Due to his lack of social graces, Jeffrey takes to “spazzing out” in class and causing his classmates to crack up at the sheer insanity of his actions. Lionel uncovers Jeffrey’s skeletal museum and dismantles it, telling his son to make friends at school and develop more accepted hobbies. Jeffrey’s only acquaintance on campus is a gay student who is obvious enough to draw unwanted attention from bullies, which in turn pushes away Jeffrey.
Joyce was recently released from a mental hospital and she is anything but fully cured. His parents, Lionel (Dallas Roberts) and Joyce (Anne Heche), are too focused on their own marital problems to pay any attention to what young Jeffrey is doing. Jeffrey Dahmer (Ross Lynch) is a loner who prefers to spend his spare time in an outdoor shed in the woods, dissolving roadkill with acid, instead of interacting with any of his schoolmates.