Jeffrey Dahmer

Biography and Escalation

Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer was born on May 21, 1960 in West Allis, Wisconsin to Joyce Annette and Lionel Herbert Dahmer. Although cared for by both parents when Dahmer was an infant, Joyce was know to be tense, greedy for attention, and argumentative with both her husband and their neighbors. According to some sources, Joyce would work herself into a nervous frenzy over trivial things, becoming bedridden numerous times due to weakness. One one occasion, Joyce attempted suicide by an overdose of the Equanil pills that she was addicted to. As a result of the continuous arguing between his parents, neither had much time to care for Dahmer in his later years.

 

From an early age, Dahmer manifested an interest in animals. Friends later recalled Dahmer initially collected large insects, dragonflies and butterflies which he placed inside jars. Later, Dahmer—occasionally accompanied by one or more of his few friends—would collect animal carcasses from the roadside; these animals Dahmer would dismember either at home or in an expanse of woodland behind the family home. According to one friend, Dahmer would dismember these animals and store the parts in jars in the family's wooden toolshed, always explaining that he was curious as to how each animal "fitted together." In one instance, he is known to have impaled a dog's head upon a stake behind his house.
Dahmer's fascination with dead animals might have begun when, at the age of four, he noted his father removing animal bones from beneath the family home. According to Lionel Dahmer, his son was "oddly thrilled" by the sound the bones made.
The Dahmer family relocated to Doylestown, Ohio, in October 1966. At the time, Joyce Dahmer was pregnant with her second child. When she gave birth to a baby boy on December 18, 1966, Jeffrey was allowed to choose the name of the baby. He chose the name David for his younger brother. The same year, Lionel Dahmer achieved his degree and subsequently obtained employment as an analytical chemist in the city of Akron.
In 1968, the family relocated to Bath, Ohio. Two years later, over a family meal of chicken, Dahmer asked his father what would happen if the bones of the chicken were to be placed in bleach. Lionel Dahmer was by this stage concerned as to his elder son's placid and lethargic attitude and his solitary existence; he was delighted at the initiative displayed by his son towards what he believed to be scientific curiosity; therefore, he willingly demonstrated how to bleach and, later, preserve animal bones. The knowledge regarding cleansing and preserving of these bones Dahmer would later utilize upon many of the animal remains which he continued to avidly collect and of which his father, being a chemist , taught his son safe usage.

Adolescence and high school

Dahmer attended Revere High School and starting his freshman year was immediately seen as an outcast among his peers. According to some of his peers, they were disturbed by the fact that Dahmer would smuggle beer and spirits in his jacket into school. Nevertheless, the staff could tell that, although Dahmer was extremely shy and quiet that he was highly intelligent. Dahmer however received average grades, which the staff attributed to apathy.

When Dahmer reached puberty, he discovered that he was a homosexual, though he never disclosed this information to his parents. He began to have increased fantasies of dominance and disturbing sexual acts. Despite being a loner, Dahmer was somewhat of a cult figure to his peers for the pranks he pulled, some of which included bleating, faking epileptic seizures, etc. These pranks were called "Doing a Dahmer."

 

First murder and army service

Dahmer committed his first murder in the summer of 1978, at the age of 18, just 3 weeks from his graduation.  On June 18, Dahmer picked up an 18-year-old hitchhiker named Steven Mark Hicks. Dahmer lured the youth to his house with the pretext of drinking together. Hicks, hitchhiking to a rock concert in Lockwood Corners, agreed to accompany Dahmer to his house. Several hours later, according to Dahmer, Hicks "wanted to leave, and I didn't want him to." Dahmer then bludgeoned the young man with a 10lb dumbbell. Dahmer hit him again in the back of the head until Hicks became unconscious. Then Dahmer strangled him to death with the bar of the dumbbell and masturbated over his dead body after he stripped Hick's of his clothes.

The following day, Dahmer crammed Hick's body into a crawlspace in the house until later burying him in a shallow grave. Several weeks later, he unearthed the remains, stripped the bones of the flesh, dissolved the flesh in acid, flushing the solution down the toilet and crushing the bones with a sledge hammer.

Upon his father's urging, Dahmer enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1979.  Due to his alcohol problem however, Dahmer was deemed unfit for the army and discharged honorably.

Return to Ohio and relocation to West Allis

Upon his return to Ohio, Dahmer initially resided with his father and stepmother and insisted on being delegated numerous chores to occupy his time as he looked for work. However, he continued to drink heavily and just two weeks after his return, Dahmer was arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct for  which he was fined sixty dollars and given a suspended 10 day sentence.



Dahmer's father tried unsuccessfully to wean his son off alcohol. In December 1981, Dahmer's father and stepmother sent Jeffrey to live with his grandmother in West Allis. 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 inspire Dahmer to refrain from alcohol, find a job and live responsibly.
Initially, Dahmer's living arrangements with his grandmother were harmonious: he accompanied her to church; willingly undertook chores; actively sought work; and abided by most of her house rules (although he did continue to drink). This new influence in his life initially brought results and in early 1982, Dahmer found employment as a phlebotomist at the Milwaukee Blood Plasma Center. He held this job for a total of ten months before being made redundant. He was to remain unemployed for over two years, during which he lived upon whatever money his grandmother gave him.
Shortly before being made redundant, Dahmer was arrested for indecent exposure.

 On August 7, 1982, at Wisconsin State Fair Park, Dahmer was observed to expose himself to a crowd of 25 women and children. For this incident, he was convicted and fined fifty dollars plus court costs. In January 1985, Dahmer was hired as a mixer at the Milwaukee Ambrosia Chocolate Factory, where he worked from 11 p.m.–7 a.m. six nights a week, with Saturday evenings off. Shortly after Dahmer found this employment, an incident occurred in which he was propositioned by another male while sitting reading in the West Allis Public Library. The stranger threw Dahmer a note offering to perform fellatio upon him. Although Dahmer did not respond to this proposition, the incident stirred in his mind the fantasies of control and dominance he had developed as a teenager and he began to familiarize himself with Milwaukee's gay bars, bookstores and gay bathhouses. He is also known to have stolen a male mannequin from a store,which he briefly used for sexual stimulation before his grandmother, having discovered the device stowed in a closet, demanded that he discard it.
By late 1985, he 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 people."

For this reason, from June 1986, he began to administer sleeping pills to his partners, to whom he would give liquor laced with the sedatives, then make sexual use of their unconscious bodies. Following approximately 12 such instances, Dahmer's membership of the bathhouses was revoked and he began to use hotel rooms to continue this practice.


Shortly after his membership of the bathhouses was revoked, 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 the coffin from the ground, but found the soil too hard, before abandoning the plan.


In August 1986, Dahmer was again arrested for masturbating in front of two 12-year-old boys as he stood close to the Kinnickinnic,  Dahmer 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's probation, with additional instructions he was to undergo counseling.

Known victims

Nine years passed before Dahmer killed again; in November 1987, Dahmer—at the time residing with his grandmother in West Allis—encountered a 25-year-old Ontonagon native named Steven Tuomi at a bar and persuaded him to return to the Ambassador Hotel room Dahmer had rented for the evening. According to Dahmer, he had no intention of murdering this particular victim, but simply intended to drug him and have intercourse with him as he lay unconscious. The following morning, however, he awoke to find Tuomi lying beneath him on the bed, his chest "crushed in" and blood seeping from his mouth, with bruises on Dahmer's own fists and one forearm. Dahmer stated he had absolutely no memory of having killed Tuomi and later informed investigators that he simply "could not believe this had happened."

To dispose of Tuomi's body, he purchased a large suitcase in which he transported the body to his grandmother's residence. There, the following morning, 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. He then placed the flesh inside plastic garbage bags. The bones he wrapped inside a sheet and pounded into splinters with a sledgehammer. The entire dismemberment process took Dahmer approximately two hours to complete and all of Tuomi's remains—excluding the severed head—were disposed of 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 and bleach in an effort to retain the skull, which he then used as stimulus for masturbation. Eventually, the skull was rendered too brittle by this bleaching process and was also pulverized and disposed of.

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

On March 24, 1988, Dahmer met a 22-year-old bisexual named Richard Guerrero outside a gay bar called The Phoenix. Guerrero was also lured to Dahmer's grandmother's residence, although the incentive on this occasion was $50 to simply spend the night with him; he was drugged with sleeping pills and strangled 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 of her house both because of his habit of bringing young men to her house late at night and because of the foul smells she had noted emanating from both the basement and the garage. Dahmer found a one-bedroom apartment on North Twenty-fifth Street and moved into his new residence on September 25. The following day, Dahmer 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 ten-day Easter absence from work, during which he moved back into his grandmother's home.


Two months after his conviction and two months prior to his sentencing for the sexual assault, Dahmer killed for the fifth time. The victim was a mixed-race 24-year-old aspiring model named Anthony Sears, whom Dahmer met at a gay bar on March 25, 1989. According to Dahmer, on this particular occasion, he was not planning on looking for a victim; however, shortly before closing time that evening, Sears "just started talking to me." Dahmer lured Sears to his grandmother's home, where the pair engaged in oral sex before Dahmer drugged and strangled Sears. The following morning, Dahmer placed the corpse in his grandmother's bathtub, where he decapitated the body before attempting to flay the corpse. He then stripped the flesh from the body and pulverized the bones, which were again disposed of in the trash. According to Dahmer, he found Sears "exceptionally attractive" and Sears was the first victim from whom he permanently retained any body parts: he preserved the head and genitalia of Sears in acetoneand stored them in his work locker. When he moved to a new address the following year, he took the remains there.

On May 14, 1990, Dahmer moved out of his grandmother's house and into Apartment 213, 924 North 25th Street, taking the skull, scalp and painted genitals of Anthony Sears with him. Within one week of his moving into his new apartment, Dahmer had killed his sixth victim, Raymond Smith. Smith was a male prostitute who Dahmer lured to Apartment 219 with the promise of $50 for sex. At Dahmer's apartment, Smith was given a drink laced with seven sleeping pills and manually strangled. The following day, Dahmer purchased a Polaroid camera with which he took several pictures of Smith's body in suggestive positions before dismembering him in the bathroom. The legs, arms and pelvis he boiled in a steel kettle with Soilex, which enabled him to then rinse the bones in his sink; the remainder of Smith's skeleton—excluding the skull—he dissolved in a container he filled with acid. Smith's skull was spray-painted and placed alongside the skull of Anthony Sears.

Approximately one week after the murder of Raymond 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, he discovered he had been robbed of $300 and a watch. Naturally, Dahmer never reported this incident to the police, although he did divulge to his probation officer on May 29 that he had been robbed.
 
In June, 1990, Dahmer lured a 27-year-old acquaintance named Edward Smith to his apartment. Smith was drugged and strangled. On this occasion, rather than immediately acidifying the skeleton or repeating previous processes of bleaching (which had rendered previous victims' skulls brittle), Dahmer placed the skeleton of Smith in his freezer for several months in the hope it would not retain moisture. Freezing the skeleton did not remove moisture, and the skeleton would be acidified several months later. The skull was destroyed unintentionally when placed in the oven to dry—a process which caused the skull to explode. (Dahmer himself was to later inform police he had felt "rotten" about Smith's murder as he had not been able to retain any parts of his body.)

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, however, he had 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. He then posed the nude body for various suggestive Polaroid photographs before placing the body in his bathtub for dismemberment. The severed head Dahmer repeatedly kissed and talked to as he dismembered the remainder of the body. Miller's heart, biceps and portions of flesh from the legs were wrapped in plastic bags and placed in the fridge for later consumption. The remaining flesh and organs Dahmer boiled into a "jelly-like substance" using Soilex, which again enabled him to rinse the flesh off the skeleton, which he intended to retain. To preserve the skeleton, he placed the bones in a light bleach solution for 24 hours before allowing them to dry upon a cloth for one week; the severed head was initially placed in the fridge before also being stripped of flesh and preserved.

Three weeks after the murder of Ernest Miller, on September 24, Dahmer encountered a 22-year-old father-of-one 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—intentionally retaining no body parts whatsoever. Nonetheless, he did photograph the dismemberment process and retain these photographs, which would aid in Thomas's subsequent identification.

Following the murder of David Thomas, Dahmer did not kill for almost five months, although on a minimum of five occasions between October, 1990 and February, 1991, he did unsuccessfully attempt to lure men to his apartment. He is also known to have regularly complained of feelings of both anxiety and depression to his probation officer throughout 1990; with frequent references to his sexuality, his solitary lifestyle and financial difficulties. On several occasions, he is also known to have referred to harboring suicidal thoughts.

In February, 1991, Dahmer observed a 17-year-old named Curtis Straughter standing at a bus stop near Marquette University. According to Dahmer, Straughter was lured to his apartment with an offer of money for posing for nude photos, with the added incentive of sexual intercourse. At Dahmer's apartment, the youth was drugged and strangled with a leather strap, then dismembered, with Dahmer retaining his skull, hands and genitals and photographing each stage of the dismemberment process.

Less than two months later, on April 7, Dahmer encountered a 19-year-old named Errol Lindsey walking to get a key cut. Lindsey was a heterosexual; he was lured to Dahmer's apartment, where he was drugged and endured muriatic acid being poured into his skull through a cavity which Dahmer had drilled. According to Dahmer, Lindsey awoke after this experiment (which Dahmer had conceived in the hope of inducing a permanent, unresistant, submissive state), saying: "I have a headache. What time is it?" In response to this, Dahmer again drugged Lindsey, then strangled him. Lindsey's body was decapitated and the skull retained; his body was flayed and the skin placed in a solution of cold water and salt for several weeks in the hope of being permanently retained. Reluctantly, Dahmer disposed of Lindsey's skin when he noted it had become too frayed and brittle.

By 1991, fellow residents of the Oxford Apartments had complained of the smells emanating from Apartment 213, in addition to the sounds of falling objects and the occasional sound of a chainsaw. The manager of the Oxford Apartments, Sopa Princewill, did contact Dahmer in response to these complaints on several occasions, to which Dahmer initially excused the odors from his apartment as being caused by his freezer breaking, causing the contents to become "spoiled." On another occasion, the manager was informed the reason for resurgence of the odor was that several of Dahmer's tropical fish had recently died.




On the afternoon of May 26, 1991, Dahmer encountered a 14-year-old named Konerak Sinthasomphone on Wisconsin Avenue; he approached the youth with an offer of money to accompany him to his apartment to pose for Polaroid pictures. According to Dahmer, Sinthasomphone—the younger brother of the boy whom he had molested in 1988—was initially reluctant to the proposal, before changing his mind and accompanying Dahmer to his apartment, where the youth posed for two pictures in his underwear before being drugged into unconsciousness and fellated. On this occasion, Dahmer drilled a single hole into Sinthasomphone's skull, through which he injected muriatic acid into the frontal lobe.


Prior to his falling unconscious, Sinthasomphone was led into Dahmer's bedroom, where the nude body of 31-year-old Tony Hughes, whom Dahmer had killed three days earlier, lay naked on the floor. According to Dahmer, he "believed he [Sinthasomphone] saw this body," yet did not react to seeing the bloated corpse—likely because of the effects of the sleeping pills he had ingested and the muriatic acid Dahmer had injected into his skull. Sinthasomphone soon became unconscious, whereupon Dahmer drank several beers while lying alongside Sinthasomphone before leaving his apartment to drink at a bar, then purchase more alcohol.


In the early morning hours of May 27, Dahmer returned towards his apartment to discover Sinthasomphone sitting naked on the corner of 25th and State, talking in Laotian, with three hysterical young women standing near him. Dahmer approached the trio and explained to the women that Sinthasomphone (whom he referred to by an alias) was his lover and attempted to lead him to his apartment by the arm. The three women dissuaded Dahmer, explaining they had phoned 911. Upon the arrival of two officers named John Balcerzak and Joseph Gabrish, Dahmer's demeanor relaxed: he informed the officers that Sinthasomphone was his 19-year-old boyfriend; that he had drunk too much following a quarrel and that he frequently behaved in this manner when intoxicated. The three women were exasperated and when one of the trio attempted to indicate to one of the officers that Sinthasomphone was bleeding from his buttocks and that he had seemingly struggled against Dahmer's attempts to walk him to his apartment, the officer harshly informed her to "butt out," "shut the hell up" and to not interfere, adding the incident was "domestic."

Against the protests of the three women, the officers simply covered Sinthasomphone with a towel and walked him to Dahmer's apartment where, in an effort to verify his claim that he and Sinthasomphone were lovers, Dahmer showed the officers the two semi-nude Polaroid pictures he had taken of the youth the previous evening. The officers later reported having noted a strange scent reminiscent of excrement inside the apartment (this odor emanated from the decomposing body of Hughes). Dahmer stated that to investigate this, one officer simply "peeked his head around the bedroom but really didn't take a good look." The officers then left, with a departing remark that Dahmer "take good care" of Sinthasomphone. Had a background check upon Dahmer been conducted, it would have revealed that he was a convicted child molester under probation.
Upon the departure of the two police officers from his apartment, Dahmer again injected muriatic acid into Sinthasomphone's brain; on this second occasion, the injection proved fatal. The following day, May 28, Dahmer took a day's leave from work to devote himself to the dismemberment of the bodies of Sinthasomphone and Hughes, whom Dahmer had killed three days prior to Sinthasomphone and whose body had been lying in his bedroom as police brought Sinthasomphone back to his apartment. Both victims' skulls were retained.

By the summer of 1991, Dahmer was murdering approximately one person each week: 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 photo shoot. At Dahmer's apartment, Turner was drugged, strangled and dismembered, with his head and internal organs placed in separate plastic bags in the freezer. He was not reported missing. Five days later, on July 5, Dahmer lured 23-year-old Jeremiah Weinberger from a Chicago bar to his apartment on the promise of spending the weekend with him. Weinberger was drugged and twice had boiling water injected into his skull, sending Weinberger into a coma from which he died two days later.

On July 15, Dahmer encountered 23-year-old 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 Lacy was drugged. On this occasion, Dahmer intended to prolong the time he spent with Lacy while alive: after unsuccessfully attempting to render Lacy unconscious with chloroform, he phoned his workplace to request a day's absence; this was granted, although the next day, he was suspended. After strangling Lacy, Dahmer had sex with the corpse before dismembering him. His head and heart were placed in the refrigerator; his skeleton in the freezer.

Four days after the murder of Lacy, on July 19, Dahmer received word he was fired. Upon receipt of this news, Dahmer lured 25-year-old Joseph Bradehoft to his apartment. Bradehoft was strangled and left lying on Dahmer's bed, covered with a sheet, for two days. On July 21, Dahmer removed these sheets to find the head covered in maggots, whereupon he decapitated the body, cleaned the head and placed it in the refrigerator. Bradehoft's torso was later acidified, along with those of two other victims killed within the previous month.

 Dahmer crime scene photos and fridge contents

 

 

Death

According to Dahmer's family, he had long been ready to die, and accepted any punishment which he may endure in prison. In addition to his father and stepmother retaining regular contact, Dahmer's mother, Joyce, retained regular contact with her son (although prior to his arrest, the two had not seen each other since Christmas, 1983). Joyce Dahmer related that in her weekly phone calls, whenever she expressed concerns for her son's physical well-being, Dahmer would respond with comments to the effect of: "It doesn't matter, Mom. I don't care if something happens to me."



On the morning of November 28, 1994, Dahmer left his cell to conduct his assigned work detail. Accompanying him were two fellow inmates: Jesse Anderson and Christopher Scarver. The trio were left unsupervised in the showers of the prison gym for approximately 20 minutes. At approximately 8:10 a.m. Dahmer was discovered still alive on the floor of the bathrooms of the gym suffering from extreme head wounds; he had been severely bludgeoned about the head with a 20-inch (51 cm) metal bar. His head had also been repeatedly struck against the wall in the assault. Dahmer was rushed to a nearby hospital, but pronounced dead one hour later. Jesse Anderson had also been savagely attacked with the same instrument and died two days later from his wounds. Their assailant, 25-year-old Christopher Scarver—serving a life sentence for a murder committed in 1990—informed authorities he had first attacked Dahmer with the metal bar as he (Dahmer) was cleaning a staff locker room. According to Scarver, Dahmer did not yell or make any noise as he was attacked. Anderson was attacked as he cleaned an inmate locker room. Scarver was adamant he had not planned the attacks in advance.

Upon learning of his death, Dahmer's mother, Joyce Flint, responded angrily to the media: "Now is everybody happy? Now that he's bludgeoned to death, is that good enough for everyone?" The response of the families of Dahmer's victims was mixed, although it appears most were pleased with his death. The district attorney who prosecuted Dahmer cautioned against turning Scarver into a folk hero, noting that Dahmer's death was still murder.
On May 15, 1995, Christopher Scarver was sentenced to two additional terms of life imprisonment for the murders of Dahmer and Anderson.
Dahmer had stated in his will he wished for no services to be conducted and that he wished to be cremated. In September 1995, Dahmer's body was cremated, and his ashes divided between his parents.