Private belongings of infamous serial killer on sale in Vancouver (PHOTOS)

The owner of Cult Collectibles Vancouver considers himself lucky to have gotten his hands on a previously unseen collection belonging to one of the most notorious serial killers of all time.

The lifelong fan of true crime got into his business quite unintentionally, amassing his own personal collection of “oddities and the unusual” over the years.

When it outgrew his space, he started selling them to pay the bills. But the interest was so great that business took off, and after incorporating officially, his reputation only grew.

So did his approach to collecting so-called “murderabilia.“

“I realized there’s a lot of significance to some of this stuff — people’s information that’s been lost, items that have been lost — so I just try to be positive and track them down,” he said. 

“I kind of went from looking for interesting and unusual things to trying to find rare items or things that people didn’t really know.”

He has been working with museums, private collectors, documentaries, and publications for years to find and archive items that could otherwise be lost or destroyed.

That said, James is still shocked he managed to get his hands on a collection of belongings — thought to be lost forever — from Jeffrey Dahmer.

James says Jeffrey Dahmer is known as a “white whale” among collectors because there’s very little documentation of his childhood.

“This was a very unusual situation when it comes to collecting this kind of stuff,” he said. 

Who was Jeffrey Dahmer?

Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1960 and lived until 1994, when he was murdered by a fellow inmate in a Wisconsin prison. He killed and dismembered 17 men and boys between 1978 and 1991, and was known for practicing necrophilia, cannibalism, and body part preservation after he took his victims.

Dahmer was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, schizotypal personality disorder, and a psychotic disorder. However, he was found to be legally sane at his trial, even though he was found guilty of 16 homicides by 1992.

The collection

Last year, he was contacted by people with a connection to Lionel Dahmer, Jeffrey’s father. They had been storing the items for a long time and wanted to give them away “to recall the value of years of historical importance.” 

“Nobody’s really seen this stuff ever before,” said James.

He spent three months sorting through the files, listening to audio and video, and poring over boxes before making a public announcement about the collection. 

Some of the items will go to documentary crews and historians while others will be sold to collectors. They’re sorted by theme — prison items, childhood items, items that have never been seen, and so on — as well as historical value.

Despite the dark subject matter, James is still excited to have had the chance to see the belongings himself. 

“I’ve always been kind of weird and unusual, but I wouldn’t say I’m a desensitized person,” he said, adding he sees his job as studying history. 

“It’s not like I find out later on, ‘He actually did this. This is really bad.’ I know everything from the get-go, and this is putting the pieces together and getting a bit of a closer connection to that than the general public.”

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James adds he understands if people are offended by what he does, but maintains the importance of its forensic and historical value. 

“It’s a controversial thing, right? But a lot of this stuff will get destroyed or thrown away, and we’re able to learn from it,” he said.

His favorite tangible thing in the collection is a Bible that was gifted to him from a pen pal.

“There’s a little note asking for forgiveness from God for what he’d done,” said James. 

“Having that was very impactful, to see, ‘Oh, this is a genuine feeling. This is a private that he had for himself, where he was expressing his feelings on the situation.’” 

He also has an inventory of all the items Dahmer had on him when he died, previously unheard audio of Dahmer recorded in the ’90s, and much, much more.

James says it was amazing to be the first person to ever see some of the pieces aside from Dahmer and his family.