a detective that Jeffrey had been arrested. The following months were difficult for Dahmer, as he and his family struggled with harassing phone calls and reporters. Dahmer was particularly affected by his mother's (Jeffrey's grandmother) reaction to the news, especially after acts of vandalism against the elderly woman's house in West Allis, and further harassment. Lionel Dahmer's mother and Jeffrey Dahmer's grandmother, Catherine Dahmer, died on December 25, 1992 in a nursing home in Milwaukee after Jeffrey's arrest.

Dahmer visited his son regularly while he was in prison.

Later years and death Dahmer appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 1994, shortly after Jeffrey's murder. Dahmer told Oprah Winfrey that he still loved Jeffrey, and that he would always stand by him.

Dahmer, along with his former wife Joyce and wife Shari, was sued by the family of Steven Hicks—Jeffrey's first victim—with the cause for the claim being negligent in raising Jeffrey.

In 2020, Dahmer appeared in Jeffrey Dahmer: Mind of a Monster. In 2022, Dahmer considered suing Netflix over the series Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.

Dahmer lived in Seville, Ohio, in his later years.

Cited works