Before I introduce you to Jeffrey Dahmer, let me introduce you to his victims. 17 men and boys who were killed between the times of 1978 and 1991.
Stephen Hicks, 20
Steven Toumi, 26
Jamie Doxtator, 14
Richard Guerreri, 25
Anthony Sears, 24
Eddie Smith, 36
Ricky Beeks, 27
Ernest Miller, 22
David Thomas, 23
Curtis Straughter, 19
Errol Lindsey, 19
Tony Hughes, 31
Konerak Sinthasomphone, 14
Matt Turner, 20
Jeremiah Weinberger, 23
Oliver Lace, 23
Joseph Bradeholt, 25
Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer was born on May 21, 1960 to a working family in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. By the time Jeffrey was 8 years old, his family moved to Bath, Ohio. It is reported that by this age, Jeffrey was already dissecting dead animals. By the age of 18, Jeffrey suffered from alcoholism and very low self esteem. When his parents finally divorced after years of constant fighting, that just gave him even more of an excuse to take out his frustrations. And that he did. At the age of 18, Dahmer picked up a hitchhiker, Stephen Hicks, and after a few drinks invited him back to the house where eventually Dahmer would commit his first murder. In a statement Dahmer stated that he killed Hicks “because he didn’t want him to leave”.
After his first killing, it seemed as though it wasn’t going to happen again. Dahmer started attending Ohio State University, after one term decided to leave. Dahmer’s father who would not stand for this kind of action made Jeffrey enlist in the US Army. And that he did for 6 years. But was discharged after 2 for his excessive drinking. Once out of the Army he moved in with his grandmother for 6 years, still suffering from all the ailments that he had when everything started.
With Jeffrey Dahmer the signs were all there. People just didn’t look or didn’t want to see them. He had been suffering for years, if only someone would have paid attention to his frame of mine. By 1982 Jeffrey was arrested for exposing himself to a young child at a state fair. 4 years later, two young boys accused Jeffrey of masturbating in public and he was sentenced to one year, where he only served 10 months. Once again this didn’t stop Jeffrey, in 1988 he was arrested for sexually fondling a young boy of 13. He served only 1 year at a work release camp and as one of the stipulations, Jeffrey was required to register as a sex offender. As one of Jeffreys tactics, he eventually would convince a judge that he only needed psychological help, and was released and put on 5 years probation with good behavior.
Once he knew he could manipulate, the terror would then begin.
Dahmer would find his victims at bars, malls, on the street. He would pick men that looked good to him, but that weren’t noticed by anyone but himself. People that no one would basically miss immediately. He wouldn’t look for men or boys to kill, but once someone interested him, that was it, he didn’t want them to go anywhere. And they didn’t.
Jeffrey was officially a serial killer.
Once Jeffrey would get them into his apartment, the terror for these men/boys would begin. Jeffrey would offer them more to drink, then drug them, and slowly torture them to death. He would then have sex with them, then mutilate their bodies, and keep parts as trophies or keep parts just so that in his state of mind, they weren’t really gone. But that wasn’t it for Jeffrey. In order for him to be closer with his victims, Jeffrey sometimes would eat pieces of his victims. Disgusting as it may seem, Jeffrey thought it was part of bonding with his victims.
By 1991, Jeffrey was killing one man/boy a week.
Then finally a boy, Konerak Sinthasomphone age 14 somehow got away from Jeffrey Dahmer’s nightmarish apartment on May 27, 1991, ran in the middle of the street, no clothes on, barely conscience, hoping someone, anyone would help him out. Finally two young black teenager girls noticed Konerak and knew that he has been scared of something. They made the right decision and called 911, officers responded but not to the right person. They blew the two teenagers off and took Jeffrey’s word that Konerak was his 19 year old lover and he had a bit too much to drink and they had been in an argument. The police dismissed the child into Dahmer’s custody , as a courtesy, they also escorted him back to the apartment and left. Konerak was dead by morning.
Four more would die before Dahmer is to be caught. Then the gruesome scene is discovered. Milwaukee wasn’t even aware there had been a serial killer on the loose. Until Tracy Edwards was found wandering the streets with one handcuff attached to him. Police were skeptical at first, and thought that Edwards has been just drinking to much. He had told a tale of a white man who had drugged him, forced him to watch porn at knife point, and before he knew it, he had managed to handcuff him. But Edwards punched Dahmer and somehow got away.
Officers were curious and asked Edwards to escort them back to the apartment where all this had happened. Edwards agreed. As officers knocked, Dahmer answered the door and tried to talk his way out of what had happened. He tried to blame his anger on his recent loss of a job and that he would gladly retrieve the keys to the handcuffs in the bedroom. But the officer followed Dahmer into his bedroom where he would notice hundreds of pictures of dismembered bodies in a refrigerator. The officer disgusted, walked out of the room, and glanced into the kitchen where the refrigerator in the pictures was staring right at him. He slowly walked over to the refrigerator and stood there, before opening it, the officer took a deep breath, he then screamed in dis-belief and slammed the door shut. Remembering that he has just seen a dismembered mans head staring back at him.
This would be the beginning of what was yet to be found.
Dahmer who was calm while all of this was revealing itself, started to panic, officers noticed and managed to overpower Dahmer, and handcuff him until back-up was called.
Edwards who was still watching was mortified at the fact that he could have been Dahmer’s next victim if he hadn’t gotten out of the apartment. That when Jeffrey said he wanted to “cut his heart out and eat it” he meant it. Tracy Edwards was the lucky one. He had managed to escape the reign of terror that the other victims had no clue was going to unfold.
As Jeffrey was taking to the police station, officers were learning of his apartment of terrors. And with each find, the next would be even more horrific.
Jeffrey’s apartment would consist of the following ; Severed head located inside the refrigerator. Three more heads inside of the freezer. Several pairs of hands and a penis in a crock pot in the closet. An undetermine amount of human flesh inside the freezer. Two boiled skulls painted grey in the bedroom. Jeffrey had also preserved the genitals of his victims in formaldehyde. Pictures were taken of each victim in different stages of their death. Hundreds of them were scattered all over Dahmer’s room. The stench of death was slowly creeping out of apartment 213.
Other apartment tenants started coming out, looking to see what was going on in their quiet building located 25th street. Some were trying to understand how could this happen, others were noticing clues that would have lead them to notice a psychopath living only just down the hall. It was just an unbelievable scene for everyone.
While Dahmer was being questioned this is what he told police officers, ” I have to question whether there is an evil force in the world and whether or not I have been influenced by it. Although I am not sure if there is a God or if there is a devil, I know that as of lately I have been thinking of both.”
Dahmer was held on 1 milllion dollar bond. Not once did he make any excuses for the crimes that he committed. He plead guilty to all of his crimes. He blamed no one but himself. Charged with 15 counts of murder, he entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, his plea was rejected and Dahmer was sentenced to 15 consecutive life sentences, with a minimum of 936 years. In 1992, to his 15 consecutive life sentences, there was one more life sentence added for the 1978 death of Stephen Hicks.
Jeffrey Dahmer didn’t serve many years in prison. He was murdered in prison on November 28, 1994 by another inmate in the Columbia Correctional Institute. Christopher Scarver beat Jeffrey Dahmer and Jesse Anderson to death with a broom while all three were cleaning a bathroom. A few weeks before Jeffrey had been killed, he had been re-baptized into Christianity. After his death his brain was to be kept for research, his father protested and refused permission on the grounds that his religion would not permit it.
Jeffrey Dahmer was finally gone. But the memories were still raw and clear for the victims family members. In 1996, the city of Milwaukee raised more than $400,000 to buy Dahmer’s gruesome collection of tools, photographs and the famous refrigerator. Terrified somebody might purchase the items and create a Jeffrey Dahmer Museum, the city elders simply bought the motley collection and incinerated the lot, hoping to lay to rest the grisly ghosts which haunted Milwaukee.
