Police Missed Hole In Head Of Dahmer Victim, Jury Told

MILWAUKEE - Jeffrey Dahmer claims he drilled a hole in a boy's head and poured in acid before police found the dazed, naked youngster on the street and handed him back to Dahmer, who then killed him.

Psychologist Judith Becker, who testified for the defense yesterday at Dahmer's sanity trial, is the first witness to indicate police failed to notice a hole in the boy's head.

The boy, 14-year-old Konerak Sinthasomphone, fled the apartment May 27, but police returned him when Dahmer convinced them that the boy was his adult lover and that the two had had a spat.

After Dahmer was arrested in July and his crimes became known, two police officers were fired over their handling of the incident.

Becker, who interviewed Dahmer for nine hours, testified that after the officers questioned Dahmer and left him and the boy inside his apartment - where a naked corpse lay in the bedroom - Dahmer injected the boy again and he died.

Becker returned to the stand today and said Dahmer freed a teenager he had planned to kill when the encounter didn't live up to the serial killer's fantasy. "It didn't work out the way Jeffrey envisioned it would work out in terms of what his fantasies were."

Dahmer, who usually drugged his victims with sleeping pills before strangling them, hit the young man on the head with a rubber mallet because he was out of pills. However, the young man got angry and the two struggled, the defense expert said during

cross-examination by Assistant District Attorney Carol White.

Defense attorney Gerald Boyle told a news conference after Becker's testimony yesterday that police couldn't have noticed Sinthasomphone's injury. "There was no blood apparent from the boy's head."

Sinthasomphone's slaying outraged blacks and homosexuals in Milwaukee after Dahmer's arrest. Blacks complained that their earlier warnings to police that Sinthasomphone was in danger were not taken seriously.

Dr. Fred Berlin, a psychiatrist, testified previously for the defense that Dahmer performed crude lobotomies on some victims in an attempt to turn them into zombie-like "sex slaves," but killed them when he feared they would leave.

Dahmer has pleaded guilty but insane to 15 murders. The trial will determine whether the 31-year-old former chocolate-factory worker will receive life in prison or an open-ended stay in a mental hospital.

Meanwhile, Boyle told reporters Dahmer has become suicidal and has been placed under a 24-hour jail watch. "He's dying a thousand deaths plus, every moment of the day."

In addition, Becker testified that Dahmer told her he feels remorse and has considered killing himself by slashing his throat while shaving.

Becker testified that Dahmer told her he was driven to kill by his urge to have sex with corpses.

Dahmer also planned to build a "temple" out of 10 of his victims' skulls and two skeletons, which he believed would give him special powers to improve his financial and social position, Becker said. Dahmer also drew plans for the temple's altar.

Dahmer has admitted to 17 slayings since 1978, but prosecutors said they have insufficient evidence to charge him in one murder, and another took place in Ohio, where he will stand trial later.