Loneliness Is Cited in Mass-Murder Case : Crime: Investigator says Milwaukee suspect may have killed men to keep them from leaving him by himself in apartment.

An intense fear of loneliness that goes back to his parents’ divorce led Jeffrey L. Dahmer to kill homosexual men he lured to his apartment and keep their dismembered remains, a police investigator said Saturday.

That intense fear of being alone apparently surfaced each time one of the men wanted to leave his apartment, causing Dahmer to kill and dismember the victim, the investigator told the Associated Press.

“He didn’t want anybody else to leave him,” said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity. “His childhood situation contributed a lot.”

The source, a key investigator in the case, said he was paraphrasing things Dahmer told him during interviews.

Police allege that Dahmer, a 31-year-old Army veteran and former chocolate factory worker, has admitted killing 17 people over 13 years.

Dahmer, who told his probation agent that he felt guilty about being homosexual, records show, did not hate the gay men he killed, as some people have suggested, the source said.

“They were the easiest to get into his apartment,” the officer said.

Dr. Dave Busby, a Milwaukee psychiatrist, said the investigator’s explanation makes sense based on cases he has seen of intense fear of loneliness.

“They are very, very insecure and dependent and it just goes all to pieces when they are abandoned,” Busby said.

But Dr. John Liccione, a psychologist at the Milwaukee County Mental Health Complex, was somewhat skeptical about the observations of an investigator with no formal training.

Dahmer could be making everything up or saying things in an “eagerness to please,” Liccione said.

“Anything is possible, but it sounds more like a third-rate playwright script in Hollywood. It sounds so simplistic and unprofessional,” Liccione said. “The strange part of it is, it might be true.”

Since the bodies were found in Dahmer’s apartment two weeks ago, little has been released to explain Dahmer’s motive in the killings.

Meanwhile, a Cleveland newspaper reported Saturday that a woman who attended her high school prom with Dahmer said he was polite on their date, but she fled from Dahmer’s home in 1978 during a seance in which the devil was invoked.

The Plain Dealer reported that Bridget Geiger’s first date was with Dahmer, who went with her to the Revere High School prom. She was 16 and he was 18 at the time.

Geiger said Dahmer was polite and courteous, but somewhat aloof. She said he asked her to be his date because her best friend dated Dahmer’s best friend.

“He was scared to death of girls,” she said. “He was scared to death I was going to kiss him.”

Geiger, who is now married, said it was sometime after the prom in June, 1978, that she was invited to a party at Dahmer’s home. Geiger said there was “no music, no food or drinks--it was a nerd party. There were seven people at the whole thing.”

She said Dahmer and a friend called for a seance.

“Then, after we sat down and were situated, the lights went out and one of the kids--not Dahmer--said, ‘Let’s call Lucifer.’ Then the flame on the candles snapped,” she said.

Geiger said she was frightened and fled from the house and has not seen Dahmer since.

Acquaintances said Dahmer exhibited hatred toward black and gay people, and probation records indicate his father reported last year that his son had been abused by a neighbor boy at age 8 and the incident might help explain his problems.

Dahmer denied to police last week he had been sexually or physically abused as a child.