Dahmer initially pleaded not guilty to all charges, despite having confessed to the killings during police interrogation. He eventually changed his plea to guilty by virtue of insanity. His defense then offered the gruesome details of his behavior, as proof that only someone insane could commit such terrible acts. Jeffrey Dahmer was born on May 21, 1960, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, [10] the first of two sons to Lionel Herbert Dahmer, a Marquette University chemistry student and later a research chemist, and Joyce Annette Dahmer ( néeFlint), a teletype machine instructor. [11] [12] Lionel is of German and Welsh ancestry, [13] and Joyce was of English, Norwegian, and Irish ancestry. [14] John Wayne Gacy, aka 'Pogo' or 'Patch the Clown', killed and sexually assaulted at least 33 young men and boys in the 1970s. 4. He planned to turn his victims into an altar Dahmer said that almost all of his victims died as a result of strangulation, according to the complaint. He told officers that he would then dismember the victims’ bodies. Upon the departure of the three officers from his apartment, Dahmer again injected hydrochloric acid into Sinthasomphone's brain. This second injection proved fatal. The following day, May 28, Dahmer took a day's leave from work to devote himself to the dismemberment of the bodies of Sinthasomphone and Hughes. He retained both victims' skulls. [202]

Maybe I was born too late. Maybe I was an Aztec. [from Albany Times Union; published on February 5, 1992] Dahmer was convicted of the murders of 16 men and boys from 1978 to 1991 after a victim escaped from him and notified police.His drinking problem persisted, and in early 1981, the Army discharged him. Although German authorities would later investigate possible connections between Dahmer and murders that took place in the area during that time, it is not believed that he took any victims while serving in the Armed Forces. The next and final time police arrived at Dahmer’s apartment, they wore protective gear and oxygen masks as they entered his apartment. Inside, they found the remains of 11 victims at Dahmer’s Milwaukee apartment, off of 213 Twenty-fifth Street. Shortly after the arrival of the Milwaukee police officers, three members of the Milwaukee Fire Department arrived at the scene. These individuals also examined Sinthasomphone for injuries and provided a yellow blanket for the police officers to cover Sinthasomphone. One of the three believed Sinthasomphone needed treatment, but the police officers directed the fire department personnel to leave. [194] [192] Shortly thereafter, officer Richard Porubcan arrived at the scene. [n 13] He and Gabrish—followed by Balcerzak—escorted Dahmer and Sinthasomphone to Dahmer's apartment as Dahmer repeatedly commented on the general crime in the neighborhood and of his appreciation of the police. [195] Dahmer reportedly adjusted well to prison life at the Columbia Correctional Institution in south-central Wisconsin, though he was initially kept apart from the general population. He eventually convinced authorities to allow him to integrate more fully with other inmates. He found religion in the form of books and photos sent to him by his father, and he was granted permission by the Columbia Correctional Institution to be baptized by a local pastor. Death

March 24: Richard Guerrero, 22. Drugged and strangled in Dahmer's bedroom at West Allis. Dahmer dismembered Guerrero's corpse in the basement, dissolved the flesh in acid and disposed of the bones in the trash. He bleached and retained the skull for several months before disposing of it. [338] No remains were ever found. It was not a case of hating them. It was just the only way I knew of to keep them there and keep them with me. [from The Scotsman; published on August 15, 2000] Shortly after completing his lengthy confessions in 1991, Dahmer had requested to Detective Murphy that he be given a copy of the Bible. [258] This request was granted and Dahmer gradually devoted himself to Christianity and became a born-again Christian. On his father's urging, he also read creationist books from the Institute for Creation Research. [297] In May 1994, Dahmer was baptized by Roy Ratcliff, a minister in the Church of Christ and a graduate of Oklahoma Christian University whom he had met on April 20. [298] This service was conducted in the prison whirlpool. [299] [300] The haphazard nature of Dahmer’s arrest led many to accuse the Milwaukee police of negligence in the case and of failing to properly investigate crimes against minorities.The 2012 documentary The Jeffery Dahmer Files included fictionalized reenactments of Dahmer’s life (with Andrew Swant portraying him) along with real-life interviews with people involved with his cases. Several other documentaries have been produced about Dahmer as well. In September 2022, Netflix released a ten-part anthology series called Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story. Co-created by American Horror Story creator Ryan Murphy, the series starred Evan Peters as Dahmer and highlighted incidents in which Dahmer was nearly apprehended before his arrest, with a particular focus on how police incompetence allowed him to extend his killing spree. Some criminal psychologists see traits in Mr. Dahmer that they have studied in mass killers like Theodore Bundy, who was was electrocuted in Florida in 1989 after a 15-year trail of violence that investigators believe took the lives of at least 30 young women across the nation, or John Wayne Gacy, who was convicted in 1980 of the sex killings of 33 young men in Chicago. In January 1985, Dahmer was hired as a mixer at the Milwaukee Ambrosia Chocolate Factory, where he worked from 11p.m to 7a.m. six nights per week, with Saturday evenings off. [102] Shortly after he found this job, an incident occurred in which Dahmer was propositioned by another man while reading in the West Allis Public Library. The stranger threw Dahmer a note offering to perform fellatio upon him. Although Dahmer did not respond to this proposition, [103] the incident stirred in his mind the fantasies of control and dominance he had developed as a teenager, and he began to familiarize himself with Milwaukee's gay bars, gay bathhouses, and bookstores. He also stole a male mannequin from a store, [104] which he briefly used for sexual stimulation, until his grandmother discovered the item stowed in a closet and demanded that he discard it. [105] It’s something that we researched for a very long time and we, over the course of the three, three and a half years when we were really writing it, working on it, we reached out to 20 – around 20 – of the victims’ families and friends trying to get input, trying to talk to people, and not a single person responded to us,” Murphy said recently in Los Angeles, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Dahmer was not charged with the attempted murder of Edwards, [237] nor with the murder of Tuomi. [251] He was not charged with Tuomi's murder because the Milwaukee County District Attorney only brought charges where murder could be proven beyond a reasonable doubt [252] and Dahmer had no memory of actually committing this particular murder, for which no physical evidence of the crime existed. [252] At a scheduled preliminary hearing on January 13, 1992, [253] Dahmer pleaded guilty but insane to 15 counts of murder. [254] Trial It’s hard for me to believe a human being could do what I have done, but I know I did it. [from Albany Times Union; published on February 1, 1992] November 20: Steven Walter Tuomi, 25. Killed in a rented room at the Ambassador Hotel in Milwaukee. Dahmer claimed to have no memory of murdering Tuomi, yet stated he must have battered him to death in a drunken stupor. His body was dismembered in the basement of Dahmer's grandmother's house and the remains discarded in the trash. No remains were ever found. [337] Before joining the military, Dahmer had already experienced his first kill in 1978. He wouldn’t murder again until 1987, but Dahmer told authorities the urge was always there while he was overseas. “There just wasn’t an opportunity to fully express what I wanted to do,” his file reads. “There was just not the physical opportunity to do it then.” However, Dahmer’s arrest for murder wasn’t the first time police took him into custody. The serial killer was arrested three times before that. Find out why. Jeffrey Dahmer’s first arrest happened in September 1981 after his military dischargeMurphy added: “We relied very, very heavily on our incredible group of researchers who – I don’t even know how they found out a lot of this stuff. But it was just like a night and day effort to us trying to uncover the truth of these people.”