Jeffrey Dahmer

Convicted serial killer and sex offender Jeffrey Dahmer murdered 17 men and
boys between 1978 and 1991. He was killed in 1994 by a fellow prison inmate.

1960-1994
Jeffrey Dahmer Now: Recordings Show He Intended to Keep Killing
A new docuseries entitled My Son Jeffrey: The Dahmer Family Tapes about serial
killer Jeffrey Dahmer will begin streaming on September 18 on Fox Nation. The
four-part series includes never-before-released audio recordings of Dahmer,
including phone conversations he had with his father, Lionel, while in prison.
According to Court TV, Dahmer said in one recording that he fully intended to
keep killing if he hadn’t been captured: “I was so wrapped up in what I was doing.
I felt I was gonna continue doing that for the rest of my life.”

Who Was Jeffrey Dahmer?

Jeffrey Dahmer was an American serial killer who took the lives of 17 men and
boys between 1978 and 1991. Over the course of more than 13 years, Dahmer
sought out his victims, mostly Black men, at gay bars, malls, and bus stops, lured
them home with promises of money or sex, and gave them alcohol laced with
drugs before strangling them to death. He would then engage in sex acts with the
corpses before dismembering them and disposing of them, often keeping body
parts as souvenirs. He frequently took photos of his victims at various stages of
the murder process, so he could recollect each act afterward and relive the
experience. Dahmer was captured in 1991 and sentenced to 16 life terms. He was
killed by fellow prison inmate Christopher Scarver in 1994.

Quick Facts
FULL NAME: Jeffrey Dahmer
BORN: May 21, 1960
DIED: November 28, 1994
BIRTHPLACE: Milwaukee, Wisconsin
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Gemini
HEIGHT: 6 ft. 0 in.
Childhood and Family
Jeffrey Dahmer was born in Milwaukee, on May 21, 1960, to Lionel and Joyce
Dahmer. He was described as an energetic and happy child until the age of 4,
when a traumatic and painful recovery following surgery to correct a double
hernia seemed to effect a change in the boy. Noticeably subdued, he became
increasingly withdrawn following the birth of his younger brother and the
family’s frequent moves. By the time, Dahmer was of school age, the family had
moved to Ohio.
From a young age, Dahmer developed a fascination with animal bones and
studied how to be clean and preserve them. As a child, he collected large insects
and the skulls of small animals, preserved in jars of formaldehyde, according to
the Brian Masters book The Shrine of Jeffrey Dahmer.
By his early teens, he was disengaged, tense, and largely friendless. Dahmer
claims that his compulsions toward necrophilia and murder began around the age
of 14, but it appears that the breakdown of his parents’ marriage and their
acrimonious divorce a few years later might have been the catalyst for turning
these thoughts into actions. His parents’ numerous arguments and the constant
tension in the house made Dahmer question the solidity of his family and life,
according to Masters.
A 1994 photo of Jeffrey Dahmer’s father, Lionel Dahmer, and stepmother, Shari,
standing outside of Columbia Correctional Institute where Jeffrey was
imprisoned.
Dahmer also started drinking at age 14, and by the time of his first killing at age
18, his alcohol consumption had spun out of control. He dropped out of Ohio
State University after one quarter term, and his recently remarried father insisted
that he join the Army. Dahmer enlisted in late December 1978 and was posted to
Germany shortly thereafter.
His drinking problem persisted, and in early 1981, the Army discharged him.
Although German authorities would later investigate possible connections
between Dahmer and murders that took place in the area during that time, it is not
believed that he took any victims while serving in the Armed Forces.
Following his discharge, Dahmer returned home to Ohio. An arrest later that year
for disorderly conduct prompted his father to send Dahmer to live with his
grandmother Catherine Dahmer in Wisconsin, but his alcohol problem continued,
and he was arrested the following summer for indecent exposure. He was arrested
once again in 1986 when two boys accused him of masturbating in front of them.
He received a one-year probationary sentence.
First Four Victims
Dahmer murdered 17 men between 1978 and 1991. 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. He lured them to his home with promises of money or sex, then strangled
them to death. He engaged in sex acts with their bodies and kept body parts and
photos as souvenirs. His most popular nicknames—the Milwaukee Cannibal and
the Milwaukee Monster—reflect his heinous crimes.
Dahmer’s first murder occurred just after graduating from Revere High School, in
June 1978, when he picked up an 18-year-old hitchhiker named Steven Hicks and
took him home to his parents’ house. Dahmer proceeded to get the young man
drunk, and when Hicks tried to go, Dahmer said “I didn’t want him to leave.”
Dahmer killed him by striking him in the head and strangling him with a barbell.
Dahmer dismembered Hicks’ corpse, packed the body parts in plastic bags, and
buried them behind his parents’ home. He later exhumed the remains, crushed the
bones with a sledgehammer, and scattered them across a wooded ravine.
It wasn’t until September 1987 that Dahmer took his second victim, Steven
Tuomi. They checked into a hotel room and drank, and Dahmer eventually awoke
to find Tuomi dead, with no memory of the previous night’s activities. He later
told police he intended to drug Tuomi but not kill him, and he “could not believe
this had happened.” Dahmer bought a large suitcase to transport Tuomi’s body to
his grandmother’s basement, where he dismembered and masturbated on the
corpse before disposing of the remains. He kept Tuomi’s head, which was
wrapped in a blanket, for weeks after the murder.
Dahmer later said that after Tuomi’s killing, his “obsession [with killing] went
into full swing” and he “didn’t even try to stop it after that.” He killed two more
victims at his grandmother’s house before she forced him to move out in 1988.
She had no knowledge of his crimes but was tired of his drinking, his tendency to
bring young men to her house, and the foul smells occasionally coming from her
basement, according to Masters.

Sexual Assault Charges and Sentence

In September 1989, about a year after moving into his new apartment, Dahmer
lured a 13-year-old Laotian boy to his house, claiming he wanted to take nude
photos of him. This 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. Dahmer found Sears particularly attractive and later said
he did not want to “lose him,” and so Sears became the first victim from whom
Dahmer kept preserved body parts for a long period of time, mummifying his
head and genitals, according to Masters.
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, 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.

Last 13 Victims
Over the next two years, Dahmer would kill 12 more people, bringing his total
victim count to 17. His first victim during this time was a prostitute named
Raymond Smith, whom Dahmer lured to his apartment for sex, gave a drink laced
with sleeping tablets, and then strangled. Dahmer took photos of his body in
suggestive positions before dismembering him. With his next victim Edward
Smith, Dahmer accidentally destroyed his skull while trying to dry it in the oven,
making it explode. He later told police he felt “rotten” about Smith’s murder
because was unable to keep anything from his body, making it feel like a true
waste, according to Masters.
Dahmer started developing rituals as he progressed with his killings,
experimenting with chemical means of disposal and often consuming the flesh of
his victims. Dahmer also attempted crude lobotomies: He drilled into the skull of
his 11th victim, Errol Lindsey, while he was still alive and injected him with
muriatic acid. Dahmer hoped this would place Lindsey into a permanent
submissive state, but Lindsey awoke during the procedure and said, “I have a
headache; what time is it?” so Dahmer strangled him.
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 Black community—that the boy was his 19-year-old lover. In fact,
the boy was 14 years old and was, unbeknownst to Dahmer, the younger brother
of the Laotian teen Dahmer had molested three years earlier.
The police escorted Dahmer and the boy home. Clearly not wishing to become
embroiled in a homosexual domestic disturbance, they took only a cursory look
around before leaving. According to Dahmer, an officer “peeked his head around
in the bedroom but didn’t really take a good look,” and then left after telling
Dahmer to “take care” of the boy, according to Masters. Once they left the scene,
Dahmer injected hydrochloric acid into the boy’s brain, killing him. Had the
police conducted even a basic search, they would have found the body of
Dahmer’s 12th victim, Tony Hughes.
Dahmer killed four more men before he was finally arrested. One of his last
victims was Oliver Lacy, 24, whose body Dahmer had sex with before
dismembering the corpse. He kept Lacy’s head and heart in his refrigerator, and
his skeleton in a freezer.

Dahmer’s Arrest
Dahmer’s killing spree ended when he was arrested on July 22, 1991. The body
parts found in Dahmer’s refrigerator and Polaroid photographs of his victims
became inextricably associated with his notorious killing spree.
Two Milwaukee police officers were led to Dahmer when they picked up Tracy
Edwards, a 32-year-old Black man who was wandering the streets with handcuffs
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, after which he muttered the words, “For what I did, I should be dead,”
according to Masters.
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 later said he had planned to built a private altar from his victims’
skulls, adorned with incense sticks and globe lights. He hoped the altar would be
“A place where I could feel at home,” according to Masters.
Trial and Imprisonment
Dahmer’s trial began in January 1992. Given that the majority of Dahmer’s
victims were Black, there were considerable racial tensions, 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 Black person 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. 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.
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.
Dahmer reportedly adjusted well to prison life at the Columbia Correctional
Institution in south-central Wisconsin, though 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.

Death
Dahmer was killed on November 28, 1994, by his fellow prison inmate
Christopher Scarver.
In accordance with his inclusion in regular work details, Dahmer was assigned to
work with two other convicted murderers, Scarver and Jesse Anderson. 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 died from
his injuries days later.
A prison guard claimed that shortly after the murders, Scarver, who was believed
to be schizophrenic, said “God told me to do it.” In 2015, 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 by
leaving them alone. Catherine Lacy, the mother of Dahmer’s victim Oliver Lacy,
said his death brought her no closure: “The hurt is worse now, because he’s not
suffering like we are.”

Jeffrey Dahmer’s House

In 1996, following Dahmer’s death, a group of Milwaukee businessmen raised
more than $400,000 to purchase the items he used for crimes, 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.
In August 2012, nearly two decades after his death, it was reported that Dahmer’s
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.” The house was removed from the market is believed to
still be owned by Butler, as of 2022.

Pop Culture Depictions

Several well-known books have been written about Dahmer including, The
Jeffrey Dahmer Story: An American Nightmare (1991) by Donald A. Davis and
The Shrine of Jeffrey Dahmer (1993) by Brian Masters. Dahmer was portrayed by
Jeremy Renner in the film Dahmer (2002), which featured Bruce Davison as
Dahmer’s father, Lionel. The film My Friend Dahmer (2017), starring Ross Lynch
in the title role, was based upon a graphic novel by cartoonist John “Derf”
Backderf, who had been friends with Dahmer in high school.
The 2012 documentary The Jeffery Dahmer Files included fictionalized
reenactments of Dahmer’s life (with Andrew Swant portraying him) along with
real-life interviews with people involved with his cases. Several other
documentaries have been produced about Dahmer as well. In September 2022,
Netflix released a ten-part anthology series called Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey
Dahmer Story. Co-created by American Horror Story creator Ryan Murphy, the
series starred Evan Peters as Dahmer and highlighted incidents in which Dahmer
was nearly apprehended before his arrest, with a particular focus on how police
incompetence allowed him to extend his killing spree.
A four-part docuseries called My Son Jeffrey: The Dahmer Family Tapes begins
streaming on September 18, 2023, on Fox Nation. It includes never-before-
released audio recordings of Dahmer, including phone conversations he had with
his father, Lionel, while in prison. According to Court TV, Dahmer said in one
recording that he fully intended to keep killing if he hadn’t been captured: “I was
so wrapped up in what I was doing. I felt I was gonna continue doing that for the
rest of my life.” In other recordings, Lionel asked if he has tried praying to God,
and Dahmer replied he hadn’t because it made him “feel uncomfortable.”