biography jeffrey dahmer

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Jeffrey Dahmer

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• University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository - The Romance of Revenge: An Alternative History of Jeffrey Dahmer's Trial
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Jeffrey Dahmer (born May 21, 1960, Milwaukee , Wisconsin , U.S.—died November 28, 1994, Portage , Wisconsin) was an American serial killer whose arrest in 1991 provoked criticism of local police and resulted in an upsurge of popular interest in serial murder and other crimes.

Dahmer committed his first murder in Bath township, Ohio , in 1978. A second murder followed in 1987, and during the next five years he killed—mostly in Milwaukee, Wisconsin—another 15 boys and young men, who were for the most part poor and African American, Asian, or Latino. Although other serial murderers had claimed far more victims, Dahmer’s crimes were particularly gruesome, involving cannibalism and necrophilia. In February 1992 Dahmer was sentenced to 15 consecutive life terms; a 16th consecutive life sentence was added in May for the murder he committed in 1978. Dahmer was murdered by a fellow inmate in a Wisconsin prison in 1994.

The circumstances of the crimes became the subject of much controversy. Some claimed that the fact that Dahmer had escaped detection for so long showed that Milwaukee police attached a low priority to investigating the disappearance of victims who were homosexual or members of racial minority groups.

Dahmer’s life and crimes and the controversy engendered by his arrest were discussed in several books, including The Man Who Could Not Kill Enough: The Secret Murders of Milwaukee’s Jeffrey Dahmer (1992; reissued 2011), by Anne E. Schwartz.

Biography of Jeffrey Dahmer, Serial Killer

Dahmer Was Known as the "Milwaukee Monster"

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Jeffrey Dahmer (May 21, 1960–November 28, 1994) was responsible for a series of gruesome murders of 17 young men from 1988 until he was caught in Milwaukee on July 22, 1991.

Fast Facts: Jeffrey Dahmer

• Known For : Convicted serial killer of 17 people
• Also Known As : Milwaukee Cannibal, Milwaukee Monster
• Born : May 21, 1960, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
• Parents : Lionel Dahmer, Joyce Dahmer
• Died : November 28, 1994, at the Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage, Wisconsin
• Notable Quote : "The only motive that there ever was was to completely control a person; a person I found physically attractive. And keep them with me as long as possible, even if it meant just keeping a part of them."

Jeffrey Dahmer was born May 21, 1960, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to Lionel and Joyce Dahmer. From all accounts, Dahmer was a happy child who enjoyed typical toddler activities. It was not until the age of 6, after he underwent hernia surgery, that his personality began to change from a jubilant social child to a loner who was uncommunicative and withdrawn. His facial expressions transformed from sweet, childish smiles to a blank, emotionless stare —a look that remained with him throughout his life.

Pre-Teen Years

In 1966, the Dahmers moved to Bath, Ohio. Jeffrey Dahmer's insecurities grew after the move and his shyness kept him from making many friends. While his peers were busy listening to the latest songs, Dahmer was collecting road kill, stripping animal carcasses, and saving the bones.

Other idle time was spent alone, buried deep inside his fantasies. His non-confrontational attitude toward his parents was considered an attribute, but in reality, apathy toward the real world made him appear obedient.

High School and Army Service

Jeffrey Dahmer continued being a loner during his years at Revere High School. He had average grades, worked on the school newspaper , and developed a dangerous drinking problem. His parents, struggling with issues of their own, divorced when Jeffrey was almost 18. He lived with his father who traveled often and was busy nurturing a relationship with his new wife.

After high school, Jeffrey Dahmer enrolled at The Ohio State University and spent most of his time skipping classes and getting drunk. He dropped out and returned home after two semesters. His father issued him an ultimatum: get a job or join the Army .

In 1979, Jeffrey Dahmer enlisted for six years in the Army, but his drinking continued and in 1981, after just two years, he was discharged due to his drunken behavior.

Jeffrey Dahmer's First Kill

Unknown to anyone, Jeffery Dahmer was mentally disintegrating . In June 1978, he was struggling with his homosexual desires, mixed with his need to act out his sadistic fantasies. Perhaps this struggle is what pushed him to pick up a hitchhiker, 18-year-old Steven Hicks. Jeffrey Dahmer invited Hicks to his father's home and the two drank alcohol. When Hicks was ready to leave, Dahmer bashed him in the head with a barbell and killed him.

Dahmer then cut up the body and put it in garbage bags, which he buried in the woods surrounding his father's property. Years later he returned to dig up the bags, crush the bones, and disburse the remains around the woods. As insane as Jeffrey had become, he had not lost sight of the need to cover his murderous tracks. Later, his explanation for killing Hicks was simply that he didn't want him to leave.

Prison Time

Jeffrey Dahmer spent the next six years living with his grandmother in West Allis, Wisconsin. He continued drinking heavily and often got into trouble with the police. In August 1982, he was arrested after exposing himself at a state fair. In September 1986, Dahmer was arrested and charged with public exposure after being accused of masturbating in public. He served 10 months in jail  but was arrested soon after his release after sexually fondling a 13-year-old boy in Milwaukee . He was given five years probation after convincing the judge that he needed therapy.

His father, unable to understand what was happening to his son, continued to stand by him, making certain he had good legal counsel. He also began to accept that there was little he could do to help the demons that seemed to rule Jeffrey Dahmer's behavior. He realized his son was missing a basic human element: a conscience .

Over the years, there was speculation that Jeffrey Dahmer may have been involved in the kidnapping and murder of Adam Walsh , son of TV personality John Walsh.

Murder Spree

In September 1987, while on probation on the molestation charges, Jeffrey Dahmer met 26-year-old Steven Toumi and the two spent the night drinking heavily and cruising gay bars before going to a hotel room. When Dahmer awoke from his drunken stupor, he found Toumi dead.

Dahmer put Toumi's body into a suitcase, which he took to his grandmother's basement. There, he discarded the body in the garbage after dismembering it, but not before gratifying his sexual necrophilia desires.

Unlike most serial killers , who kill then move on to find another victim, Dahmer's fantasies included a series of crimes against the corpses of his victims, or what he referred to as passive sex. This became part of his regular pattern and possibly the one obsession that pushed him to kill.

Killing his victims in his grandmother's basement was becoming increasingly difficult to hide. He was working as a mixer at Ambrosia Chocolate Factory and could afford a small apartment, so in September 1988, he got a one-bedroom apartment on North 24th Street in Milwaukee.

Dahmer's killing spree continued and for most of his victims, the scene was the same. He would meet them at a gay bar or a mall and entice them with free alcohol and money if they agreed to pose for photographs. Once alone, he would drug them, sometimes torture them, and then kill them usually by strangulation. He would then masturbate over the corpse or have sex with the corpse, cut the body up, and get rid of the remains. He also kept parts of the bodies, including the skulls, which he would clean—much like he did with his childhood roadkill collection—and often refrigerated organs , which he would occasionally eat.

Known Victims of Jeffrey Dahmer

• Stephen Hicks, 18: June 1978
• Steven Tuomi, 26: September 1987
• Jamie Doxtator, 14: October 1987
• Richard Guerrero, 25: March 1988
• Anthony Sears, 24: February 1989
• Eddie Smith, 36: June 1990
• Ricky Beeks, 27: July 1990
• Ernest Miller, 22: September 1990
• David Thomas, 23: September 1990
• Curtis Straughter, 16: February 1991
• Errol Lindsey, 19: April 1991
• Tony Hughes, 31: May 24, 1991
• Konerak Sinthasomphone, 14: May 27, 1991
• Matt Turner, 20: June 30, 1991
• Jeremiah Weinberger, 23: July 5, 1991
• Oliver Lacy, 23: July 12, 1991
• Joseph Bradeholt, 25: July 19, 1991

The Jeffrey Dahmer Victim Who Nearly Escaped

Jeffrey Dahmer's murdering activity continued uninterrupted until an incident on May 27, 1991. His 13th victim was 14-year-old Konerak Sinthasomphone, the younger brother of the boy Dahmer was convicted of molesting in 1989.

Early in the morning, the young Sinthasomphone was seen wandering the streets nude and disoriented. When police arrived on the scene there were paramedics, two women who were standing close to the confused Sinthasomphone, and Jeffrey Dahmer. Dahmer told police that Sinthasomphone was his 19-year-old lover who was drunk and the two had quarreled.

The police escorted Dahmer and the boy back to Dahmer's apartment, much against the protest of the women who had witnessed Sinthasomphone fighting off Dahmer before the police arrived.

The police found Dahmer's apartment neat and other than noticing an unpleasant smell, nothing seemed amiss. They left Sinthasomphone under Dahmer's care.

Later, police officers John Balcerzak and Joseph Gabrish joked with their dispatcher about reuniting the lovers. Within hours, Jeffrey Dahmer killed Sinthasomphone and performed his usual ritual on the body.

His Killings Escalate

In June and July 1991, Jeffrey Dahmer's killing escalated to one each week until July 22 when Dahmer was unable to hold captive his 18th victim, Tracy Edwards.

According to Edwards, Dahmer tried to handcuff him and the two struggled. Edwards escaped and was spotted at around midnight by police with the handcuff dangling from his wrist. Assuming he had somehow escaped from the authorities, police stopped him. Edwards immediately told them about his encounter with Dahmer and led them to his apartment.

Dahmer opened his door to the officers and answered their questions calmly. He agreed to turn over the key to unlock Edwards' handcuff and moved to the bedroom to get it. One of the officers went with him and as he glanced around the room, he noticed photographs of what appeared to be parts of bodies and a refrigerator full of human skulls.

The officers decided to place Jeffrey Dahmer under arrest and attempted to handcuff him, but his calm demeanor changed and he began to fight. With Dahmer under control, the police began their initial search of the apartment and quickly discovered skulls and other various body parts, along with an extensive photo collection Dahmer had taken documenting his crimes.

The Crime Scene

Details of what was found in Dahmer's apartment were horrific, matching only to his confessions as to what he did to his victims.

Items found in Jeffrey Dahmer's apartment included:

• A human head and three bags of organs, which included two hearts , were found in the refrigerator.
• Three heads, a torso, and internal organs were inside a free-standing freezer.
• Chemicals, formaldehyde , ether, and chloroform , plus two skulls, two hands, and male genitalia were found in the closet.
• A filing cabinet that contained three painted skulls, a skeleton , a dried scalp, male genitalia, and various photographs of his victims.
• A box with two skulls inside.
• A 57-gallon vat filled with acid and three torsos.
• Victims' identification.
• Bleach used to bleach the skulls and bones.
• Incense sticks. Neighbors often complained to Dahmer about the smell coming from his apartment.
• Tools: Clawhammer, handsaw, 3/8" drill, 1/16" drill, drill bits.
• A hypodermic needle .
• Various videos, some pornographic.
• Blood-soaked mattress and blood splatters.
• King James Bible .

The Jeffrey Dahmer Trial

Jeffrey Dahmer was indicted on 17 murder charges, which were later reduced to 15. He pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. Much of the testimony was based on Dahmer's 160-page confession and from various witnesses who testified that Dahmer's necrophilia urges were so strong that he was not in control of his actions. The defense sought to prove he was in control and capable of planning, manipulating, and covering up his crimes.

The jury deliberated for five hours and returned a verdict of guilty on 15 counts of murder. Dahmer was sentenced to 15 life terms, a total of 937 years in prison. At his sentencing, Dahmer calmly read his four-page statement to the court .

Jeffrey Dahmer apologized for his crimes and ended with:

"I hated no one. I knew I was sick or evil or both. Now I believe I was sick. The doctors have told me about my sickness, and now I have some peace. I know how much harm I have caused...Thank God there will be no more harm that I can do. I believe that only the Lord Jesus Christ can save me from my sins...I ask for no consideration."

Life Sentence

Dahmer was sent to the Columbia Correctional Institute in Portage, Wisconsin. At first, he was separated from the general prison population for his safety. But by all reports, he was considered a model prisoner who had adjusted well to prison life and was a self-proclaimed born-again Christian. Gradually, he was permitted to have some contact with other inmates.

Jeffrey Dahmer Death

On November 28, 1994, Dahmer and inmate Jesse Anderson were beaten to death by fellow inmate Christopher Scarver while on work detail in the prison gym. Anderson was in prison for killing his wife and Scarver was a schizophrenic convicted of first-degree murder . For reasons unknown, the guards left the three prisoners alone for 20 minutes. They returned to find Anderson dead and Dahmer dying from severe head trauma . Dahmer died in the ambulance before reaching the hospital.

In Dahmer's will, he requested upon his death that his body be cremated as soon as possible, but some medical researchers wanted his brain preserved so it could be studied. Lionel Dahmer wanted to respect his son's wishes and cremate all remains of his son. His mother felt his brain should go to research. The two parents went to court and a judge sided with Lionel. After more than a year, Dahmer's body was released from being held as evidence and his remains were cremated.

• “ Jeffrey Dahmer .”  Biography.com , A&E Networks Television, 18 Jan. 2019.
• “ Jeffrey Dahmer | Crime Library | Serial Killers .”  Crime Museum .
• Jenkins, John Philip. “ Jeffrey Dahmer .”  Encyclopædia Britannica , 11 Feb. 2019.
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Jeffrey Dahmer

By most accounts Dahmer had a normal childhood; however he became withdrawn and uncommunicative as he got older. He began showing little to no interest in hobbies or social interaction as he entered adolescence, turning instead to examining animal carcasses and heavy drinking for entertainment. His drinking continued throughout high school but did not stop him from graduating in 1978. It was just three weeks later that the 18-year-old committed his first murder. Due to his parents’ unfolding divorce that summer, Jeffrey was left in the family home alone. He seized the opportunity to act on the dark thoughts that had been growing in his mind. He picked up a hitchhiker named Steven Hicks and offered to take him back to his father’s house to drink beer. But when Hicks decided to leave, Dahmer hit him in the back of the head with a 10 lb. dumbbell. Dahmer then dissected, dissolved, pulverized, and scattered the now imperceptible remains throughout his back yard, and later admitted to killing him simply because he wanted Hicks to stay. Nine years would pass before he killed again.

Dahmer attended college that fall but dropped out due to his alcoholism. After that his father forced him to enlist in the army, where he served as a combat medic in Germany from 1979 to 1981. However, he never kicked the habit and was discharged that spring, moving back home to Ohio. After his drinking continued to cause problems, his father sent him to live with his grandmother in West Allis, Wisconsin. By 1985 he was frequenting gay bathhouses, where he would drug men and rape them as they lay unconscious. Although he was arrested twice for incidents of indecent exposure in 1982 and 1986, he only faced probation and was not charged for the rapes.

Steven Tuomi was his second victim, killed in September of 1987. Dahmer picked him up from a bar and took him back to a hotel room, where he woke up the next morning to Tuomi’s beaten dead body. He later stated that he had no memory of actually murdering Tuomi, implying that he had committed the crime on some sort of blacked out impulse. The killings occurred sporadically after Tuomi, with two victims in 1988, one in 1989, and four in 1990. He continued to lure unsuspecting men from bars or solicited prostitutes, whom he then drugged, raped, and strangled. At this point though, Dahmer also began carrying out particularly disturbing acts with their corpses, continuing to use the bodies for intercourse, taking photographs of the dismemberment process, preserving with scientific precision his victims’ skulls and genitals for display, and even retaining parts for consumption.

During this period, Dahmer was arrested for an incident at his job at the Ambrosia Chocolate Factory, where he drugged and sexually fondled a 13-year-old boy. For this he was given a sentence of five years’ probation, one year at a work release camp, and was required to register as a sex offender. He was released two months early from the work program and subsequently moved into a Milwaukee apartment in May of 1990. There, despite regular appointments with his probation officer, he would remain free to commit four murders that year and eight more in 1991.

Dahmer began killing around one person each week by the summer of 1991. He became infatuated with the idea that he could turn his victims into “zombies” to act as youthful and submissive sexual partners. He used many different techniques, such as drilling holes into their skull and injecting hydrochloric acid or boiling water into their brains. Soon, neighbors began to complain about strange noises and awful smells coming from Dahmer’s apartment. On one occasion, a lobotomized victim left unattended even made it out onto the street to ask several bystanders for help. When Dahmer returned, however, he successfully convinced the police that the irrational young man was simply his extremely intoxicated boyfriend. The officers failed to run a background check that would have revealed Dahmer’s sex offender status, allowing him to narrowly escape his fate for a little while longer.

On July 22, 1991, Dahmer lured Tracy Edwards into his home with the promise of cash in exchange for his company. While inside, Edwards was then forced into the bedroom by Dahmer with a butcher knife. During the struggle, Edwards was able to get free and escape out into the streets where he flagged down a police car. When the police arrived at Dahmer’s apartment, Edwards alerted them to the knife that was in the bedroom. Upon entering the bedroom, the officers found the pictures of dead bodies and dismembered limbs that allowed them to finally place Dahmer under arrest. Further investigation of the home led them to find a severed head in the refrigerator, three more severed heads throughout the apartment, multiple photographs of the victims, and more human remains in his refrigerator. A total of seven skulls were found in his apartment as well as a human heart in the freezer. An altar was also constructed with candles and human skulls in his closet. After being taken into custody, Dahmer confessed and began divulging the gruesome details of his crimes to the authorities.

Dahmer was indicted on 15 murder charges and the trial began on January 30, 1992. Even though the evidence against him was overwhelming, Dahmer pled insanity as his defense due to the nature of his incredibly disturbing and uncontrollable impulses. Following two weeks of trial, the court declared him sane and guilty on 15 counts of murder. He was sentenced to 15 life terms, for a total of 957 years in prison. In May of the same year, he entered a guilty plea for the murder of his first victim, Stephen Hicks, and received an additional life sentence.

Dahmer served his time at the Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage, Wisconsin. During his time in prison, Dahmer expressed remorse for his actions and wished for his own death. He also read the Bible and declared himself a born-again Christian, ready for his final judgment. He was attacked twice by fellow inmates, with the first attempt to slice his neck open leaving him with only superficial wounds. However, he was attacked a second time on November 28, 1994, by an inmate as they cleaned one of the prison showers. Dahmer was found still alive, but died on the way to the hospital from severe head trauma.

Additional information : Oxygen’s Dahmer on Dahmer: A Serial Killer Speaks

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Who Is Jeffrey Dahmer? Inside The Crimes Of The ‘Milwaukee Cannibal’

Serial killer jeffrey dahmer murdered 17 boys and men between 1978 and his capture in 1991 — then fellow inmate christopher scarver beat him to death in 1994..

Curt Borgwardt/Sygma/Sygma via Getty Images “Milwaukee Monster” Jeffrey Dahmer killed 17 victims and ate many of them before he was murdered in prison by a fellow inmate in 1994.

Of all the many serial killers who haunt the darkest corners of American history, Jeffrey Dahmer may remain the most terrifying to this day. Between 1978 and 1991, he not only viciously murdered 17 young men and boys in and around his native Milwaukee, but also dismembered and cannibalized some of them. So, who could be capable of such a thing — who is Jeffrey Dahmer, really?

After Dahmer’s arrest in 1991, when his crimes came to light, many asked that same question. How did a quiet boy from Wisconsin develop such an appetite for murder? Why did he kill? And what drove him to eat his victims?

From the story of his first victim to the account of his own brutal murder in 1994, this is the story of Jeffrey Dahmer, who he really was, and why he did what he did.

Who Is Jeffrey Dahmer?

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Born on May 21, 1960, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer was an American serial killer who operated between 1978 and 1991. Dubbed the “Milwaukee Monster,” he murdered at least 17 boys and young men between the ages of 14 and 32, some of whom he met at nightclubs or bars.

After his arrest in 1991, Dahmer was found guilty of multiple murders and sentenced to life in prison. However, he was killed by a fellow inmate in 1994. After graduating high school there and serving in a number of locations during a brief stint in the military, Dahmer lived with his grandmother in West Allis, Wisconsin.

He committed many of his crimes in her home and at various locations around Milwaukee, where he prowled for victims. After getting out of prison in 1990, he moved into his own apartment at 924 North 25th Street in Milwaukee, where he perpetrated one of his worst crimes and where he was finally arrested in 1991.

After spending their earliest years in Milwaukee, the Dahmer family moved to Doylestown, Ohio in 1966, when Jeffrey was six, then moved to nearby Bath Township shortly after.

Most accounts state that Dahmer only killed one animal — a tadpole he’d given to a grade-school teacher, who then gave it to a different student. AETV reports that Dahmer was so enraged about the regifting that he went to the other child’s house, poured gasoline on the tadpole, and lit it on fire.

Wikimedia Commons Jeffrey Dahmer as a teen, when he repeatedly mutilated animal remains.

That said, Dahmer did have a fascination with animals that were already dead. AETV additionally reports that he and his father used bleach to remove hair and tissue from dead rodents they found near their house. In addition, Dahmer once impaled the carcass of a dog he found and showed his friends the grisly sight, but the animal was already dead by that point.

The serial killer’s father, Lionel Dahmer , spent much of his son’s childhood pursuing his doctorate, which meant that he was often busy and away from home. He later established a career as a research chemist.

Lionel Dahmer supported his son, even after learning about his murders.

“We’ve gotten very close since his… arrest,” he told Oprah Winfrey in 1994. “I still love my son. I’ll always stick by him — I always have.”

Steve Kagan/Getty Images Lionel Dahmer outside Wisconsin’s Columbia Correctional Institution, where his son was imprisoned.

He wondered — like many others — why Dahmer had become a killer.

“I considered all kinds of things,” Lionel explained. “Was it environmental, genetic? Was it, perhaps, medications that were taken at the time of — you know, in [his mother’s] first trimester? Was it the effect of, you know, the popular subject now, media violence?”

His son’s death in 1994 “gravely” impacted him, but Lionel also said that he’d never thought about changing his last name.

Jeffrey Dahmer’s grandmother, Catherine, died on December 25, 1992, at age 88. But she played an important role in her grandson’s early life.

Dahmer lived at her Wisconsin home on and off in the 1980s. During that time, Dahmer dismembered one of his victims in her basement — who he’d killed elsewhere — and murdered three more beneath her feet.

No, Jeffrey Dahmer did not kill his brother, David Dahmer . But the two siblings did have a very complicated relationship.

More than six years younger than Jeffrey, David was often the subject of his brother’s jealousy and resentment. Jeffrey allegedly felt that his brother had “stolen away” some of his parents’ love and affection.

Facebook An undated family photo featuring David Dahmer (left), Lionel, and Jeffrey.

And unlike their father, David wanted nothing to do with the Dahmer name once Jeffrey’s crimes came to light. After graduating from college, he changed his name. Since then, he’s avoided the spotlight.

As of December 2023, both of Jeffrey Dahmer’s parents are deceased. Lionel Dahmer died that month of a heart attack at age 87 in a hospice in Medina, Ohio, whereas Jeffrey Dahmer’s mother, Joyce Dahmer , died in 2000.

Joyce Dahmer died of breast cancer. She was 64 years old.

Joyce Flint Jeffrey Dahmer’s mother Joyce Dahmer along with Jeffrey (left) and her other son, David.

Military.com reports that Jeffrey Dahmer served in the U.S. Army between January 1979 and March 1981, during which time he trained in Texas and was stationed as a combat medic in West Germany.

Though he was considered an “average or slightly above average” soldier, Dahmer had a noticeable drinking problem that got worse as time went on. In 1981, he received an honorable discharge because his superiors decided that his drinking negatively impacted his ability to serve.

While he was stationed in Europe, Dahmer also reportedly indulged in some of his violent sexual fantasies. He allegedly raped two of his fellow soldiers, Billy Joe Capshaw and Preston Davis.

Yes, Jeffrey Dahmer was gay. Dahmer described himself as gay to a judge in 1989 (when he was found guilty of sexual assault and enticing a child for immoral purposes). Dahmer and his mother also had conversations about his “gayness.” In addition, he told a probation officer in 1991 that he’d “admitted to [him]self he is gay.”

That said, it doesn’t appear that Dahmer ever had a serious relationship. Indeed, he expressed loneliness as one of his motivations to kill.

In June 1978, Dahmer murdered his first victim, 18-year-old Steven Hicks. He picked up Hicks while the teen was hitchhiking to a rock concert, and took him back to the Dahmer family home in Bath Township, Ohio.

Twitter Dahmer’s first victim, Steven Hicks, was just 18 when he was murdered.

But when Hicks tried to leave, Dahmer beat him with a barbell and strangled him. He later said that Hicks’ murder “was not planned,” though he admitted that he’d had fantasies of picking up a hitchhiker and “controlling” him.

Steven Hicks was the first, but far from the last, of Jeffrey Dahmer’s victims . Dahmer would kill 16 more, bringing his total victim count up to 17. The youngest, Konerak Sinthasomphone , was just 14 years old.

Aside from Steven Hicks, who Dahmer killed in Ohio, most of the serial killer’s victims were murdered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Dahmer killed 12 of his 17 victims at his apartment at 924 North 25th Street in Milwaukee.

Milwaukee Police Department Jeffrey Dahmer’s bedroom inside his Milwaukee apartment, where untold horrors took place.

Jeffrey Dahmer did not kill only Black men, though many of his victims were racial and ethnic minorities. Eleven of Dahmer’s victims were Black, and others were white, Indigenous, Asian, and Latino.

One opinion piece in The Washington Post argues that Dahmer was able to get away with his gruesome crimes for so long because of his tendency to prey on men and boys in minority communities.

Yes, he did kill a deaf man, and his name was Tony Hughes. Dahmer met the 31-year-old at a Milwaukee gay bar and invited him back to his apartment. There, Dahmer drugged and strangled him.

No. All of Jeffrey Dahmer’s known victims were male.

Yes, Jeffrey Dahmer was a cannibal who ate some of his victims. Why? He later told Inside Edition that his habit of eating victims started in 1990.

“I was branching out, that’s when the cannibalism started,” Dahmer explained. “The eating of the heart and the arm muscle. It was a way of making me feel that [my victims] were a part of me.”

He added: “I had these obsessive desires and thoughts about wanting to control them, to, I don’t know how to put it, possess them permanently. Not because I was angry with them, not because I hated them, but because I wanted to keep them with me. As my obsession grew, I was saving body parts such as skulls and skeletons.”

It’s unknown exactly how many victims Dahmer cannibalized.

Curt Borgwardt/Sygma/Getty Images Jeffrey Dahmer’s murders came to an end after his capture by police in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on July 23, 1991.

Jeffrey Dahmer was arrested on July 22, 1991, after his would-be victim Tracy Edwards managed to escape from his apartment and flag down the police. Edwards explained that he’d agreed to pose nude for Dahmer for money, but Dahmer had handcuffed him and threatened him with a knife instead.

“Dahmer told me that he would kill me,” Edwards later said of the harrowing encounter, according to PEOPLE . “He was listening to my heart because at a point, he told me he was going to eat my heart.”

Jeffrey Dahmer went to prison after his arrest in 1991. He was 31 years old.

Curt Borgwardt/Sygma/Sygma via Getty Images Jeffrey Dahmer was sentenced to life in prison for his crimes.

No, the serial killer did not get the death sentence, because it’s not available in Wisconsin. After being convicted of multiple homicides, he was handed 15 life sentences, ensuring he’d never see the light of day again.

No. Jeffrey Dahmer died on November 28, 1994, during his imprisonment at the Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage, Wisconsin.

Jeffrey Dahmer was beaten to death near a locker room in the prison by a fellow inmate, who used a 20-inch metal bar as the murder weapon.

Wikimedia Commons Christopher Scarver’s mugshot, taken in 1992.

Jeffrey Dahmer was killed by a fellow prisoner named Christopher Scarver . Scarver claimed that Dahmer would taunt the other prisoners by using ketchup to recreate severed limbs with his food. In Scarver’s telling, things came to a head when they were both assigned to clean a prison gymnasium. Near a locker room, Scarver confronted Dahmer about his crimes.

“I asked him if he did those things ’cause I was fiercely disgusted,” Scarver later claimed. “He was shocked. Yes, he was… He started looking for the door pretty quick. I blocked him.”

Scarver then fatally beat Dahmer — and another inmate named Jesse Anderson who was cleaning the gymnasium. He later said that God told him to kill Dahmer. “Some people who are in prison are repentant,” he said. “[B]ut he was not one of them.”

YouTube The glasses that Dahmer wore in prison went up for sale for $150,000 in 2022.

Dahmer was known for wearing glasses, so what became of them? Apparently, he’d left his last pair in his prison cell before Scarver murdered him. Dahmer’s glasses were in his family’s possession until a housekeeper sold them to a “murderabilia” site called Cult Collectibles.

After reading these disturbing facts about Jeffrey Dahmer, discover the true story behind serial killer Ted Bundy . Then, look through these chilling images from serial killers’ homes .

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This Day In History : November 28

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Jeffrey Dahmer murdered in prison

Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, serving 15 consecutive life sentences for the brutal murders of 15 men, is beaten to death by a fellow inmate while performing cleaning duty in a bathroom at the Columbia Correctional Institute gymnasium in Portage, Wisconsin.

During a 13-year period, Dahmer, who lived primarily in the Midwest, murdered at least 17 men. Most of these men were young, gay African Americans who Dahmer lured back to his home, promising to pay them money to pose nude for photographs. Dahmer would then drug and strangle them to death, generally mutilating, and occasionally cannibalizing, their bodies. Dahmer was finally arrested on July 22, 1991, and entered a plea of guilty but insane in 15 of the 17 murders he confessed to committing. In February 1992, the jury found him sane in each murder, and he was sentenced to 15 consecutive life sentences.

Two years later, Dahmer was killed at the age of 34 by fellow inmate Christopher Scarver, who also fatally beat the third man on their work detail, inmate Jesse Anderson. Scarver’s motive in killing the two men is not entirely clear; however, in his subsequent criminal trial he maintained that God told him to kill Dahmer and the other inmate. Scarver, already serving a life term for murder, was sentenced to additional life terms and transferred to a federal prison.

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Jeffrey Dahmer Biography: The Cannibal Killer

Undoubtedly one of modern history’s most notorious and abhorrent killers — his crimes are the stuff of nightmares. Over the course of 13 years, he prowled for men and lured them back to his house before drugging and strangling them. In all he took the lives of 17 men between 1978 and 1991. But simply killing his victims wasn’t enough for Jeffrey Dahmer. He never wanted them to leave him so he saved “trophies” — including severed heads. Eventually, he ate parts of his victims.

Dahmer was captured in 1991 and sentenced to 16 life terms. He was killed by fellow prison inmate Christopher Scarver in 1994. Today let’s take a look back on the serial killer’s life.

Jeffrey Dahmer was born on May 21, 1960 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to Lionel and Joyce Dahmer. He was described by his mother as a beautiful baby, and both parents considered him to be a normal child. His teachers saw him differently. At least one — his first grade teacher — wondered if Jeffrey was neglected at home and noted he was a reserved child on his report card. It’s true, both of Jeffrey’s parents didn’t spend a lot of time with him. When Jeffrey was young, his father was in college earning his chemistry degree and Jeffrey’s mother was often bedridden recovering from illnesses. Jeffrey’s parents had a tumultuous marriage that he later described as “extreme tension” from the constant arguing at home. Yet, there was no doubt Lionel and Joyce Dahmer loved their son and tried to do the best for him. When he was six years old, worried Jeffrey might not take well to a new baby brother, they let him pick out his name. Jeffrey named his younger brother David. The Dahmer family moved a few times before eventually settling in Bath, Ohio in 1968.

If there were any red flags that indicated future violence in the young Jeffrey, it was his fascination with animal bones and how they “fit together.” The interest in carcasses began when he was four years old. One day, Jeffrey was helping his father clear animal remains from under the house and Jeffrey was “oddly thrilled” by the sound of the bones dropping into the metal bucket. He later started collecting them; searching in ditches and along streets for roadkill. He began dismembering the bodies behind the house in a patch of wooded area and stored the various body parts in jars in the family’s woodshed. On one occasion, Jeffrey decapitated the corpse of a dog before nailing the body to a tree. When he was ten years old, over dinner, Jeffrey asked his father what would happen if chicken bones were placed in bleach. Lionel, a chemist, interpreted his son’s question as mere scientific curiosity and he took the opportunity to teach his son about the proper way to clean and preserve his collections.

Jeffrey later admitted at the age of 14 he began experiencing sexual “compulsions.” He desired boys, not girls, and the sexual fantasies involved submission, violence, and death.

He began drinking as a teenager to suppress his urges and didn’t talk to anyone about the disturbing thoughts he was having. At the age of 16, he fantasized about raping a jogger he saw regularly and planned to attack the man. One day Jeffrey lay in wait with a baseball bat in the bushes along the man’s regular route. The man didn’t come by that day, and Jeffrey never attempted to carry it out again.

At Revere High School, most of his classmates thought of Dahmer as an outcast with a few friends; some were troubled by his heavy drinking. He drank both beer and liquor while at school by smuggling it inside the lining of his army fatigue jacket. His grades were average and then took a dive as his drinking spun out of control in 1977. He played clarinet briefly in band, and was a decent tennis player. Overall, his teachers observed Jeffrey as polite and quiet. Although he was awkward, he regularly amused his classmates by staging pranks such as acting out seizures, knocking over items, and making loud, obnoxious noises. The pranks were so popular, similar behavior was referred to as “doing a Dahmer.”

By the end of his high school, Dahmer’s parents’ troubled marriage finally came to an end after an unsuccessful attempt at counseling. In early 1978, Lionel moved out of the house. Dahmer graduated in May the same year.

A few weeks after graduation, Dahmer committed his first murder when he picked up a hitchhiker. Eighteen-year-old Steven Mark Hicks was on his way to a rock concert when Dahmer lured him back to his house to hang out and drink a few beers before the show. By now, Dahmer lived alone at his parents’ house — his mother had moved out with younger brother David while his father took up residence at a local motel. Hicks and Dahmer spent a few hours together listening to music and drinking. When Hicks was ready to leave, Dahmer didn’t want him too, so he struck him in the head with a 10 lb. dumbbell and strangled him to death while Hicks was unconscious. He then masturbated over his body, moved him to the crawl space under the house and dissected his body before burying it in a shallow grave. Several weeks later, Dahmer unearthed Hicks’ body, pared the flesh from the bones and dissolved it in acid. He crushed Hicks’ bones with a sledgehammer and scattered them all in the woodlot behind the house.

A short time later, Dahmer’s father visited his son and learned he was living alone. He moved back in the house and convinced Dahmer to enroll in college. Dahmer spent three months at Ohio State University before dropping out. In early 1979, at the urging of his father, he joined the U.S. Army. Dahmer served as a combat medic in Germany but his performance deteriorated due to his drinking. He was honorably discharged in March of 1981. At least two soldiers later attested Dahmer raped them while in the service — one repeatedly over the course of 17 months and the other once after Dahmer drugged him.

Killing Spree

“The only motive that there ever was was to completely control a person; a person I found physically attractive. And keep them with me as long as possible, even if it meant just keeping a part of them.”

Following his discharge, Dahmer returned home to Ohio but stayed only a brief time. He was arrested for disorderly conduct which prompted his father to arrange for Dahmer to live with his grandmother in Wisconsin. His alcoholism continued and he was arrested for indecent exposure. He was arrested again in 1986 when two boys accused him of masturbating in front of them.

In September of 1987, Dahmer took his second victim, Steven Tuomi. According to Dahmer, he has no memory of killing Tuomi — they had checked into a hotel room together and drank heavily…when Dahmer woke in the morning he discovered Tuomi’s dead body, with blood on his hands. Dahmer bought a large suitcase to transport Tuomi’s remains to his grandmother’s basement, where he dismembered and masturbated on the corpse before disposing of the remains. Only after Dahmer killed another two victims at his grandmother’s home did she tire of her grandson’s late nights and drunkenness — although she had no knowledge of his other activities — and she forced him to move out of the premises in 1988.

“It’s hard for me to believe that a human being could have done what I’ve done, but I know that I did it.”

That September 1989, Dahmer had an extremely lucky escape: An encounter with a 13-year-old Laotian boy resulted in charges of sexual exploitation and second-degree sexual assault for Dahmer. He pleaded guilty, claiming that the boy had appeared much older. While awaiting sentencing for his sexual assault case, Dahmer again put his grandmother’s basement to gruesome use: In March 1989, he lured, drugged, strangled, sodomized, photographed, dismembered and disposed of Anthony Sears, an aspiring model.

At his trial for child molestation in May 1989, Dahmer was the model of contrition, arguing eloquently, in his own defense, about how he had seen the error of his ways, and that his arrest marked a turning point in his life. His defense counsel argued that he needed treatment, not incarceration, and the judge agreed, handing down a one-year prison sentence on “day release” — allowing Dahmer to work at his job during the day and return to the prison at night — as well as a five-year probationary sentence.

Years later, in an interview with CNN, Lionel Dahmer stated that he wrote a letter to the court that issued the sentence, requesting psychological help before his son’s parole. However, Jeffrey Dahmer was granted an early release by the judge, after serving only 10 months of his sentence. He briefly lived with his grandmother following his release, during which time he does not appear to have added to his body count, before moving back into his own apartment.

Over the following two years, Dahmer’s victim count accelerated, bringing his total from four to 17. He developed rituals as he progressed, experimenting with chemical means of disposal and often consuming the flesh of his victims. Dahmer also attempted crude lobotomies, drilling into victims’ skulls while they were still alive and injecting them with muriatic acid. He was careful to select victims on the fringes of society, who were often itinerant or borderline criminal, making their disappearances less noticeable and reducing the likelihood of his capture. As the murders piled up, Dahmer was still unsatisfied, he said later:

“I was completely swept along with my own compulsion. I don’t know how else to put it. It didn’t satisfy me completely, so maybe I was thinking, ‘Maybe another one will. Maybe this one will.’ And the numbers started growing and growing and just got out of control, as you can see.”

On May 27, 1991, Dahmer’s neighbor Sandra Smith called the police to report that an Asian boy was running naked in the street. When the police arrived, the boy was incoherent, and they accepted the word of Dahmer — a white man in a largely poor African-American community — that the boy was his 19-year-old lover. In fact, the boy was 14 years old and a brother of the Laotian teen Dahmer had molested three years earlier.

The police escorted Dahmer and the boy home and, clearly not wishing to become embroiled in a homosexual domestic disturbance, took only a cursory look around before leaving. Once the police left the scene, Dahmer killed the boy and proceeded with his usual rituals. Had they conducted even a basic search, police officers would have found the body of Dahmer’s 12th victim, Tony Hughes. Before he was finally arrested, on July 22, 1991, he killed four more men.

The Crime Scene

Dahmer’s killing spree ended when he was arrested on July 22, 1991. That day, two Milwaukee police officers picked up Tracy Edwards, a 32-year-old African American man who was wandering the streets with a handcuff dangling from his wrist. They decided to investigate the man’s claims that a “weird dude” had drugged and restrained him. They arrived at Dahmer’s apartment, where he calmly offered to get the keys for the handcuffs.

Edwards claimed that the knife Dahmer had threatened him with was in the bedroom. When the officer went in to corroborate the story, he noticed Polaroid photographs of dismembered bodies lying around. Dahmer was subdued by the officers. Subsequent searches revealed a head in the refrigerator, three more in the freezer and a catalog of other horrors, including preserved skulls, jars containing genitalia and an extensive gallery of macabre Polaroid photographs of his victims.

Dahmer’s refrigerator and Polaroid photographs became inextricably associated with his notorious killing spree.

In 1996, following Dahmer’s death, a group of Milwaukee businessmen raised more than $400,000 to purchase the items he used for his victims — including blades, saws, handcuffs and a refrigerator to store body parts. They promptly destroyed them in an effort to distance the city from the horrors of Dahmer’s actions and the ensuing media circus surrounding his trial.

Trial and Imprisonment

Jeffrey Dahmer’s trial began in January 1992. Given that the majority of Dahmer’s victims were African American, there were considerable racial tensions and so strict security precautions were taken, including an eight-foot barrier of bulletproof glass that separated him from the gallery. The inclusion of only one African American on the jury provoked further unrest, but was ultimately contained and short lived. Lionel Dahmer and his second wife attended the trial throughout.

Dahmer initially pleaded not guilty to all charges, despite having confessed to the killings during police interrogation, but he eventually changed his plea to guilty by virtue of insanity. His defense then offered the gruesome details of his behavior, as proof that only someone insane could commit such terrible acts. Dahmer later said in an interview, “It’s hard for me to believe that a human being could have done what I’ve done, but I know that I did it.”

The jury chose to believe the prosecution’s assertion that Dahmer was fully aware that his acts were evil and chose to commit them anyway. On February 15, 1992, they returned after approximately 10 hours’ deliberation to find him guilty, but sane, on all counts. He was sentenced to 15 consecutive life terms in prison, with a 16th term tacked on in May.

“It is now over. This has never been a case of trying to get free. I didn’t ever want freedom. Frankly, I wanted death for myself. This was a case to tell the world that I did what I did, but not for reasons of hate. I hated no one. I knew I was sick or evil or both. Now I believe I was sick. The doctors have told me about my sickness, and now I have some peace. I know how much harm I have caused… Thank God there will be no more harm that I can do. I believe that only the Lord Jesus Christ can save me from my sins… I ask for no consideration.”

Dahmer reportedly adjusted well to prison life, although he was initially kept apart from the general population. He eventually convinced authorities to allow him to integrate more fully with other inmates. He found religion in the form of books and photos sent to him by his father, and he was granted permission by the Columbia Correctional Institution to be baptized by a local pastor.

On November 28, 1994, in accordance with his inclusion in regular work details, Dahmer was assigned to work with two other convicted murderers, Jesse Anderson and Christopher Scarver. After they had been left alone to complete their tasks, guards returned to find that Scarver had brutally beaten both men with a metal bar from the prison weight room. Dahmer was pronounced dead after approximately one hour. Anderson succumbed to his injuries days later.

In 2015, Christopher Scarver spoke to the New York Post about his reasons for killing Dahmer. Scarver alleged that he was disturbed not only by Dahmer’s crimes, but by a habit Dahmer had developed of fashioning severed limbs from prison food to antagonize other inmates. After being taunted by Dahmer and Anderson during their work detail, Scarver said that he confronted Dahmer about his crimes before beating the two men to death. He also claimed that prison guards allowed the murders to happen.

In Dahmer’s will, he had requested upon his death that his body be cremated as soon as possible, but some medical researchers wanted his brain preserved so it could be studied. Lionel Dahmer wanted to respect his son’s wishes and cremate all remains of his son. His mother felt his brain should go to research. The two parents went to court and a judge sided with Lionel. After over a year Dahmer’s body was released from being held as evidence and the remains were cremated as he had requested.

In August 2012, nearly two decades after his death, it was reported his childhood home in Bath, Ohio — where he committed his first murder in 1978, and buried his victim’s remains — was on the market. Its owner, musician Chris Butler, stated that the property would make a great home, as long as the buyer could “get past the horror factor.”

In March 2016, Butler put the house up for rent for $8,000 for the week of the Republican National Convention. As of July 2017, the house was no longer listed on the market, according to Zillow.com.

Jeffrey Dahmer Video Biography

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Jeffrey Dahmer (Serial Killer Biography)

Even if you are not into true crime, you probably know the names of a few serial killers like Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer. These serial killers, particularly Jeffrey Dahmer, have been the center of television shows, documentaries, and even the lyrics in pop songs. 

Why does his name and story pop up everywhere? It’s not because he killed the most people out of any serial killer or is the “first” serial killer.

Who Was Jeffrey Dahmer? 

Jeffrey Dahmer killed 17 people between 1978 and 1991. But he didn’t just kill them. After they were dead, Dahmer dismembered and even ate the bodies. What’s more, Dahmer was a timid man who didn’t endure the abuse or trauma that other serial killers may use as an “excuse” for their crimes. 

In interviews, Jeffrey Dahmer gave clear, straightforward answers about his horrific crimes, in some cases admitting his wrongdoing. The story of Jeffrey Dahmer is a wild ride, and it’s more squeamish than many stories of serial killers. Get ready to hear the real story of one of the most infamous serial killers and cannibals of all time. 

When Was Jeffrey Dahmer Born?

Jeffrey Dahmer was born on May 21, 1960 in Wisconsin. His parents lived comfortably. While most serial killers have a record of surviving abuse or other traumatic experiences, there’s not much to say about Dahmer’s childhood that could point to his later crimes. Dahmer claimed that he was never abused or molested throughout his lifetime. Although his mother suffered from mental illness and likely took prescription medication that affected Dahmer’s development, all appeared normal throughout his early life. 

Jeffrey Dahmer Childhood

Jeffrey Dahmer was a shy child, but his interest in taxidermy and dead animals may have pointed to his later crimes. Violence against animals, setting fires, and persistent bed-wetting are all common signs among serial killers. Other strange behaviors in his teenage years, including drinking alcohol in class, pointed to issues, but they were largely ignored by friends, classmates, and family. At age 17, his parents divorced and his mother left his father and Jeffrey while taking his younger brother with him. 

Jeffrey Dahmer's First Kill 

Inside, Dahmer started to have fantasies that involved sexual control and dominance. Not knowing how to act on these desires, he began to use violence. At age 18, Dahmer picked up a hitchhiker who was on his way to a rock concert. The two spent some time at Dahmer’s house - when the hitchhiker wanted to leave, Dahmer killed him. 

After Dahmer dismembered the body, he put the hitchhiker into a garbage bag and drove to take him to a dumpster. Along the way, he was stopped by police - but he was let go. He scattered the bones of his first victim in the woods near his home. 

By this time, Dahmer’s father and stepmother noticed that he was acting out. They unsuccessfully tried to enroll him in college, took him to psychiatrists, and eventually encouraged him to join the military. During this time, Dahmer didn’t commit any homicides, although multiple roommates claimed that he drugged, sexually assaulted, and tortured them. He was discharged from the army due to excessive drinking, and ended up moving in with his grandmother. 

Jeffrey Dahmer's Victims

During this time, Dahmer tried various methods to suppress his urges and bizarre fantasies. He kept a mannequin in his bed, exposed himself to women and children, and started drugging men at bath houses throughout the Chicago and Milwaukee area. After giving one of the men too much of the drugs that he used, he was banned from the bath houses. 

Around this time, Dahmer got a job at a chocolate factory. 

Shortly after, he brought a man to a hotel and drugged him. The next morning, the man was dead, beaten to death by Dahmer. He claimed he had no recollection of killing the man, and hadn’t planned on killing him when the man was brought home. From then on, he started going on a wild killing spree that would later label him a “serial killer.”

He took two victims in 1988. During this year, he also moved out of his grandmother’s house. His family members were disturbed by some of the smells coming from the basement, but assumed it had to do with Jeffrey’s old habit of experimenting with roadkill. They didn’t suspect that he was actually disposing of multiple bodies. 

After sexually assaulting a 13-year old boy in 1989, Dahmer was arrested and convicted of second-degree sexual assault. Due to delays in his sentencing, Dahmer was sent to live at his grandmother’s home for a period of months. During that time, he took another victim. The victim’s head and genitals were preserved after Dahmer disposed of the body. Shortly after, he was sentenced to five years’ probation. His sentencing included work release and mandatory time in counseling due to his remorse in front of the judge.

In 1990, Dahmer moved into an apartment and killed an additional four men. All of these men had come to Dahmer’s home voluntarily, and didn’t anticipate the violence that would take place when they arrived. He had already developed a ritual where he would watch “The Exorcist” before killing his victims.” During this year, he started to change the way he treated his victims after he killed them. He photographed their bodies, storing their bones in a filing cabinet and other parts of the body in a freezer. If not stored, the body parts were placed in vats of acid. 

Dahmer planned to build a “memorial” to these victims in the form of an altar. Sketches of this altar showed his desire to paint their skeletons and lay out their skulls on the altar. This bizarre “connection” to his victims grew into even more sickening rituals as he began to cook and eat the remains of his victims. Dahmer would go so far as to look at pictures of his victims while he ate their bodies. 

Dahmer killed one more person in 1991 before he tried something new with his victims. With his next two victims, he attempted to make them “zombies,” somewhere between life and death. He did this to try and fulfill a sexual fantasy about having sex with a zombie. Both times, he failed and the victims died.  

When Was Jeffrey Dahmer Caught? 

In May 1991, he tried again. He attempted to drill a hole into the head of a 14-year-old boy. Dahmer didn’t know that this boy was actually the younger brother of a boy Dahmer had molested a few years earlier. But when Dahmer left his apartment to go buy beer, the boy escaped. An eyewitness called the police, who came to Dahmer’s home. Dahmer wasn’t fazed by the close encounter and told the police that the two were engaging in consensual, sexual activities. 

The police left the 14-year-old child with Dahmer in his apartment. They failed to look around and see that Dahmer’s previous victim was in the next room where they discussed Dahmer’s supposed relationship with the teenager. When neighbors inquired as to the age of the child and whether or not he was actually safe with Dahmer, police assured them that everything was “taken care of.” The day after this encounter, Dahmer killed the 14-year-old boy. Over the next two months, he killed another three victims. 

At this point, neighbors contacted their landlord to report on a foul smell coming from Dahmer’s apartment. Three times, he made excuses for the smell, including telling his manager that his fish had recently died. Eventually, these excuses stopped working for the manager, and Dahmer was told that he was going to be evicted. 

During this time before his eviction, Dahmer kills one more victim - his 17th. On July 22, 1991, three days after the man was killed, Dahmer would be arrested. 

The Arrest 

Dahmer took a man back to his home on July 22, 1991. Early in the encounter, he told the man that he was going to eat his heart. But Dahmer had run out of drugs to render the man unconscious, and only managed to get one handcuff on the man’s hand. The man was able to escape and ask the police about how to get the handcuff off.

The police were not able to get the handcuffs off, so they went to Dahmer’s apartment to look for the key. In plain sight, the officers saw the photographs that Dahmer had taken of his victims. These photos included evidence that Dahmer had killed and dismembered multiple victims. At this point, Dahmer was finally put in handcuffs and taken into custody for the murders. 

When investigators searched the house, they found all of the remains and evidence of Dahmer’s recent killings. 

Life In Milwaukee After Dahmer's Arrest

A Redditor on the Milwaukee subreddit asked users to share their close encounters with Jeffrey Dahmer. The stories are crazy, tragic, and haunting: 

• "When my husband was 16, he was taking the bus out to Mayfair with his best friend, John. During the 40-minute journey, a young blond man sitting nearby struck up a conversation with them. He introduced himself as Jeff. He was quite chatty, and made homophobic comments about how gay men made him sick. Two weeks later, my husband got a call from John. 'Turn on the news,' he said. 'It's that guy Jeff from the bus.'"
• "It was very surreal. I was about 23 years old and I remember the news breaking on the radio while I was driving over the high-rise bridge, and I got sick to my stomach when I heard about the severed heads in the fridge. My uncle owned a pizza joint near Dahmer's apartment, and his delivery driver was so distraught when he realized he had delivered many pizzas to him over the past couple of years."
• "My husband is a retired Milwaukee firefighter and worked with the firefighter who was on the scene. Apparently in one of the rooms in Dahmer's apartment was an altar with painted skulls, and the firefighter saw the severed heads in the fridge, one of which was propped up in a pair of hands. He also saw a couple of the blue barrels filled with sludgy acid. The cops and firefighters who saw that horror that day will never unsee it - first responder PTSD is very real."

Dahmer's Confession

The next day, Dahmer decided to give a complete confession to the police about everything he had done: murders, dismemberment, cannibalism, and all. 

Before the case went to trial, Dahmer gave a confession that lasted for over 160 pages. In this confession, he was willing to confess to every single detail of the killings and dismemberment that he could remember. He recalled it all with frightening accuracy - although he couldn’t remember the names of the men that he killed. Dahmer claimed to also not remember the night that he killed his second victim. 

When his trial started, Dahmer had been charged with 15 counts of murder. (One count of murder was charged in another state. Dahmer could not remember killing his second victim, and since there was no physical evidence of the killing at the time, he was not charged for the crime.) His parents attended the trial. Dahmer pleaded guilty but on the grounds of insanity, but he told the jury that he did not wish for any sort of freedom. He believed that he deserved the death penalty. 

The state of Wisconsin had abolished capital punishment over 60 years earlier, so Dahmer was not able to get the death penalty. He was, however, sentenced to 15 life sentences plus another 70 years. (He was sentenced to a 16th life imprisonment when he was convicted for his first murder in the state of Ohio.) 

While in prison, Jeffrey Dahmer spent his first year in prison in solitary confinement for the safety of his fellow inmates, but was eventually released to a less secure area. He became a born-again Christian, reading the Bible and visiting with a pastor frequently. He was even baptized. But even with the possibility of a new life ahead of him, Dahmer felt that he was ready to die for his crimes. 

How Did Jeffrey Dahmer Die? 

In 1994, Dahmer was working a shift in the Columbia Correctional Institution when he was beaten to death by a fellow inmate. The inmate took the lives of Jeffrey Dahmer and another prisoner, and received two consecutive life sentences for his crimes in addition to the sentence that he was already serving. This was not the first time that someone attempted to take Dahmer’s life in prison, but he did not seem resistant to these acts of violence against him. Dahmer’s body was cremated and his parents received his ashes. 

Infamy 

In the short years between his conviction and his death, Dahmer gave multiple TV interviews that have been broadcast on various news channels throughout the years. He’s been the subject of multiple documentaries, movies, and TV shows. 

There were plenty of times that correctional officers and the criminal justice system could have saved the lives of many by keeping Jeffrey Dahmer in jail. Red flags were everywhere. Police and authorities visited his apartment multiple times, even leaving a minor child with him. But his parents and those close to him were easy to deny that this timid, mild-mannered boy could be such a horrific criminal. Today, he remains one of the most notorious serial killers in modern history; not just for the crimes that he committed, but also for the timid manner and matter-of-fact confessions surrounding those crimes.

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• Samuel Little (Serial Killer Biography)
• The Boston Strangler (Serial Killer Biography)
• Gary Ridgeway (Serial Killer Biography)
• Luis Garavito (Serial Killer Biography)

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Gary Ridgeway

H. H. Holmes

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Case Study of Jeffrey Dahmer | The Biography of The Milwaukee Monster

In this blog, we will write about Jeffrey Dahmer, his early life history, experiences, crimes, arrest and conviction. He was one of the most notorious serial killers in the crime history of the USA.

The American criminal justice system has witnessed the emergence of many notorious serial killers from the period of 1960s to 1990s. Jeffrey Dahmer was a convicted sex offender and serial murderer. He killed and sexually violated 17 young males between 1978 and 1991. He was known as The Milwaukee Cannibal or The Milwaukee Monster.

Life History Of Jeffrey Dahmer

Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer aka Jeffrey Dahmer was born on 21 st May 1960. His birthplace was Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His parents were Lionel and Joyce Dahmer. He had a dysphoric family where his mother was suffering from depression and even attempted suicide. His father was a Chemist and he hardly gave him any time. At the age of four, he was suffering from a double hernia. He underwent surgeries to cure it. This brought a change in his life. He was a happy, curious, and energetic child. After this surgery, he became a loner.

Jeffrey Dahmer enjoyed collecting dead animals from the roadsides and dissecting them during his childhood. After dissecting those animals, he destroyed their body with chemicals. He had a hut in the backyard of their house where he used to dissect animals and collect their bones. He had access to chemicals from his father’s chemistry lab.

Jeffrey’s parents got divorced when he graduated from high school. His parents had an acrimonious relationship. He has seen parental negligence from a very young age. This has affected his personality development.

Jeffrey Dahmer was an alcoholic. His alcohol consumption was out of his control. He dropped out from Ohio State University due to his alcohol addiction. Later he joined the army in 1978 and he was posted in Germany. He was discharged from the army in 1981 due to his drinking issues. He then returned to Ohio. Meanwhile, his father remarried and sent him to live with his grandmother. His father tried to send him to rehabilitation centers. But nothing could reduce his alcohol addiction.

There is a movie about his life story called My friend Dahmer. Here’s the trailer.

In the year of 1978, Jeffrey Dahmer started to spread his reign of terror in the Ohio state of the USA. The Milwaukee Cannibal or Monster killed 17 young males in a short span of time. Jeffrey Dahmer brutally murdered his victims by strangling them. After killing them he raped the corpses.

His first victim was a hitchhiker, Steven Mark Hicks. In 1978 he killed him by strangulation then he masturbated on his corpse. In September 1987 he killed his second victim, Steven Tuomi. They were staying in a hotel together and Jeffrey made him unconscious by using drugs. Later, he dismembered his body after masturbating on the corpse at his grandmother’s basement. When he was living with his grandmother, he had a male mannequin in his room. His grandmother was very disturbed about his behaviors. In 1988, his grandmother forced him to leave her house. He targeted Anthony Sears in 1989. He was an aspiring model. He sodomized, strangled, and dismembered his body.

He used to lure men from gay bars, clubs, shopping malls, etc. He mostly targeted African-American young men. He used to drug young men in order to have sex with their unconscious bodies. He had brutally dissected and dismembered his victims’ bodies. He was a cannibal and he collected the skulls and bones of his victims. He even kept some organs or parts of victims’ bodies as a souvenir. When police raided his apartment, they got a refrigerator full of human organs, limbs, and parts. The degree of brutality he showed through his crime commission knows no bound. He even gave some of his victims’ lobotomies.

You can watch his interview here.

Arrest and Conviction

Jeffrey Dahmer faced sexual assault charges in September 1989. He pleaded guilty and was convicted with second-degree sexual assault. He argued before the court in his own defense at his trial. He was given five years probationary sentence and judges ordered that he needed treatment. He was permitted to work during the day. His reign of terror finally ended when Tracy Edward, his last victim, escaped alive in 1991. He was finally arrested by the cops. He was sentenced to 16 life imprisonment. He was murdered by a fellow inmate (Christopher Scarver) at Wisconsin State Prison in 1994.

The experts who studied him defined him as a sadistic sociopath . He was diagnosed with the anti-personality disorder. From a very young age, he became a heavy drinker. He was a necrophiliac and a pathological loner. He had a compulsive obsession with control and dominance over his victims. He always wanted a submissive company. He used to get sexually stimulated by torturing and killing his victims.

Dahmer’s mental illness, dysfunctional family, and lonesome have shaped his human personality. On the other hand, drinking addiction has caused damage to his mental death. Due to his sexual preferences, he was often neglected in society. Although nothing can justify his brutal crimes. Perhaps, if he would have been sent to mental health treatment at his earlier age, he could not become a serial killer.

Read other serial killers biography in the Criminology playlist.

Read Ted Bundy’s here .

Read David Berkowitz here .

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• Cast & crew
• User reviews

Jeffrey Dahmer: The Monster Within

• Episode aired Jun 3, 1996

The Life of Cannibal and Serial Killer Jeffrey Dahmer. The Life of Cannibal and Serial Killer Jeffrey Dahmer. The Life of Cannibal and Serial Killer Jeffrey Dahmer.

• Bill Harris
• Christine Shuler
• Jeffrey Dahmer
• Phil Walters
• Lionel Dahmer
• 2 User reviews

Top cast 12

• (archive footage)
• Self - Narrator

• Self - Dahmer Neighbor

• Self - Dahmer Attorney
• (as Gerald Boyle)

• Self - Milwaukee Police Department
• (as Det. Patrick Kennedy)

• Self - Dahmer Classmate

• Self - Dahmer Prosecutor

• (as Lt. Dennis Murphy)

• Self - Evangelist
• Self - Relative Victim
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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• Connections Referenced in Fabric of the Mind (2016)

User reviews 2

• Jul 29, 2008
• June 3, 1996 (United States)
• United States
• Tower Productions
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• Runtime 50 minutes

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Lionel Dahmer Stood by His Son Jeffrey, Even After the Serial Killer’s Death

Lionel, who died Tuesday at age 87, tried to love and support Jeffrey after his son was sentenced to life in prison.

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Jeffrey Dahmer murdered at least 17 men between 1978 and 1991, becoming known by notorious nicknames like the “Milwaukee Monster” and the “Milwaukee Cannibal.” Despite this, his father, Lionel Dahmer, insisted that his son “was not born a monster” and tried to follow through on a promise to stick by Jeffrey no matter what.

Lionel, who died Tuesday at age 87 in Medina County, Ohio, didn’t shy away from speaking about his son’s heinous acts or the potential circumstances that might have compelled them. Although it’s clear he held compassion for Jeffrey up until his death, Lionel’s reflections suggest he also felt some degree of responsibility for his son’s crimes.

Lionel believed he might have missed warning signs

Lionel, a chemist, and his first wife, Joyce Flint, had no indication something might be wrong with their son Jeffrey, born May 21, 1960, until he underwent a double hernia operation at age 4. After that, the boy became increasingly withdrawn, particularly after the birth of his younger brother David.

A Father’s Story by Lionel Dahmer

In his 1994 book, A Father’s Story , Lionel questioned if his son’s shyness was an initial precursor to his future criminal behavior. Years later, he told television host Larry King , “One of the things I’d like to tell parents is don’t disregard shyness. Things can be fomenting in that young mind... talk deeply and intensely. It’ll come out, I think, eventually.”

Lionel also wondered if Jeffrey’s behavior was possibly hereditary. “As a scientist, [I] wonder if [the] potential for great evil... resides deep in the blood that some of us... may pass on to our children at birth,” he wrote in his book. Additionally, he worried prescription drugs Joyce had taken during her pregnancy might have affected Jeffrey’s brain development. According to March of Dimes , some medications can cause problems, including birth defects, low birthweight, preterm birth, and learning and behavior problems later in life.

In addition to his growing solitude, Jeffrey showed an unusual interest in the macabre. According to Brian Masters’ book The Shrine of Jeffrey Dahmer , he collected large insects and animal skulls and preserved them in jars of formaldehyde. Lionel later recalled in a 2022 interview that Jeffrey, then around 12 to 14 years old, began to exhibit unhealthy sexual fetishes around this time.

However, any immediate concern was overshadowed by Lionel and Joyce’s deteriorating relationship. According to Women’s Health , they underwent a tumultuous divorce in 1978, with neighbors sometimes calling police to break up their fights. While they feuded for custody of David, 18-year-old Jeffrey—who also had a drinking problem by this point—was eventually left to live by himself with no money, no food, and a broken refrigerator. It was around this time, shortly after he graduated high school, that Dahmer bludgeoned and strangled his first victim to death.

By the time he was arrested for good in July 1991, Jeffrey had committed at least 16 other murders. He was sentenced to 16 consecutive life terms in prison the following year.

Looking back, Lionel eventually concluded that he operated on “a level of obliviousness, or perhaps denial, that was scarcely imaginable.”

Lionel felt Jeffrey “was just like me”

Jeffrey reportedly adjusted well to prison life at the Columbia Correctional Institution in Wisconsin. He was initially kept away from the general inmate population but eventually integrated more fully. According to Oxygen True Crime , Lionel and his second wife, Shari, were the only regular visitors Jeffrey had in prison.

In a video interview while Jeffrey was incarcerated, Lionel revealed he originally hoped his son would be placed in a psychiatric institution for treatment but changed his mind as he learned more about the facilities. He said their prison visits always started with a hug. “It seems like in the last year, he’s looked even more forward, he seems visibly pleased that we’re going to visit him,” Lionel said in the interview.

While this suggests their conversations were cordial, at various times Lionel also tried to gain a better understanding of his son’s motives and secrecy. “What’s been really puzzling me is how come I just didn’t know anything about this?” he once asked Jeffrey, according to audio tapes from the 2023 Fox Nation miniseries My Son Jeffrey: The Dahmer Family Tapes . “I pretty much was doing things in my own little world,” the killer responded.

Lionel also admitted to having “weird thoughts” in his childhood and asked his son if he experienced something similar. “You’re just like me, Jeff,” he concluded.

Lionel feared for his son’s safety in prison, and those concerns proved justified. On November 28, 1994, inmate Christopher Scarver killed Jeffrey and another prisoner with a metal bar, later claiming that “God told me to do it.”

Lionel went to court to honor Jeffrey’s final wishes

After Jeffrey’s death, Lionel fought to provide some degree of closure for himself and his son. Jeffrey’s body was placed in state custody pending the outcome of charges against Scarver. The latter pleaded no contest in May 1995 and was sentenced to a life term.

Per Jeffrey’s wishes, most of his remains were cremated that September, and the ashes were split between his parents. But according to The New York Times , the Dane County, Wisconsin, medical examiner’s office preserved the killer’s brain at his mother Joyce’s request. She wished to have the organ examined to determine if biological factors actually influenced Jeffrey’s crimes. “I want something useful to come from the nightmare,” she told the Associated Press . “This is the last and only thing I can do.”

Lionel, conversely, wanted to cremate the brain to honor his son’s wishes and put “the whole thing behind him.” The dispute went to court and was finally resolved in December 1995, as a Columbia County circuit judge ruled that Dahmer’s brain should also be cremated during an hour-long hearing.

Lionel reportedly stayed “very angry” about Jeffrey’s death

Lionel tried to live as much of a normal life as he could but even within the last two years couldn’t escape the enduring spotlight surrounding Jeffrey. In September 2022, Netflix released Dahmer— Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story , a dramatized retelling of Jeffrey’s life starring Evan Peters as the killer. The series was an immediate hit for the streaming service, surpassing 1 billion hours viewed in less than two months and garnering 13 Emmy nominations .

Following the show’s release, “hostile and aggressive” fans showed up at Lionel’s Ohio home, according to the New York Post . As a result, Lionel considered suing Netflix over the series as well as Conversations with a Killer: The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes , for which he claimed the streaming giant never requested permission to use tape recordings of his son. He also felt the two programs glamorized elements of his son’s life and strayed away from the facts.

Lionel also continued to mourn his son’s death. In an October 2022 interview, Lionel’s caretaker told The U.S. Sun that he became “very angry” every time he heard Scarver’s name. “As far as I know, and the last I talked to Lionel, he believes the guards looked the other way and and let [Jeffrey’s death] happen,” the caretaker, identified as Jeb, said.

Lionel’s frustrations were just one of the final examples of how he tried to keep his word from a 1994 interview with Oprah Winfrey . “I still love my son. I’ll always stick by him—I always have,” he said .

Tyler Piccotti first joined the Biography.com staff as an Associate News Editor in February 2023, and before that worked almost eight years as a newspaper reporter and copy editor. He is a graduate of Syracuse University. When he's not writing and researching his next story, you can find him at the nearest amusement park, catching the latest movie, or cheering on his favorite sports teams.

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Jeffrey Dahmer Age, Death, Family, Biography & More

Some Lesser Known Facts About Jeffrey Dahmer

• Jeffrey Dahmer was an American serial killer and sex offender who murdered seventeen men and boys between 1978 and 1991. Many of his murders involved necrophilia, cannibalism, and the permanent preservation of various body parts of the victims. Dahmer was arrested in 1991 and sentenced to life imprisonment. On 28 November 1994, while Dahmer was imprisoned in Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage, Wisconsin, he was beaten to death by a fellow inmate named Christopher Scarver.

Jeffrey Dahmer as an infant with his father, Lionel Dahmer, in 1960

• Jeffrey was diagnosed with a double hernia shortly before his fourth birthday. According to Lionel, Jeffrey became strangely subdued after his double hernia surgery.
• One day, when Jeffrey was four, Lionel noticed a foul smell coming from beneath their house at Pammel Court. When Lionel searched for the source of the unbearable odour he discovered a large pile of bones accumulated under the house. This was the first instance where Lionel noticed Dahmer was “oddly thrilled” by the dead animals and the sound of the bones. Jeffrey became preoccupied with playing with the bones, which he referred to as “like fiddlesticks.” Thereafter, Jeffrey occasionally started searching for bones beneath and around the family home. He would also explore the bodies of live animals to discover where their bones were located.
• Soon, he entered first grade, and Lionel became busy with his university studies. Meanwhile, Jeffrey’s hypochondriac mother, Joyce, started suffering from depression. She demanded constant attention from Lionel and spent an increasing amount of time in bed. Once, Joyce attempted suicide using Equanil, a medication to reduce anxiety. Therefore, neither Lionel nor Joyce devoted much time to their son. Years later, in his confession, Jeffrey recalled the feeling of being “unsure of the solidity of the family” when he was young. He witnessed extreme tension and countless arguments between his parents.
• The family moved to Doylestown, Ohio in October 1966.  In December 1966, Joyce gave birth to her second son. In May 1968, the family moved to Bath Township, Summit County, Ohio. The home stood in one and a half acres of woodland, with a small hut only a short walk from the house. Dahmer, who had become low-spirited after his double hernia surgery, became withdrawn after the birth of his younger brother and the family’s frequent relocations.
• Growing up in his Bath Township home, Jeffrey spent his leisure time collecting large insects such as dragonflies and moths and the skeletons of small animals like chipmunks and squirrels. He would preserve animal remains in jars of formaldehyde. Lionel believed that Dahmer’s strange activities were attributed to scientific curiosity, and he taught his son how to safely bleach and preserve animal bones. Soon he also started collecting dead animals—including roadkill, which he would dissect and bury beside the hut, with the skulls occasionally placed atop makeshift crosses.
• Dahmer realized that he was gay when he reached puberty
• By the age of 14, he had not only begun drinking beer but hard alcohol in broad daylight. He would conceal his liquor inside the jacket he wore to school.
• He began fantasizing about domination and controlling a completely submissive male partner during his mid-teens. These fantasies slowly developed and became intertwined with his leisure for dissection.

Jeffrey Dahmer (left) and an unknown classmate in Revere High School, Ohio in 1978

• 1978 was an eventful year for Dahmer, with his high school graduation in May, his first murder in June, and his parents’ divorce in July.

A picture of Steven Hicks, the first victim of Jeffrey Dahmer

• Lionel discovered that Joyce had engaged in a brief affair in September 1977 following which they decided to file for a divorce. Lionel moved out of the house in early 1978. In the spring of 1978, Joyce and David moved out of the family home to live with relatives in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, meanwhile, Dahmer, who had just turned 18, remained in the family home.
• The divorce was finalized on 24 July 1978  and Joyce was given custody of Jeffrey’s younger brother, David. In the same year, Lionel got married to Shari.
• Six weeks after the murder of Hicks, Dahmer’s father and his fiancée returned home and enrolled Dahmer at Ohio State University (OSU), hoping that he would major in business. However, his persistent alcohol abuse and failing grades led him to drop out of OSU.
• In January 1979, on his father’s urging, Dahmer joined the United States Army. After receiving his basic training at Fort McClellan in Anniston, Alabama he was trained as a medical specialist at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas. He was deployed to Baumholder in West Germany on 13 July 1979, where he served as a combat medic in the 2nd Battalion, 68th Armored Regiment, 8th Infantry Division. Throughout his service, he was frequently found to be intoxicated. One day, an instance of insubordination resulted in his entire platoon being punished for which Dahmer was severely beaten by his fellow recruits. Finally, in March 1981, he was deemed unsuitable for military service and was discharged from it receiving an honourable discharge. His debriefing took place at Fort Jackson, South Carolina and he was provided with a plane ticket to travel anywhere in the country.
• After his debriefing, he went to Miami Beach, Florida as he felt he could not return home to face his father. There, he rented a room in a motel and started working at a deli. After a while, he was kicked out of the motel for non-payment of rent. Apparently, he used of spend all of his income on alcohol.

From left to right, David Dahmer (blurred face), Jeffrey Dahmer’s grandmother, Lionel Dahmer, and Jeffrey Dahmer

• On 8 August 1982, shortly before losing his job, Dahmer was arrested for indecent exposure before a crowd on the south side of the Coliseum at Wisconsin State Fair Park.
• After his termination from Milwaukee Blood Plasma Center, he lived on whatever money his grandmother gave him. In January 1985, Dahmer secured a job as a mixer at the Milwaukee Ambrosia Chocolate Factory’s night shift.
• One day, Dahmer was propositioned by a man while sitting in the West Allis Public Library. Dahmer did not respond to the suggestive gestures, but the incident reminded him of the fantasies of control and dominance he had as a teenager.

I trained myself to view people as objects of pleasure instead of [as] people.”

• Then, he began to use hotel rooms for the same. He maintained an adequate supply of sleeping pills by swaying doctors into believing that he required the tablets to adjust to his night shift at the chocolate factory.
• On 8 September 1986, Dahmer was arrested for lewd and lascivious behaviour as he masturbated in the presence of two 12-year-old boys near Kinnickinnic River. On 10 March 1987, he was sentenced to one year of probation with instructions to undergo counselling.
• Dahmer was residing with his grandmother in West Allis when he killed his second victim. He met a 25-year-old man named Steven Tuomi at a bar and persuaded him to return to the Ambassador Hotel in Milwaukee, where the two spent the night. The following morning Dahmer awoke to find that Tuomi was dead. Tuomi’s chest was “crushed in” and “black and blue” with bruises. In his confession, Dahmer revealed that He had no intention of killing Tuomi. He simply intended to drug Tuomi and lie beside him to explore his body. Dahmer purchased a large suitcase to transport the body to his grandmother’s residence. There, he dismembered Tuomi’s body to easily dispose it of while keeping his severed head. Dahmer boiled the head in a mixture of Soilax to retain the skull. For a while, he used it as a stimulus for masturbation. However, when the skull was rendered too brittle by the bleaching process, he disposed of it.
• After Tuomi’s killing, Dahmer stopped controlling his murderous compulsions. Two months after the Tuomi killing, Dahmer picked his next victim, a 14-year-old Native American male prostitute named James Doxtator. Dahmer lured him to his home with an offer of $50 to pose for nude pictures.
• After Doxtator, Dahmer killed a 22-year-old bisexual man named Richard Guerrero outside a gay bar called The Phoenix.
• In September 1988, he moved out of his grandmother’s home into a one-bedroom apartment at 808 North 24th Street.
• Two days later, he was arrested for drugging and sexually fondling a 13-year-old boy whom he had lured to his home on the pretext of posing nude for photographs.
• Dahmer’s fifth victim, Anthony Sears, was a mixed-race 24-year-old model. Dahmer met him at a gay bar on 25 March 1989. Sears was the first victim whose body parts Jeffrey permanently retained; he preserved Sears’ head and genitalia in acetone.
• On 23 May 1989, Dahmer was sentenced to probation for five years and one year in the House of Correction, with permissible work release. He was also required to register as a sex offender.
• On 14 May 1990, Dahmer moved into Apartment 213, 924 North 25th Street. He took Sears’ mummified head and genitals with him.
• One week after moving into his new apartment, Dahmer targeted his next victim, a 32-year-old male prostitute named Raymond Smith. In the same year, he also murdered Edward Smith, Ernest Miller, and David Thomas.
• After Thomas’ killing, Dahmer did not murder anyone for almost five months. Although between October 1990 and February 1991, he had almost five unsuccessful attempts to lure men to his apartment.
• Dahmer met his next victim, a 17-year-old named Curtis Straughter, at a bus stop near Marquette University in February 1991.
• On 7 April 1991, he killed a 19-year-old heterosexual boy named Errol Lindsey.
• With Lindsey, Dahmer started a new experiment on his victims. Dahmer would drill a hole in his victim’s skulls and inject hydrochloric acid through it hoping to induce a permanent, unresistant, submissive state in them. Although it proved fatal, he continued to practice it.
• Fellow residents of the Oxford Apartments repeatedly began to complain to the building’s manager, Sopa Princewill, about the unbearable odours originating from Dahmer’s apartment. The residents also highlighted the frequent sounds of falling objects and chainsaws. At first, he said that the foul smells originated from his broken freezer, as the contents became spoiled. Later, he said that the odour was coming from his dead tropical fish and that he would take care of the matter.
• He almost got caught for killing a 14-year-old teenager named Konerak Sinthasomphone, who he picked up on 26 May 1991 from Wisconsin Avenue. The youth belonged to the Lao community. After luring him into the apartment for money and nude polaroid pictures, Dahmer drugged him into unconsciousness. Dahmer drilled a hole into his skull and injected hydrochloric acid into the frontal lobe. Then, he drank several beers lying alongside Sinthasomphone and fell asleep. Then, he left his apartment to drink at a bar and purchase more alcohol. While returning to his apartment in the early morning hours on 27 May, Dahmer found Sinthasomphone sitting naked on the corner of 25th and State with three distressed young women standing near him. He was babbling in Lao. Dahmer unsuccessfully attempted to walk Sinthasomphone to his apartment. He tried to convince the women that he was Sinthasomphone’s friend, but they refused to believe Dahmer. The women called 9-1-1 and accompanied Sinthasomphone until the police arrived. Dahmer tricked the police into believing that Sinthasomphone was his 19-year-old boyfriend and that he had drunk too much following a dispute. The women tried to show the police that Sinthasomphone had blood on his testicles and that he was also bleeding from his rectum. They highlighted that previously Sinthasomphone seemingly struggled against Dahmer’s attempts to walk him to his apartment. Regardless, the police told the women to “butt out” and dropped Sinthasomphone at Dahmer’s apartment. There, Dahmer proved that Sinthasomphone was his boyfriend by showing them two semi-nude Polaroid pictures he had taken of Sinthasomphone the previous evening. When the police left, Dahmer again injected hydrochloric acid into Sinthasomphone’s brain, which proved fatal.
• Apart from the above-mentioned victims, the list also includes Tony Anthony Hughes, Jeremiah Benjamin Weinberger, Matt Turner, Oliver Lacy, and Joseph Bradehoft.

A collage of pictures of Jeffrey Dahmer’s victims

Tracy Edwards, a survivor of Jeffrey Dahmer

After a brief conversation, Dahmer requested Edwards to turn his head and view his tropical fish, whereupon Dahmer placed a handcuff upon his wrist. Then, he took Edwards into the bedroom to pose for nude pictures. In the bedroom, Dahmer brandished a knife to intimidate Edwards, while The Exorcist III played on TV. In an attempt to appease Dahmer, Edwards unbuttoned his shirt meanwhile convincing him to remove the handcuffs and put the knife away. Dahmer flirtingly placed his head on Edwards’ chest, listened to his heartbeat while pressing the knife against him, and said that he wanted to eat his heart. For the following few hours, Edwards continuously prevented Dahmer from attacking. Edwards comforted Dahmer saying that he was his friend and that he was not going to escape. Simultaneously, Edwards made up his mind to escape the apartment by either jumping off the window or running through the unlocked front door upon the next available opportunity. He persuaded Dahmer to hang out in the living room as there was air conditioning there. After spending five hours in the apartment, Edwards stumbled upon the opportunity to escape when he observed that Dahmer had a momentary lapse of concentration. When Edwards rose from the couch to use the bathroom, he noted that Dahmer was not holding his handcuffs, whereupon he punched Dahmer in the face, knocking him off balance, and ran out the front door. Edwards flagged down two Milwaukee police officers, Robert Rauth and Rolf Mueller, at the corner of North 25th Street at 11:30 pm. He narrated the incident to them and requested them to remove the handcuff. However, the officers’ keys failed to unlock the handcuffs, hence, Edwards had to go back to Dahmer’s apartment along with the police. Dahmer invited the police and Edwards inside and gave them the key to the handcuffs, retrieving it from a dresser in his bedroom. There, officer Mueller discovered Polaroid pictures of human bodies in various stages of dismemberment in a drawer. When Dahmer noticed that Mueller was holding several of his Polaroids, he fought the officers trying to resist the arrest, but the officers quickly overpowered him.

Jeffrey Dahmer’s mugshot photos

Officials carrying down Dahmer’s 57-gallon drum from his apartment in July 1991

I suppose, in an odd way, it made me feel they were even more a permanent part of me.”

Myself … It was a place where I could feel at home.”

An illustration by Jeffrey Dahmer depicting the private altar he had been planning to create using the preserved seven skulls at the time of his July 1991 arrest

• Dahmer was charged with 15 counts of first-degree murders of the sixteen homicides he had committed in Wisconsin. Although Dahmer was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, schizotypal personality disorder, and psychotic disorder, he was considered to be legally sane during his trial. He pleaded guilty but insane and was sentenced to 15 terms of life imprisonment on 17 February 1992; Wisconsin abolished the death penalty in 1853. Later, he was sentenced to a sixteenth term of life imprisonment for his first homicide, which he committed in Ohio in 1978. He was imprisoned in the Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage.
• Dahmer was placed in solitary confinement for the first year of his imprisonment. This was due to concerns for his physical safety should he come into contact with fellow inmates. After a year, he was transferred to a less secure unit, where he was assigned a two-hour daily work of cleaning the toilet block. Later he was also assigned to clean the prison gymnasium. Dahmer earned 24 cents an hour as a prison gymnasium janitor.
• Once he lost his job as a gymnasium janitor because he imitated a prison employee on the telephone after which he was again sent to solitary confinement for more than a month.
• Interestingly, the serial killer received ample correspondence from individuals across the world during his imprisonment. The prison records disclosed that he received more than $12,000 from his letter writers. One woman said she wanted to teach Jeffrey about Jesus, and sent him $350, along with some Bible literature. Another sent $50 to enable Dahmer to buy cigarettes, stamps, and envelopes.

Not because I was angry with them, not because I hated them, but because I wanted to keep them with me.”

In another interview, he said,

I just wanted to have the person under my complete control, not having to consider their wishes, being able to keep them there as long as I wanted.”

• On 3 July 1994, a fellow inmate, Osvaldo Durruthy, attempted to cut Dahmer’s throat with a razor when Dahmer was sitting in the prison chapel after the weekly church service was concluded. The razor was concealed in a toothbrush. Dahmer received superficial wounds but wasn’t seriously injured.

God told me to do it. Jesse Anderson and Jeffrey Dahmer are dead.”

Christopher Scarver, the murderer of Jeffrey Dahmer

• Numerous literary works have been published on Dahmer’s life including the books Milwaukee Massacre: Jeffrey Dahmer and the Milwaukee Murders (1992), A Father’s Story by Lionel Dahmer (1994), Dark Journey, Deep Grace: Jeffrey Dahmer’s Story of Faith by Lindy Adams and Roy Ratcliff (2006), Jeffrey Dahmer: A Terrifying True Story of Rape, Murder and Cannibalism by Jack Rosewood (2017), and Inside the Mind of Jeffrey Dahmer: The Cannibal Killer by Christopher Berry-Dee (2022). Netflix released Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story (2022) and Conversations With a Killer: The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes (2022) which chronicled the serial killer’s life. His life also inspired the theatrical productions The Law of Remains (1992) by Reza Abdoh and Jeffrey Dahmer: Guilty but Insane (2013) written by Joshua Hitchens and directed by Ryan Walter.

Demolition continued on the Oxford Apartments, 924 N. 25th Street, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, US, where Jeffrey Dahmer lived and committed many of his murders

Serial Killer Jeffrey Dahmer’s Ohio Home

• A civic group called Milwaukee Civic Pride raised funds in 1996 to purchase and destroy possessions of Dahmer. The group pledged $407,225 for the purchase of Dahmer’s estate. The amount included a $100,000 gift from Milwaukee real estate developer Joseph Zilber. Thereupon, Dahmer’s possessions were destroyed and buried in an undisclosed Illinois landfill.

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What Jeffrey Dahmer's Life In Prison Was Really Like

On July 22, 1991, authorities were led to the Milwaukee, Wisconsin, apartment of Jeffrey Dahmer by a man who escaped after being held captive. Immediately upon arrival, authorities noted a foul odor inside the apartment. On further inspection, Biography reports they found crates full of chemicals, a drawer full of macabre Polaroid photos, and numerous body parts — including five severed heads.

History reports Dahmer was ultimately charged and convicted of 15 counts of first-degree murder and subsequently sentenced to 15 life terms, which were to be served consecutively, and was given an additional life sentence in 1992 for another murder confession (via AP). 

As reported by Biography , Dahmer arrived at the Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage, Wisconsin, in February 1992. Due to the heinous nature of his crimes, Dahmer's case gained international attention. Therefore, in the interest of his own safety, he was placed in protective custody and held in isolation. As reported by Biography, Jeffrey Dahmer was also kept in shackles whenever he was out of his cell.

It wasn't too long before Dahmer was moved out of isolation

After serving one year, Jeffrey Dahmer asked prison officials to reconsider their decision to keep him in protective custody. As he had been cooperative and did not have any major infractions, he was moved out of the isolation cell and into a unit for prisoners with emotional and mental health difficulties. In the new unit, Dahmer had the freedom to interact with others. In addition to sharing meal time, Biography reports he was allowed to attend classes and sign up for work duties. Although some of the activities were not supervised, Dahmer appeared to get along with everyone.

Dahmer also began meeting and spending time with prison minister Roy Ratcliff. As reported by Christianity Today , Ratcliff said Dahmer expressed sincere remorse for the crimes he committed and even suggested he "should have been put to death" as punishment. During an interview, Ratcliff said, "He became a real person to me, so I referred to him the same way I would anyone I knew personally."

He found God in prison

Jeffrey Dahmer began taking a Bible correspondence course while he was incarcerated. The course was mailed to him by Curt Booth, who was a member of Oklahoma's Crescent Church of Christ.

As reported by The Christian Chronicle , Booth learned about Dahmer while watching news coverage about his trial. In an interview, which Booth saw on television, Dahmer proclaimed he just wanted to "find a little peace." Booth said he could tell the convicted killer was hurting, and sent him the course material because he wanted to help Dahmer find peace through religion.

After completing the course, Dahmer expressed an interest in being baptized. However, the prison did not have a formal baptismal tank and nobody seemed willing to bring one in. Booth eventually got in touch with prison minister Roy Ratcliff and they arranged for the baptism to take place in the prison's whirlpool bathtub. Biography reports Dahmer was baptized in May 1994.

Following his baptism, Dahmer purchased 25 Bible correspondence courses, which he distributed to his fellow inmates.

A prisoner attacked him during a church service

Jeffrey Dahmer, who was held in protective custody at the prison during his first year, asked to be given more freedom of movement (via Biography ). Prison officials agreed and assigned him to a ward with inmates who experienced emotional disorders. This gave Dahmer more freedom, letting him eat with other prisoners, perform work duties, and attend church services at the prison chapel. It was in the latter that he was attacked in July 1994 by another inmate.

His would-be assailant, Osvaldo Durruthy, told The Daily Mail that he feigned mental illness so that the prison would house him in Dahmer's special unit. After sneaking a shank into the chapel, Durruthy lunged at his target and tried to slit his throat. Fortunately for Dahmer, the blade broke and left him with mere scratches. Durruthy was given an additional five years on his sentence for his efforts.

Jeffrey Dahmer had a gruesome sense of humor

Although Jeffrey Dahmer became a Christian and was baptized, he seemed to maintain a ghoulish sense of humor — which his fellow inmates did not appreciate. As reported by Biography , Dahmer routinely made jokes about cannibalism. In addition to "mold[ing] his prison food to resemble body parts or severed limbs, with ketchup as blood," he routinely warned guards and his fellow inmates that he may bite them. Dahmer also reportedly posted a sign, which advertised a "Cannibals Anonymous" meeting.

On November 28, 1994, Dahmer and fellow inmates Jesse Anderson and Christopher Scarver were cleaning the restrooms in the prison's gym. Biography reports the three men were alone inside the restroom for approximately 20 minutes. When the guards returned, they found Anderson and Dahmer badly beaten. Both men ultimately died as a result of the wounds inflicted by Scarver.

As reported by Independent , Scarver later said he was "unnerved" by Dahmer's behavior, including his habit of making his food look like dismembered bodies. Scarver said Dahmer "crossed the line with some people — prisoners, prison staff." He added, "Some people who are in prison are repentant — but he was not one of them."

Scarver said he generally tried to stay away from Dahmer. However, while they were cleaning the restroom, someone poked him in the back with a mop. Scarver said when he turned around, both Anderson and Dahmer were laughing. 

He spoke with his family regularly

In a 1994 interview on "The Oprah Winfrey Show,"  Jeffrey Dahmer's father told host Oprah Winfrey that he remained in close contact with his son while he was incarcerated. This included weekly telephone calls and monthly, in-person visits with Dahmer at the Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage, Wisconsin. These visits would often include Dahmer's stepmother, Shari. In one of the visits, father and son sat with Stone Phillips in an interview the NBC reporter conducted at the prison. 

Dahmer's mother, Joyce Flint, also made visits to Portage to see him, though they were not a regular part of her routine. Flint had long since relocated to California, and she was only able to make the journey to see her son a handful of times before he died in the facility in 1994. In an exclusive interview with journalist Diane Dimond , Flint stated that she did make weekly phone calls to Dahmer and expressed concern that he was not receiving the mental health evaluations she felt he needed.

Dahmer's only sibling, a younger brother named David, severed all ties with him after his 1991 arrest for murder. Esquire reports that David refused to be present at any of his brother's court proceedings and never visited him in prison after his conviction. He has since legally changed his name.

Jeffrey Dahmer was killed by a fellow inmate

Christopher Scarver said he was unsure whether Jesse Anderson or Jeffrey Dahmer poked him, but he was not going to let either of them get away with it. As reported by Independent , Scarver followed Dahmer into a locker room. Scarver said he always kept a newspaper article in his pocket, which detailed Dahmer's crimes. When he pulled the article out and confronted him with it, Dahmer reportedly "started looking for the door pretty quick." However, before he could leave, Carver struck him in the head with a metal bar.

As reported by Biography , Dahmer's attorney, Gerald Boyle, believes he knew he would be killed when he asked to be placed in a unit with other inmates. Boyle said, "Dahmer had a death wish, and I know he didn't have the gumption to do it himself, so I predicted that the day would come when he would be killed in prison."