Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer (May 21, 1960 – November 28, 1994) was an American
serial killer.
Dahmer murdered at least 17 men and boys between 1978 and 1991, with the majority of the
murders occurring between 1989 and 1991. His murders were particularly gruesome, involving rape,
necrophilia and cannibalism.
Early life
Dahmer was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to Lionel and Joyce Dahmer. At age six,
he had surgery to correct a double hernia. His family soon moved to Bath, Ohio, where he attended Revere High
School. He dissected dead animals as a child, the first a pig fetus at school; he would
then clean the meat off of the bones of animals with acid. When he was questioned about the bone collection, he said he
liked the sound they made when he played with them.[1] By
his teenage years, Dahmer was an alcoholic loner. Dahmer's parents divorced when he was 18, after years of constant fighting.
Dahmer committed his first murder when he was 18, killing Steven Hicks, a 19-year-old hitchhiker. Dahmer invited Hicks to his house, and killed him because he "didn't want him to leave."
Dahmer attended Ohio State University, but dropped out after two terms.
Dahmer's father then forced him to enlist in the United States Army, where he was to
serve for a six-year enlistment; he was discharged after two, due to his excessive drinking.
When the Army discharged Dahmer in 1981, they provided him with a plane ticket to anywhere in the country. Dahmer told police
he couldn't go home to face his father, so he headed to Miami Beach, Florida,
because he was "tired of the cold."[2]
In 1982, Dahmer moved in with his grandmother in West Allis, Wisconsin, where
he would live for six years.
In August 1982, he was arrested for exposing himself at a
state fair. In September 1986, he was charged again with public exposure after two boys accused him of masturbating in public. This time he was sentenced to a year in prison, of which he served 10 months.
On September 25, 1988, he was arrested for
sexually fondling a 13-year-old Laotian boy in
Milwaukee, for which he served 10 months of a one year sentence in a work release camp.
However, in 1988 there was not yet a law requiring offenders to register when convicted of a
sex crime against a minor. He convinced the judge that he needed therapy, and he was released with a five-year probation on good
behavior. Shortly thereafter, he began a string of murders that would end with his arrest in 1991.
Later murders
In the early morning hours of May 27, 1991, 14-year-old Konerak
Sinthasomphone (the younger brother of the boy Dahmer had molested) was discovered on the street, wandering nude. Reports of the
boy's injuries varied. Dahmer told police that they had an argument while drinking, and that Sinthasomphone was his 19-year-old
lover. Against the teenager's protests, police turned him over to Dahmer. They later reported smelling a strange scent, which was
later found to be bodies in the back of his room. Later that night, Dahmer killed and dismembered Sinthasomphone, keeping his
skull as a souvenir.
John Balcerzak and Joseph Gabrish, the two police officers who returned Sinthasomphone
to Dahmer, were fired from the Milwaukee Police Department after their actions were widely publicized, including an audiotape of
the officers making homophobic statements to their dispatcher and laughing about having
reunited the "lovers." The two officers appealed their termination and were reinstated with back pay. They were named officers of
the year by the police union.[citation needed] Balcerzak would go on to be elected president of the Milwaukee Police
Association in May 2005.
By the summer of 1991, Dahmer was murdering approximately one person each week. He killed Matt Turner on June 30, Jeremiah
Weinberger on July 5, Oliver Lacy on July 12, and finally Joseph Brandehoft on July 19.
Arrest
On July 22, 1991, Dahmer lured another man, Tracy[3] (Traci) Edwards, into his home. According to the would-be
victim, Dahmer struggled with Edwards in order to handcuff him. Edwards escaped and alerted a
police car, with the handcuffs still hanging from one hand.
Edwards led police back to Dahmer's apartment, where Dahmer at first acted friendly to the officers, only to turn on them when
he realized that they suspected something was wrong. As one officer subdued Dahmer, the other searched the house and uncovered
multiple photographs of murdered victims and human remains, including three severed heads. A further search of the house revealed
more evidence, including photographs of victims and human remains in his refrigerator.
The story of Dahmer's arrest and the gruesome inventory in his apartment quickly gained notoriety: several corpses were stored
in acid-filled vats, severed heads were found in
his refrigerator, and implements for the construction of an altar of candles and human skulls were
found in his closet. Accusations soon surfaced that Dahmer had practiced necrophilia, cannibalism, and possibly a form of
trepanation in order to create so-called "zombies."
Trial
Jeffrey Dahmer was officially indicted on 17 murder charges, which were reduced to 15. The
murder cases were already so notorious that the authorities never bothered to charge him in the attempted murder of Edwards. His trial began in July 1992. With evidence
overwhelmingly against him, Dahmer pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, arguing
that his necrophiliac urges were so strong that he could not control them.
The court found Dahmer guilty on 15 counts of murder and sentenced him to 15 life
terms, totalling 937 years in prison. At his sentencing hearing, Dahmer expressed remorse
for his actions, also saying that he wished for his own death.
Imprisonment and death
Dahmer served his time at the Columbia Correctional Institution in
Portage, Wisconsin, where he ultimately declared himself a born-again Christian. A local preacher, Roy Ratcliff, met
with Dahmer and agreed to baptise him.
On November 28, 1994, Dahmer and another inmate named
Jesse Anderson were beaten to death by fellow inmate Christopher Scarver while on work detail in the prison gym. Dahmer died from severe head
trauma in the ambulance en route to the hospital.
Before his death, Dahmer survived a previous attempt on his life. After attending a church service in the prison chapel, an
inmate tried to slash Dahmer's throat with a razor blade. Dahmer escaped the incident with superficial wounds.
Aftermath
After the murders, the Oxford Apartments were demolished; the site is now a vacant lot. At the time the apartments were
demolished there were plans to turn the site into a memorial garden, but no such garden was constructed.
Lionel Dahmer published a book, A Father's Story, and donated a portion of the proceeds from his book to the victims
and their families. Most of the families showed support for Lionel Dahmer and his wife, Shari. He has retired from his career as
an analytical chemist and resides with his wife in Medina County, Ohio. He consults on the evolution versus
creationism topic occasionally, and his wife was a member of the board of the Medina County
Ohio Horseman's Council.[4] Both continue to carry the name
Dahmer and say they love their son despite his crimes. Lionel Dahmer's first wife, Joyce (Flint), died of cancer in 2000 at the age of 64. She was later buried in Atlanta,
Georgia. Dahmer's younger brother David changed his last name and lives in anonymity.
In January 2007, evidence surfaced potentially linking Dahmer to Adam Walsh's 1981 abduction and murder in Florida.[5] True crime writer Arthur Jay Harris, who investigated the case for years, found evidence that Dahmer was in the same mall where
Adam was killed and may have had access to a blue van[6].
New Times columnist Bob Norman checked out Harris' investigation and also came to
believe that Dahmer was the chief suspect[7]. Most
recently, ABC's Primetime
featured the theory in a half-hour segment, airing Harris' findings to a national audience. However, Adam's father,
John Walsh, believes that another serial killer, Ottis
Toole, committed the crime.[8]
Known victims
| Name |
[3] Age |
Date of Death |
| 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 |
In popular culture
References in fiction
- The movie Jeffrey Dahmer: The Secret Life was released in
1993, starring Carl Crew as Dahmer.
- In 2002, the biopic Dahmer, starring
Jeremy Renner in the title role, premiered in Dahmer's hometown. The film, which portrayed
Dahmer in a somewhat sympathetic light, met with protest from the victims' families, and quickly went to video.
- Dahmer was one of the serial killers emulated by the villain in the movie Copycat (1995).
- Joyce Carol Oates' novel Zombie was
based on Dahmer's life.[9]
- Dahmer is one of the frozen cryo-prison inmates in the movie Demolition Man. The movie was set in the year 2031 and was
released before Dahmer's death in prison. IMDB Trivia page for Demolition Man
- In 2006, a South Park episode titled Hell on
Earth 2006 featured Dahmer alongside Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy (acting as a Three Stooges-esque trio) in which
they were summoned by hell to collect a Ferrari-shaped cake for Satan.
- In the 2005 film The Ringer, starring Johnny Knoxville, Knoxville's character name is Jeffy Dahmor, which is a play on Jeffrey Dahmer.
- Characters and situations in Exquisite Corpse (novel) by Poppy Z. Brite are based on Dahmer and Dennis Nilsen
Music references
- The Cincinnati death metal band Infermentium has a song called "Dahmer's Legacy"
- The Canadian grindcore band Dahmer is named after Jeffrey Dahmer.
- The song "Room 213 (Frozen Heart Mix)" by the band G.G.F.H. is written from Dahmer's
perspective and includes snippets of his trial statements, in addition to other soundbites.
- The American death metal band Macabre has
written a concept album about Jeffrey Dahmer titled Dahmer, along with several songs about him on various of their albums.
- The underground rapper Necro raps about Jeffrey
Dahmer in several songs, most notably "Tom Dahmer" and "Do the Charles Manson".
- The song "213" by the thrash metal band Slayer is about
Jeffrey Dahmer. The title refers to the address number of Dahmer's Milwaukee apartment.[10]
- On the CD Mr. Hankey's Christmas Classics the song Christmas Time In
Hell, a reference to Jeffrey Dahmer having sex with a christmas ham then eating up all that he can.
- Rozz Williams wrote the song "Still Born/Still Life, Part I (for Jeffrey Dahmer) (with
love)" in Dahmer's honor. [11]
See also
Footnotes
Further reading
- Pincus, Jonathan H. Base Instincts - What Makes Killers kill?. W.W. Norton & Company, New York 2001 (Paperback
2002)
- Dahmer, Lionel. A Father's Story. William Morrow & Company, New York 1994 (Paperback 1994)
- Mann, Robert & Williamson, Miryam. Forensic Detective - How I Cracked The World's Toughest Cases. Ballantine Books
(March 28 2006)
- Masters, Brian. The Shrine of Jeffrey Dahmer. Hodder and Stroughton Limited, London 1993 (Paperback Coronet 1993)
- Ratcliff, Roy with Lindy Adams. Dark Journey, Deep Grace: The Story Behind a Serial Killer's Journey to Faith.
Leafwood Publishers, (2006).
External links
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