Serial Killer: Jeffrey Dahmer (Part I)

Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer (/ˈdɑːmər/; 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 committed the murder and dismemberment of 17 men and boys from 1978 to 1991. Many of his later murders involved necrophilia, cannibalism, and the permanent preservation of body parts—typically all or part of the skeleton.

Although he was diagnosed with a borderline personality disorder, schizotypal personality disorder, and a psychotic disorder, Dahmer was found to be legally sane at his trial. He was convicted of 15 of the 16 murders he had committed in Wisconsin and was sentenced to 15 terms of life imprisonment on February 15, 1992.  He was later sentenced to a 16th term of life imprisonment for an additional homicide committed in Ohio in 1978.

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

Early life

Childhood

Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer was born at the Evangelical Deaconess Hospital in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States, on May 21, 1960, the first of two sons born to Joyce Annette (née Flint) and Lionel Herbert Dahmer. Dahmer's mother worked as a teletype machine instructor, and his father was a student at Marquette University, working towards a degree in chemistry. His father was of German and Welsh ancestry, and his mother was of Norwegian and Irish ancestry.

It has been claimed that Dahmer was deprived of attention as an infant.  Other sources, however, suggest that generally, Dahmer was 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 her son entered first grade, Joyce Dahmer began to spend an increasing amount of her time in bed recovering from weakness. Lionel's university studies kept him away from home much of the time; when he was home, his wife demanded constant attention. She reportedly worked herself into a state of anxiety over trivial matters simply to appease her husband. On one occasion, Joyce Dahmer attempted suicide from an overdose of the Equanil pills to which she had become addicted.  Consequently, neither parent devoted much time to their son.

Dahmer has been described as being an "energetic and happy child" until he became notably subdued after undergoing a double hernia surgery, which was performed shortly before his fourth birthday.  He recalled his early years of family life as being of "extreme tension" which he noted between his parents, whom he observed to be constantly arguing with each other. At elementary school, he was regarded as both quiet and timid by his peers. On his first-grade report card, one teacher described Dahmer as a reserved child whom she sensed felt neglected.  This teacher did note that this sense of neglect seemed to stem from his mother's illnesses.  Nonetheless, although largely reserved and uncommunicative in grade school, Dahmer did have a small number of friends.

From an early age, Dahmer manifested an interest in dead animals. Friends later recalled Dahmer initially collected large insects, such as dragonflies and butterflies, which he placed inside jars. Later, he collected animal carcasses from the roadside, occasionally accompanied by one or more of his few friends; he dismembered these animals either at home or in an expanse of woodland behind the family home. According to one friend, Dahmer dismembered these animals and stored the parts in jars in the family's wooden toolshed, always explaining that he was curious as to how each animal "fitted together".

In one instance, he decapitated the carcass of a dog before nailing the animal's body to a tree. He later impaled the skull of this dog upon a stake beside a wooden cross in woodland behind his house.  Dahmer's fascination with dead animals might have begun when, at the age of four, he noted his father removing animal bones from beneath the family home. According to Lionel Dahmer, his son was "oddly thrilled" by the sound the bones made, and instantly developed a fixation for playing with and collecting animal bones. He occasionally searched beneath and around the family home for additional bones. With live animals, he explored their bodies to discover where their bones were located.

The Dahmer family relocated to Doylestown, Ohio, in October 1966.  At the time, Joyce Dahmer was pregnant with her second child. When she gave birth to a baby boy on December 18, 1966, Jeffrey was allowed to choose the name of the baby. He chose the name David for his younger brother.  The same year, Lionel Dahmer achieved his degree and subsequently obtained employment as an analytical chemist in the city of Akron, Ohio.

In 1968, the family relocated to Bath, Ohio. Two years later, over a family meal of chicken, Dahmer asked his father what would happen if the bones of the chicken were to be placed in a bleach solution.  Lionel Dahmer was, by this stage, concerned as to his elder son's placid and lethargic attitude and his solitary existence; therefore, he was delighted at the initiative displayed by his son towards what he believed to be scientific curiosity.  He willingly demonstrated to his son how to safely bleach and (later) preserve animal bones. Dahmer used this knowledge regarding the cleansing and preserving of bones on many of the animal remains which he continued to avidly collect.

Adolescence and high school

From his freshman year at Revere High School, Dahmer was seen by his peers as an outcast with few friends.  Many of Dahmer's classmates later recollected being disturbed by the fact that he drank both beer and hard alcohol, which he smuggled into school inside the lining of his army fatigue jacket and concealed in his locker. This drinking occurred before, during, and after school, and was first noted when Dahmer was 14. On one occasion, a classmate observed Dahmer consuming a cup of gin and asked him why he was drinking liquor in class, to which Dahmer casually replied, "It's my medicine".  In his freshman year at Revere High School, Dahmer, although largely uncommunicative, was observed by staff to be a polite student who was known to be highly intelligent. He initially achieved only average grades, which staff attributed to his apathy.  He was also known to have been a keen tennis player and to have briefly played in the high school band.

When he reached puberty, Dahmer discovered he was gay.  He did not divulge his sexual orientation to his parents. In his early teens, he did engage in a brief relationship with another youth, although the pair never had intercourse.  By his later admission, he began sexually fantasizing about dominating and controlling a completely submissive male partner. These fantasies gradually became intertwined with dissection.

On one occasion, when he was approximately 16 years old, Dahmer conceived a rape fantasy of rendering unconscious a particular male jogger, he found attractive and then making sexual use of his unconscious body. To render the man unconscious, Dahmer concealed himself in bushes on the route he had noted the jogger took, baseball bat in hand, and lay in wait for him to run by. The jogger did not pass by on that particular day, however. Although Dahmer never attempted to implement this plan again, he later stated this was his first attempt to attack another individual.

Despite being regarded as a loner and an oddball among his peers at Revere High School, Dahmer became something of a class clown among some students due to the pranks he regularly staged—some of which were done to amuse his classmates, others apparently to simply attract attention.  These pranks became known as "Doing a Dahmer" and included bleating, simulating epileptic seizures or cerebral palsy and knocking over items at school and at local stores.  By 1977, Dahmer's grades had declined, owing to his alcohol abuse and his continuing apathy toward academic and social interactions.

His parents hired a private tutor for their son, but the tutor only had limited success. The same year, Dahmer's parents attended counseling sessions to try to resolve personal differences and thus save their marriage. The counseling was ultimately unsuccessful, and they decided to divorce. Although initially on amicable grounds, both of Dahmer's parents began to quarrel frequently in the presence of their sons and, in early 1978, Lionel Dahmer moved out of the house.

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. Shortly after this incident, Joyce was awarded custody of her younger son and vacated the family residence, moving in with family members of hers; Dahmer, having just turned 18, was legally an adult and therefore not subject to court custodial considerations.

Late teens and early 20s: the first murder

Murder of Steven Hicks

Dahmer committed his first murder in the summer of 1978 at the age of 18, just three weeks after his graduation. At the time, he was living alone in the family home. Owing to his recent divorce from Dahmer's mother, Dahmer's father temporarily lived in a nearby motel and his mother had relocated to Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, with his younger brother David. On June 18, Dahmer picked up a hitchhiker named Steven Mark Hicks who was four days shy of his 19th birthday.  Dahmer lured the youth to his house on the pretext of the two young men drinking alcohol together. Hicks, who had been hitchhiking to a rock concert in Lockwood Corners, agreed to accompany Dahmer to his house. According to Dahmer, after several hours of drinking and listening to music, Hicks "wanted to leave and [I] didn't want him to."

In response, Dahmer bludgeoned him with a 10 lb. dumbbell. Dahmer later stated he struck Hicks twice from behind 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' body before masturbating as he stood above the corpse.  The following day, Dahmer dissected Hicks' body in his basement; he later buried the remains in a shallow grave in his backyard before, several weeks later, unearthing the remains and paring the flesh from the bones.  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.

Army service

Six weeks after the murder of Hicks, Dahmer's father and his fiancée returned to his home where they discovered Jeffrey living alone at the house. That August, Dahmer enrolled at Ohio State University, hoping to major in business.  Dahmer's sole term at Ohio State University was completely unproductive, largely because of his persistent alcohol abuse throughout the majority of the term. He received failing grades in Introduction to Anthropology, Classical Civilizations, and Administrative Science. The only course Dahmer was successful at was Riflery, having received a B- grade. His overall GPA was 0.45/4.0.  On one occasion, Lionel Dahmer paid a surprise visit to his son, only to find his room strewn with empty liquor bottles. Despite his father having paid in advance for the second term, Dahmer dropped out of university after just three months.

In January 1979, on his father's urging, Dahmer enlisted in the U.S. Army, where he trained as a medical specialist at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas. On July 13, 1979, he was stationed in Baumholder, West Germany, where he served as a combat medic in 2nd Battalion, 68th Armored Regiment, 8th Infantry Division.  According to published reports, in Dahmer's first year of service, he was an "average or slightly above average" soldier.

Two soldiers attest to having been raped by Dahmer while in the army. One stated in 2010 that Dahmer had repeatedly raped him over a 17-month period while they were both stationed at Baumholder, while another soldier believes Dahmer drugged and raped him inside an armored personnel carrier in 1979.  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.  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.

On March 24, 1981, Dahmer was sent to Fort Jackson, 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" and in an attempt to live by his own means. In Florida, Dahmer found employment at a delicatessen and rented a room in a nearby motel. Dahmer spent most of his salary on alcohol and was soon evicted from the motel for non-payment. He 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.

After his return to Ohio, Dahmer initially resided with his father and stepmother and insisted on being delegated numerous chores to occupy his time while he looked for work. He continued to drink heavily, and two weeks after his return Dahmer was arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct, for which he was fined $60 and given a suspended 10-day jail sentence.  Dahmer's father tried unsuccessfully to wean his son off alcohol. In December 1981, Dahmer's father and stepmother sent him to live with his grandmother in West Allis, Wisconsin. Dahmer's grandmother was the only family member to whom he displayed any affection.  They hoped that her influence, plus the change of scenery, might inspire Dahmer to refrain from alcohol, find a job, and live responsibly.

Initially, Dahmer's living arrangements with his grandmother were harmonious: he accompanied her to church; willingly undertook chores; actively sought work, and abided by most of her house rules (although he did continue to drink and smoke).  This new influence in his life initially brought results and, in early 1982, Dahmer found employment as a phlebotomist at the Milwaukee Blood Plasma Center. He held this job for a total of 10 months before being laid off.  He remained unemployed for over two years, during which he lived upon whatever money his grandmother gave him.

Shortly before losing his job, Dahmer was arrested for indecent exposure. On August 7, 1982, at Wisconsin State Fair Park, Dahmer was observed to expose himself to a crowd of 25 women and children. For this incident, he was convicted and fined $50 plus court costs.

In January 1985, Dahmer was hired as a mixer at the Milwaukee Ambrosia Chocolate Factory, where he worked from 11 p.m to 7 a.m. six nights per week, with Saturday evenings off. Shortly after Dahmer found this employment, an incident occurred in which he was propositioned by another man while sitting reading in the West Allis Public Library. The stranger threw Dahmer a note offering to perform fellatio upon him. Although Dahmer did not respond to this proposition, the incident stirred in his mind the fantasies of control and dominance he had developed as a teenager, and he began to familiarize himself with Milwaukee's gay bars, bookstores, and gay bathhouses. He is also known to have stolen a male mannequin from a store, which he briefly used for sexual stimulation until his grandmother discovered the item stowed in a closet and demanded that he discard it.

By late 1985, he had begun to regularly frequent the bathhouses, which he later described as being "relaxing places", but during his sexual encounters, he became frustrated at his partners' moving during the sexual act. Following his arrest, he stated: "I trained myself to view people as objects of pleasure instead of [as] people".  For this reason, beginning in June 1986, he administered sleeping pills to his partners, giving them liquor laced with the sedatives, then raping their unconscious bodies. After approximately 12 such instances, the bathhouses' administration revoked Dahmer's membership, and he began to use hotel rooms to continue this practice.

Shortly after his membership of the bathhouses was revoked, Dahmer read a report in a newspaper regarding the upcoming funeral of an 18-year-old male. He conceived the idea of stealing the freshly interred corpse and taking it home.  According to Dahmer, he attempted to dig the coffin from the ground, but found the soil too hard, before abandoning the plan.

In August 1986, Dahmer was arrested for masturbating in front of two 12-year-old boys as he stood close to the Kinnickinnic River.  Dahmer initially admitted the offense and was again charged with indecent exposure, but quickly changed his story and claimed he had merely been urinating, unaware that there were witnesses. The charge was changed to disorderly conduct and, on March 10, 1987, Dahmer was sentenced to one year of probation, with additional instructions he was to undergo counseling.