2 Streak of Lunacy

On a menu of tranquilizers and antidepressants, Les recovered in a few weeks and began an intense study program in an effort to understand his middle son’s behavior. “There had to be an answer. Keith was raised just like our other four children. There were no signs that he was in trouble. He wasn’t on dope, seldom drank and didn’t act like he had problems. He was a healthy physical specimen who enjoyed a normal childhood, fresh air, rural and small-town environments, vacations in the north woods, plenty of pets, fine schools, good friends. Keith had it all. If he could become a serial murderer, anybody could.”

 

Les went to the library and took out every book he could find on the subject, including Lionel Dahmer’s A Father’s Story, a poignant work about the cannibalistic Jeffrey Dahmer. In his opinion it shed little light. He wrote to the elder Dahmer but received no reply. To Les it seemed that the chemical engineer from Milwaukee had taken too much of the blame himself. It was Jeffrey Dahmer who killed and pickled all those people, not his father. Wasn’t it obvious that the young man was simply insane?

Les wondered if there might be a streak of lunacy far back in the family tree. As a child he’d heard gossip that his uncle Charlie, his blacksmith father’s brother, had died in a Canadian mental hospital, but no one in the closemouthed clan had ever discussed details. He checked with relatives and learned that the uncle had been committed for incessant masturbation and death threats against his physician. Les thought he might be onto something and kept digging.

A request under the Canadian Freedom of Information Act turned up documents. A death certificate verified that Charles Edward Jesperson, a thirty-two-year-old laborer from Chilliwack, British Columbia, had died on May 19,1934. The cause of death was listed as “suicide—by driving a 3¹/2 inch nail into his skull.” Only a half-inch of the spike had been visible when he was discovered by an attendant. Charlie Jesperson had been locked in a provincial mental hospital for eight years. The general diagnosis was “dementia praecox,” a catchall label popular in the 1930s. A clinical note on the commitment papers observed, “Patient says whole family are of neurasthenic types.”

Les noted some resonances between his suicidal uncle and his homicidal son. In addition to abnormally strong sex drives and violent impulses, they seemed to share other characteristics. He read on: “…The patient’s ideas are disconnected…his actions are restless…rather foolish and erratic in his actions and speech…erotic ideas strongly evident…he has no insight…foolish…inclined to be seclusive and does not mix very much….”

To Les the medical report went a long way toward explicating the inexplicable. He realized that it was possible that no one was responsible for what Keith had done—not his parents, not his brothers and sisters, not his wife, Rose, not his victims, and certainly not Keith himself. Like Uncle Charlie he might simply have a screw loose.

Les reported his conclusions to his son in an excited letter. “I read the approximately two hundred pages of text carefully and could see a distinct resemblance to some of your actions. The doctors in this text state that this disease, dementia praecox, is hereditary.” He pointed out “a distinct resemblance to Uncle Charlie in some of your actions.”

Keith ridiculed the idea. He showed no interest in being certified as a member of a long line of neurasthenics and the lunatic nephew of a lunatic uncle. His vehement disagreement made Les doubt his own conclusions. “I guess you’re not crazy, Son,” he wrote. “You just let yourself get led around by your pecker.”

Les told a friend, “I think Keith kept some of the bodies around to screw them after they were dead.” Later he wrote:

I am predicting that Keith will eventually confess to some killings on the Green River case and to many others all over the United States of America before long. He has mentioned many times that he will be known as the most prolific killer in America….I asked him how many people he actually killed. He looked me square in the eye and said, “Dad, it is in the three figures….”

All these latest developments have left me…to take a good look at my life and face realism. Like all the advice my friends have been giving me: distance yourself from your son, go on with your life. I have lost a son. The son I knew has ceased to exist. The man in prison is a sick serial killer. He has turned and bit the one that loved him the most. Even his brothers and sisters have given up on him as he continues to try to drag the Jesperson name through the mud.

How many other fathers and mothers have gone through this same anguish and pain? What have they done? They say that out of everything that is bad something good comes out of it. It has turned my life around and led me to Jesus Christ, who has helped me carry this heavy burden….

Les worried that his imprisoned son might be in mortal danger, especially since he refused protective custody. “I expected to get a phone call someday and find out he’s in the morgue. He was locked in with a bunch of thugs. They killed on the outside, and they killed on the inside. I don’t care how if you’re six-foot-six-or eight-foot-six—a blade is a blade. If Keith didn’t end his own life, someone might do it for him. That was my greatest fear.”