JEFFREY DAHMER: BIOGRAPHY, VICTIMS AND PSYCHOLOGICAL PROFILE - BIOGRAPHIES - 2025

Jeffrey Dahmer (the Milwaukee Butcher) was an American serial killer who killed 17 people (adults and youth) for 13 consecutive years, from 1978 to 1991. One of the most characteristic elements of Dahmer is that he not only murdered his victims But he also had sex with several of the corpses and acted as a cannibal.

Dahmer's features included a striking physical attractiveness, an image of a not very dangerous man and a high capacity for seduction; Thanks to these, he managed to mislead the police on several occasions.

Jeffrey Dahmer murdered 17 men (adults and youth) between 1978 and 1991. Source:

In 1991 he was captured by the authorities and forced to admit to his crimes. He received a sentence that confined him to 957 years in prison and died in prison, assassinated by another of the prisoners of the compound. Dhamer was one of the first serial killers to emerge in America.

Early years

Jeffrey Dahmer Lionel came into the world on May 21, 1960 in Wisconsin, specifically in the city of Milwaukee. Jeffrey's father was named Lionel and he worked as a pharmacist; for this reason the whole family used to travel often.

Jeffrey's childhood was quiet and peaceful. She received love and affection from her parents, and she used to go fishing with her father. Since he was little, he attracted a lot of attention thanks to his blue eyes, his blond hair and his excellent manners.

As a child, Jeffrey was characterized by being quite outgoing and with a lot of vitality. He had many friends, he liked to make jokes and he was very curious, especially towards animals.

However, once he got a little older Jeffrey was much more shy and closed; He was even rejected by his classmates after being one of the most popular.

Interest in dead animals

At this time Dahmer began to take dead animals from the streets, and then open and debone them with great pleasure. Likewise, already in his teens, Dahmer fantasized about sleeping with men and then murdering them; This interest explains the relationship between sex and violence that was characteristic of Dahmer throughout his life.

The constant family moves began to create in Jeffrey a sense of instability and he developed a fear of being abandoned. This fear became a permanent part of his life.

Studies

During his high school studies, Dahmer's personality underwent a major transformation: from being the funny boy in the class, he became the most introverted and isolated.

Upon graduating from high school, Dahmer's parents decided to divorce; this surely had a negative effect on him and contributed to the instability that was already evident in his behavior. In fact, just after graduating from high school, he began his criminal activities.

Dahmer intended to go to college, but failed all the subjects he was taking and decided to drop out. After this he joined the army, but was also expelled from this institution, so he had to retire.

Victims

Steven Hicks

Jeffrey Dahmer's first crime took place in the summer of 1978 and the victim was Steven Hicks. Just at that time, Dahmer's parents had divorced, the father went to live in a motel near their home and the mother moved to Wisconsin with David, Jeffrey's younger brother. Jeffrey lived alone.

The night of his first murder, Jeffrey had been out for a few beers. On the way home he picked up a young man who was hitchhiking and invited him to his home.

Once at Dahmer's home, Steven told him to leave and Dahmer immediately used a dumbbell against him, hitting and strangling him. Dahmer's first reaction was panic and, not knowing what to do, he carried the body into the basement.

Quartering

The next morning Dahmer went out to buy a special hunting knife and used it to cut open Steven's belly. With the guts overflowing on the floor, Dahmer had the urge to jerk off on them.

He ended up tearing the body apart and putting it in black garbage bags. He carried the bags to his car, put them in the trunk, and headed for the garbage can.

Dahmer exceeded the speed limit, which was stopped by a police officer. They asked him to open the trunk and asked about the bags. Dahmer indicated that it was garbage that he was taking to the dump, the policeman took his word for true and did not check anything else.

Steven Toumi

Young Steven Toumi was the second man killed by Dahmer. Prior to this episode, Dahmer had felt urges to rape and kill men more intensely, but had tried to curb these urges through different strategies.

Some of the actions Dahmer took were moving in with his grandmother, actively engaging in religion, and, when urges were very strong, stealing a mannequin and using it for masturbation.

Dahmer could no longer contain himself and in 1986 he went to a gay bar, where he met Steven. They both left the bar to a hotel with the intention of having sex.

Steven was not conscious for a long time, as Dahmer put sleeping pills in his glass and he was unconscious.

Memories erased

Dahmer claims that he has absolutely no recollection of what happened that night; it only indicates that he woke up the next morning and observed Steven's corpse, who was severely beaten and with his head hanging off the edge of the bed.

In a cool, controlled manner, Dahmer went out to find a large suitcase with wheels. He put Steven's body there and took a taxi that took him to the basement of his grandmother's house. In that scenario, he raped, dismembered and boned the corpse, and this time he kept the skull as a souvenir.

From then on, Dahmer stopped wanting to curb his murderous impulses and gave free rein to his desires, even creating a kind of museum with parts of the bodies of several of his victims.

James doxtator

Dahmer's third victim was James Doxtator, who was 14 years old. His murder occurred in 1988 and the procedure was similar to that followed with Steven Toumi.

Dahmer met Doxtator at a bus stop, offered him money in exchange for sex, and subsequently drugged and murdered him. In this case Dahmer kept the body for a full week and had sex with the corpse. When the body odor grew stronger, Dahmer dismembered and discarded it.

Richard Guerrero

The fourth murdered by Dahmer was Richard Guerrero, with whom he carried out the same procedure as with his previous victim: he approached Richard making a sexual offer and then drugged him. This crime occurred in March 1988.

Anthony Sears

In 1989 Jeffrey went through a judicial process after being accused of child abuse. In the middle of this process, the following criminal act by Dahmer took place: the murder of Anthony Sears, whom he met in a bar.

Dahmer offered Sears a sum of money on the condition that he accompany him to his home and be his model for photographs. Dahmer took his victim to his grandmother's house and there he strangled him, raped the body and then dismembered him.

In the judicial process it was determined that Dahmer was guilty on the charge of child abuse, which is why he was sentenced. However, at the end of his sentence, Dahmer continued with the murders, which in total were 17.

Konerak Sinthasomphone

On one occasion Dahmer came very close to being caught; It was in the process of murdering Konerak Sinthasomphone. This young man was the brother of the boy who was abused by Dahmer, for whom the murderer had been prosecuted.

After subduing Sinthasomphone, Dahmer pierced his skull several times and injected a type of acid, which generated a drowsy effect on the victim. As a consequence, his behavior resembled that of a zombie.

Dahmer went out to buy drinks and Sinthasomphone managed to escape. He ran naked through the neighborhood and neighbors called the police. Dahmer realized what had happened and managed to convince the police that the deranged young man was his partner and that he was intoxicated.

Sinthasomphone couldn't articulate very well due to the acid Dahmer had injected into it, so he couldn't refute the killer's argument. What happened then was that the police officers accompanied both young men to Dahmer's apartment, fully believed the criminal's story, and left. Sinthasomphone died that day.

Tracy edwards

Dahmer's last unsuccessful victim was Tracy Edwards in July 1991. This 31-year-old man was saved by escaping from the department.

Edwards was handcuffed. When he fled, he intercepted a police car and explained what had happened to him. Officers went to Dahmer's apartment to investigate and eventually uncovered the evidence connecting him to all the murders he had committed.

Among these evidence were mutilated bodies, blood stains on the walls, photographs of corpses, torsos in drums with acid, various bones and the skulls of 7 human bodies.

Convictions

Jeffrey Dahmer was treated by several psychiatrists and all concluded that he was ill. As a consequence of this, Dahmer pleaded guilty but mentally deranged; the intention of this was to get Dahmer to be held in a special jail for the mentally ill.

Finally, this legal figure could not be applied, so Dahmer was treated as a regular convict, without regard to his psychiatric condition. This was because it was determined that Dahmer was able to recognize good from bad.

He initially pleaded not guilty, but the flood of evidence against him was such that he had to change his statement. The trial lasted 3 weeks and deeply moved the entire community.

Dahmer's strategy was to emphasize his delicate mental state, but eventually the jury decided that the killer could face a prison sentence. The trial was televised and represents a milestone in contemporary American history.

Dahmer intervention and final decision

One of the most anticipated moments was the speech that Dahmer himself gave to the jury.

In his communication he expressed in a very cold way that he was sorry to have committed the murders of which he was accused, that he understood the family members and that he understood that they hated him. His words had no positive effect on the jurors, who perceived him as insincere.

The court's conviction occurred on February 15, 1992: Dahmer was sentenced to 957 years in prison (15 life sentences). Dahmer had to serve his sentence at the Columbia Correctional Institution, located in Indiana.

He only spent 2 years in said correctional facility, as he was killed by another inmate; this man beat him several times with a barbell to death.

Psychological profile

Jeffrey Dahmer was a very complex man. On the one hand, he had the typical characteristics of a serial killer (a term that emerged later, taking him as the main reference), but he did not have violent episodes in his childhood and adolescence, which are usually triggers for the type of behavior he presented..

Dahmer himself did not consider himself sadistic, as he claimed that he was not interested in torturing his victims: he only wanted to find a “zombie” partner, whom he could control at all times.

Dahmer went so far as to say that the reason he dismembered his victims was to be able to dispose of the bodies easily, it was not for the pleasure of dismemberment.

As for his mental health, before his trial began there was a controversy regarding whether he was mentally healthy enough to appear in ordinary court or whether he should be immediately confined in a psychiatric institution.

Finally, the doctors who examined his case determined that he could be tried in an ordinary way, since it was clear that Dahmer could recognize between the good and the bad; this is evidenced by the fact that he always tried to hide his crimes.

Alcoholism

One of Dahmer's characteristics is that he was an alcoholic from a young age; As early as 1978, just out of high school, Dahmer suffered from alcoholism. Specialists indicate that this condition may have accelerated and deepened the instability that it demonstrated from an early age.

There were two major failures in Dahmer's life that were directly related to alcoholism: when he quit college and when he was expelled from the army. Experts say these episodes may have sapped Dahmer's morale and prevented him from developing his self-esteem.

Uncontrollable urges

Dahmer mentioned on several occasions that his actions responded to impulses that he could not control. In fact, being already in captivity, he indicated that the jail was the ideal place for him, since he was not allowed to drink alcohol and did not have the opportunity to carry out murders.

At that time, the explanation that Dahmer gave to these impulses was that the devil possessed him and forced him to commit all the crimes, so it was a behavior that was beyond his control.

References

1. "Evaluating Jeffrey Dahmer" (2012) in Forensic Psychology Online. Retrieved on October 8, 2019 from Forensic Psychology Online: forensicpsychologyonline.com
2. Ullman, J. “'I Carried it Too Far, That's for Sure'” (June 2016) in Psychology Today. Retrieved on October 8, 2019 from Psychology Today: psychologytoday.com
3. Suazo, C. “Jeffrey Dahmer: the sadistic ripper whose dream was to create a 'living dead' boyfriend” (2018) in Bio Bio Chile. Retrieved on October 8, 2019 from Bio Bio Chile: biobiochile.cl
4. Montañez, T. "Eight Notes on Jeffrey Dahmer, the Milwaukee Butcher" in Jot Down. Retrieved on October 8, 2019 from Jot Down: jotdown.es
5. Grandío, A. "Jeffrey Dahmer: life and crimes of the terrible 'Milwaukee butcher'" in Psychology and Mind. Retrieved on October 8, 2019 from Psychology and Mind: psicologiaymente.org
6. "Jeffrey Dahmer" in Wikipedia. Retrieved on October 8, 2019 from Wikipedia: wikipedia.org
7. Álvarez, M. “The 'Cannibal of Milwaukee', a 'Star Wars' fan who sought to resemble Emperor Palpatine” (2019) in La Vanguardia. Retrieved on October 8, 2019 from La Vanguardia: láguardia.com
8. Goldman, D. "Clues to a Dark Nurturing Ground for One Serial Killer" in The New York Times. Retrieved on October 8, 2019 from The New York Times: nytimes.com