Tower of Iron Will

Cartoonist Derf Backderf depicts his account of attending high school with notorious serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. Backderf was probably as close to a friend as Dahmer had, but Dahmer had no actual friends. The future necrophiliac and cannibal was a deeply troubled and isolated young man, obsessed with alcohol and dead animals.

One question Backderf returns to several times is how could the adults in Dahmer life not have noticed his downward spiral. Dahmer's mother appears to have suffered from depression and seizures, but otherwise his parents were so self absorbed that Dahmer could get away with anything. The teachers at his high school were either oblivious or simply didn't care that Dahmer arrived at school drunk and skipped class to drink all day. Dahmer was certainly treated badly by the other teenagers, but teenagers always treat awkward misfits badly and not all the mistreated misfits grow up to be serial killers. Dahmer probably never had any hope of becoming a well-adjusted stable person, but if any of the authority figures in his early life had noticed the problem and tried to help, some innocent people might not have been murdered.