In case you haven’t heard, there is a series on Netflix that chronicles the grisly crimes of Jeffrey Dahmer. The former student of American Horror StoryEvan Peters, plays the famous serial killer in Dahmer. Although the murders committed by the milwaukee butcher are widely known to true crime fans, the series focuses on the victims rather than the Dahmer.
The series aims to explore this monstrous individual from the perspective of the people who fell victim to him and the racist and systemic failures “that allowed one of America’s most notorious serial killers to continue his killing spree in plain sight for more than a decade,” according to the synopsis. Also Known As the milwaukee butcherDahmer eluded capture for 13 years after his first victim, Steven Hicks, in 1978. But back to how Jeffrey Dahmer died and whether the families of his victims feel justice has been done.
If you’re curious to find out more about Dahmer’s life, Netflix will also premiere Conversations With a Killer: The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes on October 7.
The true story of ‘Dahmer’
Between 1978 and 1991, Dahmer murdered 17 young men in Ohio and Wisconsin, crimes he admitted to after being arrested in his apartment in ’91. Unlike most serial killers, Dahmer was very forthcoming with the details of his murders. crimes and ended up receiving multiple life sentences.
Jeffrey Dahmer was arrested on September 8, 1996, after approaching three men with $100 to pose for nude photos. Tracy Edwards, 32, agreed, and upon arriving at Dahmer’s apartment, she noticed an unpleasant odor and a box of hydrochloric acid that Dahmer said was for cleaning. Dahmer tried to handcuff Edwards’s wrists, but managed to secure only one of them and brandished a knife telling him to pose nude. After five terrifying hours, Edwards managed to escape by pretending she needed to go to the bathroom, and when Dahmer let his guard down, she punched him, knocking the serial killer off balance. Edwards flagged down two police officers, telling them that a “weirdo” had pulled a knife on him.
Edwards accompanied the agents back to Dahmer’s apartment, where they discovered Polaroids of human bodies in the bedroom and severed heads in the refrigerator. “These are real,” said one of the agents, showing the photos to the other. When Dahmer saw what the agent had in his hands, he attacked them and tried to resist arrest, but Dahmer was overpowered. While he was pinned to the ground, he is said to have uttered the words: “For what I did I should be dead“.
Jeffrey Dahmer confessed to having seduced, killed and dismembered 17 youths and children. There are more than 60 hours of police interviews with Dahmer following his arrest, and the serial killer waived his right to have a lawyer present during all interrogations. In an interview with Inside Edition in 1993, Dahmer he did not hesitate to explain why he did what he did. “I had these obsessive desires and thoughts of wanting to control [a mis víctimas]of, I don’t know how to say it, to possess them permanently“, said. “And that’s why you killed them?“, asked the journalist. “Of course, not because I was mad at them, not because I hated them, but because I wanted to keep them with me. And as my obsession grew, I was saving body parts like skulls and skeletons“.
He went on to say that his desire to murder and maim did not “it happened overnight“but his transition to dehumanizing others and viewing them as objects happened gradually. Dahmer was eventually diagnosed with schizotypal personality disorder, psychotic disorder, and borderline personality disorder, but was considered legally sane to stand trial.
Dahmer was not sentenced to death, but he died in prison not long after his admission. On November 28, 1994, the famous killer was murdered in the bathroom of the gymnasium of the Columbia Correctional Institute, in Wisconsin, by an inmate named Christopher Scarver. Dahmer was 34 years old at the time of his death. His body was cremated and the ashes were given to Dahmer’s parents, Joyce and Lionel.