Former BJ op-ed editor/editorial board member Bob Springer, who slinked off to Kent State for a decade or so to savor academia, will be on MSNBC cable channels’ "In Other News: Lost in the Looting” at 9 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 15 to talk about Jeffrey Dahmer, who shot into fame by killing and cannabilizing people.

Springer got a free trip to New York City for the taping. But I’ll let Bob tell you how it went down:

“A woman named Kim Kantner, a producer for an LA company called Karga 7 Productions, contacted Joe Thomas asking whether any of the ABJ folks involved in the Dahmer case were still around. He gave her a few names and numbers, including mine.

“Ms. Kantner contacted me last spring, whilst I was on my way back to Ohio from Oregon. She asked me a bunch of questions about the day Dahmer came to Akron to plead guilty and be sentenced for killing Steven Hicks, the first of Jeffrey's 17 murders and his only one in Ohio.

“I yakked a bit about how I'd gone to Milwaukee the summer day that Dahmer's gruesome apartment refrigerator was discovered and that I'd covered his trial that next February.

“So she called me back a week or so later and asked whether I could travel to NYC at her expense for an interview in early June about it all. She explained that she and Karga 7 were working for MSNBC for a new show called ‘In Other News.’ She said it would be a show with three separate segments about newsworthy stuff that happened at the same time as some other, bigger news event. She'd picked the weekend after the Rodney King verdict and riots in LA -- which happened to include Dahmer in Akron for the Hicks killing. The show premieres this Saturday, Oct. 15, at 9 p.m. Eastern, on MSNBC.

“She interviewed me for about an hour and a half in a hotel ballroom in Manhattan with a camerawoman and a floor director present as well as an intern. They had to turn off the air-conditioning to stop the humming from screwing up their audio. The klieg lights were unbearable and I had a coat and tie on. So I'm sure I'll look as uncomfortable as sweaty old Nixon during his first debate with JFK. I have no recollection of all the things I said. 

“Ms. Kantner (who, by the way, is the niece of the recently departed Jefferson Airplane founder Paul Kantner, which I found to be verrry shagadellic, baby) said she also interviewed then-Summit County Prosecutor Lynn Slaby and Dahmer's Philadelphia lawyer (whose name escapes me) for the segment.”

Olesky note: Robert Mozenter handled Dahmer’s criminal trial, wife and partner Joyce Mozenter took Dahmer’s civil case.

Bob continued:

“I also took some photos of the Summit County Courthouse, the county jail and Fulton-Akron Airport for her, but I don't know whether she used any of those.

“That's about all I know. I suspect I'll show up for about 45 seconds' worth of the segment, in which I likely will say something completely embarrassing to me and everyone who knows me. How's that for humility?

“Meantime, go Mountaineers, Go Cubs and Go Tribe!!”

West Virginia is my alma mater and I’ve had season tickets to football at Mountaineer Field for two decades (Mountaineers won their first 4 games this season).

The Cubs and Indians, if they meet in the World Series, would have a combined 175 years (!!!!) without winning the danged thing. The Cubs haven’t won the World Series since 1908 -- 107 years. Cleveland hasn’t won since 1948 – 68 years.

And if the Indians win the World Series, it will be the first time since 1948 that Cleveland teams have won major pro championships in the same year. Paul Brown’s Cleveland Browns won their third straight All-American Football League title in 1948.

Dahmer is the Revere High School grad who killed one in Ohio and the others in Wisconsin. He was beaten to death in 1994 by a prisoner.

Milwaukee Civic Pride organization paid more than $400K to buy Dahmer’s possessions and bury them in an Illinois landfill. The money was divided among the families of 11 Dahmer victims.

Bob came to Kent State in 2008 as an academic adviser after 19 years at the Beacon Journal as a copy editor, reporter and, for his final 14 years, as the Op-ed editor and member of the editorial board. 

He is a Southern Illinois journalism graduate who also worked at the Rocky Mountain News, the Denver Post and the weekly Center (Colorado) Post-Dispatch.

To watch a very short video of Springer, click on or go to https://www.facebook.com/barbara.hipsman/videos/vb.23308099/10104735298156564/?type=2&theater&notif_t=live_video&notif_id=1476373097663000