Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer (/ˈdɑː.mər/; May 21, 1960 – November 28, 1994), also known as the Milwaukee Cannibal or the Milwaukee Monster,[4] was an American serial killer and sex offender who killed and dismembered seventeen men and boys between 1978 and 1991.[5]
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,[6] cannibalism, and the permanent preservation of body parts—typically all or part of the skeleton.[7]
Dahmer was arrested in 1991 after an intended victim escaped from his apartment. Although diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD),[8] schizotypal personality disorder (StPD),[9] 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.[10][11]
On November 28, 1994, Dahmer was beaten to death by Christopher Scarver, a fellow inmate at the Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage, Wisconsin.[12]
Early life
Childhood
Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer was born on May 21, 1960, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin,[13] 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.[14][15] Lionel was of German and Welsh ancestry, and Joyce was of Norwegian and Irish ancestry.[16][17]
Some sources report Dahmer was deprived of attention as an infant.[18] 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.[19]
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.[20] On one occasion, she attempted suicide using Equanil.[20] 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.[21][22]
Dahmer had been an “energetic and happy child” but became notably subdued after undergoing double hernia surgery shortly before his fourth birthday.[23][24] At elementary school, Dahmer was regarded as quiet and timid. One teacher recollected she detected early signs of abandonment[25] due to his father’s absence and mother’s illnesses, the symptoms of which increased when she became pregnant with her second child.[26] In elementary school, Dahmer had a small number of friends.[27]
In October 1966, the family moved to Doylestown, Ohio.[28] When Joyce gave birth in December, Dahmer was allowed to choose the name of his new baby brother; he chose the name David.[29] The same year, Lionel earned his degree and started work as an analytical chemist in nearby Akron.[30][31]
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.[20]
In May 1968, the family moved to Bath Township, Summit County, Ohio.[32][n 3] This address was their third in two years, and the Dahmers’ sixth address since marriage.[34][n 4] 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.[35] Some of these remains were preserved in jars of formaldehyde and stored within the hut.[36]
Two years later, during a chicken dinner, Dahmer asked Lionel what would happen if the chicken bones were placed in bleach.[37] 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.[38][39]
According to one friend, Dahmer explained that he was curious as to how animals “fit together”.[40] 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.[41] As a “prank”, he later invited a friend to view the display, claiming he had discovered the remains by chance.[42] 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.[37]
Adolescence and high school
From his freshman year at Revere High School, Dahmer was seen as an outcast.[n 5] By age 14, he had begun drinking beer and hard alcohol in the daylight hours,[44] frequently concealing his liquor inside the jacket he wore to school.[38][45] When a classmate asked why he was drinking whisky in a morning history class, Dahmer shrugged and said the alcohol was “my medicine”.[46][47] Although largely uncommunicative, in his freshman year Dahmer was seen by staff as polite and highly intelligent, but earned only average grades.[36] He was a competitive tennis player[48] and played briefly in the high school band.[49]
When he reached puberty, Dahmer discovered he was gay;[50] he did not tell his parents. In his early teens, he had a brief relationship with another teenage boy, although they never had intercourse.[51] 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.[52]
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.[53] 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.[52]
Dahmer was known to his high school peers as a class clown who often staged pranks,[54] which became known as “Doing a Dahmer”; these included bleating and simulating epileptic seizures or cerebral palsy[55] at school and local stores.[56] Occasionally, Dahmer would perform these antics for money to purchase alcohol.[57] 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.[58][59]
By 1977, Dahmer’s grades had declined.[60] 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,[61] temporarily residing in a motel on North Cleveland Massillon Road.[62][63]
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.[64] 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.[65][66] Dahmer had just turned 18 and remained in the family home.[67] Dahmer’s parents’ divorce was finalized on July 24, 1978. Joyce was awarded custody of their younger son and alimony payments.[68]
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,[69] Dahmer picked up a hitchhiker named Steven Mark Hicks, who was 18 years old.[70][71] 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.[70]
According to Dahmer, the sight of the bare-chested Hicks standing at the roadside stirred his sexual feelings, although when Hicks began talking about girls, he knew any sexual passes he made would be rebuffed.[72] After several hours of talking, drinking and listening to music, Hicks “wanted to leave and I didn’t want him to leave”.[73] Dahmer bludgeoned Hicks with a 10-pound (4.5 kg) dumbbell. He later stated he struck Hicks twice from behind[74] with the dumbbell as Hicks sat upon a chair. When Hicks fell unconscious, Dahmer strangled him to death with the bar of the dumbbell, then stripped the clothes from Hicks’s body before exploring his chest with his hands, then masturbating as he stood above the corpse. Hours later, Dahmer dragged the body to the basement.[74][n 6]
The following day,[76] Dahmer dissected Hicks’s body in the basement. He later buried the remains in a shallow grave in his back yard.[77] Several weeks later, he unearthed the remains and pared the flesh from the bones.[78] 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.[79] He threw Hicks’s necklace and the knife used to dismember him from the West Bath Road Bridge into the Cuyahoga River.[80]
College and Army service
Six weeks after the murder of Hicks, Dahmer’s father and his fiancée returned to his home, where they discovered Dahmer living alone. That August, Dahmer enrolled at Ohio State University (OSU), hoping to major in business.[81] Dahmer’s sole term at OSU was completely unproductive, largely because of his persistent alcohol abuse.[82] He received failing grades in Introduction to Anthropology, Classical Civilizations, and Administrative Science. The only course Dahmer was successful at was Riflery, where he received a B− grade. His overall GPA was 0.45/4.0.[83][84] On one occasion, Lionel paid a surprise visit to his son, only to find his dormitory room strewn with empty liquor bottles. Despite his father having paid in advance for the second term, Dahmer dropped out of OSU after just three months.[85]
In January 1979, on his father’s urging, Dahmer enlisted in the United States Army.[86][87] He underwent basic training at Fort McClellan in Anniston, Alabama, before training as a medical specialist at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas. He was occasionally reprimanded for intoxication while stationed at Fort Sam Houston. On one occasion, an instance of insubordination resulted in his entire platoon being punished, earning Dahmer a severe beating from his fellow recruits.[88]
On July 13, 1979, Dahmer was deployed to Baumholder, West Germany, where he served as a combat medic in the 2nd Battalion, 68th Armored Regiment, 8th Infantry Division.[47][89] According to published reports, in Dahmer’s first year of service, he was an “average or slightly above average” soldier.[90][91][n 7]
Owing to Dahmer’s alcohol abuse, his performance deteriorated, and, in March 1981, he was deemed unsuitable for military service and was later discharged from the Army.[95] He received an honorable discharge, as his superiors did not believe that any problems Dahmer had in the Army would be applicable to civilian life.[96]
On March 24, 1981, Dahmer was sent to Fort Jackson in South Carolina for debriefing and provided with a plane ticket to travel anywhere in the country. Dahmer later told police he felt he could not return home to face his father, so he opted to travel to Miami Beach, Florida, both because he was “tired of the cold”[97] and in an attempt to live by his own means. In Florida, Dahmer found a job at a delicatessen and rented a room in a nearby motel. He spent most of his salary on alcohol and was soon evicted from the motel for non-payment.[61] Dahmer initially spent his evenings on the beach as he continued to work at the sandwich shop until phoning his father and asking to return to Ohio in September of the same year.[9
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