Original subtitles

- [Narrator] Between 1978 and 1991,

one man raped, murdered, and dismembered 17 men and boys.

Many of his later murders also involved necrophilia,

cannibalism, and the storage and preservation of body parts.

Not something a sane individual would even think about,

let alone act on.

But shockingly this man was considered a sane individual,

who carried out some of the most heinous

and perverse crimes in history.

His name was Jeffrey Dahmer.

(tense somber music)

Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer was born on May 21st, 1960

at the Evangelical Deaconess Hospital

in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

He was the first born son of Joyce and Lionel Dahmer,

who were a young couple who were born and bred in Wisconsin.

The family lived in the suburb of West Allis, Milwaukee.

After Jeffrey was born, his mother found it difficult

to bond with her child and was probably suffering

from postnatal depression, but this was the 1960s

and it wouldn't have been as recognized

or treated as it is nowadays.

Her condition wasn't helped by Lionel,

who at the time of Jeffrey's birth was a student

at Marquette University,

working towards a degree in chemistry

and who spent long periods away from his wife

and baby as he buried himself in his books.

Although Joyce indicated she was struggling,

Lionel assured her it would all be worth it in the end,

and when he finished his studies,

he would have a well-paid job,

and they would have a good life.

When Jeffrey was two years old,

his father was offered a place at Iowa State University

to study for his PhD.

So the family moved from Wisconsin to Ames, Iowa.

At this time Jeffrey was described

as being an energetic and happy child.

But Jeffrey's behavior changed

when at the age of four he underwent surgery

for a double hernia in his scrotum,

the surgery corrected the problem,

but after the operation Jeffrey became notably subdued

and withdrawn and this was possibly a turning point

that later influenced feelings

of sexual inadequacy and insecurity.

There were also problems in his parents' marriage

and for much of Jeffrey's early years,

he lived with extreme tension between his parents

and constant arguments.

Although there has never been any suggestion

that Jeffrey was mistreated in any way,

he was by his parents own admission neglected at times,

as his mother battled her mental illness

and his father chased his academic goals.

However despite their difficulties in 1966,

Joyce was pregnant again,

and the family moved to Doylestown, Ohio.

Later that year, Jeffrey had a baby brother, named David.

A name Jeffrey himself chose.

Lionel had also achieved his degree and secured employment

as an analytical chemist in the city of Akron, Ohio.

It was during this period

that one of Jeffrey's teachers noticed

that he seemed to feel neglected.

At the time it was put down to the arrival of the new baby

and just a normal reaction

for a sibling used to being the only child.

But for Jeffrey, it was more than just a reaction

to his brother's birth.

even his father was concerned

about how extraordinarily shy and withdrawn he was

and how terrified he was of new people and situations.

This probably wasn't helped

by the problems in his parents' marriage

because despite an initial period immediately

after David's birth when things calmed down, it wasn't long

before Lionel and Joyce's volatile relationship resumed,

and eventually, they were sleeping in separate bedrooms.

By now Jeffrey was exhibiting signs

that were not normal for a young boy

and he was becoming increasingly lethargic and solitary.

He was also developing a growing fascination

with dead animals, something that started at the age of four

when he had been watching his father remove animal carcasses

from the crawl space beneath the family home

and placing the bones in a bucket.

Young Jeffrey became mesmerized by what his father was doing

and the noise the bones made

as they were dropped into the bucket.

However this interest had now manifested

into an unusual curiosity in dead creatures,

he wasn't interested in killing them,

but he was fascinated in dissecting them

and learning how they were composed.

However rather than being alarmed

at his son's macabre new hobby, Lionel encouraged it,

believing it was his son showing an interest

in chemistry and biology

and using his scientific background,

he showed Jeffrey how to safely bleach

and preserve animal bones.

He would have had no clue that his son would one day use

this knowledge in the dissection of his human victims.

There was another sign

that Jeffrey was not the sweet little boy that he looked.

At the age of seven he caught a bucket of tadpoles

as a present for his favorite teacher,

he took them into school

and excitedly presented his gift to her.

As you would expect she was grateful

and thanked young Jeffrey.

However, he later found out

that she had given the tadpoles away

to another pupil who was a friend of his.

Jeffrey saw this as rejection, and when no one was looking,

he emptied engine oil into the bucket,

killing all the tadpoles so his friend couldn't have them.

In 1968 the family moved to Bath, Ohio.

But home life for Jeffrey was not getting any better

and by 1970 his mother was hospitalized twice

for psychiatric problems.

According to Lionel, she had been taking drugs

to deal with her extreme nervousness for years,

but they didn't work well

and she was not a stabilizing influence in Jeffrey's life.

As he approached adolescence,

he was becoming more and more erratic and isolated

and had built a reputation at school as an oddball

with an inclination for stupid pranks

and very heavy drinking.

Some of his pranks, included shouting things out

at inappropriate times and faking epileptic fits.

Despite being bright and intelligent,

the only subject he excelled in school was biology

where he could dissect animals

and nurture his interest in how bodies worked.

What nobody realized was

that this was stirring unnatural impulses in young Jeffrey,

that eventually he would be unable to suppress.

By the age of 14 Jeffrey was reliant on alcohol

and even drank in school and although it was no secret

that he had a problem with drink,

no one seemed to address it.

If they had they may have discovered he was using alcohol

to try and suppress his homicidal and sexual urges.

And by now he had realized he was gay,

something that he was ashamed and confused about,

fearing that his family would shun him.

However, it wasn't his sexuality that was a problem,

it was his sadistic and masochistic violent thoughts

that were overwhelming him

and this combined with his twisted obsession

with dissecting was a deadly concoction in his mind.

It would only be a matter of time before he acted on it.

And at the age of just 14,

Jeffrey planned his first attack.

His victim was to be a male jogger

he had become attracted to.

He began noting the man's route

and intended to hide in a bush with a baseball bat,

and attack the jogger rendering him unconscious

so he could sexually violate him.

But the day he chose to act out his fantasy,

the jogger didn't show up.

In a moment of realization,

Jeffrey never attempted to implement this plan again,

at least not by this method.

In 1978 just before Jeffrey graduated from high school,

his parents finally separated

in what turned into an acrimonious and bitter divorce.

Because Jeffrey was 18 and legally an adult,

there was no custody battle over him.

His parents, however, fought for custody

of his young brother David and it was his father

who was eventually awarded custody,

leaving Jeffrey out in the cold

with neither of his parents taking responsibility for him.

Not long after both his parents

and his brother left the family home,

leaving Jeffrey in the house alone.

And for the first time,

he was able to indulge unchecked in his morbid desires.

The family rarely checked in on him

and this new found freedom suited Jeffrey just fine.

He could drink as much as he liked with no one to answer to

and he was free to work on his murderous fantasies.

On June 18th, 1978, Jeffrey started his day with a drink

but by late afternoon he was all out of beer

so he drove his car in to the liquor store

to pick up supplies.

On his way back he spotted a young man hitchhiking.

He immediately pulled over and offered him a lift.

This man was 18-year-old Steven Hicks

and he was on his way to a rock concert in Cleveland.

He accepted Dasher's lift

and inexplainably agreed to go back to his house for a beer.

It's not known how Jeffrey persuaded Hicks

to go back with him as it was known he was keen

to get to the concert on time.

He was not a known homosexual either

and was considered streetwise.

However, Jeffrey was polite and charming,

and this may have given a false impression

of his real motives.

Back at the house the two drank

and Jeffrey planned in his mind what his next move was.

But Hicks grew tired of the chat and went to leave.

When Jeffrey tried to stop him,

Hicks was able to fight him off.

But as he turned his back to walk out the door,

Dahmer hit him with a barbell, rendering him unconscious.

He then strangled him using the same barbell.

Jeffrey now had a dead body laying

on the floor of his parent's house.

A house that was relatively secluded

and on the edge of a forest.

Jeffrey knew he had all the time in the world

to do as he wished with the corpse of Hicks

and after lying with the body for several hours

and satisfying his sexual urges,

Jeffrey set about cleaning up the place

and disposing of the body.

He dragged the body into the bathroom

and set about dissecting it,

just as he had dissected many animals before

throughout his childhood.

The process took hours and Jeffrey relished every moment,

but soon realized he had to hide the body

as his father was due to visit.

Jeffrey hid Steven's body in a drainage pipe.

He later retrieved it and dissolved what was left

in acid and flushed it down the toilet.

The bones that did not dissolve properly,

he smashed to pieces with a sledgehammer

and scattered them in the woods behind his house.

In interviews Jeffrey gave after his conviction,

it was apparent that his first murder was the catalyst

for what was to come.

- [Jeffrey] No, nothing's really been normal

ever since then.

I thought that I would just try to live

as normally as possible, just bury it,

and no one would no anything.

But things like that don't stay buried forever.

- [Narrator] About a month after the murder of Steven Hicks,

Lionel and his new girlfriend returned

to the house to check on Jeffrey,

and they were shocked by the state he was in.

His father described him as having a dead look in his eye.

He was drinking heavily

as life was spiraling out of control.

Not long after Jeffrey enrolled in Ohio State University.

He stayed only one semester before dropping out

after his father paid him a surprise visit

and found him drunk and disheveled in his dorm.

Later that same year his father remarried.

By now Jeffrey's father was becoming increasingly dismayed

at his son's behavior

and refused to fund his drunken lifestyle.

After some heated discussions in early 1979,

Jeffrey joined the US Army

where he trained as a medical specialist.

His early service record was good

and although he was considered a bit of a loner,

he got on well with his fellow soldiers.

However, after he was transferred

to Baumholder, West Germany, his demons returned

and he started to drink heavily again.

Two soldiers later attested to having been raped

by Jeffrey during his army service,

one of whom claimed that while he was stationed

in Germany, Jeffrey repeatedly raped him

over a 17-month period.

Another soldier also came forward

and claimed Jeffrey drugged and raped him

inside an armored personnel carrier in 1979.

But Jeffrey's army career didn't last long

and by 1981 he was drinking heavily

and his performance had deteriorated so much

that in March of that year he was deemed unsuitable

for military service and was discharged.

Remarkably, Jeffrey received an honorable discharge,

as his supervisors did not believe

that the problems Dahmer had

in the Army would be applicable to civilian life.

Jeffrey had now hit rock bottom

and was ashamed to contact his parents,

so instead of returning home,

he used his discharge plane ticket

to travel to Miami Beach, Florida.

Here he found employment at a delicatessen

and rented a room in a nearby motel.

But he spent most of his salary on alcohol

and was soon evicted from the motel for non-payment.

After spending a few nights sleeping on the beach,

he eventually phoned his father

and asked if he could return to Ohio.

Jeffrey moved back into the family home

with his father and his new wife,

but just two weeks after his return he was arrested

for being drunk and disorderly.

Lionel could take no more of his son's behavior

and in December 1981 sent him to live

with his grandmother in West Allis, Milwaukee.

Initially, Dasher's living arrangements

with his grandmother were harmonious

and he was the perfect grandson.

He accompanied her to church, did chores

and actively sought work and in early 1982,

Jeffrey found employment as a phlebotomist

at the Milwaukee Blood Plasma Center

where he worked for 10 months before being laid off.

But shortly before losing his job,

he was arrested for indecent exposure

after he exposed himself to women and children

at Wisconsin State Fair Park.

He was convicted and fined $50 plus court costs.

Jeffrey remained unemployed and living off his grandmother

for the next two years before in January 1985,

he was hired as a mixer

at the Milwaukee Ambrosia Chocolate Factory.

By now Jeffrey was a frequent visitor

to gay bars and bathhouses.

He resisted killing but was barred from one bath house

because of allegations that on

at least four different occasions,

he took someone to a private booth and drugged them.

No charges were ever filed,

despite one of the victims being hospitalized for a week.

Jeffrey later revealed the reason he drugged his victims was

because he became frustrated

that his partners moved too much during the sexual act

and he preferred the control he had over them

if they were unconscious.

At one point before he killed again,

he considered digging up the freshly buried corpse

of an 18-year-old local boy who had just passed away.

He abandoned the plan after the digging tired him out.

In August 1986 Jeffrey was arrested again

for masturbating in front of two 12-year-old boys.

Initially, he admitted the charge

but quickly changed his story

and claimed he had merely been urinating.

Nevertheless he was charged with disorderly conduct

and sentenced to one year's probation,

with instructions to undergo counseling.

However just over a year later, the pent up frustration

and depraved thoughts finally took over

and after a nine year hiatus Jeffrey killed again.

On the evening of September 15th, 1987,

Dahmer met 25-year-old Steve Tuomi

at a gay bar in Milwaukee.

The pair ended the night at the Ambassador Hotel

in Milwaukee, Wisconsin,

where Jeffrey had rented a room for the evening.

According to Jeffrey, he had not planned on murdering Tuomi

and only meant to drug him

and rape him as he lay unconscious.

The following morning, however, he awoke to find Tuomi dead,

hanging over the side of the bed,

his chest crushed and black and blue with bruises,

with blood seeping from the corner of his mouth.

Jeffrey noticed his own fists and forearm were

also extensively bruised.

He later claimed that he had absolutely no memory

of beating Tuomi to death.

But he had, and at that moment he panicked.

Not because he had just killed a man

but how he was going to dispose of the body.

Eventually, he put a do not disturb sign

on the hotel room door and went out

to purchase a suitcase large enough to fit a body in.

Luckily for him when he returned with the suitcase,

rigor mortis had not yet set in,

and he was able to manipulate the corpse

to fit into the case.

However he had no car, so in an audacious move,

he carried the suitcase out of the hotel and hailed a cab.

The unsuspecting cab driver helped Jeffrey

with the case and drove him

and the corpse back to his Grandmother's house.

When he arrived she was asleep,

so he put the suitcase in the basement

in preparation for its disposal.

He then used the corpse for his own sexual pleasure,

before setting about dissecting the body,

first by slicing the flesh from the bones

and putting it in garbage bags

and then smashing the bones to a powder with a hammer

before flushing them down the toilet.

He saved the head and genitals

and later bleached them to preserve them

and as he did with several of his victims,

he locked them in a box that he kept in his bedroom closet.

But after two weeks the skull became too brittle

and Jeffrey smashed it up and disposed of it.

His Grandmother was completely oblivious

to what Jeffrey was doing.

On the other hand,

his father was becoming increasingly suspicious

of his son's behavior, and after visiting one day,

he searched his son's room

and demanded to know what was in the locked box.

Jeffrey refused to open it,

and an altercation between him and his father ensued.

Jeffrey managed to divert attention away

from opening the box.

And his father didn't learn about the contents of it

until after his son was arrested.

But this second murder

and the ease with which he was able to commit it

and dispose of the body only fueled Jeffrey's desire

and his compulsion to kill again was too strong.

Jeffrey was now actively seeking victims,

and two months after he murdered Steven,

Dahmer was on his way to a gay bar

when he met a 14-year-old Native American boy

named James Doxtator who was prostituting himself.

Jeffrey struck up a conversation with the boy

and lured him to his grandmother's house

with an offer of $50 to pose for nude pictures.

At the house, the pair engaged in sexual activity

before Dahmer drugged and strangled him.

He then left the boys body

in his grandmother's cellar for a week,

before dismembering it in much the same way

as he had with Tuomi.

He then put all of James's remains in the trash,

retaining the head which he later boiled

before pulverizing it.

Jeffrey's next victim was 22-year-old Richard Guerrero,

who he met on March 24, 1988,

outside a gay bar called The Phoenix.

He lured the man to his grandmother's house,

offering him $50 if he would stay the night.

He later drugged him with sleeping pills

and strangled him with a leather strap

and after sexually violating his corpse,

he dismembered his body in less than 24 hours,

again retaining his head,

and disposing of the remains in the trash

and down the toilet.

However just a month after Richard's death,

Jeffrey's murder spree almost came to an end.

On April 23, 1988,

Jeffrey took a man called Roland Flowers back

to his grandmother's house, she was usually asleep,

and he could carry out his rape and murder

without her noticing, but on this occasion she was awake

and heard Jeffrey come home with a man,

and after he had drugged him,

she called out to remind him

that he was not allowed visitors late at night.

Jeffrey was shocked.

This had never happened before and he had to make a decision

about whether to kill Flowers

or let him come too and escape.

By now the man was in a bad way.

So Jeffrey decided to spare his life

and ordered a cab to take him to hospital.

When Flowers came round he reported Jeffrey for assault

but due to his intoxicated and sedated state,

they did not believe him

as he remembered little of the event

and in the end they put it down to a domestic tiff.

Jeffrey had a very lucky escape.

But for his grandmother it was the final straw.

She had had enough of his lifestyle

and asked him to move out.

She could no longer stand the foul mess in the basement

and the constant stream

of young men he was bringing back to the house.

So in September, 1988, Jeffrey moved into an apartment

at 808 North 24th Street in Milwaukee,

which was close to the chocolate factory where he worked.

It was not the greatest of areas,

but it meant Jeffrey could indulge uninterrupted

in his twisted fantasies and murder.

The night after he moved in,

he lured a 13-year-old boy back to the flat,

offering him $50 to pose nude for photographs.

But after the boy took a few sips

of a drugged drink Jeffrey had given him,

the boy was sick and fled the apartment.

The boy's parents took their son to hospital

and he had his stomach pumped,

and doctors notified the police.

Jeffrey was arrested the following day

for drugging and sexually assaulting a minor

and in January of the following year

he was convicted of second-degree sexual assault

and of enticing a child for immoral purposes.

Sentencing for the crime was suspended until May

and during this period Jeffrey was forced

to move back into his grandmother's house,

although this time she expected him to stop drinking

and stop bringing men back to the house.

But Jeffrey had no intention of listening

to his grandmother's house rules,

he was intent on finding another murder victim

His name was Anthony Sears, a 24-year-old aspiring model

who Jeffrey met at a gay bar on March 25, 1989.

Again Jeffrey lured Sears to his grandmother's home,

where the pair engaged in sex

before Dahmer drugged and strangled him.

The following morning,

Jeffrey dragged the corpse in his grandmother's bathtub,

where he decapitated it before stripping the flesh

from the body and pulverizing the bones.

Later Jeffrey revealed he found Sears

exceptionally attractive, and he was the first victim

from whom he permanently retained any body parts.

He preserved Sears' head and genitalia in acetone

and stored them in his work locker.

Two months after Sears' murder Jeffrey was sentenced

to five years' probation and one year

in the House of Correction.

Part of his plea bargain meant he had a work release permit,

so he was able to keep his job.

He was also required to register as a sex offender.

During his sentence, he attended work every day,

before returning to jail every evening.

Throughout this period,

Anthony Sears head and genitals were still kept

in Jeffrey's locker.

Jeffrey was released early from his sentence

as ironically he was deemed

as no longer a threat to the community.

On release, he temporarily moved back

to his grandmother's home before, in May 1990,

moving into the Oxford Apartments,

located on the North 25th Street in Milwaukee.

This was the perfect place for Jeffrey

to recommence his killing spree

and he celebrated moving into apartment number 213

by retrieving Anthony Sears' head from his work locker

and placing it in his new home.

His housewarming also included another victim,

this time it was 32-year-old male prostitute Raymond Smith

also known as Ricky Beeks.

Jeffrey had lured him to his apartment

with the promise of $50 for sex.

Once there he gave Smith a drink laced

with seven sleeping pills and manually strangled him.

Then in a change to his normal after killing routine,

Jeffrey purchased a Polaroid camera

and took several pictures of Smith's corpse posed

in suggestive positions.

He then dismembered him in the bathroom

before boiling his legs, arms, and pelvis

in a steel kettle with Soilex,

which allowed him to rinse the bones in the sink.

He then dissolved the remainder

of Smith's skeleton, including the skull,

in a container he filled with acid.

To finish off, he spray-painted the head

and placed it alongside the skull of Anthony Sears.

However, it seems Jeffrey was getting

a little too confident,

and just a week later the tables were turned

when he lured another man back to his apartment

only to accidentally drug himself

instead of his intended victim by drinking the wrong drink.

When he woke up he had been robbed of several valuables.

His next victim was 36 year old Eddie Smith,

a fun-loving, kind-hearted man

who was an acquaintance of Jeffrey's.

He had been a guest at Jeffrey's apartment in the past.

But on the evening of June 14, 1990,

Smith became Jeffrey eighth victim.

After drugging, strangling and dismembering his friend,

Jeffrey tried to remove moisture

from his skeleton by freezing it for several months.

However, this did not work,

so the skeleton was disposed of in acid.

But the skull was retained

and when Jeffrey tried drying it out

in the oven it exploded.

This failed experiment greatly angered Jeffrey

as it meant he had nothing left of Smith's body.

Less than three months later in September 1990,

Jeffrey met 22-year-old dancer Ernest Miller

outside a bookstore in Milwaukee,

and after enticing Miller back to his apartment

with the promise of money,

he started to prepare a spiked drink

but he soon realized that he did not have enough sedatives

to effectively drug Miller.

He decided to go ahead anyway with the reduced dose

and the unsuspecting Miller soon fell unconscious.

But the victim's induced sleep didn't last long,

and when he suddenly woke up Jeffrey panicked

and in a change of tactics, he grabbed a knife

and stabbed him in the neck severing his carotid artery.

He then grabbed his Polaroid camera

and took photographs as the man lay bleeding to death,

before sexually defiling the corpse.

Jeffrey found Miller particularly attractive

and spent a lot of time talking to his corpse

as he dismembered it, repeatedly kissing his severed head.

Jeffrey was also impressed with Miller's biceps

and he kept these along with his heart

and flesh from his legs,

in plastic bags in the fridge ready to eat.

He also kept his skeleton after dissolving the flesh.

And after a drying period he kept the skeleton

in a closet.

After killing Miller,

Jeffrey's urges were getting even more out of control,

and he was leaving less time in between his murders.

Within a couple of weeks he sought another victim

and on the 24th September,

he enticed his ninth victim back to his apartment.

He was 23-year-old David Thomas,

a father of two children.

Again Jeffrey lured the man

with the promise of money to pose for photographs.

Once there, Dahmer gave him a sedative-laced drink,

and he was soon unconscious.

But in a sudden change of heart,

Jeffrey realized he was not attracted to the man

as he was not his type, but he was at the point of no return

and strangled him anyway.

He later discarded all of Thomas's body parts.

Jeffrey considered this murder a waste

due to the lack of attraction and he was so disappointed

that he didn't kill again for another five months.

During this brief hiatus,

Jeffrey began building a grotesque alter in his apartment,

using the skulls he had retained from his victims.

He also became obsessed with the film The Exorcist III,

a film he later felt a connection with.

It wasn't long before the urge to kill again

became too intense and by February, 1991,

he began prowling the streets looking for his next victim.

He met 19-year-old Curtis Straughter

and after offering the young man money to pose for him,

the pair went back to Jeffrey's apartment,

where he drugged, raped and strangled him.

He then dismembered his body

and kept his head in the refrigerator.

However, for his next victim,

Jeffrey would ramp up his depravity in the vilest way.

Jeffrey's fetish had always been

a totally subservient sexual partner,

the reason he killed them was because they moved around.

So he decided that rather than kill his next victim,

he would try and create a living zombie,

a completely subservient partner

without the need to kill them.

So when he enticed 19-year-old-year-old Errol Lindsey back

to his apartment.

After drugging him, instead of killing him,

he cut a hole in his head

and poured muriatic acid into his brain.

But the experiment didn't go to plan

and Lindsey woke up clutching his head

and complaining of a headache

before collapsing on the floor.

Jeffrey realized he had to act fast

so he drugged the terrified man again

and then strangled him.

He decapitated Lindsey and retained his skull,

he also tried to preserve his skin

by placing it in a solution of cold water,

but eventually, Jeffrey disposed of the skin

when it became too frail and brittle.

By now fellow residents

of the Oxford Apartments were repeatedly complaining

to the management about the foul odor emanating

from apartment 213, as well as the strange noises.

And although Jeffrey was contacted about the issue,

he used his charm to explain

a malfunctioning fridge caused the smell

and that several of his tropical fish had

also recently died.

Jeffrey's next victim was a casual friend

who he had known for a while,

his name was Anthony Hughes a deaf and mute man

who communicated through sign language and lip reading.

He lured Hughes back to his apartment to hang out

where he drugged him before drilling a hole into his skull

and injecting acid into the cranial cavity,

this time though the acid injection killed Hughes.

Jeffrey later claimed that he didn't intend to kill him,

but rather, he hoped for Tony to become zombie-like.

Jeffrey left Tony's body to rot on his bedroom floor

before dissolving it in acid several days later.

He again kept the skull to add to his macabre collection.

Now it's hard to believe

that Jeffrey could have been any crueler to his victims,

but what he did to his next one shows just how vile

and twisted this man was.

On May 27, 1991, Jeffrey walked the streets

of his neighborhood in search of a victim.

He came across 14-year-old Konerak Sinthasomphone.

Coincidentally, he was the brother of Keison

who the previous year Jeffrey had drugged

and molested resulting in a charge of sexual assault

and enticing a child.

Sadly for Konerak,

he did not recognize his brother's attacker

and readily accepted Jeffrey's offer

for $50 to go back to his apartment.

After drugging and assaulting the child,

Jeffrey drilled a hole into his skull

and injected muriatic acid into his brain.

The child fell deeply unconscious

and Jeffrey was frustrated

that his experiment had once again failed.

So he left the sedated child in his apartment

and spent a few hours drinking in a nearby bar.

But while he was away,

Konerak woke up and managed to escape into the street naked,

he was incoherent, injured and barely able to stand

and when Jeffrey returned,

he found the boy sitting with three young women

who were tending to the traumatized child.

When the police pulled up Jeffrey managed to convince them

that this boy was his 19-year-old lover named John Hmong

who had drunk too much.

incredibly the policemen laughed it off

and seemingly ignored the fact the boy was bleeding

from his buttocks and was unable to explain

or defend himself due to the damage to his brain.

The police picked the boy up by the arms

and carried him back to Jeffrey's apartment.

Jeffrey showed them his neatly folded clothes

and some Polaroids of the boy in a pair of black underwear

as proof of their relationship

before the police were satisfied and left.

Had they taken the time to search the apartment

or noted the pungent smell,

they would have discovered the rotting corpse

of Tony Hughes that was still laying on the bedroom floor.

As soon as they were gone,

Jeffrey injected another shot of acid

into the frontal lobe of the child's brain, killing him.

He then dismembered the boy's body

along with Tony Hughes's corpse.

A few days later, a newspaper story was released

in regards to a missing child

and the mother of one of the two women

that tried to protect Konerak,

called the police department to tell them that the boy

from a few days prior,

looked just like the missing boy from the paper.

Sadly no one was ever sent to talk with her about it.

What is astonishing in this case is how Jeffrey was able

to fool everybody, including the police and his family,

and how throughout his killing spree

he maintained his job in the chocolate factory,

leading some to believe that maybe he was using the plant

to dispose of some of the body parts.

But Jeffrey was a charming intelligent man,

he was well organized

and didn't look like a serial killer or a pedophile.

He often dressed smartly

and as his father later admitted

that he had a silver tongue.

And whilst his family started to suspect he was homosexual,

they had no real inkling of the life he was hiding.

Whenever they visited his apartment, and they often did,

Jeffrey cleaned it up as if nothing had ever happened there.

And when his neighbors started to complain

even more about smells and noises,

he solved the problem not by stopping his killing,

but by purchasing a 57-gallon drum

that he filled with hydrochloric acid,

to ensure his victims were never smelled ever again.

Jeffrey was also intelligent enough

to know he had to change tactic,

and instead of choosing his victims from gay bars

and the streets of Milwaukee,

he decided to travel further afield

to a new killing ground two hours away in Chicago.

As he didn't drive he made the trip on a Greyhound bus,

and on June 30th, 1991, he met Matt Turner,

a 20-year-old social butterfly.

It's likely that Jeffrey offered him money for photographs

and he ended up on a Greyhound bus back

to Milwaukee with Jeffrey.

Once inside Apartment 213,

Dahmer drugged and strangled Turner

before dismembering him, dissolving his body

in the 57-gallon drum of acid,

and keeping his skull to add to his collection.

Just a few days later on July 5th,

Dahmer made the same trip to Chicago

where he met 23-year-old Jeremy Weinberger,

an incredibly lovable man from Chicago

who worked as a customer service representative.

Jeffrey got chatting with him

and invited him to come back to his apartment with him.

Before he agreed Jeremy asked a friend

what he thought of Jeffrey

and after getting the green light from him,

he decided to go with Jeffrey.

The pair spent several days at Jeffrey's apartment

and enjoyed each other company,

but when Jeremy wanted to go home Jeffrey convinced him

to have one last drink, which he had heavily spiked.

After Jeremy lost consciousness,

Jeffrey drilled into his skull

and injected his brain with boiling water.

This didn't work well and Jeremy woke up seemingly okay.

Jeffrey forcibly drugged him again

and gave him another injection

of boiling water to the brain,

sending him into a coma for two days

but after the second day Jeffrey returned home from work

and found Jeremy dead with his eyes open.

He dissolved the body in acid after dismembering him

and placing his head in the freezer.

In a tragic postscript to his murder,

the friend who had advised Jeremy to go for it

when he asked his advice on Jeffrey,

later committed suicide after he was unable

to live with the guilt of his death.

By now Jeffrey was running out of space in his fridge

and it was packed with human remains

with little space for any normal food.

But this did not stop Jeffrey.

His insatiable desire meant he couldn't stop

and within two weeks he was back out,

prowling his Milwaukee neighborhood.

On July 12th, 1991,

he approached 23-year-old aspiring bodybuilder Oliver Lacy,

who had just moved from Illinois

to live with his girlfriend and their child.

Jeffrey was very attracted to Lacy's muscular body

and somehow managed to lure him back to his apartment,

where he was drugged, strangled,

sexually assaulted, and dismembered.

Jeffrey kept the man's head in the refrigerator,

next to some Arm & Hammer Baking Soda

to try and mask the smell.

He also kept his heart and some of his muscles wrapped

in plastic ready to eat later.

It was also around this time

that Jeffrey was suspended from work.

His obsession with killing was affecting his performance

and after several warnings,

his employment was finally terminated on July 19th, 1991.

On the same day he lured 25-year-old father of three,

Joseph Bradehoft to his apartment.

Bradehoft was down on his luck and likely went with Jeffrey

after the promise of cash.

Once there he was strangled and left lying

on Dasher's bed covered with a sheet.

When Jeffrey removed the sheets two days later,

he found his head covered in maggots.

So he decapitated the body, cleaned the head

and placed it in the refrigerator.

He later acidified Bradehoft's torso in the drum of acid.

The man that fought back.

Just days after Bradehoft's murder,

Jeffrey was back in a bar in Milwaukee

where he spotted three men.

The one he was most attracted to

was 31-year-old Tracy Edwards.

He offered all three men money and booze to come back

to his apartment and pose for photographs,

but Edwards was the only one to take up the offer

and the pair went back to Jeffrey's apartment in a taxi.

The other two men agreed to drop round later to party

but Jeffrey deliberately gave them the wrong address.

As soon as the two men arrived at the apartment,

Jeffrey began pressuring Edwards to undress,

he also gave him his standard spiked drink,

but Edwards didn't drink it.

He sensed something wasn't quite right about the situation

and he noticed Jeffrey's friendly demeanor had changed.

As he looked around the apartment he saw boxes of acid,

he also noticed the foul smell.

Sensing danger, Edwards got up to leave.

But quick as he could, Jeffrey reached over

and put a handcuff on one of his wrists.

As Edwards fought, Jeffrey pulled out a large knife.

But in a bizarre move, instead of stabbing him,

Jeffrey laid on Edwards' chest and listened to his heart

before explaining he was going to eat it.

At this point Edwards hit Jeffrey and ran into the street.

He was able to flag down two police officers.

But similar to poor Konerak,

the police were reluctant to get involved.

However Edwards was much more coherent than Konerak

and eventually persuaded the police to pay Dahmer a visit.

Predictably, Dahmer put on the nice guy mask once more

and invited the trio inside.

He admitted to placing the handcuffs on Edwards

but offered no explanation as to why.

One of the policemen, Officer Mueller,

headed into Jeffrey's bedroom to retrieve the knife

after Tracy told him he would find it in there.

As he did Dahmer tried to push past him in an effort

to keep him from going through to the bedroom.

But the second policeman, Officer Rauth,

intercepted and warned Jeffrey to back off.

Jeffrey's game was up.

Mueller found the knife on the bedside table,

he also noticed inside the open drawer,

piles of Polaroid photographs depicting

over a dozen human bodies in various stages

of dismemberment and decay,

purposely posed in hideous positions.

After a brief struggle, Jeffrey was arrested.

Backup officers were called to the scene

and Mueller began searching the apartment.

But just a minute or two after beginning his search,

he opened Jeffrey's refrigerator

and was met with the empty gaze

of a freshly severed human head.

He would later recall hearing someone scream,

only to realize the scream had been emitting

from his own throat.

Tracy Edwards was deemed the hero

that put an end Jeffrey's reign of terror.

However, the publicity he received backfired.

As it turned out,

the State of Mississippi had put out a warrant

for his arrest for the sexual assault of a 14-year-old girl

and he was later arrested and charged with the crime.

A more detailed search of the apartment,

conducted by the Criminal Investigation Bureau,

revealed the full horror of Jeffrey's crimes.

In total four severed heads were found in his kitchen,

a further seven preserved skulls,

some that were painted

and some that were bleached were found

in his bedroom and closet.

In the refrigerator,

investigators collected human blood drippings

from a tray at the bottom plus two human hearts

and a portion of arm muscle,

each wrapped inside plastic bags placed on the shelves.

The freezer revealed more body parts

and contained an entire torso,

plus a bag of human organs and flesh stuck

to the ice at the bottom.

Elsewhere in the apartment, two complete skeletons,

a pair of severed hands, two severed and preserved penises,

and a mummified scalp.

There were also three more dismembered torsos,

discovered dissolving in acid in the 57-gallon drum.

Jeffrey had been caught red-handed

and when 74 Polaroid photographs were recovered

that detailed Jeffrey dismembering his victims,

he had very few legal cards to play.

As details of Jeffrey's crimes started

to leak out to the people of Milwaukee

and eventually the world,

the extent of his horror was hard for many to understand.

It was almost unbelievable

that a seemingly normal human being could inflict

such pain and suffering on another.

But the evidence in Jeffrey's apartment was overwhelming.

After being taken to the police headquarters,

Jeffrey was interviewed

by two veteran homicide detectives,

Patrick Kennedy and Patrick Murphy.

And although they were experienced officers,

they had never come face to face with a serial killer

as prolific and heinous as Jeffrey

and nothing could have prepared them

for what they were about to hear.

Throughout his interrogations,

Jeffrey waived his right to have a lawyer present

and stated he wished to confess all.

In his own words he said,

"I created this horror

"and it only makes sense I do everything

"to put an end to it."

He went on to readily admit to having murdered 16 young men

in Wisconsin since 1987,

with one further victim Steve Hicks, his first victim,

who he killed in Ohio back in 1978.

Jeffrey made full and complete confessions

concerning all the men and boys he killed,

and he described at great length all the horrific details

of his murders including necrophilia and cannibalism.

The two detectives were mortified and sickened

by the matter of fact descriptions Jeffrey gave

about the depraved acts he performed before

and after he killed his victims.

In total they interviewed him for over 60 hours

and when asked by the detectives

why he had killed his victims and what compelled him

to do such grotesque things to their corpses, he said.

- It was my way of remembering their appearance,

their physical beauty.

I also wanted to keep,

if I couldn't keep them there with me whole

at least I felt that I could keep their skeletons.

- [Narrator] He planned to set up an altar

with the 10 different skulls and skeletons

as a sort of memorial.

This display of skulls was to be adorned at each side

with the complete skeletons of Ernest Miller

and Oliver Lacy with incense sticks placed

at each end of the black table,

above which Jeffrey intended to place a large blue lamp.

The entire construction was to be placed

before a window covered with a black shower curtain,

in front of which Dahmer intended to sit

in a black leather chair and admire his handiwork.

He also revealed most

of his victims had been rendered unconscious

before their murder, although some had died

as a result of having acid

or boiling water injected into their brain.

Jeffrey confessed he had no memory of the murder of Tuomi,

and was unsure whether he was unconscious

when beaten to death,

although he did concede it was possible

that his viewing the exposed chest of Steven Tuomi

may have led him to attempt

to tear Tuomi's heart from his chest.

Almost all the murders Dahmer committed,

after moving into the Oxford Apartments,

had involved a ritual of posing the victims' bodies

in suggestive positions,

typically with the chest thrust outwards.

He also readily admitted to performing necrophilia

with several of his victims' bodies,

including performing sexual acts with their heads

as he dismembered their bodies in his bathtub.

He confessed to first removing his victims internal organs,

then suspended their torsos

so the blood drained into his bathtub,

before dicing any organs he did not wish to retain

and paring the flesh from the body.

The bones he wished to dispose of

were pulverized or acidified,

and the skeletons and skulls he wished to keep,

he preserved with Soilex and bleach solutions,

a technique he had learned from his father as a child.

Jeffrey also admitted that in the year

before he was arrested he had started

to consume the hearts, livers, biceps,

and portions of thighs of several

of his victims he killed.

And that in the two months prior to his arrest,

he increased his rate of killings

as he had been completely swept along

with the compulsion to kill.

Jeffrey Dahmer was initially charged

with 15 counts of murder in Wisconsin and one in Ohio

and was placed in protective custody

in Milwaukee on $1 million bail.

He was not charged with the attempted murder

of Tracy Edwards, or the murder of Steven Tuomi

because the Milwaukee County District Attorney

only brought charges where murder could be proven

beyond a reasonable doubt

and as Dahmer had no memory

of actually committing this particular murder,

and there was no physical evidence the crime existed.

At a scheduled preliminary hearing on January 13, 1992,

Jeffrey pleaded guilty but insane to 15 counts of murder.

The trial began on January 30, 1992.

It was not to prove his guilt,

as that had already been established,

it was to determine whether he suffered

from either a mental or personality disorder.

The verdict would determine if he spent the rest of his life

in a mental health facility,

or whether he would be sent to a tough state prison.

His defense hired several psychiatrists

who diagnosed Jeffrey

with a borderline personality disorder,

schizotypal personality disorder,

necrophilia and alcoholism.

They argued that due

to the schizotypal personality disorder,

he was driven by obsessions

and impulses he was unable to control

and that he was insane due to his necrophilic drive

and compulsion to have sexual encounters with corpses.

For The prosecution, several experts were called

and they claimed that any disorders did not deprive Dahmer

of his ability to appreciate the criminality of his conduct

or to deprive him of the ability to resist his impulses

and they rejected the defense's argument

that Dahmer was insane and that he did not suffer

from primary necrophilia

because he preferred live sexual partners

as evidenced by his efforts to create living zombies

to use for his own pleasure.

These premeditated experiments proved Jeffrey was not

a true necrophiliac, as it was not a requirement

for his victims to be dead.

He just wanted control at whatever cost.

They concluded that he was evil and sick,

but he was sane and able to differentiate

between right and wrong.

The trial lasted two weeks and on February 14th,

both counsels delivered their closing arguments to the jury.

Predictably the defense argued that Jeffrey was mentally ill

and stated that he was afflicted

with a sickness he discovered not chose.

The prosecution, on the other hand,

admitted Jeffrey was sick but sane

when he committed his atrocities and his victims died merely

to afford Dahmer a period of sexual pleasure.

On February 15th, 1992, the jury agreed

with the prosecution and found Jeffrey Dahmer sane.

He was given 15 life sentences totalling 957 years.

After he was sentenced he was allowed

to address the courtroom, this is what he said.

- [Jeffrey] Your Honor, it is over now,

this has never been a case of trying to get free.

I didn't ever want freedom,

frankly I wanted death for myself.

This was a case to tell the world that I did what I did,

not for reasons of hate, I hated no one.

I knew I was sick or evil or both, now I believe I was sick.

The doctors have told me about my sickness

and now I have some peace.

- [Narrator] After his statement,

not everyone who witnessed it were convinced of his remorse,

and after a series of powerful victim impact statements

from the victim's families,

Jeffrey was led away to serve his life sentence

at the maximum security Columbia Correctional Institution

in Wisconsin.

But before he could settle into his new forever home,

on May 1, 1992, he was extradited to Ohio to be tried

for the murder of his first victim, Steven Hicks.

The hearing was just a formality and lasted just 45 minutes

and Jeffrey was sentenced

to a 16th term of life imprisonment,

after which he was sent back

to the Columbia Correctional Institution in Wisconsin.

However his notoriety caused a headache

for the prison authorities.

After all he was locked up

with some of the country's worst offenders,

including rapists, gang members and serial killers,

who had nothing to lose in attacking Jeffrey.

For this reason for the first year in his incarceration,

Jeffrey was placed in solitary confinement

for his own safety and out of concern for fellow inmates.

During this period Jeffrey had no contact

with other inmates and only limited contact

with prison staff.

Everything he did was alone.

He did, however, have a TV and access to books

but for the most part,

he was just alone with his disturbing thoughts.

After a year of solitude,

Jeffrey was transferred to a less secure unit,

where he was assigned

a two-hour daily work detail cleaning the toilet block.

He readily agreed to the move

as he believed that the threat posed

by his own twisted thoughts was far greater

than anything he could face at the hands of other inmates.

He also indicated on many occasions

that he did not care if he lived or died.

During this period Jeffrey gave an interview to Nancy Glass.

Although despite being back with the prison population,

he was still very much a loner

and made few or no friends.

Although his family kept in regular contact with him

and he enjoyed phone calls

with his brother, mother and father.

His father, in particular,

was also a frequent visitor to his son,

and he was desperate to understand

what drove Jeffrey to commit the heinous acts he did.

By now, Jeffrey had devoted himself to Christianity

and became a born-again Christian.

In May 1994, he was baptized

in the prison whirlpool by Roy Ratcliff,

a minister in the Church of Christ

and a graduate of Oklahoma Christian University.

Following his baptism,

Ratcliff was a frequent visitor to Jeffrey

and the pair regularly discussed the prospect of death.

Jeffrey questioned whether he was sinning

against God by continuing to live.

However Jeffrey was always going to be a target

for other inmates and in July, 1994,

fellow inmate, Osvaldo Durruthy,

attacked Jeffrey with an improvised knife.

It consisted of a toothbrush

with a razor blade pushed through the end.

Osvaldo attempted to slash Jeffrey's throat

as he returned to his cell

from Roy Ratcliff's weekly church service.

But the attack was largely ineffective

and he only suffered minor cuts.

In the same year Jeffrey gave an interview

with Stone Phillips on Dateline NBC,

which also featured his father, Lionel,

it would be the last glimpse the world would get

of Jeffrey Dahmer and at the time of the interview,

he had no idea that he would be dead in a few months.

On the morning of November 28, 1994,

Dahmer left his cell to conduct his assigned work detail.

Accompanying him were two fellow inmates,

Jesse Anderson and Christopher Scarver.

The trio were left unsupervised in the showers

of the prison gym for approximately 20 minutes.

At around 8:10 a.m Jeffrey was discovered

on the floor of the bathrooms of the gym,

suffering from severe head and facial wounds.

He had been bludgeoned with a 20-inch metal bar

and his head had been repeatedly struck against the wall.

Although he was still alive after being rushed hospital,

he was pronounced dead one hour later.

Anderson had also been beaten with the same instrument

and died two days later.

Scarver, who was serving a life sentence for murder,

informed authorities he had first attacked Dahmer

with the metal bar as they cleaned the staff locker room.

He then attacked Anderson

who was cleaning an inmate's locker room.

According to Scarver,

Jeffrey did not yell or make any noise as he was attacked.

Scarver was adamant he had not planned the attacks

in advance, although he later admitted to investigators

that he had concealed the 20-inch iron bar used

to kill both men in his clothing shortly

before the killings.

Upon learning of her son's death,

Dasher's mother Joyce Flint responded angrily to the media,

"Now is everybody happy?

"Now that he's bludgeoned to death,

"is that good enough for everyone?"

Jeffrey had stated in his will that he wished

for no services to be conducted after his death

and that he wished to be cremated.

In September 1995, Dasher's body was cremated,

and his ashes divided between his parents.

In the aftermath of his death,

media outlets around the world were reporting the demise

of one of the world's most heinous serial killers.

There was little sympathy and many celebrated his death,

in particular, his victim's families.

But there were questions

about whether the killing had been deliberately set up

by prison staff.

It transpired that on the morning of Jeffrey's murder,

Christopher Scarver was placed

with Dahmer and Anderson on the job.

He had never worked with Jeffrey before or done that job.

And Scarver was a dangerous man,

he had mental health issues and a deep hatred of whites.

He never hid his disdain for Jeffrey.

And it was common knowledge that he carried around

with him a newspaper article that detailed Jeffrey's crimes.

So it seemed matching Scarver with two white men,

one of which was Jeffrey Dahmer, was a recipe for disaster.

Also at the time of the killing

there was no guard anywhere to be seen

which was highly irregular

as in max security facilities like Columbia,

it's necessary for one guard to be in sight

of each inmate at all times

that they are out of their cells.

But the two guards assigned to that job

that morning were nowhere to be seen.

In fact, in 2015 Scarver gave an interview

and indicated that the guards were complicit

in the murders.

However, despite investigations,

to date only Scarver has been charged with the murders

for which he received another life sentence.

He also revealed that Jeffrey had been openly unrepentant

for his crimes and that he taunted fellow inmates

by shaping his prison food into imitations of severed limbs,

complete with ketchup to simulate blood spattering.

There were also allegations

that Jeffrey invited his own death and even welcomed it,

even when he was sentenced he said,

"This has never been a case of trying to get free,

"I didn't ever want freedom,

"frankly I wanted death for myself."

In an interview with Nancy Glass he admitted

that he had suicidal thoughts

and when asked about the possibility

of another inmate attacking him he said

"There's no question that I deserve the death penalty.

"That's what I deserve, I deserve death."

One thing is certain.

At the time of his attack,

Jeffrey was a strong enough physically to fight Scarver off.

And this leaves people to think

that maybe he let Scarver overpower him

and finally put him out of his misery.

Those that believe Jeffrey was genuine

about his conversion to Christianity also argue

that to commit suicide would go against Christian Scripture,

but by allowing someone to kill him,

he would be partially atoning for his sins

and would be allowed to go to heaven as a true believer.

We will probably never fully understand

why Jeffrey Dahmer committed

such depraved and heinous crimes.

Was he born to kill?

Was it the result of his childhood

or were there other factors

that turned a seemingly normal man

into one of the world's most notorious

and evil serial killers?