Customer Reviews

The Man Who Could Not Kill Enough: The Secret Murders of Milwaukee's Jeffrey Dahmer

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

This book was written by the Milwaukee Journal crime reporter who was the first reporter on the scene when Jeffrey Dahmer's personal slaughterhouse was revealed to the public on July 23, 1991. This book was published the following year and as such it doesn't have the benefit of time with which to look back on the murderer that shocked Milwaukee and the nation. Of course, Jeffrey Dahmer himself didn't have much time, either -- he was killed in prison in November 1994 by a delusional fellow inmate.

Dahmer's misdeeds are widely known, if only in part, but this book does bring forth the full horror in the very first chapter. Working the crime beat, Anne E. Schwartz, the wife of a cop who frequently got to go "under the yellow tape" for a closer look, was one of the few who actually got to stand in Dahmer's cramped, fetid apartment. Upon entering, she first noticed the general clutter and the trappings of a gay single man: potato chip bags, cigarette butts in an ashtray, and posters of muscular hunks adorning the walls. But she also couldn't help but notice the twisted and macabre additions that lurked in every room: a filing cabinet containing multiple human skulls, a scrapbook containing photos of partially dismembered corpses, containers of formaldehyde and chloroform, not to mention various bones and decomposing body parts. She knew this would be the case of a lifetime and in fact she was the one who broke the story.

Schwartz's carefully compiled narrative follows Dahmer from his younger days to the last eighteen months of his life before his arrest, a time he used to kill a dozen men. The book starts strong because the story is simply so shocking. But Schwartz has also spoken personally to many members of the victims' families. Their stories really frame the tragedy, and Schwartz does keep the book moving, but the book nevertheless begins to be less about Dahmer at this point. And while not many other authors would have had the perspective on Milwaukee to address just how badly this case fractured the city and exposed raw racial divisions, the book really ceased to be about Dahmer at this point. I felt it lost its focus. The story of Milwaukee is certainly one that needed to be told -- just not in a book with this particular title.

For those interested in "profiling" or criminal motive, this book will disappoint you. It's not a detective story, either. Schwartz does go into some depth regarding Dahmer's relationship with his probation officer (recall that Dahmer was on probation when he killed many of his victims) and these details reveal just how sad, miserable, and lonely Jeffrey Dahmer was in the last year of his freedom. But for the most part, this is a book that will appeal mostly to avid Dahmer fans or to those who want to read about the fallout from the case on the city of Milwaukee, its Police Department, and its citizens. It might also hold interest for those who are interested in how journalists work with police departments to report on crime.

Those of us who are looking for explanations might instead turn to Robert Ressler's book on serial killers, I Have Lived in the Monster. There is a lengthy interview with Dahmer perforated with Ressler's commentary that helps explain why Dahmer felt compelled to commit such acts of violence.

It appears that the author of this book benefited from her friendship with the local police in investigating and writing this book. I believe at the time she was involved (married or living with) a police officer and as such she sides way too much with the police department in defending their bungling of this case before Dahmer was finally arrested for his crimes. She also sugar coats the rampant racism that was the status quo at the police department before Dahmer's capture. I strongly disagree with her decision to publish the criminal records of Dahmer's victims as it give the appearance of blaming them somehow for their fate. While she did benefit slightly from the access she was allowed in providing details others could not, it can't make up for her lack of skill as a writer. It should be noted that after writing this book she went on to become the official spokesperson for the very same police department. If anyone knows of a really good book on this subject please share the title with me as this book left me quite unsatisfied.

My time, and my dollar and nine cents could go to better use. Watching paint dry, perhaps with a cup of coffee. This book is a piece of one-off schlock by someone who obviously had her golden window of opportunity by "being popular" with the men in blue, and came to write this. The declining arc of her subsequent career moves leads me to wonder where her talent lay. Journalism? TV? Now she's spinning for the MPD. At least she gets to be in front of the camera from time to time. Good thing, too. She hasn't been able to pop out another book.

I was interested for the first few chapters, and then completely lost interest, which is crazy because I find the whole Dahmer story very intriguing. She talks far too much about journalism and what the police went through rather than telling about what was going on with Dahmer during all this, and it just seemed to me like she was bragging about being a good journalist who was in with the cops and that she was married to one. It took me weeks to read it just because I kept having to force myself to go on reading about all these things when I just wanted to know more about the man himself. She went to far off topic, it read like an extremely long drawn out newspaper article, and I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone.

This manages to make Dahmer's macabre story boring by stiffly recounting the tale in chronological fashion. The writer, a cop's wife and a Milwaukee newspaper reporter who was first on the scene, doesn't really have the skill to write a full length book. She needed a ghost writer to make the facts come alive. It reads like a long and dull newspaper article. With so many better accounts on the market, don't bother with this one.

I would not recommend this book at all. It seems to me that this author used the book to brag that she's married to a cop and has an inside scoop on everything instead of using it to tell us the story of Dahmer. I have read many Dahmer books from different points of view and this one was my least favorite. I guess it's worth a read but be warned, it isn't the greatest Dahmer book there is.

... that this book was a total waste of time, for those of us who enjoy a GOOD story telling. Shocking that such an interesting story could become so boring in this author's hands.
Never again...

I'm somehow not surprised that Anne E. Schwartz, in the years since she burst into fame by being the first reporter in Jeffrey Dahmer's sordid apartment, has first off stopped writing and secondly taken a job as PR woman for the Milwaukee Police Department. As a reporter, she had a big heart and lots of sympathy for overworked cops, but she wasn't too great at writing. And as a true crime writer, her book is a bit of a mess. She was there, on the spot, but she never really learned much about Jeffrey Dahmer nor about any of his victims. She's not really able to give us much of that unexpected glimpse into the apartment, with the body parts littered around and the Playgirl photos of good looking guys on the walls. Instead, a good chunk of her book takes up the theme of police tragedy, and what happens to you when you as a cop ignore a naked teenage boy running around on the street in shock, and you release him back into the hands of the guy who winds up killing him for good a few hours later.

Yes, that's what happened to Konerak Sinthasomphone, who escaped without his clothes from Dahmer's apartment, and because he couldn't speak much English, he was given back by several officers to the killer, who had a sort of plausible cover story. Afterwards, when the story came to light, the officers in charge were fired for what seemed to the court to have been a shocking dereliction of duty, but to them at the time, they didn't see it that way. The Milwaukee Journal identified the cops; one of them cancelled his subscription to the paper in protest and lost 20 pounds. He was shocked that, after six years as a cop, people would think he was a racist. At least John Balcerzak had the support of a loving wife and some cute daughters. His partner, handsome, feather-cut Joe Gabrish was not so lucky, being a bachelor with few social resources.

Their boss, Chief Arreola, was always smiling, sort of eerie! Anne E. Schwartz, in one of her few colorful passages, compared his constant unsettling smile to the Joker in BATMAN. Like his mouth was frozen that way into a smile that made no sense under the circumstances.

Anne E. Schwartz (a local journalist during the Jeffrey Dahmer arrest & subsequent trial) gives readers her insight into the media and public frenzy during a tense period for Milwaukee. Schwartz was the first reporter on the scene at Dahmer's apartment after his arrest. She walks readers through what the inside looked like.

The book lacks some detail on Dahmer's activities during his serial killing spree. It is at it's best when detailing the tense relationship between the public, the police, the media and probation department.

Schwartz writing is conversational and not too metaphoric. The text reads like a narrative and never seeks to manipulate or convince the reader of any perspective.

Dahmer's horrific activities are handled diplomatically and not in extensive detail. The book offers no new insight or explanation as to why he committed the crimes.

This is not the dramatic and relatively unbeleivable account of Dahmer's actions (relatively, as this is the 11th bok I have read on/including Jeffrey Dahmer), but it is as it says on the label - A Journalistic view, and a blooming good one at that - IOW she states she was the first reporter on the scene. In my state on recieval of Anne's Book, I was ready for the 'lighter approach' yet she held my interest all the way through. A 5 on this reason, but if you need the FULL Dahmer trial, history and tantrum, you need to seek elsewhere....at least for first.