Jeffrey Dahmer, 'The Butcher', 'The Cannibal' or 'The Monster'. This is how he was known in his city, Milwaukee, in the state of Wisconsin, United States. This man was one of the best-known serial killers in the north of the country of Stars and Stripes for 15 years.
His crimes from him? Being responsible for the death of about twenty people between children and adults, in addition to having strong tendencies towards cannibalism (eating human flesh) and necrophilia during his homicidal career.
Jeffrey was born in Milwaukee on May 21, 1960. His father related that in his youth his son was outgoing and hunting was his favorite hobby.
Despite that, he had to deal with a very unstable childhood. His parents had a dysfunctional and troubled marriage, as they were people who did not understand each other. His father was a chemist, and his job required his family to move constantly. His mother had a history of depression.
According to Jeffrey, his mother took a large amount of antidepressant medication while she was pregnant with him, as well as during the first years of his life, and this was reflected especially during his childhood; his parents' inattentiveness and contentious relationship echoed in his head throughout his life.
However, all this changed the day his parents separated, but for the worse. From a young age, Jeffrey, thanks to his hobby of hunting, began to 'experiment' with the animals that roamed the house in his garden.
His father recounted that his son killed insects, squirrels, and even dogs, opened their corpses, saw all the organs, and finally dissected, dismembered, and stored them in formaldehyde jars.
Asked how he would describe his hobby of dismembering animals, asked by forensic psychologist Robert K. Ressler, Jeffrey replied:
“Well…one was a big dog I found on the road. He was going to separate the meat, whiten the bones, rebuild it, and sell it. But I didn't get to do it. I don't know how I got into this; It is a somewhat strange hobby ”, he admitted in that unpublished interview.
Acting under the same role
In 1978, he made his debut as a serial killer, after offering a young man $50 at the time to pose for photos. However, Dahmer had obscene dealings with him, who immediately fled in terror and reported him to the Milwaukee Police.
For this crime of harassment, he paid 10 months in prison, but that was not an impediment for Jeffrey to continue with his macabre intentions. That same year, he was responsible for the death of a boy who was on his way to a concert. The Wisconsin authorities opened an investigation against him, however, it never germinated and he was released.
“It happened by chance one week that no one was home. My mother was out with David, at a motel about five miles away; I had the car, it was after five in the morning and I was coming home after having drunk. She wasn't looking for anyone, but a kilometer from home, I saw him. She hitchhiked. He was shirtless and handsome,” he stated.
“I was attracted to him. I drove past him, braked, and thought: 'What do I do? Do I make it go up or not?’. I asked him if he wanted to smoke a joint and he replied: 'Great!' We went to my room, drank a few beers and in the time we spent together I saw that he was not gay. She didn't know how to hold him back if he wasn't grabbing the barbell and hitting him over the head. Then I strangled him with the same bar, ”he added in the chat.
After a failed attempt at healing, Dahmer graduated as a psychopath nine years later, murdering 16 people in that course, all under the same modus operandi: he invited his victims to his home, and strangled them to death, to satisfy his appetite.
Already speaking of the cannibalistic side of him, it was rumored that Jeffrey also drank the blood of his victims. It was all done inside his apartment on North 25th Street in Milwaukee. Dahmer admitted that he dined on the pectorals of one of his victims, in addition to keeping the skulls and skeletons of those people who seemed the most "beautiful" to him.
“Keeping the skulls was a way of feeling that it had been a total waste to kill them,” he said in the interview with the psychologist.
Despite how graphic and grotesque his criminal acts may seem, Jeffrey knew how to remain completely anonymous. He knew how to slip away and go unnoticed, despite the clues that he left by his way of operating with his victims. But it was a human error on his part that would end up condemning him.
Coming out of the jaws of the wolf
In 1991, Tracy Edwards, one of his victims, after having met Dahmer for a promise of beer and money, managed to escape his clutches and told the authorities absolutely everything, who managed to find his whereabouts.
The then-young man was in handcuffs when he was in the company of Dahmer, who whispered in his ear that he was going to eat his heart, according to testimony given by Edwards in court.
By managing to escape, but with her hands still handcuffed, she was able to get the attention of some Milwaukee city patrolmen and led them to the scene: North 25th Street, where Jeffrey's residence was located.
He had not fled, he stayed in his house. There they found a total of seven human skulls, decomposing bodies, and photos of previous crimes.
He was sentenced to prison, specifically in the Columbia Correctional Institution prison, in the state of Indiana, to life imprisonment. However, his duration behind bars would only last two years, but with very bad luck, as he was murdered by his cellmate named Christopher Scarver with a metal rod in 1994.
Death of Death
Scarver later recounted that the reasons why he killed Dahmer were because of his behavior in prison. He stated that the serial killer made people's limbs out of food and used tomato sauce to simulate gushing blood.
At first, Scarver tried to keep a safe distance from him, however, he witnessed different "annoying" attitudes not only with other inmates but also with prison officials, which gradually fueled his contempt for him. "I saw heated interactions between him and other prisoners from time to time," he told the New York Post.
Patience reached its limit the day he killed him. While cleaning in the prison gym with Jeffrey and another inmate named Jesse Anderson, Dahmer hit him from behind. “I turned around, and he and Jesse were giggling,” he recalled.
However, realizing that they were not accompanied by security guards, Scarver followed Dahmer to the utility room. In his pocket, he carried a newspaper that recounted the crimes he committed during the years before his arrest and imprisonment.
With Dahmer already cornered, Scarver grabbed a weight bar from the gym and taking advantage of his little (and suspicious) vigilance, he decided to end his life once and for all. "(The guards) had something to do with what happened," he said.
“I would need a good attorney to make sure there would be no retaliation from Wisconsin officials or to get me out of whatever type of retaliation they would put me in,” Scarver concluded.
