Kriti Mehrotra
There is no easy way to describe or portray Jeffrey Dahmer, but ‘ID’s Jeffrey Dahmer: Mind of a Monster’ does a pretty good job. Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on May 21, 1960, to Lionel and Joyce Dahmer, he was described to be an energetic and happy child until the age of 4, when surgery to correct a double hernia seemed to cause a change in him. After that, he became noticeably subdued, and by his early teens, he was always rather tense and largely friendless. He grew up listening to his parents’ quarrels, so by the age of 14, he had begun drinking alcohol and had immersed himself into it.
Jeffrey’s interest in dead things manifested from an early age. He saw his father removing animal bones from beneath their family home at the age of four, and then, was always thrilled to hear the sounds they made. He initially collected large insects in jars, but then, during his teens, he moved to collect animal carcasses from the roadside. When Jeffrey reached puberty, he realized that he was gay, but he kept it to himself. And then, he began fantasizing about a relationship where he completely controlled his partner. These gradually became intertwined with dissection.
Jeffrey’s First Victim.
When Jeffrey was about 16, he thought of a fantasy where he rendered a male jogger that he found attractive unconscious and then made use of his body. Then, to make good on that, he hid in the bushes with a baseball bat and laid in wait for him. However, on that particular day, the jogger did not show up. Jeffrey later confessed that this was the first time he ever attempted to attack and assault someone. The jogger, by chance, for some reason, failed to follow his usual routine that day and was saved, but Jeffrey’s next victim was not that lucky.
Jeffrey committed his first murder on June 18, 1978, three weeks after he graduated high school. At that time, he was living alone in his family home in Bath, Ohio, following his parent’s divorce. That day, he picked up a hitchhiker named Steven Mark Hicks, who was almost 19. Steven had been hitchhiking to a rock concert in Lockwood Corners, but when Jeffrey offered that they go to his place to drink alcohol together, he agreed. After a while, Steven wanted to leave, and Jeffrey didn’t want him to. Therefore, as he was sitting on a chair, Jeffrey bludgeoned the back of his head twice, with a 10 lb. dumbbell.
When he fell forward, unconscious, Jeffrey strangled him to death with the bar of the dumbbell. Then, he stripped Steven of his clothes and masturbated above the corpse. It was the next day that Jeffrey dissected his body in his basement, the remains of which he buried in a shallow grave that he dug in the backyard. Several weeks later, Jeffrey unearthed these remains and parted the flesh from the bones. He dissolved the skin in acid before flushing it down the toilet and crushed the bones, which he then scattered in the woodland behind his home.
Jeffrey’s Next Four Victims.
9 years later, on November 20, 1987, Jeffrey – while he was living with his grandmother in Milwaukee – encountered Steven Tuomi, a 25-year-old from Ontonagon, Michigan, at a bar. He persuaded him to spend the night with him at the Ambassador Hotel, where he had rented a room for the night. Jeffrey had just planned to drug and rape Steven as he lay unconscious beneath him, but he ended up murdering him as well. This time, though, when he woke up, he had no recollection of the events of the night before or of the murder. Jeffrey bought a large suitcase to transport the corpse to his grandmother’s place, where he dismembered Steven and masturbated on the remains, keeping and using the skull for at least a few weeks.
After Steven’s murder, Jeffrey began to actively seek out victims, whom he usually met in gay bars or out on the streets. Then, he typically lured them to his grandmother’s house, where he drugged them with alcohol laced with sleeping pills and then strangled them to death. After that, he engaged in all kinds of sexual activity with the corpses. Two months after Steven, Jeffrey killed a 14-year-old Native American male prostitute named James Doxtator; whom he had lured to his grandmother’s place with an offer of $50 to pose for nude pictures. Then, on March 24, 1988, Jeffrey met and murdered the 22-year-old bisexual man named Richard Guerrero. This time, Jeffrey was able to do so by just offering him money, $50, to spend the night with him.
In September of 1988, Jeffrey was arrested for drugging and sexually assaulting a 13-year-old boy, whom he had lured with the pretext of posing nude for photographs. Early the next year, he was convicted of second-degree sexual assault and of enticing a child for immoral purposes. Two months after that, on March 25, 1989, Jeffrey took the life of his fifth victim, a mixed-race 24-year-old aspiring model named Anthony Sears. With Anthony, Jeffrey went one step further – after murder and decapitation, he permanently retained and preserved his head and genitalia in acetone.
Jeffrey’s Last 12 Victims.
Over the next two years, Jeffrey’s victim count only increased, bringing him to the grand total of 17. He also developed rituals as he progressed – experimenting with chemicals to either dispose or permanently retain parts of his victim’s body, or taking photographs of them as he committed the murder and dismembered their bodies. Apart from masturbating or engaging in other necrophiliac acts with the corpses, Jeffrey Dahmer even started eating his victims. Sometimes, Jeffrey drilled holes into their skulls while they were still alive to inject them with hydrochloric acid. The acid insertion was in the hopes of getting a permanently submissive partner.
In May of 1990, Jeffrey took the life of a 32-year-old male prostitute by the name of Raymond Smith. Then, a month later, he lured a 27-year-old acquaintance named Edward Smith to his apartment. He tried freezing Edward’s skull, but it didn’t work, and he couldn’t retain any part of him. Less than three months after that, Jeffrey got a 22-year-old Chicago native named Ernest Miller to his place for, again, just $50. Jeffrey didn’t strangle Ernest, though, he slashed his neck till he bled to death within minutes. And, a week later, on September 24, Jeffrey took the life of David Thomas, another 22-year-old. He saved both their skulls.
For the next five months, Jeffrey didn’t kill again, but he did try, unsuccessfully, over and over again, to lure young men to his place. It was in February of 1991 that he struck again, with the murder of 17-year-old Curtis Straughter, who he’d seen standing at a bus stop. Jeffrey retained his skull, hands, and genitals, and photographing each stage of the dismemberment process. On April 7, he took the life of his eleventh victim, 19-year-old named Errol Lindsey. Following Errol was 31-year-old Tony Hughes and 14-year-old Konerak Sinthasomphone. Konerak was the younger brother of the male Jeffrey was convicted of assaulting in 1989.
After all this, Jeffrey went to Chicago where he took the lives of his final four victims: 20-year-old named Matt Turner on June 30, 23-year-old Jeremiah Weinberger on July 5, 24-year-old Oliver Lacy on July 15, and 25-year-old Joseph Bradehoft on July 19. It was on July 22, 1991, when Jeffrey tried to get his eighteenth victim, 32-year-old Tracy Edwards, that he was caught and arrested. After quite a bit of struggle, Tracy managed to get away and find two police officers. He asked them for help and took them to Jeffrey’s apartment, thus, ending the serial killer’s crime spree. (Featured Image Credit: Milwaukee Police Department)
Read More: How Did Jeffrey Dahmer Die?
