Margaret Simpson - Jeffrey Dahmer

Jeffrey Dahmer

Margaret Simpson

Jeffrey Dahmer

Jeffrey Dahmer, also known as The Milwaukee Cannibal, is infamous for raping, murdering, dismembering, engaging in necrophilia with, and eating parts of at least 17 males, most of them in their teens and early 20s. Despite claiming insanity, Dahmer was convicted of the murders and sentenced to 15 consecutive life sentences in Wisconsin on 15 February 1992, for a total of 957 years, as well as receiving another life sentence in Ohio in May 1992. He was ultimately murdered in prison on 28 November 1994 by convicted killer Christopher Scarver who bludgeoned both Dahmer and another convicted murderer, Jesse Anderson, to death as they were cleaning the prison gymnasiums bathroom. Scarver stated that he was disgusted after learning of Dahmers crimes. Dahmer died en route to the hospital. Scarver received two additional life sentences for the murders.

Early Life

Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer was born on 21 May 1960 in West Allis, Wisconsina suburb of Milwaukeeto Lionel Dahmer, a chemist, and Joyce (ne Flint). The Dahmers had another son, David, seven years later, who Jeffrey named. According to Lionel, Jeffrey was a happy and curious child who was outgoing and had friends. When Jeffrey was four years old, his father swept some dead animals out from under the house and the small boy took an odd interest in the sounds their little bones made as his small hands dug deep into the pile; something that would haunt Lionel for the rest of the life. He would always wonder if it was some omen he should have taken more seriously.

When Jeffrey was six he was diagnosed with a double hernia and required surgery. His father said that his young son never regained his buoyance and exuberance after that, instead, seeming smaller and more vulnerable. When Jeffrey was eight the family moved to Bath, Ohio. His demeanor changed even more and he became shy with an inferiority complex. To help with his adjustment, Jeffreys parents got him a dog, Frisky, that he loved and cared for.

Having a father who was a workaholic and a mother who wasnt all there, young Jeffrey did not get much attention and, therefore, had an active imaginary life and very few friends who he tended to scare away. When he was ten, his mother was hospitalized and treated for anxiety. This had an increasingly deleterious effect upon his parents marriage.

Between the ages of ten and 15, Jeffrey became increasingly withdrawn and uncommunicative and had little interest in social interactions or hobbies. Instead, he would ride his bike around his neighborhood fulfilling his fetish for dead animals which he dissected either in his house or in the woods near his home. One time, he put a dogs head on a stake behind his house. He also enjoyed boiling, or destroying with acid, road kill down to the bones for his own collection. His father stated that during these years his posture changed as well and he became strangely rigid and inflexible.

Additionally, Jeffreys budding sexuality and his own realization that he was attracted to men was disturbing to him; however, even more worrisome were Jeffreys fantasies about murdering and dismembering potential lovers, as well as lying next to an unconscious man. His father attributed this strange behavior to puberty and recollects that his sons interest in seeing the inside of animals was likely the point when everything started going south.

As a student at Revere High School, Jeffrey began drinking heavily to bury his troubling fantasies and to avoid his parents constant, overt fighting, and, by the time he graduated was a full-blown alcoholic. While in school, however, Jeffrey was a model student who was well-dressed, polite, respectful, and who did his work. Despite having a superior intellect if Jeffrey had no interest in a subject, he would rapidly lose interest and his grades were not as good as they could have been.

Jeffreys parents divorced shortly after he graduated high school on 4 June 1978, with his father moving into a local motel for a short time and his mother taking his younger brother to Wisconsin with her. Jeffrey was left alone and that neither of them really wanted him had an even more deleterious effect on his psyche. His father remarried shortly before Christmas that year.

Jeffrey attended The Ohio State University for one quarter but dropped out because he failed to attend the majority of his classes, preferring, instead, to drink. Consequently, his father urged him to enlist in the Army at the end of 1978. He was stationed in Germany. At first, he did fairly well but was discharged after two years in March 1981, due to his alcoholism. Not wanting to go back to Ohio and face his father, Jeffrey went to Miami Beach, Florida, to enjoy the warm weather. After a few months he returned home, continued to drink heavily, and was subsequently arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct on 7 October 1981.

In 1982, Jeffrey moved in with his grandmother back in West Allis where he stayed for six years. During this time, he embraced his homosexuality and began to frequent Milwaukee gay bars and bath houses where, on at least four occasions, he took men to private booths and drugged them. One victim had to be hospitalized for a week and Jeffrey was subsequently banned from many of them.

His behavior became increasingly odder. Once, his grandmother found a fully-dressed male mannequin in her grandsons closet which he had stolen from a store. Another time she discovered a .357 magnum under his bed. If that wasnt enough, she noticed a variety of strange odors emanating from the basement. One time he had found a dead squirrel and chemically dissolved it.

In August 1982, and then again in September 1986, Jeffrey was arrested for indecent exposure; the second time as a result of his flashing two 12-year-old boys named Richard Kohn and John Ostland. He was placed on probation until 9 September 1987. Six days after his probation ended Dahmer began to kill again.

By the summer of 1988, Jeffreys grandmother had had it with his disturbing behavior, late nights, and the basement smells and asked him to move out. He found an apartment on Milwaukees west side that was close to his current job at the Ambrosia Chocolate Factory and moved in on 25 September. The following day, Jeffrey was arrested for drugging and sexually molesting a 13-year-old boy and was sentenced to one year in a work release camp and five years probation. He was subsequently paroled from the camp two months early and he moved into a new apartment.

He then began his murderous rampage that ended in 1991 when he was arrested.

The Crimes

Stephen Hicks, 19

Dahmer committed his first murder in the summer of 1978 when he was 18. His father was away on business and his mother and brother had just moved out after their divorce. Thus Dahmer had the house to himself. Driving home the evening of 18 June 1978, he picked up a hitchhiker, 19-year-old Stephen Mark Hicks, and offered to take him back to his house so they could drink beer and get high. Dahmer planned to have sex with him. However, when Hicks tried to leave, Dahmer hit him in the head with a ten-pound dumbbell and then strangled him to death. Dahmers rationale for the murder was that Hicks wanted to leave but Dahmer didnt want him to.