A Modern Cannibal: Jeffrey Dahmer
We’ve read the stories of cannibals from the early 20th century and even before in the likes of Albert Fish as well as those from more primal times such as Elizabeth Bathory in the middle ages who ate people for their own enjoyment. Shockingly, however, there are more recent cases of cannibalism. While some know Jeffrey Dahmer as a serial killer, what most people do not know is that he also was a cannibal who preserved his victims in order to eat at later dates. Let’s take an eye opening look at Jeffrey Dahmer, the Milwaukee cannibal.
The Life and Crimes of Jeffrey Dahmer
Jeffrey Dahmer’s parents were both incredibly busy people. They provided him with a normal upbringing, but their jobs demanded their attention. Jeffrey Dahmer’s mother was also known to be in a constant state of agitation and anxiety, and would often spend weeks in bed as a result of such. Since Dahmer was alone most of the time, he began collecting bugs at the age of seven, but in a few years’ time, he and his friends were soon collecting animal carcasses from the side of the road to dissect. He had even preserved these animals in his family’s tool shed to keep, and his parents would later state that his interest seemed odd, and that their son seemed much more intrigued about the bones and entrails of animals than a ten year old boy should be.
Once Jeffrey Dahmer hit high school, he was bullied regularly and was seen as an outsider. He would steal beer and liquor from his father’s cabinets and drink it while he was at school. He was never caught by school staff partaking in this, and they saw him as helpful and polite, though shy. In his sophomore year of high school, Jeffrey Dahmer realized that he was a homosexual and did his best to keep it hidden.
His homosexual fantasies quickly took a turn for the worst as he coupled them with his already there fascination with dissection and found himself wanting to live out a rape fantasy. He actually attempted to carry this fantasy out at the age of sixteen on a jogger. Jeffrey hid in the bushes waiting for his carefully picked victim to pass so he could jump out and attack, but the jogger ended up not coming his way in which he had previously thought. Dahmer did not pursue the man any further.
Jeffrey Dahmer ended up graduating high school as his parents divorced. The home he had grown up in was vacant, and feeling bad for divorcing, his parents went their separate ways, but let eighteen year old Jeffrey live there on his own as long as he promised to hold a job. Dahmer took this as an opportunity to finally be able to carry out his desires in peace and only three weeks after starting to live on his own, he picked up a male hitchhiker who was the same age as him. He invited him back to his house where they drank and listened to music for a good seven hours. Finally, Dahmer hit his new friend in the head with a dumbbell and proceeded to strange him to death. He took apart the boy’s body and buried the remains in the backyard. A few weeks later, he dug up the remains and dissolved his victim’s skin in acid and eventually flushed it down the toilet. As for the bones, he crushed them with a hammer and scattered them among the woods.
He lied dormant in terms of killing for a few years and enlisted in the army. He served as a medic, but his alcohol abuse affected his performance, and was discharged from the army. After moving around the country and failing at many jobs as well as keeping apartments, he eventually moved in with his grandmother in Milwaukee. He lived in the basement there and was able to lure many different young men into his bedroom on the pretext of cash for posing for nude photos for him. He drugged and killed his young victims and slowly got rid of them using different solutions to dissolve their bones and skin. Some parts of the remains, however, he kept for his own personal pleasures. His grandmother eventually asked him to leave her house because of the foul smell and odd men he kept bringing back, and he moved into a small apartment not far away.
Now, he was alone again and once again, able to do exactly what he wanted. In the meantime, he had been arrested for indecent exposure, the molestation of a thirteen year old boy, and other creepy crimes. One thing that moved with him was the remains of a twenty-four year old man he had killed and dismembered in his grandmother’s basement.
As the 1990s began, he was still killing young men that he would meet in bars all while he worked in a chocolate factory. He would perform disgusting acts with their bodies. He preserved the bodies the best that he could, and one night, he lured an intended victim back to his apartment, only for his victim to stumble upon a body from three days prior.
In an attempt to make him forget what he had seen, Dahmer drilled a hole in the man’s skull and injected it with a drug. This rendered the man unconscious, and Dahmer believed he was in the clear. He went to work the next day as usual, but as he arrived home, he found the man with the hole drilled in his skull naked on the street corner, speaking in different languages. He stated that it was his roommate who had gotten too drunk, but the spectators had already called 9-1-1 as Dahmer dragged his victim back up his apartment.
Once authorities arrived, they told Dahmer to take good care of his apparently drunk friend. Dahmer later killed him and dissolved his body in acid, just like many of his other victims. Dahmer’s arrest wouldn’t come until a few days later when he went through his usual lure tactics and had a man at his apartment under the premise of making some money to pose naked for pictures.
Once there, the victim was handcuffed and knew that something was wrong. He also noted a huge tank that a foul smell came from and became even more nervous. Dahmer saw his victim’s concern and threatened him with a knife. His victim was able to sensually coax Dahmer into putting the knife down and taking the cuffs off. Eventually, he found his opportunity to knock Dahmer out and run out the front door. He notified authorities, and authorities were beyond shocked to find the terrors that he was hiding within his one bedroom apartment.
They found fresh heads, whole torsos, and limbs in the refrigerator and freezer, eyeballs kept in jars of chemicals, and even jars of collected blood drops. Dahmer confessed to killing over sixteen young men immediately after being arrested and was eventually sentenced to sixteen consecutive life sentences. However, in 1994, he was bludgeoned to death by a fellow inmate while in the shower and died consequently.