TODAY'S TMJ4

MILWAUKEE - Almost immediately after his arrest in July 1991, then 31-year-old Jeffrey Dahmer confessed to murders, cannibalism and a twisted mission to turn his young male victims into “zombie” sex slaves.

Defense attorney Gerry Boyle keeps a newspaper front page in his law office conference room that features a picture of Boyle seated next to Dahmer in court.

During the trial in 1992, Boyle set out to convince the jury Dahmer was insane.

"He became so deranged in that mental illness that he couldn't stop doing it," Boyle told TODAY'S TMJ4 reporter Tom Murray in a new interview.

The jury would side with Milwaukee County District Attorney E. Michael McCann.

"He knew what he was doing," McCann said this week. "He very cleverly covered it up. This was not a mad man rushing around wantonly killing people."

To this day, Boyle says he believes Dahmer and society would have been better off if the jury agreed with mental health defense.

"I really wanted one insanity finding on all those murders because then he would have gone to Mendota and been studied and I think they could have learned a lot," Boyle said.

20 years later, McCann stands by his prosection.

"There's no question about it," McCann said. "Nothing emerged in the prison system to suggest he was insane. Understandably, that was the only defense he had."

McCann retired from public service in January 2007, at which time he joined Marquette University Law School as a teaching fellow and adjunct law professor.

Boyle continues to actively practice with his firm, The Boyle Law Group.

Friday marks the 20th anniversary of Dahmer's arrest. Another inmate killed Dahmer in prison

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