Early Life...
Jeffrey Dahmer was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on May 21, 1960, into the household of Lionel and Joyce Dahmer. He was described as an energetic and happy child until the age of 4, when surgery to correct a double hernia seemed to effect a change in the boy.
he became withdrawn and uncommunicative as he got older. He began showing little to no interest in hobbies or social interaction around the ages of 10 to 15. Dead animals became an interest of his and he also started drinking heavily during his high school years.
Dead animals became an interest of his as well as alcohol; drinking heavily during his high school years.
As Time Went On...
His behavior became increasingly strange once he moved in with his grandmother. She began finding disturbing things in her home, including a .357 magnum under his bed and a male mannequin in his closet. He continued his fascination with dead animals, dissecting dead squirrels in the basement and dissolving them with chemicals. These strange behaviors led his grandmother to ask him to move out in the summer of 1988.
The Killing Spree Begins...
Dahmer's victim count would soon accelerate over the following year, with 12 more lives taken in the same manner. Over time he developed rituals as he progressed, experimenting with chemical means of disposal and often consuming the flesh of his victims. Dahmer also attempted crude lobotomies, drilling into victims' skulls while they were still alive and injecting them with muriatic acid. He was careful to select victims on the fringes of society, who were often itinerant or borderline criminal, making their disappearances less noticeable and reducing the likelihood of his capture.
Thankfully Dahmer's luck finally ran out on July 22, 1991, when two Milwaukee police officers picked up Tracy Edwards, a 32-year-old African American man who was wandering the streets with a handcuff dangling from his wrist. They decided to investigate the man's claims that a "weird dude" had drugged and restrained him and arrived at Dahmer's apartment, where he calmly offered to get the keys for the handcuffs.
Edwards claimed that the knife Dahmer had threatened him with was in the bedroom, and when the officer went in to corroborate the story, he noticed photographs of dismembered bodies lying around. Dahmer was subdued by the officers, and subsequent searches revealed a head in the refrigerator, three more in the freezer and a catalog of other horrors, including preserved skulls, jars containing genitalia and an extensive gallery of macabre photographs.
The TRial Begins...
Dahmer initially pleaded not guilty to all charges, despite having confessed to the killings during police interrogation, but he eventually changed his plea to guilty by virtue of insanity. His defense then offered the gruesome details of his behavior, as proof that only someone insane could commit such terrible acts, but the jury chose to believe the prosecution's assertion that Dahmer was fully aware that his acts were evil and chose to commit them anyway. On February 15, 1992, they returned after approximately 10 hours' deliberation to find him guilty, but sane, on all counts. He was sentenced to 15 consecutive life terms in prison, with a 16th term tacked on in May.
Dahmer reportedly adjusted well to prison life, although he was initially kept apart from the general population. He eventually convinced authorities to allow him to integrate more fully with other inmates.
A Fitting End...
On November 28, 1994, in accordance with his inclusion in regular work details, Dahmer was assigned to work with two other convicted murderers, Jesse Anderson and Christopher Scarver. After they had been left alone to complete their tasks, guards returned to find that Scarver had brutally beaten both men with a metal bar from the prison weight room.
What Could've been Done?
The police were often criticized for how poorly they handled the Jeffrey Dahmer case in that they let him have the benefit of the doubt one too many times, I believe had they looked into his past criminal record and kept note of his repeat offences and in turn jail him for it rather than waiting to see many lives could've been saved and a lot of more heartache could've been prevented.
What Can we learn from this?
The only thing we can do now is take a piece of wisdom away from such a preventable tragedy and that wisdom is to look into every claim and accusation thoroughly whether it makes you comfortable, uncomfortable, even far fetched because you'll never know what you'll find.
