Hot on the heels of Ryan Murphy DAHMER: Monster — The Jeffrey Dahmer Story More content is coming from Netflix about notorious serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, who murdered and dismembered 17 boys and men between 1978 and 1991.
Joe Berlinger’s three-part documentary series, Conversations with a Killer: The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes, streaming on Netflix now, it takes audiences through 32 hours of never-before-seen footage, featuring Dahmer’s accounts of his crimes and more.
Berlinger was behind the other two installments of Conversations on Netflix: Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes Y Conversations with a Killer: The John Wayne Gacy Tapes.
Most of the tapes show Dahmer conversing with Wendy Patrickus, but who is she and where is she now?
news week has everything you need to know.
Who is Wendy Patrickus?
Wendy Patrickus served as Jeffrey Dahmer’s defense attorney following his arrest in July 1991. At the time of Dahmer’s arrest, she was only 25 years old and had recently moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
His first major case was that of Dahmer.
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When Dahmer was arrested on July 22, 1991, after victim Tracy Edwards had escaped from his apartment, police discovered items that suggested Dahmer had committed multiple murders, including a human head in the refrigerator, two plastic bags in the freezer containing a human heart and another containing a set of male genitalia.
They also found five human skulls, knives, hammers and saws in the bedroom. There was also a complete human skeleton in a drawer and a 57-gallon vat filled with acid and three torsos, as well as other body parts.
Dahmer confessed to 17 murders and was sentenced to 15 consecutive life terms in prison. He was murdered on November 28, 1994 by his fellow inmate Christopher Scarver.
Patrickus’s voice appears throughout all three episodes of The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes while recording hours and hours of conversations in an attempt to prepare Dahmer’s defense in court.
Speaking in the Netflix documentary, the Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes, Patrickus recalls the moment he first met Dahmer in a very small interview room, stating that he felt like “Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs”.
In the novel by Thomas Harris and the 1991 film by Jonathan Demme, Starling is an FBI trainee who enlists the help of serial killer Hannibal Lecter in trying to solve a series of murders.
Patrickus also discussed her connection to Dahmer, sharing, “There were times I felt like a mother to him, there were times I felt like he was my brother, there were times I felt like a therapist.”
She added: “To be a good defense attorney, you have to be non-judgmental and develop trust. He called me Wendy and I called him Jeff.”
Unfortunately for Patrickus, outside of the courtroom, she was the target of hatred in the Milwaukee community, often receiving death threats.
She told filmmaker Joe Berlinger: “I received death threats from various sources. I was out one night and a family member of one of the victims chased me with a pool cue. I became a homebody at that point.”
Where is Wendy Patrickus now?
Today, Wendy Patrickus continues to practice law in the Milwaukee area and runs her own law firm, Patrickus Law.
He focuses primarily on family and business law and is also a member of the Wisconsin State Bar Association Committee on Professionalism and the Milwaukee Bar Association.
According to his LinkedIn page, Patrickus has been running his own law firm for the past 18 years.
The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes it’s one of the few times Patrickus has spoken at length about working so closely with Dahmer.
In 2021 he published the book Defending the Devil: Inside My Client’s Trial, Jeffrey Dahmer with film producer Rusty Lemorande, who explored 20 hours of private recordings of his conversations with Dahmer, including details of why and how he committed the murders and acts of cannibalism over more than a decade.
In his book, he also details the “uneasy bond” he formed with Dahmer and why he believes his conviction and rejection of his insanity plea were wrong, according to the book’s official synopsis.
Also, according to his book synopsis, in the last 30 years, he had only given a brief interview about his time representing Dahmer, so The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes marks his first in-depth interview.
Newsweek has contacted Patrickus for comment.
Conversations with a Killer: The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes is streaming on Netflix now.