JEFFREY DAHMER - THE MILWAUKEE CANNIBAL

What is a serial killer?

A serial killer is defined as a individual who kills at least 3 people with a "cooling off period" in between the murders. They typically have abnormal psychology, but not necessary a mental disorder. They are not the same as mass murderers who commit multiple murders at once. They are not spree killers who commit murders in two or more locations with virtually no break in between.

According to an FBI Behavioral Unit Study 85% of the world's serial killers reside in America.  It is estimated that there are approximately 20-50 unidentified serial killers in the US today.

Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer was an American serial killer and sex offender. The killings by Jeffrey Dahmer have been classified as one of the top twenty-five crimes of the century. His killings were by strangulation and dismemberment. He was a victim keeper. He kept body parts as souvenirs.

Jeffrey Dahmer lived at the Oxford Apartments, located in Milwaukee's west side. It was full of crime but what was going on inside Apartment 213 would horrify police. It was like a vision that could only come from your worst nightmares. They found a freezer enveloped in pictures in mutilated men. They stumbled upon two severed heads and one more in the refrigerator. There were human skulls inside the closet and filing cabinet. They believed a kettle to hold decomposing hands and a male genital organ. All along the apartment there was an assortment of body parts, bottles of acid and chemical preservatives.

Dahmer, a 31 year old male, would have appeared to be seemingly normal to people around him. This is typically common among serial killers and is very disturbing to think an ordinary person could commit such acts. He was a pale, sandy-haired man who worked at a chocolate factory. However, upon the discoveries by police Dahmer confessed to 11 murders and even admitted to cannibalism, stating that he saved a human heart to eat later. He in many circumstances would boil his victims heads to remove their flesh. He even had anal sex with a cadaver.

Dahmer's victims were all young men as Dahmer was a homosexual. His last victim, Tracy Edwards, managed to escape and run to police for help. This action may have saved not only his life but the lives of many more victims to come.

So what was his motus operandi (MO)? It was simple...just lure young men from shopping malls and bars by offering them money to model for pictures. If only they would have known that the pictures he had in mind would be of them mutilated, the ones the police found on his freezer.

Maybe you are wondering what was going through Jeffrey Dahmer's mind. Here are some actual quotes from Dahmer to give you a better understanding of how he viewed his actions...

"It's just a nightmare, let's put it that way. It's been a nightmare for a long time, even before I was caught … for years now, obviously my mind has been filled with gruesome, horrible thoughts and ideas … a nightmare."

" … Like arrows, shooting through my mind from out of the blue." ...Fantasies

"After the fear and terror of what I'd done had left, which took about a month or two, I started it all over again. From then on it was a craving, a hunger, I don't know how to describe it, a compulsion, and I just kept doing it, doing it and doing it, whenever the opportunity presented itself."

"I took the knife and the scalp part off and peeled the flesh off the bone and kept the skull and the scalp… If I could have kept him longer, all of him, I would have" ...on his victim, Anthony Sears

"I separated the joints, the arm joints, the leg joints, and had to do two boilings. I think I used four boxes of Soilex for each one, put in the upper portion of the body and boiled that for about two hours and then the lower portion for another two hours. The Soilex removes all the flesh, turns it into a jelly like-like substance and it just rinses off. Then I laid the clean bones in a light bleach solution, left them there for a day and spread them out on either newspaper or cloth and let them dry for about a week in the bedroom." ...on his victim, Ernest Miller

"I didn't want to keep killing people and have nothing left except the skull… This is going to sound bad, but … should I say it? … I took the drill while he was asleep…"

"One thing I know for sure. It was a definite compulsion because I couldn't quit. I tried, but after the Ambassador, I couldn't quit. It would be nice if someone could give the answer on a silver platter as to why I did all this and what caused it, because I can't come up with an answer."

"I should have gone to college and gone into real estate and got myself an aquarium, that's what I should have done."

" This is the grand finale of a life poorly spent and the end result is just overwhelmingly depressing..... a sick pathetic, miserable life story, that's all it is"

In 1991, the court found Dahmer sane and guilty on 15 counts of murder and sentenced him to 15 life terms, totaling 957 years in prison.

Jeffrey Dahmer was killed while serving his life sentences in the Columbia Correctional Institute in Portage, Wisconsin. He was found in a pool of blood near the prison gymnasium bludgeoned to death. A bloody broomstick was found nearby. He died of massive head injuries.