Jeffrey Dahmer

The Dahmers moved six times before Jeffrey finished grade school, settling in 1968 on an acre and a half of Ohio woodland outside Akron. Lionel Dahmer was a research chemist, often away. Joyce Dahmer taught teletype operation and spent long stretches in bed. Their older son was quiet and bright, played competitive tennis, and staged pranks his classmates named after him. On a 1977 school trip he talked his way into a White House tour that reached the vice president's office. He was also drinking hard liquor in morning classes by 14 and telling a classmate it was his medicine. In the spring of 1978 his parents' marriage ended. His mother left with his younger brother. Dahmer graduated that May, 18 and alone in the house.

He killed Steven Hicks, an 18-year-old hitchhiker, in June 1978, three weeks after graduation. He did not kill again for nine years. Between 1987 and July 1991 he murdered 16 more young men and boys in Milwaukee, luring them to rooms he controlled and mutilating the bodies afterward. Seventeen in all. On July 22, 1991, Tracy Edwards, 32, got out of Apartment 213 with a handcuff still on his wrist, flagged down two officers and walked them back to the door. Dahmer confessed over 60 hours and gave up 17 names.

Fourteen of the 17 were men of color, nine of them Black, and most were gay men from Milwaukee neighborhoods where police did not look hard. In 1988 Dahmer drugged and assaulted a 13-year-old boy, pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to probation and a year of work release. On May 27, 1991, three women found that boy's 14-year-old brother, Konerak Sinthasomphone, naked, drugged and bleeding in the street outside Dahmer's building, and called 911. Officers John Balcerzak and Joseph Gabrish took Dahmer's word that the boy was his 19-year-old lover, told one objecting woman to shut the hell up, sent the ambulance crew away and walked Konerak back inside. He died within the hour. The dispatch tape caught the officers joking about reuniting the couple. Both were fired. Both were reinstated on appeal with back pay.

His lawyers pleaded guilty but insane. A Milwaukee jury rejected that on February 15, 1992, finding him sane on all 15 counts, though two of the 12 jurors dissented each time. He drew 15 consecutive life terms, and a 16th in Ohio for Hicks. On November 28, 1994, another inmate, Christopher Scarver, beat him to death with an iron bar in the prison gym. The Oxford Apartments came down in 1992 and the lot is still empty. The retelling has not stopped. When Netflix released a 10-part dramatisation in 2022, relatives of the victims said publicly that it made them live it again. Shirley Hughes, whose son Tony he killed, told The Guardian: "It didn't happen like that."

Jeffrey Dahmer's life against the full span of the corpus.

• State of Wisconsin v. Jeffrey L. Dahmer case
  Guilty but insane plea rejected on all 15 counts. Two of 12 jurors dissented each time. 1992
• Ohio conviction for the murder of Steven Hicks case
  A 16th life term entered on May 1, 1992, fourteen years after the killing. 1992
• Dismissal and reinstatement of officers Balcerzak and Gabrish case
  Fired over the Sinthasomphone call, then reinstated with back pay in June 1994. 1994
• Sinthasomphone family settlement with the City of Milwaukee case
  The city paid 850,000 dollars over the police handling of the night Konerak died. —
• Demolition of the Oxford Apartments other
  Torn down in November 1992. The lot at 924 North 25th Street is still vacant. 1992
• Milwaukee Civic Pride buyout of the estate other
  A civic group raised 407,225 dollars to buy his possessions and destroy them. 1996

• May 21, 1960 aged 0 Born in Milwaukee to a chemistry student and a teletype instructor The family moved five more times before he was eight, ending outside Akron, Ohio.
• June 18, 1978 aged 18 Kills Steven Hicks, an 18-year-old hitchhiker, in Bath Township, Ohio Three weeks after his high school graduation, and nine years before he killed again.
• March 24, 1981 aged 20 Discharged from the Army after two years as a combat medic in West Germany Judged unsuitable for service because of his drinking. The discharge was honorable.
• September 27, 1988 aged 28 Arrested for drugging and sexually assaulting a 13-year-old boy He pleaded guilty and drew probation and work release. The boy was Konerak Sinthasomphone's older brother.
• May 27, 1991 aged 31 Milwaukee officers return Konerak Sinthasomphone, 14, to Dahmer's apartment Three women had found the boy in the street and called 911. He was dead within the hour.
• July 22, 1991 aged 31 Tracy Edwards escapes Apartment 213 and brings police back to the door Edwards, 32, flagged down two officers with a handcuff still on his wrist.
• August 5, 1991 aged 31 More than 400 people attend a candlelight vigil in Milwaukee Community leaders, gay rights activists and victims' families, in a city already at breaking point over policing.
• February 15, 1992 aged 31 A jury rejects the insanity plea and finds him legally sane Sentenced two days later to 15 consecutive life terms. Wisconsin had no death penalty.
• November 28, 1994 aged 34 Killed by a fellow inmate at Columbia Correctional Institution Christopher Scarver beat him with an iron bar in the prison gym. Scarver drew two more life terms.

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