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Unusual Crime Connection Gets Potential Juror Excused

Cartoonist and graphic novelist John Backderf was excused from jury service in Ohio last week when he offered an unusual answer to the routine query about knowing any convicted criminals.

Backderf’s answer stunned the courtroom, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports. “I had a close friend in high school who killed 17 people,” he said.

Backderf tells what happened next on his blog. “Stunned silence. All eyes turn. Asst. prosecutor’s head snaps up from his notes. Judge stares at me open-mouthed. I tell them who. ‘Wow,’ says the judge.”

Backderf’s childhood friend was Jeffrey Dahmer.

The cartoonist has written and illustrated a collection of short stories, soon to become a graphic novel, called My Friend Dahmer. He calls the book ‘“the definitive account of the formative years of my infamous, doomed teenage pal.”

Hat tip to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel blog Proof and Hearsay.