Jeffrey Dahmer's killing spree took the lives of 17 boys between 1978 and 1991. Most of his murders were committed from 1989 to 1991. Was Jeffrey a monster or a sick result of his troubled childhood?
Jeffrey was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on the 21st of May 1960. His parent's names were Lionel and Joyce Dahmer. At the age of 6 Jeffrey underwent a hernia operation and when he was 8 years old family moved to Bath, Ohio, near Akron. At this tender age he was sexually molested by an older boy in the neighborhood.
Already a painfully shy withdrawn child with extreme low self esteem, Jeffrey believed there was no safe haven for him when his parent's marriage went down hill. The violent arguments between them only served to make Jeffrey even more withdrawn and after a bitter divorce he felt he was entirely abandoned.
First his father left home and after the divorce he was placed in his father's care while his brother and mother went their way. He had no contact with either of them. This also added to this exceptionally troubled young mans distress making him feel loss and rejection was all he had to look forward too.
This young child had a morbid fascination with death. At the tender age of 10 he was already experimenting with dead animals. He would use acid to clean the meat off the bones and when asked about his bone collection he would reply, “I like the sound of them when I play with them”. His first dissection was that of a pig fetus in school. He also nailed a dog's carcass to a tree and put its head on a stake.
By the time he turned 17 his interest in dead animals was not enough to satisfy his lust for killing and he became obsessed by fantasies of killing and mutilating men. He also developed a necrophilia desire and what better way than to kill the object of his desire. After Jeffrey graduated from high school at the age of 17 his father left him alone to tend for himself. He took to drinking becoming a loner alcoholic. His step mother stated that he was usually a quiet well behaved child until he was drunk. Then he would become violent and uncontrollable.
Jeffrey's obsession to kill and necrophilia desire eventually overcame any reasonable thoughts he may have had. A perfect solution to finding his first victim occurred when he stumbled upon a hitchhiker in 1978. He picked up Stephen Hicks and took him to his home for a few social drinks. They were having a great time chatting, laughing and they had sex but when Stephen tried to leave he hit him over the head with a barbell, then to make sure he was dead he strangled him. To dispose of the body he dismembered it, smashing the bones with a hammer and buried it.
He felt Stephen was abandoning him and the only way to prevent this was to kill him. For 9 years Jeffrey did not kill again. He joined the military as an army medic as his father suggested but was soon discharged because of his drinking. After this he went to live with his grandmother and got a job as a factory worker. At night frequented gay bars.
On the day he met Steven Toumi in 1987 he had been drinking heavily all day and visited a gay bar that night. Steven followed him to his hotel room and when Jeffrey woke up the next morning he was covered in Steven's blood. He had to dispose of the body without being caught, so he stuffed Steven's body into a suitcase and took it home to the basement of his grandmother's house.
In the basement he first had sex with the corpse, masturbated over it then he dismembered it and threw it into the garbage. His next victim was 14 year old Jamie Doxtator. He drugged the young boy, strangled him and treated his corpse the same way as he did with Steven Toumi's body.
In September 1988 Jeffrey's grandmother told him to leave. She could not handle the stench of his “experiments” any longer. He found an apartment on 25th Street Milwaukee and the very next day after moving in he enticed a young boy to his apartment where he fondled him and tried to bribe him with cash to take nude photographs. The young boy escaped and reported him to the police. Jeffrey was charged with sexual assault and was convicted on January 1989. While he waited for the penalty he was released and during this time he killed Anthony Sears. Eventually he was sent to jail for 12 months but was released after 10 months.
