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and began to scream in the street. In quick pursuit was a blond young man named Dahmer.
    The cops showed up, and the frightened teenager said the man was trying to kill him. The blond man told the police that he was sorry for the fuss, but this was just a “lovers’ quarrel.”
    The cops sided with the older man, and the boy was dragged back inside the house. Cops reported the incident as Intoxicated Asian, naked male. Was returned to his sober boyfriend. When cops did see the fourteen-year-old again, he had been dissected, his severed skull on display in Dahmer’s home.
    Dahmer was caught. His home was searched by the crime lab. The discovered evidence thrust Dahmer to the top of the all-time greatest serial killer list.
    They found evidence of cannibalism. He stored parts of his victims in vats. There wasn’t just a homosexual angle, but a racial angle as well, with the great majority of the white killer’s victims being poor and members of a minority.
    He was saving parts. Who knew what all Dahmer was doing with those body parts? Eating some, sure—but the guy was probably playful, too.
    The arrest came down on July 22, 1991. Dahmer was tried and convicted, and sentenced to almost one thousand years in prison. He didn’t serve nearly that many, however, as he was killed by a fellow inmate in November 1994.

    When Stephen Stanko wasn’t researching other criminals, he enjoyed getting access to the library computer and looking up himself. He was listed as an author, and people anywhere could order his book online.
    Very cool. While Googling himself, he learned that he was not the only famous Steve Stanko. There was a muscle-bound guy who had been Mr. Universe in 1947. He was, in fact, a legend of bodybuilding’s “golden era.”
    Somewhere along the line, as Stephen Stanko learned about Zodiac and Son of Sam, BTK and Bundy, Ridgway, Dahlia and Dahmer—all for the book he was going to write, of course—his interest shifted.
    According to the Georgetown County Sheriff, A. Lane Cribb, who later read Stanko’s serial killer notes, there came a time when Stanko no longer focused on what serial killers were like. He began to wonder what it would be like to be a serial killer. He’d already had some experience. Like BTK, he knew how good it felt to tie up a woman. But he’d yet to cross that line between here and the beyond. Cribb came to believe Stanko had feverishly pondered becoming a sex killer, a destroyer of innocence, a sadistic betrayer of everything vulnerable, a breaker of the ultimate taboo—he had pondered becoming a child-raping, knife-across-the-throat snuff artist.

STAND-UP
    Ah, but that was the serious side of the man. That was only one facet of Stanko’s personality. He could write anything. Even humor . He spent a lot of time while in prison thinking about what a funny guy he was. He knew it was a tough row to hoe, but he thought he might take a crack at being a stand-up comic. He would be the ex-con comic. Tim Allen had pulled it off, and Stanko figured himself funnier than that guy. He would be the first to expose the outside world to some real prison humor! There was nothing like a long stretch behind bars to bring out the yuks.
    Now, out and about, he kept a separate notebook—separate from the serial killer stuff—that consisted of his “comedy routine.” When he thought of a joke, he’d put it in there. The routine got out of order after a while, and the pages were filled with arrows and inserts scribbled up and down the margins.
    He could hear himself doing it, hear roaring laughter from a packed house. . . .

    [Reacting to applause] Thank you, thank you. Okay, my name is Steve Stanko [pause] and before you begin making fun of my name, let me say that I was recently released from an eight-and-a-half-year stint in prison, and this is kind of therapy for me.
    Thinking twice now about poking fun at “Stanko” now, aren’t you?
    It’s always funny, when I make that announcement, to