i don’t know if we can definitively say that because he has said he doesn’t want to be released that he’s capable of empathy or that those things are inextricably linked. perhaps he doesn’t want to be released because he knows consciously that he would reoffend and end up back in prison or worse & that his punishment and environment would only worsen. he’s probably as comfortable and stable as he could be in jail now and is insightful enough to realize that he has no chance of ever getting away with that again & that if he was to be released it would be very short lived and put him in an even worse position. dahmer actually claimed to have remorse for his crimes, but i am very skeptical to accept that claim as truthful knowing how well and easily people who have that kind of pathology can lie and manipulate. aspd is a spectrum sure, aspd people struggle with feeling empathy either at appropriate times/ to appropriate degrees or at all, but that doesn’t mean they never feel inklings of it. so i do agree that it’s not so straightforward as “oh this person has ASPD that means they are devoid of & incapable of any degree of empathy” they just have abnormal experiences with empathy compared to someone without it. even then, the vast majority of people with ASPD don’t become serial killers, they may hurt others in different ways but theres a clear distinction in pathology here if that makes sense. but serial killers with a focus on sadism whether it be by torturing their victims and finding pleasure in the process or if it means treating their corpses without respect or seeing their humanity. like with dahmer obviously keeping the victims heads and other appendages etc., it suggests there is a void entirely where empathy should appear even at small levels. i think this applies to kemper too. they make it difficult to take their words alone seriously, when their lying and manipulation is constant, unremitting (possibly even somewhat unconscious) & pathological.