Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer (May 21, 1960 – November 28, 1994) was an American serial killer and sex offender. Dahmer murdered 17 men and boys – most of whom were of African or Asian descent – between 1978 and 1991, with the majority of the murders occurring between 1987 and 1991. His murders were particularly gruesome, involving rape, torture, dismemberment, necrophilia and cannibalism. On November 28, 1994, he was beaten to death by fellow Columbia Correctional Institution inmate Christopher Scarver with a bar from a weight machine while on work detail in the prison gym.

Early life

Dahmer was born in West Allis, Wisconsin, to Lionel, an analytical chemist, and Joyce Dahmer. Seven years later his brother David was born. Joyce Dahmer reportedly had a difficult pregnancy with her elder son. When he was eight years old, he moved with his family to Bath, Ohio, where he attended Revere High School. Dahmer's early childhood was normal, but he grew increasingly withdrawn and uncommunicative between the ages of 10 and 15, showing little interests in any hobbies or social interactions. He biked around his neighborhood looking for dead animals, which he dissected at home, going so far as to put a dog's head on a stake. Dahmer began drinking in his teens and was a full-blown alcoholic by the time of his high-school graduation.

In 1977, Lionel and Joyce Dahmer divorced. Dahmer attended Ohio State University, but dropped out after one quarter, having failed to attend most of his classes. He spent most of his time there drunk. Dahmer's father then forced him to enlist in the Army. Dahmer did well at first, but he was discharged after two years due to his alcoholism. When the Army discharged Dahmer in 1981, it provided him with a plane ticket to anywhere in the country. Dahmer told police he could not go home to face his father, so he headed to Miami Beach, Florida, because he was "tired of the cold". He spent most of his time there at a hospital, but was kicked out shortly after for drinking. After coming home he continued to drink heavily, and he was arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct later in 1981.

In 1982, Dahmer moved in with his grandmother in West Allis, where he lived for six years. During this time, his behavior grew increasingly strange. Once his grandmother found a fully dressed male mannequin in his closet; Dahmer had stolen it from a store. On another occasion, she found a .357 Magnum under his bed. Terrible smells came from the basement; Dahmer told his father that he had brought home a dead squirrel and dissolved it with chemicals. He was arrested twice for indecent exposure, in 1982 and 1986; in his second offense, he masturbated in front of two boys.

In summer 1988, Dahmer's grandmother asked him to move out because of his late nights, his strange behavior, and the foul smells from the basement. He then found an apartment on Milwaukee's West side, closer to his job at the Ambrosia Chocolate Factory. On September 26, 1988, one day after moving into his apartment, he was arrested for drugging and sexually fondling a 13-year-old boy in Milwaukee named Somsack Sinthasomphone. He was sentenced to five years probation and one year in a work release camp. He was required to register as a sex offender. Dahmer was paroled from the work release camp two months early, and he soon moved into a new apartment. Shortly thereafter, he began a string of murders that ended with his arrest in 1991.

Murders

Jeffrey Dahmer committed his first murder in summer 1978. While still living in his father's house, and with his family away, Dahmer picked up a hitchhiker named Steven Hicks. He offered to drink beer with him back at his father's house and planned to have sex with him. Dahmer said that since "the guy wanted to leave and [he] didn't want him to" leave, he bludgeoned Hicks to death with a barbell. Dahmer buried the body in the backyard. Nine years passed until Dahmer claimed his next victim, Steven Tuomi. After the Tuomi murder, Dahmer continued to kill sporadically; two more murders in 1988, and another in early 1989, usually picking up his victims in gay bars and having sex with them before killing them. He kept the skull of his 1989 victim, Anthony Sears, until he was caught.

In May 1990, he moved out of his grandmother's house for the last time and into the apartment that later became infamous: Apartment 213, 924 North 25th Street, Milwaukee. Dahmer picked up the pace of his killing: four more murders before the end of 1990, two more in February and April 1991, and another in May 1991.

In the early morning hours of May 30, 1991, 14-year-old Konerak Sinthasomphone (by chance, the younger brother of the boy whom Dahmer had molested) was discovered on the street, wandering naked, heavily under the influence of drugs and bleeding from his rectum. Two young women from the neighborhood found the dazed boy and called 911. Dahmer chased his victim down and tried to take him away, but the women stopped him. Dahmer told police that Sinthasomphone was his 19-year-old boyfriend, and that they had an argument while drinking. Against the protests of the two women who had called 911, police turned him over to Dahmer. They later reported smelling a strange scent while inside Dahmer's apartment, but did not investigate it. The smell was the body of Tony Hughes, Dahmer's previous victim, decomposing in the bedroom. The two policemen failed to run a background check that would have revealed that Dahmer was a convicted child molester still under probation. The officers laughed about the incident, one joking that his partner was "going to get deloused." Later that night, Dahmer killed and dismembered Sinthasomphone, keeping his skull as a souvenir.

John Balcerzak and Joseph Gabrish, two of the three police officers who returned Sinthasomphone to Dahmer, were fired from the Milwaukee Police Department after their actions were widely publicized, including an audiotape of the officers making homophobic statements to their dispatcher and cracking jokes about having reunited the "lovers". The two officers appealed their termination and were reinstated with back pay. They were named officers of the year by the police union for fighting a "righteous" battle to regain their jobs. Balcerzak was later elected president of the Milwaukee Police Association in May 2005.

By summer 1991, Dahmer was murdering approximately one person each week. He killed Matt Turner on June 30, Jeremiah Weinberger on July 5, Oliver Lacy on July 12, and finally Joseph Brandehoft on July 19. Dahmer got the idea that he could create "zombies" of his victims, and attempted to do so by drilling holes into their skulls and injecting hydrochloric acid into their brains. Other residents of the Oxford Apartments complex noticed terrible smells coming from Apartment 213, as well as the thumps of falling objects and the occasional buzzing of a power saw.

Arrest

On July 22, 1991, Dahmer lured another man, Tracy Edwards, into his home. According to the would-be victim, Dahmer struggled with Edwards in order to handcuff him, and ultimately failed to cuff his wrists together. Wielding a large butcher knife, Dahmer forced Edwards into the bedroom, where Edwards saw pictures of mangled bodies on the wall and noticed the terrible smell coming from a large blue barrel. Edwards punched him in the face, kicked him in the stomach, ran for the door and escaped. Running through the streets, with the handcuffs still hanging from one hand, Edwards waved for help to a police car driven by Robert Rauth and Rolf Mueller of the Milwaukee police department. Edwards led police back to Dahmer's apartment, where Dahmer at first acted friendly to the officers. However, Edwards remembered that the knife Dahmer had threatened him with was in the bedroom. When one of the officers checked the bedroom, he saw the photographs of mangled bodies, and called for his partner to arrest Dahmer. As one officer subdued Dahmer, the other opened the refrigerator and found a human head. Further searching of the apartment revealed three more severed heads, multiple photographs of murdered victims and human remains, severed hands and penises, and photographs of dismembered victims and human remains in his refrigerator.

The story of Dahmer's arrest and the inventory in his apartment quickly gained notoriety: several corpses were stored in acid-filled vats, and implements for the construction of an altar of candles and human skulls were found in his closet. Accusations soon surfaced that Dahmer had practiced necrophilia and cannibalism. Seven skulls were found in the apartment. A human heart was found in the freezer.

Trial

Jeffrey Dahmer was indicted on 17 murder charges, which were reduced to 15. The murder cases were already so notorious that the authorities never bothered to charge him in the attempted murder of Edwards. His trial began on January 30, 1992. With evidence overwhelmingly against him, Dahmer pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. The trial lasted two weeks. The court found Dahmer sane and guilty on 15 counts of murder and sentenced him to 15 life terms, totaling 957 years in prison. At his sentencing hearing, Dahmer expressed remorse for his actions, and said that he wished for his own death. In May of that year, Dahmer was extradited to Ohio, where he entered a plea of guilty for the murder of his first victim, Steven Hicks.

Imprisonment and death

Dahmer served his time at the Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage, Wisconsin, where he ultimately declared himself a born-again Christian. This conversion occurred after viewing evangelical material sent to him by his father. A local preacher from the Churches of Christ, Roy Ratcliff, met with Dahmer and agreed to baptize him.

Dahmer was attacked twice in prison, the first time in July 1994. After attending a church service in the prison chapel, an inmate attempted to slash Dahmer's throat with a razor blade. Dahmer escaped the incident with superficial wounds. On November 28, 1994, Dahmer and another inmate named Jesse Anderson were severely beaten by fellow inmate Christopher Scarver with a bar from a weight machine while on work detail in the prison gym. Dahmer died of severe head trauma while on his way to the hospital in an ambulance. His brain was retained for study.

Aftermath

Upon learning of his death, Dahmer's mother, Joyce Flint, responded angrily to the media "Now is everybody happy? Now that he's bludgeoned to death, is that good enough for everyone?" The response of the families of Dahmer's victims were mixed, although it appears most were pleased with his death, the District Attorney who prosecuted Dahmer cautioned against turning Scarver into a folk hero, noting that Dahmer's death was still murder.

After the murders, the Oxford Apartments at 924 North 25th Street were demolished; the site is now a vacant lot. Plans to convert the site into a memorial garden failed to materialize.

In 1994, Lionel Dahmer published a book, A Father's Story, and donated a portion of the proceeds from his book to the victims and their families. Most of the families showed support for Lionel Dahmer and his wife, Shari. He has retired and resides with his wife in Medina County, Ohio. Lionel Dahmer is an advocate for creationism, and his wife was a member of the board of the Medina County Ohio Horseman's Council. Both continue to carry the name Dahmer and say they love Jeffrey despite his crimes. Lionel Dahmer's first wife, Joyce (Flint), died of cancer in 2000 at the age of 64. She was later buried in Atlanta, Georgia. Dahmer's younger brother David changed his last name and lives in anonymity.

Dahmer's estate was awarded to the families of 11 of Dahmer's victims who had sued for damages. In 1996, Thomas Jacobson, the lawyer representing eight of the families, announced a planned auction of Dahmer's estate to raise up to $1 million, sparking controversy. A civic group, Milwaukee Civic Pride, was quickly established in an effort to raise the funds to purchase and destroy Dahmer's possessions. The group pledged $407,225 including a $100,000 gift by Milwaukee real estate developer Joseph Zilber for purchase of Dahmer's estate; five of the eight families represented by Jacobson agreed to the terms and Dahmer's possessions were destroyed.

In January 2007, evidence surfaced potentially linking Dahmer to Adam Walsh's 1981 abduction and murder in Florida. However Adam's father, John Walsh, believed that another serial killer, Ottis Toole, committed the crime. When interviewed about Adam Walsh in the early 1990s, Dahmer repeatedly denied involvement in the crime. In 2008, Florida police declared the Walsh case closed, naming Toole, who died in prison in 1996, as the killer.

Known victims

Name	Age	Date of death
Stephen Hicks	19	1978-06-18June 6, 1978
Steven Tuomi	26	1987-09-15Sept. 15, 1987
James "Jamie" Doxtator	14	1988-01Jan. 1988
Richard Guerrero	25	1988-03-24March 24, 1988
Anthony Sears	24	1989-03-25March 25, 1989
Eddie Smith	36	1990-06June 1990
Ricky Beeks	27	1990-7-15July 1990
Ernest Miller	22	1990-09September 1990
David Thomas	23	1990-09September 1990
Curtis Straughter	19	1991-02February 1991
Errol Lindsey	19	1991-04April 1991
Tony Hughes	31	1991-05-24May 24, 1991
Konerak Sinthasomphone	14	1991-05-27May 27, 1991
Matt Turner	20	1991-06-30June 30, 1991
Jeremiah Weinberger	23	1991-07-05July 5, 1991
Oliver Lacy	23	1991-07-12July 12, 1991
Joseph Bradehoft	25	1991-07-18July 19, 1991

Media portrayals

• The movie Jeffrey Dahmer: The Secret Life was released in 1993, starring Carl Crew as Dahmer.
• In 2002, the biopic Dahmer, starring Jeremy Renner in the title role, premiered in Dahmer's hometown. The film, which portrayed Dahmer in a somewhat sympathetic light, met with protest from the victims' families and quickly went to video.
• Joyce Carol Oates' novel Zombie was based on Dahmer's life.

References

Further reading

• Mann, Robert & Williamson, Miryam. Forensic Detective - How I Cracked The World's Toughest Cases. Ballantine Books (March 28, 2006)
• Masters, Brian. The Shrine of Jeffrey Dahmer. Hodder and Stroughton Limited, London 1993 (Paperback Coronet 1993)
• Pincus, Jonathan H. Base Instincts - What Makes Killers kill?. W.W. Norton & Company, New York 2001 (Paperback 2002)
• Ratcliff, Roy with Lindy Adams. Dark Journey, Deep Grace: The Story Behind a Serial Killer's Journey to Faith. Leafwood Publishers, (2006).

External links

• Crime Library article on Dahmer