One of the bizarre things from the controversial Netflix show, Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, is that so much of Dahmer’s life leading up to the shocking events that would define it was relatively ordinary. Yes, he came from a broken home, but nothing seemed so extreme as to justify Jeffrey going on to kill 17 men over the span of a couple of decades. Nevertheless, his parents Lionel and Joyce Dahmer were – as all parents invariably are – an influence on his life, and even after Jeffrey’s incarceration and death at the hands of a fellow inmate in 1994, remained a source of fascination for journalists hoping to glean more insight from them into the mind of their son.
Neither Lionel nor Joyce gravitated towards the spotlight following their son’s arrest, but inevitably the media remained intrigued by their lives over the years, so we have a pretty clear picture of what happened to them since the events of the show.
Lionel Dahmer
Jeffrey’s father, Lionel Dahmer, was born in 1936, and is still alive today at the age of 86, living in Medina County, Ohio. In the aftermath of Dahmer’s trial, Lionel had various interviews on shows like Good Morning America, Oprah Winfrey, and Larry King, where he gave his perspective on his son’s upbringing, life, and crimes.
In 1994, just a few months before Jeffrey was killed in prison, Lionel wrote and released a memoir, A Father’s Story, in which he explores Jeffrey’s childhood and grapples with the feelings around what his son would later become. A lot of the Netflix show’s material regarding Lionel and Jeffrey’s relationship originates from this book.
Lionel remains married to Shari, who is depicted in the show, making her Jeffrey Dahmer’s stepmother. To this day, Lionel says he never suspected his son of the murders he would go on to commit, though did have concerns about Jeffrey growing up. In 1988, he even wrote a letter to the authorities following Jeffrey’s child molestation conviction, pleading for Dahmer to receive some kind of psychiatric help (which is depicted in the show). What the show doesn’t depict is that Jeffrey did indeed have a counsellor who’d visit him semi-regularly, even after he started his killing spree.
Following Dahmer’s death, Lionel and Joyce were in a dispute over what should be done with Jeffrey’s brain. Joyce pushed for it to be given to science, and told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel via The Washington Post that “Jeff always said that if he could be of any help, he wanted to do whatever he could.” Lionel, however, opposed this, and wished to have Jeffrey’s brain cremated in order to ‘put his son’s actions behind him,’ according to the Washington Post. In the end, the judge sided with Lionel and ordered to have the brain destroyed (via Los Angeles Times).
Over the years, Lionel stopped giving interviews and has been largely quiet on his son’s crimes for the last couple of decades. However, he did reappear in the 2020 documentary Jeffrey Dahmer: Mind of a Monster, where he gave a rare interview about his son, and even read the letter he wrote in 1988 to the authorities pleading for his son to get help.
Joyce Dahmer![joyce dahmer wearing sunglasses]()
Jeffrey’s mother, Joyce Dahmer (born Joyce Flint), was born on February 7 1936. She suffered from various mental health issues, which seemed to escalate following Jeffrey’s birth, when she was diagnosed with postpartum psychosis. When she was pregnant, her husband Lionel claimed that she was “taking about 26 tablets of different medications about one month after becoming pregnant,” though the exact details of her drug prescriptions and mental health issues aren’t entirely clear. Joyce would often dispute Lionel’s interpretation of events regarding Jeffrey’s upbringing.
In 1977, Lionel Dahmer discovered that Joyce had been having an affair, and began divorce proceedings that would finalise on July 24, 1978.
Following Jeffrey’s incarceration, Joyce remained in touch with her son, speaking to him on the phone ‘most weeks’ until his murder in 1994. During one of these conversations, when she asked him if he still had murderous urges, she claims he said “Yes, Mom, I’m so glad I’m locked up. I’d be afraid what I’d do if I weren’t locked up.”
Following Jeffrey’s incarceration, Joyce frequently disputed Lionel’s depiction of Jeffrey’s upbringing, where she would often be presented as mentally unstable and volatile. In a 1994 interview with Hard Copy (video below), she said “I know I did a good job as a parent and knew this had to come from something outside of Jeff.” Around this time, Joyce suggested that she and her psychiatrist would release a book to counter Lionel’s A Father’s Story, which they believe misrepresented Joyce, but this was never published.
Joyce Dahmer was a well educated and qualified woman, with a Master’s degree in counselling and various managerial jobs in her life. She held progressive views and never condemned her son’s homosexuality, and even worked as a case manager for the Central Valley Aids Team in 1991. Following her son’s death, she often gave speeches about the challenges and dangers faced by gay communities in America.
In 1996, on her son’s birthday, Joyce Dahmer attempted to commit suicide by carbon monoxide poisonining in her garage. She survived the attempt, and lived until 2000, when she succumbed to breast cancer at the age of 64.
Following her death in 2000, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel columnist Bill Janz wrote an obituary about Joyce. Janz knew Joyce well in the years following Jeffrey’s tria, and described her as “an extremely likable, articulate, emotional, charming, troubled woman who has been as caged as her son.” He also said that she hated the way the press hawked around Jeffrey’s crimes, and at one point turned down $10,000 for a tabloid interview despite not being particularly wealthy.
