On July 22, 1991, police made a gruesome discovery in the apartment of Jeffrey Dahmer. What they found would send shockwaves around the world and change the way we think about serial killers forever. In the months that followed, details of Dahmer’s horrific crimes would come to light, painting a picture of a monster who preyed on the vulnerable and took sadistic pleasure in torturing and murdering his victims. This is the tragic, true story of Jeffrey Dahmer.
Early Life
Jeffrey Dahmer was born on May 21, 1960, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Jeffrey Dahmer’s parents were middle-class and he was raised in a stable, caring home. However, things began to unravel when Dahmer’s parents divorced when he was just eight years old. Unable to cope with the divorce, Dahmer turned to alcohol for solace. From that point on, alcohol would play a major role in Jeffrey Dahmer’s life.
As a teenager, Dahmer began exhibiting strange and disturbing behavior. He became increasingly introverted and withdrawn and developed a fascination with dead animals. On one occasion, he even drilled holes into his father’s head while he was sleeping in an attempt to control him with hypnosis. Thankfully, his father woke up before any permanent damage could be done.
Convinced his son was suffering from mental illness, Dahmer’s father had him evaluated by a psychiatrist who diagnosed him with borderline personality disorder and recommended therapy and counseling. However, Dahmer refused to go to therapy or counseling and continued to withdraw further into himself.
The Murders Begin
It wasn’t long before Jeffrey Dahmer turned his dark fantasies into reality. In 1978, he bludgeoned Steven Hicks—a hitchhiker he had picked up—to death with a barbell and then buried his body in the woods near his home. It would be the first of 17 murders Dahmer would commit over the next 13 years.
Dahmer typically targeted young men who were homeless or living on the margins of society. He would offer them money or alcohol to lure them back to his apartment where he would drug them before killing them. In some cases, he would perform crude sexual experiments on his victims or preserve their bodies by dissolve them in acid or store them in his freezer.
On more than one occasion, neighbors complained of strange smells emanating from Jeffrey Dahmer’s apartment but they never called the police out of fear of being seen as nosy busybodies. As a result, Dahmar was able to continue his gruesome crimes undetected for years.
The Final Victim
On July 22 1991, 31-year-old Tracy Edwards escaped from Dahmar’s apartment after being drugged and restrained with handcuffs. Edwards flagged down two passing police officers and led them back to Dahmar’s apartment where they discovered photos of dismembered bodies and body parts as well as four human heads stored in the fridge (three belonged to victims that had already been killed while one belonged to a future victim).
Dahmar was arrested on charges of murder and cannibalism and eventually confessed to all 17 murders (as well as two additional unsolved murders). He was sentenced to 15 life terms in prison totaling 937 years.
Jeffrey Dahmer, one of the most notorious serial killers in American history, was killed by a fellow inmate while serving time at the Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage, Wisconsin. On November 28, 1994, Dahmer had left his cell to perform janitorial work in a bathroom with two other inmates, Christopher Scarver and Jesse Anderson. Scarver, who was already serving a life sentence for murder, attacked Dahmer with a metal bar, striking him repeatedly in the head. Dahmer was pronounced dead after being taken to a nearby hospital. Scarver later admitted to killing Dahmer and another inmate, claiming that he was angry about their past crimes and their unrepentant attitudes.
Conclusion
The story of Jeffrey Dahmar is a tragic one—the story of a disturbed young man who descended into madness and took 17 innocent lives in the process. It’s also a cautionary tale about how easy it is for serial killers to operate without detection for years; if not for Tracy Edwards’ quick thinking, who knows how many more lives might have been lost at Dahmar’s hands? Thankfully, justice was ultimately served and Dahlmar spent the rest of his days locked away where he couldn’t hurt anyone else ever again..