Famous Serial Killers - Jeffery Lionel Dahmer

Jeffery Lionel Dahmer was one of the most horrifying notorious serial killers of our time. He was killed in prison while on a work detail on November 28th , 1994. Dahmer had been attacked by another fellow inmate in July 1994 while leaving the prison Chapel.

Jeffery Dahmer died in an ambulance on the way to the hospital. He and fellow inmate Jesse Anderson had been attacked in the prison gym and were beaten by Christopher Scarver with an iron bar from a weight set. Officially Jeffery Dahmer died as the result of a serious head injury. 

And that is how the life of Jeffery Lionel Dahmer ended. But now we are going back to the beginning and take a look at the early life of Jeffery Dahmer. 

Jeffery Dahmer was born on May 21 , 1960 in West Allis Wisconsin and according to his family Jeffery Dahmer had a normal childhood up to around age 10. His parents and school records say that from age 10 - 16 Jeffery became increasingly withdrawn and he started doing bizarre acts in the neighborhood where he lived at the time with his parents in Bath Ohio. 

He started riding his bicycle around town looking for road killed animals. He would carefully remove the animals and take them home where he would dissect them and neighbors remembered he for a while had a dogs head on a stake in the back yard of his parents home.

It was also at this time that he began to drink alcohol mostly beer and he was an alcoholic by the time he graduated from high school. Dahmer attended Ohio State University for one semester but he dropped out at the end of the first semester mostly because he had remained drunk for most of that semester. His father forced him to join the Army but he was discharged after only two years mostly because of his drinking problem. After coming home he continued to drink heavily and he was finally arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct in 1981.

Then in 1982 Jeffery Dahmer moved in with his Grandmother in West Allis Wisconsin but his behavior got more wild and bizarre.  At one point his Grandmother discovered a male mannequin in his closet. Jeffery Dahmer admitted to his Grandmother that he had stolen it from a store. And on another occasion she went to  make up his bed and found a 357 fully loaded revolver under his pillow. She was also disturbed by horrible smells coming from the basement and Jeffery told his Grandmother he was dissolving dead animals to get their skeletons. Finally in 1988 his Grandmother had enough and she told him he had to move out. 

It was about this same time that Jeffery Dahmer was twice arrested for indecent exposure and then he was arrested for committing a lewd act in front of two boys.

After moving out of his Grandmothers home he found an apartment close to his job in a chocolate factory and only one day after moving into his apartment he was arrested for committing lewd acts on a 13 year old boy and he was forced to register as a sex offender. He was sentenced to five years probation and one year in a work camp. Jeffery Dahmer was released two months early from the work camp and he soon had a new apartment. And soon after he began a string of murders that finally resulted in his arrest in 1991.

Jeffery Dahmer's first murder victim was a male hitchhiker named Steven Hicks that Dahmer killed while still living at his parents home in 1978. Dahmer said he had invited Hicks home with him to drink beer while his parents were away. When Hicks balked at Dahmer's homosexual advances and tried to leave Dahmer beat him to death with a barbell weight and he buried Hicks out back behind his parents home. It would be nine years before he killed his next victim but then Dahmer got started killing on a more regular basis. And he kept the skull of his 1989 victim Anthony Sears until he was finally arrested in 1991.

And by the summer of 1991 Jeffery Lionel Dahmer was killing about one victim a week. Residents of the Oxford Apartments where Jeffery Dahmer lived had quite often complained of the noises and smells coming from Apartment 213 where Dahmer lived.

Finally on July 22 1991 Dahmer lured another would be victim to his home named Tracy Edwards. He attempted to handcuff Edwards and could only get one hand cuffed. Even though he had a large knife Edwards fought Dahmer off and finally escaped out the front door of the apartment. Edwards flagged down two Milwaukee police officers named Robert Rauth and Rolf Mueller and they returned to Dahmers apartment with Edwards.

At first Dahmer was very friendly with the police officers but Edwards told them to check the bedroom and when they did they saw photos on the wall of murdered victims and there was a large blue drum in the room with horrible smells coming from it. Dahmer was handcuffed and placed in a squad car outside. When the police opened the refrigerator there was a mans head setting on a plate in the refrigerator.

Three more human heads and other body parts were found in the apartment along with photos of Dahmers victims before and after he had killed them. Evidence was also found where Dahmer had attempted to make human zombies by boring holes in the skulls of his victims and squirting in acid while his victims were alive.

Jeffery Lionel Dahmer finally plead guilty by reason of insanity and was sentenced to 15 life terms totaling 957 years. Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage, Wisconsin, is where Dahmer finally ended up and it was there that he claimed he had found Jesus and that he was a born again Christian. Its interesting to note here that Christopher Scarver who beat Jeffery Dahmer to death  claimed that he was Jesus Christ.

The Oxford Apartments where Jeffery Dahmer committed most of his muders in his apartment 213 was torn down and remains an empty lot to this day. Plans to make the lot into a memorial garden for Dahmers victims just never worked out.

And how many people Jeffery Lionel Dahmer killed may never be known. Dahmer often boasted to his fellow prisoners that he had killed hundreds and got away with it. Some police agencies believe Dahmer may have killed 75 - 150. There was even at one point in time speculation that Dahmer killed Adam Walsh though it is now generally accepted that Florida Serial Killer Otis Toole killed Adam Walsh the son of America's Most Wanted TV Show John Walsh.

What do you think makes people like Jeffery Dahmer commit the crimes they do?

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