Dahmer’s Difficult Beginning
With family problems and house moves Dahmer was often seen drinking or clowning around for the amusement of his classmates. And despite dismembering, bleaching, and storing the bones of animals, it wasn’t until he was about sixteen that he planned the rape of a jogger. Luckily, the jogger pass Dahmer on the day he attempted to carry out his plan and he never made a second attempt.
At 18 he lured a hitchhiker to his house with the promise of alcohol. But when the hitchhiker wanted to leave Dahmer bludgeoned him with a dumbbell and then strangled him to death. Stripping the corpse and masturbating over it, before dismembering and burying it in a shallow grave the following day.
Days later he dug up the body, cut the flesh from the bones and dissolved it in acid so he could flush it down the toilet. He crushed the bones with a hammer and scattered them across the family property. A property he was living in alone. His mother had recently left with his younger brother after she got custody. And his father was temporarily residing in a motel.
You’re in the army now
Dahmer enlisted in the army in ’79 and trained as a medical specialist. But his alcohol abuse hadn’t abated and it eventually began to have an effect on his performance. Earning him a discharge in ’81 and a plane ticket to anywhere he wanted to go.
Falling in and out of jobs, unable to quit drinking, and charged with offences of exposure and disorderly conduct, Dahmer tried to find sexual gratification in the local bathhouses. But finding the movement of his partners distasteful he began to drug them before raping them. Eventually, he was banned from the bathhouses and had to conduct his encounters in hotel rooms.
Grandmother’s House
In ’87 Dahmer rented a room for the evening at the Ambassador Hotel and convinced 25-year-old Steven Tuomi to join him there. Dahmer woke the following morning on top of the bruised and crushed body of Tuomi with no memory of having killed him (or so he claimed). Transporting the body to his grandmother’s house, where he now lived. The body remained intact for two weeks until he dismembered and decapitated it. Cutting the flesh from the bones and putting it in plastic bin bags. Then crushing the bones, wrapped in a sheet, with a sledgehammer. All of which he put in the dustbin -except for the head which he kept.
Actively Seeking…
The incident with Tuomi led to Dahmer actively seeking new victims. His next victim was a 14-year-old Native American boy. Before deciding against completing with a third victim when his Grandmother noticed his guest.
She asked him to move out in ’88 because of his habit of bringing home guests late at night and the smell emanating from the basement. And Dahmer found himself a new place. But the following year, after being charged once again with sexual offences, he moved back in with his grandmother.
But it was temporary and he moved into his own place once again. Close to work, cheap, and furnished, the apartment was in a bad neighbourhood. It wasn’t long before he had taken his 6th victim.
The 7th intended victim got away with $300, a watch, and several items of clothing when Dahmer mistakenly drank the wrong drink and sedated himself.
Evolving
Dahmer had previously stored the bodies for up to a week, removed flesh from bone and dissolved it in acid to flush down the toilet, or cut into small pieces and put it in black bags. He crushed the bones and retained the head as a trophy. With the head, he would use a bleaching process in an attempt to preserve the skull. However, this made the bone brittle and prone to crumbling.
With the new victim number seven, he attempted to reduce the amount of liquid retained by storing the skeleton in the freezer. Hoping this would prolong the durability of the skull. But it did not give him the desired result.
He had also begun taking posed pictures of his victims after death as well as the dismemberment process. A momento he would keep in a drawer in his bedroom.
His next victim was only given two sleeping pills and Dahmer cut his carotid before posing for pictures and then transferring to the bathtub for dismemberment. But instead of disposing of the body, Dahmer kept the heart, biceps, and legs in the freezer so he could eat them. He had also taken to painting the skulls with enamel once cleaned.
After his eighth victim, a man he decided he had no attraction to and so retained no body parts, Dahmer stopped killing for eight months. But it wasn’t over and in early ’91 he began again.
Experimentation
Dahmer was constantly trying to find ways to preserve parts of his victims’ bodies. And attempting to keep them in a permanent unresisting living state by drilling a hole into the skull and pouring in hydrochloric acid. One attempt resulted in the victim leading the police right to his door. But not deterred Dahmer would continue to experiment on a further five victims until his luck ran out.
Dahmer later told the police that he removed the internal organs and suspended the body over the bath to drain the blood.
The One That Got Away
On July 22nd, 1991 Dahmer offered to pay a man to accompany him to his apartment for nude photos. But once in the apartment, the man realised his predicament. Managing to escape the apartment he flagged down two police officers and explained what had happened bringing them back to the apartment where the officers discovered the photographs. And called for reinforcements.
The Evidence
- 74 Polaroid pictures
- seven skulls
- two human hearts
- blood drippings on a tray
- a portion of arm muscle
- four severed heads
- an entire torso in the freezer
- a bag of organs
- two skeletons
- pair of severed hands
- two preserved penises
- one mummified scalp
- and a fifty-gallon drum with three dismembered corpses dissolving in acid
During 60 hours of interrogation, Dahmer confessed to killing 17 young men and eating parts of several of the most recent victims. With the skulls and skeletons, he intended to build an altar dedicated to himself.
Sentenced to two counts of life imprisonment plus ten years, and thirteen counts of mandatory life imprisonment plus 70 years.
Dahmer was bludgeoned to death in prison during work detail by another inmate, using a 20-inch metal bar, on November 28th, 1994.
Horror and Fantasy Author – Also writing as K.T. McQueen. Love Western Horror, cowboy boots, my cactus Collin, & my Demon Cat.
Moths – I hate moths, the way they flutter at your face!
