Post by Brad-LaSpirits on May 14, 2007 17:48:17 GMT -5
Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer (May 21, 1960 – November 28, 1994) was an American serial killer. He murdered at least 17 men and boys between 1978 and 1991 (with the majority of the murders occurring between 1989 and 1991). His murders were particularly gruesome, involving acts of necrophilia, dismemberment, and cannibalism.
Early life
Dahmer was born May 21, 1960, 4:34 p.m. in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to Annette Joyce Flint (b. February 7, 1936 d. November 27, 2000) and Lionel Herbert Dahmer.[1] At age four, he had surgery to correct a double hernia. His family soon moved to Bath, Ohio, where he attended Revere High School. He reportedly dissected already dead animals as a child.[2] He started drinking alcohol at age fourteen with his friend Adam Tepper and suffered from extremely low self-esteem. After years of constant fighting, Dahmer's parents divorced when he was 18. Dahmer committed his first murder when he was eighteen, killing Steven Hicks, an eighteen year old hitch-hiker. Dahmer invited Hicks to his house, and killed him because he "didn't want him to leave."
Dahmer attended Ohio State University, but he dropped out after one term. Dahmer's father then forced him to enlist in the United States Army, where he was to serve for a six-year enlistment, but he was discharged after two, due to his excessive drinking.
When the Army discharged Dahmer in 1981 they provided him with a plane ticket to anywhere in the country. "Dahmer told police he couldn't go home to face his father, so he headed to Miami Beach because he was tired of the cold."[1]
In 1982, Dahmer moved in with his grandmother in West Allis, Wisconsin, where he would live for six years.
In August 1982, he was arrested for exposing himself at a state fair. Four years later, he was charged again with public exposure after two boys accused him of masturbating in public. This time he was sentenced to a year in prison, of which he served 10 months.
In 1988 he was arrested for sexually fondling a 13-year-old Laotian boy in Milwaukee (the older brother of his later victim, Konerak Sinthasomphone), for which he served ten months of a one year sentence in a work release camp and was required to register as a sex offender. He convinced the judge that he needed therapy, and he was released with a 5-year probation on good behavior. Shortly thereafter, he began a string of murders that would end with his arrest in 1991.
Later murders
One of Dahmer's victims escaped, only to be returned to him by police. When it was later publicized, there was widespread condemnation of the officers. In the early morning hours of May 27, 1991, 14-year-old Milwaukee Laotian Konerak Sinthasomphone was discovered on the street, wandering nude. Reports of the boy's injuries varied. Dahmer told police that they had an argument while drinking, and that Sinthasomphone was his 19 year-old lover. Against the teenager's protests, police turned him over to Dahmer. They had no suspicions, but reported smelling a strange scent. That scent was later found to be bodies in the back of his room. Later that night Dahmer killed and dismembered Sinthasomphone, keeping his skull as a souvenir.
John Balcerzak and Joseph Gabrish, the two police officers who returned Sinthasomphone to Dahmer, were terminated from the Milwaukee Police Department after their actions were widely publicized, including an audiotape of the officers making homophobic statements to their dispatcher and laughing about having reunited the "lovers." The two officers appealed their termination and were reinstated with back pay. They were named officers of the year by the police union. Balcerzak would go on to be elected president of the Milwaukee Police Association in May 2005.
By the summer of 1991, Dahmer was murdering approximately one person each week. He killed Matt Turner on June 30, Jeremiah Weinberger on July 5, Oliver Lacy on July 12, and finally Joseph Brandehoft on July 19, just three days before Dahmer was finally arrested.
On July 22, 1991, Dahmer lured another man, Tracy[3] (Traci[4]) Edwards, into his home. According to the would-be victim, Dahmer struggled with Edwards in order to handcuff him. Edwards escaped and alerted a police car, with the handcuffs still hanging from one hand.
Edwards led police back to Dahmer's apartment, where Dahmer at first acted friendly to the officers, only to turn on them when he realized that the officers suspected something was wrong. As one officer subdued Dahmer, the other searched the house and uncovered multiple photographs of murdered victims and human remains including three severed heads. A further search of the house revealed more evidence, including photographs of victims and human remains in his refrigerator.
The story of Dahmer's arrest and the gruesome inventory in his apartment quickly gained notoriety: several corpses were stored in acid-filled vats, severed heads were found in his refrigerator, and implements for the construction of an altar of candles and human skulls were found in his closet. Accusations soon surfaced that Dahmer had practiced necrophilia, cannibalism and possibly a form of trepanation in order to create so-called "zombies". Dahmer admitted to eating the biceps of his eighth victim, Ernest Miller, whose skeleton he also kept, noting that human flesh "tasted like beef" to him.
Trial, imprisonment and death
Jeffrey Dahmer was officially indicted on seventeen murder charges, which were reduced to fifteen. The murder cases were already so notorious that the authorities never bothered to charge him in the attempted murder of Edwards. His trial began in July 1992. With evidence overwhelmingly against him, Dahmer chose to plead not guilty by reason of insanity, arguing that his necrophiliac urges were so strong that he could not control them.
The court found Dahmer guilty on fifteen counts of murder and sentenced him to fifteen life terms, totalling 937 years in prison. At his sentencing hearing, in a stance unusual for serial killers, Dahmer expressed remorse for his actions, also saying that he wished for his own death.
Dahmer served his time at the Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage, Wisconsin, where it is claimed he became more and more religious over time and ultimately declared himself a born-again Christian. On November 28, 1994, Dahmer and another inmate named Jesse Anderson were beaten to death by fellow inmate Christopher Scarver while on work detail in the prison gym. Dahmer died from severe head trauma in the ambulance en route to the hospital.
Much controversy surrounded both the decision to allow Dahmer such a privilege as work detail, as well as the pairing of Dahmer with Scarver, a man with a history of brutality who was incarcerated for murder.[citation needed] Before his murder, Dahmer survived a previous attempt on his life. After attending a church service in the prison chapel, an inmate tried to slash Dahmer's throat with a razor blade. Dahmer escaped the incident with superficial wounds.
After Dahmer's death and the subsequent legal proceedings, Dahmer's remains were cremated and divided in half between his birth mother Joyce, and his father and stepmother. Popular myth states his brain was donated to scientific study, but it was not, having been too badly damaged in the assault to be of any scientific value
Known victims
Name [3] Age Date of Death
Stephen Hicks 18 June, 1978
Steven Toumi 26 September, 1987
Jamie Doxtator 14 October, 1987
Richard Guerrero 25 March, 1988
Anthony Sears 24 February, 1989
Eddie Smith 36 June, 1990
Ricky Beeks 27 July, 1990
Ernest Miller 22 September, 1990
David Thomas 23 September, 1990
Curtis Straughter 16 February, 1991
Errol Lindsey 19 April, 1991
Tony Hughes 31 May 24, 1991
Konerak Sinthasomphone 14 May 27, 1991
Matt Turner 20 June 30, 1991
Jeremiah Weinberger 23 July 5, 1991
Oliver Lacy 23 July 12, 1991
Joseph Bradeholt 25 July 19, 1991