When he was seven, the Dahmer family moved to Barberton, Ohio. There was once again a lot of tension in the household. The baby, David, had colic and kept Joyce and Lionel up at night and Joyce grew progressively more depressed. This meant that Lionel Dahmer had to take over more responsibilities with the children and house since his wife did not seem capable. The arguments between Joyce and Lionel grew worse.
During this time, Jeffrey befriended a neighbor boy named Lee. They started playing together and even dressed up as devils for Halloween. They went to the same school and had the same assistant teacher. Jeffrey Dahmer grew fond of her even caught some tadpoles to give to her. He found out that she had given the same tadpoles to his friend Lee. In an act of revenge he found the tadpoles at Lee's house and killed them by pouring motor oil in the fishbowl. This was Dahmer's first real act of violence. His dark side was beginning to show and it would only grow throughout his teenage years (Dahmer, 1994).
Around age ten, Dahmer began collecting dead animals and conducting experiments on them. He would take off their heads, use acid on the bones and even mounted a dog's head on a stake (Fisher, 2006). As he got older, he began to drink heavily. He did not do well at schools and spent quite a bit of time alone. Dahmer eventually graduated high school and was left to his own devices in his parent's home. Jeffrey Dahmer's parents went through a bad divorce and custody battle involving Dahmer's brother, David, who was eleven at the time (“World of Criminal,” 2005-2006).
In 1978, Dahmer decided to stop with the experiments and move on to murder. The victim's name was Steven Hicks and he was a hitchhiker that Dahmer encountered and lured home. After drinks, Hicks tried to leave and Dahmer hit him on the head with a barbell. He then proceeded to strangle him and bury him (Fisher, 2006).
This first murder seemed to shock Jeffrey Dahmer. He tried to behave normally by attending college at Ohio State University. This was done at his father's insistence. He flunked out after one quarter since he did nothing but drink. His father then insisted that he join the military. Dahmer did seem to improve for a short period due to the military's discipline. After he was sent to Germany, he was discharged for being repeatedly drunk (Fisher, 2006; “St. James Encyclopedia,” 2005-2006).
Dahmer's father did not know what to do at this point. Every attempt to counsel the boy was a failure. He finally sent Jeffrey Dahmer to live with his grandmother, near Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1985. He tried to keep a job at Ambrosia Chocolate Factory but was fired because he missed too much work. His behavior became weirder and weirder. He managed to kill three people while staying at his grandmother's house.
In 1987, he killed Steven Tuomi, in January of 1988 he killed James Doxtator and in March of 1988 he killed Richard Guerrero. He had a mannequin in his closet that his grandmother eventually found. He tried to explain that he just stole it to prove he could do it. She also found a gun under his bed. Dahmer tried to convince her and his father that it was a shooting pistol. Dahmer's father made him sell the gun since it was obviously a real gun. Jeffrey Dahmer's grandmother noticed odd smells coming from the basement.
Jeffrey tried to explain this away by saying he was conducting experiments on dead animal using chemicals. His grandmother decided to kick him out in 1988 because of Dahmer's drunkenness and because of unpleasant orders in the basement (Fisher, 2006; “World of Criminal,” 2005-2006).
He moved into his own apartment on September 25, 1988. On that same day he was arrested for the molestation and drugging of a thirteen year old Laotian boy. He had lured the boy to his apartment with the promise of money for posing for nude pictures. The child's parents pressed charges and Dahmer was sentenced to five years of probation with a suspended sentence of eight years in prison on May 23, 1989. He did not have to go to prison but did have to participate in one year of work release. This was done in the House of Correction. He was released after serving ten months but had to meet with a probation officer twice a month. Unfortunately, the officer never visited Dahmer's home for the visits since she was busy and did not like the neighborhood. Dahmer's father tried to get his son into treatment but it never happened.
