Jeffrey Dahmer

Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer (; May 21, 1960 – November 28, 1994), also known as the Milwaukee Cannibal or the Milwaukee Monster, was an American serial killer and sex offender who killed and dismembered 17 men and boys between 1978 and 1991.

Dahmer committed his first murder in Ohio in 1978; he did not resume killing until 1987. The modus operandi for many of his later crimes involved him luring a victim to his Wisconsin apartment where they would be drugged, sexually assaulted, and murdered. Many of his later murders involved necrophilia, cannibalism and the permanent preservation of body parts—typically all or part of the skeleton.

Dahmer was arrested in 1991 after an intended victim escaped from his apartment. Although diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD), schizotypal personality disorder (StPD), and a psychotic disorder, he was declared legally sane at his trial. He was convicted of 16 counts of murder (15 in Wisconsin and one in Ohio) and sentenced to 16 terms of life imprisonment without parole in 1992.

On November 28, 1994, Dahmer was beaten to death by Christopher Scarver, a fellow inmate at the Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage, Wisconsin.

Early life

Childhood

Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer was born on May 21, 1960, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the first of two sons to Lionel Herbert Dahmer, a Marquette University chemistry student and later a research chemist, and Joyce Annette Dahmer (née Flint), a teletype machine instructor. Lionel was of German and Welsh ancestry, and Joyce was of Norwegian and Irish ancestry.

Some sources report Dahmer was deprived of attention as an infant. Other sources, however, suggest that Dahmer was generally doted upon as an infant and toddler by both parents, although his mother was known to be tense, greedy for both attention and pity, and argumentative with her husband and their neighbors.

As Dahmer entered first grade, Lionel's studies kept him away from home much of the time. When he was home, his wife—a hypochondriac who suffered from depression—demanded constant attention and spent an increasing amount of time in bed. On one occasion, she attempted suicide using Equanil. Neither parent devoted much time to their son, who later recollected that, from an early age, he felt "unsure of the solidity of the family", recalling extreme tension and numerous arguments between his parents during his early years.

Dahmer had been an "energetic and happy child" but became notably subdued after undergoing double hernia surgery shortly before his fourth birthday. At elementary school, Dahmer was regarded as quiet and timid. One teacher recollected she detected early signs of abandonment due to his father's absence and mother's illnesses, the symptoms of which increased when she became pregnant with her second child. In elementary school, Dahmer had a small number of friends.

In October 1966, the family moved to Doylestown, Ohio. When Joyce gave birth in December, Dahmer 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.

From an early age, Dahmer manifested an interest in dead animals. His fascination with dead animals may have begun when, at the age of four, he saw his father removing animal bones from beneath the family home. According to Lionel, Dahmer was "oddly thrilled" by the sound the bones made, and became preoccupied with animal bones, which he initially called his "fiddlesticks". He occasionally searched beneath and around the family home for additional bones, and explored the bodies of live animals to discover where their bones were located.

In May 1968, the family moved to Bath Township, Summit County, Ohio. This address was their third in two years, and the Dahmers' sixth address since marriage. The home stood in one and a half acres of woodland, with a small hut a short walk from the house where Dahmer began collecting large insects and the skeletons of small animals, such as chipmunks and squirrels. Some of these remains were preserved in jars of formaldehyde and stored within the hut.

Two years later, during a chicken dinner, Dahmer asked Lionel what would happen if the chicken bones were placed in bleach. Lionel, pleased by what he believed to be his son's scientific curiosity, demonstrated how to safely bleach and preserve animal bones. Dahmer incorporated these preserving techniques into his bone collecting. He also began collecting dead animals—including roadkill—which he would dissect and bury beside the hut, with the skulls occasionally placed atop makeshift crosses.

According to one friend, Dahmer explained that he was curious as to how animals "fit together". In one instance in 1975, Dahmer decapitated the carcass of a dog before nailing the body to a tree and impaling the skull upon a stick in the woodland behind his house. As a "prank", he later invited a friend to view the display, claiming he had discovered the remains by chance. The same year Lionel taught his son how to preserve animal bones, Joyce began increasing her daily consumption of Equanil, laxatives and sleeping pills, further increasing her emotional distance from her husband and children.

Adolescence and high school

From his freshman year at Revere High School, Dahmer was seen as an outcast. By age 14, he had begun drinking beer and hard alcohol in the daylight hours, frequently concealing his liquor inside the jacket he wore to school. When a classmate asked why he was drinking whisky in a morning history class, Dahmer shrugged and said the alcohol was "my medicine". Although largely uncommunicative, in his freshman year Dahmer was seen by staff as polite and highly intelligent, but earned only average grades. He was a competitive 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 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 on chests and torsos. 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 lie in wait for this man. However, the jogger did not pass by on that particular day. Dahmer later admitted this was his first attempt to attack and render an individual submissive to him.

Dahmer was known to his high school peers as a class clown who often staged pranks, which became known as "Doing a Dahmer"; these included bleating and simulating epileptic seizures or cerebral palsy at school and local stores. Occasionally, Dahmer would perform these antics for money to purchase alcohol. On one occasion in 1977, during a school trip to Washington, D.C., Dahmer bet his classmates he could obtain a personal tour of the White House. Although his classmates were skeptical, Dahmer did call the White House and successfully persuaded dignitaries to allow his class an impromptu tour, including the office of Vice President Walter Mondale.

By 1977, Dahmer's grades had declined. His parents hired a private tutor, with limited success. The same year, in an attempt to save their marriage, his parents attended counseling sessions. They continued to quarrel frequently. When Lionel discovered Joyce had engaged in a brief affair in September 1977, they decided to divorce, telling their sons they wished to do so amicably. The process of their divorce soon became increasingly bitter and acrimonious, and Lionel moved out of the house in early 1978, temporarily residing in a motel on North Cleveland Massillon Road.

In May 1978, Dahmer graduated from high school. A few weeks before his graduation, one of his teachers observed Dahmer sitting close to the school parking lot, drinking several cans of beer. When the teacher threatened to report the matter, Dahmer informed him he was experiencing "a lot of problems" at home and that the school's guidance counselor was aware of them. That spring, Joyce—contrary to a court order and without informing Lionel—moved out of the family home with David to live with relatives in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. 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 their younger son and alimony payments.

Late teens and early 20s: first murder

Murder of Steven Hicks

Dahmer committed his first murder in 1978, three weeks after his graduation. On June 18, Dahmer picked up a hitchhiker named Steven Mark Hicks, who was 18 years old. Hicks, who had been hitchhiking to a rock concert at Chippewa Lake Park, agreed to accompany Dahmer to his house upon the promise of "a few beers" with Dahmer, who had the house to himself.