The Milwaukee Monster: The Crimes Of Jeffrey Dahmer

Jeffrey Dahmer, an American serial killer and sex offender, was born on May 21, 1960. Between the years 1978 and 1991, Dahmer murdered 17 males in a truly horrific fashion. Rape, dismemberment, necrophilia, and cannibalism were all parts of his modus operandi.

• Name: Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer
• Other names: The Milwaukee Cannibal, The Milwaukee Monster
• Born: May 21, 1960, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S.
• Died: November 28, 1994 (aged 34), Columbia Correctional Institution, Portage, Wisconsin, U.S.
• Cause of death: Homicide (severe head trauma)
• Occupation: U.S. Army combat medic (discharged), Former delicatessen employee, Former phlebotomist, Chocolate factory worker
• Conviction(s): First-degree murder, Child molestation, Indecent exposure, Disorderly conduct, Public intoxication
• Criminal penalty: Life imprisonment (16 life terms) 941 years in prison
• Victims: 17
• The span of crimes: 1978–1991
• Date apprehended: July 22, 1991

Childhood

Dahmer was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on May 21, 1960, to Lionel and Joyce Dahmer. When he was a toddler, Jeffrey was described as being happy and normal until the age of four. When he turned four, he had surgery to fix a double hernia in his head. The surgery seemed to hurt Dahmer because shortly after his mood and demeanor changed. As the years went on, he had become quite withdrawn and detached.

It was reported that his mother was depressed and had attempted suicide at least once. His father was gone from home often and when he came back, he devoted all of his attention to Dahmer’s mother. His parents rarely gave him attention, and when his mom gave birth to his baby brother when he was five, he resented the baby and fought for his parent’s scarce attention.

Soon after his surgery, Dahmer developed an interest in animal bones. His dad asked him to help clean out animal carcasses from underneath the house. Dahmer later recalled that he enjoyed the sounds the bones made as his dad dumped them into a bucket to be thrown away. This sparked a new fascination in Dahmer that his dad never saw as a problem. His dad assumed that Dahmer was just expressing curiosity and wanted to help his son. He showed Dahmer how to bleach and clean the bones when he was young. Unfortunately, this was a skill that he would later use to clean the bones of his victims.

For years Dahmer would walk along roads and highways, collecting the bones of dead animals and storing them in his family’s shed. He became more violent with the way that he dismembered the bodies, and once he took off a dead dog’s head and stapled the body to a tree. There was an incident in high school where Dahmer brought a tadpole to class to give to his teacher. Understandably, the teacher had no use for a tadpole and gave it to another student. When Dahmer learned of this, he went to the student’s house, took the tadpole out of its aquarium, poured gasoline on it, and set it on fire.

Dahmer grew up relatively isolated due to his family life and his lack of wanting to form any attachments and by the age of 13, he had no friends and no one to talk to. According to Dahmer himself, this is the age that he began to have dark fantasies. These fantasies included murder and necrophilia. As his fantasies began to take over his mind, the young Dahmer turned to alcohol. He brought alcohol to school and drank frequently. His parents were too focused on their issues to notice much of what Dahmer did or care enough to stop him.

In October 1966, the family moved to Doylestown, Ohio. When Joyce gave birth in December, Jeffrey was allowed to choose the name of his new baby brother; he chose the name, David. The same year, Lionel earned his degree and started work as an analytical chemist in nearby Akron, Ohio.

In 1968, the family moved to Bath Township, Summit County, Ohio. Two years later, during a chicken dinner, Dahmer asked Lionel what would happen if the chicken bones were placed in bleach. Lionel, pleased by Dahmer’s curiosity, demonstrated how to safely bleach and preserve animal bones. Dahmer incorporated these preserving techniques into his bone collecting. The same year, Joyce began increasing her daily consumption of Equanil, laxatives, and sleeping pills, further minimizing her tangible contact with her husband and children.

Adolescence and high school

From his freshman year at Revere High School, Dahmer was seen as an outcast. By the age of 14, he had begun drinking beer and hard alcohol in daylight hours, frequently concealing his liquor inside the lining of the army fatigue jacket he wore to school. He is known to have mentioned to one classmate who inquired why he was drinking Scotch in a morning history class that the alcohol he consumed was “[my] medicine”. Although largely uncommunicative, in his freshman year, Dahmer was seen by staff as polite and highly intelligent but with average grades. He was a keen tennis player and played briefly in the high school band.

When he reached puberty, Dahmer discovered he was gay, He did not tell his parents. In his early teens, he had a brief relationship with another teenage boy, although they never had intercourse. By Dahmer’s later admission, he began fantasizing about dominating and controlling a completely submissive male partner in his early- to mid-teens, and his masturbatory fantasies gradually evolved to his focusing upon the chests and torsos of the focus of his fantasies. These fantasies gradually became intertwined with dissection. When he was about 16, Dahmer conceived a fantasy of rendering unconscious a particular male jogger he found attractive and then making sexual use of his body. On one occasion Dahmer concealed himself in bushes with a baseball bat to lay in wait for this man; however, he did not pass by on that particular day. Dahmer later said this was his first attempt to attack someone.

When Lionel discovered Joyce had engaged in a brief affair in September 1977, they both decided to divorce, telling their sons they wished to do so amicably. Lionel moved out of the house in early 1978, temporarily residing in a motel on North Cleveland Massillon Road. Dahmer had just turned 18 and remained in the family home. Dahmer’s parents’ divorce was finalized on July 24, 1978. Joyce was awarded custody of her younger son and alimony payments.

First murder

Dahmer’s first murder occurred just after graduating high school, On June 18, 1978, when he picked up a hitchhiker named Steven Mark Hicks who was almost 19, and took him home to his parents’ house. Dahmer proceeded to get the young man drunk; when Hicks tried to leave, Dahmer killed him by striking him in the head and strangling him with a barbell. When Hicks fell unconscious, Dahmer strangled him to death with the bar of the dumbbell, then stripped the clothes from Hicks’ body before exploring his chest with his hands, then masturbating as he stood above the corpse. The following day, Dahmer dissected Hicks’ body in his basement; he later buried the remains in a shallow grave in his backyard before, several weeks later, unearthing the remains and paring the flesh from the bones. He dissolved the flesh in acid before flushing the solution down the toilet; he crushed the bones with a sledgehammer and scattered them in the woodland behind the family home.

College and Army service

After Dahmer graduated high school, he entered Ohio State University for the fall 1978 term, which turned out to be a total disaster. He failed all of his classes except riflery, continued to drink heavily, and when his father came for a surprise visit, he walked into a dorm room with liquor bottles spilling out of it. Although Lionel had already prepaid for the year, Dahmer dropped out with a 0.45 GPA, per University District History.

Jeffrey moves back home to his father’s house. At his father’s insistence, Jeffrey enlisted in the Army in January 1979. He was trained as a medical specialist at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas before being stationed in Baumholder, West Germany, as a combat medic. Military records indicate Dahmer’s first year of service was “average or slightly above average”.

Two soldiers attest to having been raped by Dahmer while in the army; one of whom stated in 2010 that while stationed at Baumholder, Dahmer had repeatedly raped him over 17 months, while another soldier believes he was drugged, then raped by Dahmer inside an armored personnel carrier in 1979. Owing to Dahmer’s alcohol abuse, his performance deteriorated and, in March 1981, he was deemed unsuitable for military service and later formally discharged from the Army. He received an honorable discharge, as his superiors did not believe that any problems Dahmer had in the Army would apply to civilian life.

Return to Ohio and relocation to West Allis, Wisconsin

Dahmer’s father tried unsuccessfully to wean his son off alcohol. In December 1981, he and Dahmer’s stepmother sent him to live with his grandmother in West Allis, Wisconsin. Dahmer’s grandmother was the only family member to whom he displayed any affection. They hoped that her influence, plus the change of scenery, might persuade Dahmer to refrain from alcohol, find a job, and live responsibly.

In early 1982, Dahmer found employment as a phlebotomist at the Milwaukee Blood Plasma Center. He held this job for a total of 10 months before being laid off. Dahmer remained unemployed for over two years, during which he lived upon whatever money his grandmother gave him.

On August 7, 1982, at Wisconsin State Fair Park, he was observed to expose himself “on the south side of the Coliseum in which 25 people were present including women and children.” For this incident, he was convicted and fined $50 plus court costs.

By late 1985, Dahmer had begun to regularly frequent the bathhouses, which he later described as being “relaxing places”, but during his sexual encounters, he became frustrated at his partners’ moving during the sexual act. Following his arrest, he stated: “I trained myself to view people as objects of pleasure instead of as people”. For this reason, beginning in June 1986, he administered sleeping pills to his partners, giving them liquor laced with the sedatives. He then waited for his partner to fall asleep before performing various sexual acts. After approximately 12 such instances, the bathhouses’ administration revoked Dahmer’s membership, and he began to use hotel rooms to continue this practice.

Dahmer read a report in a newspaper regarding the upcoming funeral of an 18-year-old male. He conceived the idea of stealing the freshly interred corpse and taking it home. According to Dahmer, he attempted to dig up the coffin from the ground, but found the soil too hard and abandoned the plan.

In August 1986, Dahmer was arrested for masturbating in the presence of two 12-year-old boys as he stood close to the Kinnickinnic River. He initially admitted the offense and was again charged with indecent exposure, but quickly changed his story and claimed he had merely been urinating, unaware that there were witnesses. The charge was changed to disorderly conduct and, On March 10, 1987, Dahmer was sentenced to one year of probation, with additional instructions he was to undergo counseling.

Subsequent Murders

Second Victim

On November 20, 1987, Dahmer — at the time residing with his grandmother in West Allis — encountered a 25-year-old man from Ontonagon, Michigan, Steven Tuomi, at a bar and persuaded him to return to the Ambassador Hotel in Milwaukee, where Dahmer had rented a room for the evening. According to Dahmer, he had no intention of murdering Tuomi but rather intended to simply drug him and lie beside him as he explored his body. The following morning, however, Dahmer awoke to find Tuomi lying beneath him on the bed, his chest “crushed in” and “black and blue” with bruises. Blood was also seeping from the corner of his mouth, and Dahmer’s fists and one forearm were extensively bruised. Dahmer stated he had no memory of having killed Tuomi, and later informed investigators that he “could not believe this had happened.”

To dispose of Tuomi’s body, Dahmer purchased a large suitcase in which he transported the body to his grandmother’s residence. There, one week later,[95] he severed the head, arms, and legs from the torso, then filleted the bones from the body before cutting the flesh into pieces small enough to handle. Dahmer then placed the flesh inside plastic garbage bags. He wrapped the bones inside a sheet and pounded them into splinters with a sledgehammer. The entire dismemberment process took Dahmer approximately two hours to complete, and he disposed of all of Tuomi’s remains — excluding the severed head — in the trash.

For a total of two weeks following Tuomi’s murder, Dahmer retained the victim’s head wrapped in a blanket. After two weeks, Dahmer boiled the head in a mixture of Soilex (an alkali-based industrial detergent) and bleach to retain the skull, which he then used as a stimulus for masturbation. Eventually, the skull was rendered too brittle by this bleaching process, so Dahmer pulverized and disposed of it.

Dahmer During ’80s

Two months after the Tuomi killing, Dahmer encountered a 14-year-old Native American male prostitute named James Doxtator; Dahmer lured the youth to his home with an offer of $50 to pose for nude pictures. At Dahmer’s West Allis residence, the pair engaged in sexual activity before Dahmer drugged Doxtator and strangled him on the floor of the cellar. Dahmer left the body in the cellar for one week before dismembering it in much the same manner as he had with Tuomi. He placed all of Doxtator’s remains (excluding the skull) in the trash. He boiled the skull and initially retained it before pulverizing it.

On March 24, 1988, Dahmer met a 22-year-old bisexual man named Richard Guerrero outside a gay bar called The Phoenix. Dahmer lured Guerrero to his grandmother’s residence, although the incentive on this occasion was $50 to simply spend the remainder of the night with him; he then drugged Guerrero with sleeping pills and strangled him with a leather strap, with Dahmer then performing oral sex upon the corpse. Guerrero’s body was dismembered within 24 hours of his murder, with the remains again disposed of in the trash and the skull again retained before being pulverized several months later.

In September 1988, Dahmer’s grandmother asked him to move out because of his habit of bringing young men to her house late at night and the foul smells emanating from both the basement and the garage. Dahmer found a one-bedroom apartment on North 25th Street and moved into his new residence on September 25. The following day, 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.

In January 1989, Dahmer was convicted of second-degree sexual assault and of enticing a child for immoral purposes. Sentencing for the assault was suspended until May 1989. On March 20, Dahmer commenced a 10-day Easter absence from work, during which he moved back into his grandmother’s home.

Dahmer also began to collect grotesque trophies from his victims. This practice began with the murder of a 24-year-old aspiring model named Anthony Sears.

Sears struck up a conversation with the seemingly innocent Dahmer at a gay bar. After going home with Dahmer, Sears was drugged, raped, and eventually strangled. Dahmer would then preserve Spears’ head and genitals in jars filled with acetone. When he moved into his place downtown, Dahmer brought the dismembered pieces of Sears with him.

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

• 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

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.

1990 killings

On May 14, 1990, Dahmer moved out of his grandmother’s house and into 924 North 25th Street, Apartment 213, taking Sears’ mummified head and genitals with him. Within one week of moving into his new apartment, Dahmer had killed his sixth victim, Raymond Smith. Smith was a 32-year-old male prostitute whom Dahmer lured to Apartment 213 with the promise of $50 for sex. Inside the apartment, he gave Smith a drink laced with seven sleeping pills and manually strangled him.

Approximately one week after the murder of Smith, on or about May 27, Dahmer lured another young man to his apartment. On this occasion, however, Dahmer himself accidentally consumed the drink laden with sedatives intended for consumption by his guest. When he awoke the following day, he discovered his intended victim had stolen several items of his clothing, $300, and a watch. Dahmer never reported this incident to the police, although, on May 29, he divulged to his probation officer that he had been robbed.

In June 1990, Dahmer lured a 27-year-old acquaintance named Edward Smith to his apartment. He drugged and strangled Smith.

Less than three months after the murder of Smith, Dahmer encountered a 22-year-old Chicago native named Ernest Miller on the corner of North 27th Street. Miller agreed to accompany Dahmer to his apartment for $50 and further agreed to allow him to listen to his heart and stomach. When Dahmer attempted to perform oral sex upon Miller, he was informed, “That’ll cost you extra,” whereupon Dahmer gave his intended victim a drink laced with two sleeping pills. On this occasion, Dahmer had only two sleeping pills to give his victim. Therefore, he killed Miller by slashing his carotid artery with the same knife he used to dissect his victims’ bodies.

Three weeks after the murder of Miller, on September 24, Dahmer encountered a 22-year-old man named David Thomas at the Grand Avenue Mall and persuaded him to return to his apartment for a few drinks, with additional money on offer if he would pose for photographs. In his statement to police after his arrest, Dahmer stated that, after giving Thomas a drink laden with sedatives, he did not feel attracted to him, but was afraid to allow him to awake in case he would be angry over having been drugged. Therefore, he strangled him and dismembered the body.

1991 killings

Dahmer’s murdering activity continued uninterrupted until an incident on May 27, 1991. His 13th victim was 14-year-old Konerak Sinthasomphone, who was also 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 had 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, the police officers John Balcerzak and Joseph Gabrish joked with their dispatcher about reuniting the lovers. Within hours, Dahmer killed Sinthasomphone and performed his usual ritual on the body.

On June 30, Dahmer traveled to Chicago, where he encountered a 20-year-old named Matt Turner at a bus station. Turner accepted Dahmer’s offer to travel to Milwaukee for a professional photoshoot. At the apartment, Dahmer drugged, strangled, and dismembered Turner and placed his head and internal organs in separate plastic bags in the freezer.

On July 15, Dahmer encountered 24-year-old[166], Oliver Lacy, at the corner of 27th and Kilbourn. Lacy agreed to Dahmer’s ruse of posing nude for photographs and accompanied him to his apartment, where the pair engaged in tentative sexual activity before Dahmer drugged Lacy. After strangling Lacy, Dahmer had sex with the corpse before dismembering him.

Arrest

In June and July 1991, Dahmer’s killing had escalated to one a 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, the 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’s handcuffs 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.

They decided to place Dahmer under arrest and attempted to handcuff him, but his calm demeanor changed and he began to fight and struggle unsuccessfully to getaway, is. With Dahmer under control, the police then 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.

What was found in Dhamer’s Apartment (Crime Scene)?

The 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 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 various 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 Trial

Jeffrey Dahmer was indicted on 17 murder charges, which was later reduced to 15. He pleaded not guilty because 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 that 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.

He 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.

Death

On November 28, 1994, Dahmer and inmate Jesse Anderson was beaten to death by fellow inmate Christopher Scarver while on a 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 alone for 20 minutes. They returned to find Anderson dead and Dahmer dying from severe head trauma. He had been severely bludgeoned about the head and face with a 20-inch (51-centimeter) metal bar. Dahmer died in the ambulance before reaching the hospital.

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