He was imprisoned for shooting a man in the head three times, demanding more money from the victim's co-worker after each shot. He told a psychiatrist he was the son of God. Now, he is accused of killing Jeffrey Dahmer and another inmate.
Christopher J. Scarver was convicted in 1992 and sentenced to life in prison by a jury that rejected his insanity plea.Scarver, 25, had told a psychiatrist that he heard voices and that he believed he was the son of God because his name was Chris, his mother's name was Mary and he worked as a carpenter.
Scarver was convicted of murdering Steven J. Lohman, 27, an employee of the Wisconsin Conservation Corps, which had fired Scarver.
"A month after being fired, I started hearing voices," Scarver told a court-appointed psychiatrist after being charged with murder in 1991. "They were of men and women, high pitched-voices.
"The reason I did it is because the voices told me that he had done me wrong; that I will receive no harm and that I will still be the Son of God," Scarver told the interviewer.
He said the voices told him that "I'm the chosen one."
In another interview before his trial, Scarver said he killed Lohman on a day when he was feeling angry and wanted to get his job back.
"I don't know why I shot him," Scarver said. "I was never in trouble with the law, never in a fight with anyone. I was nervous and jumpy. I feared loss of control."
Scarver, who would not have been eligible for parole until 2042, is accused of fatally bludgeoning Dahmer and convicted murderer Jesse Anderson at the Columbia Correctional Institution. The two were attacked Monday as they cleaned bathrooms in a prison recreation area. Anderson, who was serving a life sentence for the 1992 murder of his wife, died Wednesday.
"It was not a surprise that someone with his background of mental health problems would wind up in trouble in prison," said Steven R. Kohn, who represented Scarver at his trial. "Prison is not the place for a person with that background."
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Parents feuding
Jeffrey Dahmer once said his parents' arguments drove him into a private fantasy world. Now his divorced parents have another dispute - over his remains.
Both parents want the body of their serial killer son cremated and want custody of the ashes, lawyers say. Stephen Eisenberg, who represented Dahmer after his trial, said a judge may have to split the ashes between his mother, Joyce Flint of Fresno, Calif., and his father, Lionel Dahmer of Bath, Ohio.
Authorities have performed an autopsy and won't release Dahmer's body until it's no longer needed as evidence.