Jeffrey Dahmer, The Monster

Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer was born on May 21, 1960 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin into a family of devout Christians. At age eight, his family moved to Bath, Ohio, near Akron.

From the age of 10, Dahmer experimented with dead animals: decapitating rodents, bleaching chicken bones with acid, nailing a dog's carcass to a tree and mounting its head on a stake

He suffered from low self-esteem and when his parents split up acrimoniously in his mid teens he was left with feelings of loss and rejection. He became at an early age an alchoholic loner and he fantasised about killing and mutilating men.

At 18 he committed his first murder, killing a young hitchhiker, Stephen Hicks whom he had taken home for a drink. When Hicks tried to leave, Dahmer crushed his skull with a barbell, strangled him to death, then dismembered and buried his corpse because he "didn't want him to leave." That first slaying shocked Jeffrey back to a semblance of normality. He wouldn't kill again for another nine years.

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In August 1982, Dahmer was arrested for exposing himself at a state fair and in September 1986, he was charged again with public exposure after two boys accused him of masturbating in public. This time he was sentenced to a year in prison, of which he served 10 months.

He then found an apartment on Milwaukee's West side. On September 25, 1988, he was arrested for sexually fondling a 13-year-old boy in Milwaukee, for which he served 10 months of a one year sentence in a work release camp. He was required to register as a sex offender. He convinced the judge that he needed therapy, and he was released with a five-year probation on good behavior.

While Dahmer was on probation he checked in every month as required. but shortly thereafter, he began the string of gruesome murders that would end with his arrest in 1991.

In 1987 Dahmer had started to frequent gay bars where he picked up young homosexual and bisexual males and offered them money to pose for photos. Once at his apartment he drugged his victims with spiked drinks before strangling or stabbing them to death, then having anal sex with the cadaver, or oral sex with the skull and then dismembering them with a hacksaw. Their heads and genitalia were kept as trophies, biceps and other muscles were frozen for future consumption.

Dahmer said human flesh "tasted like beef." Anything deemed non-edible was boiled with chemicals and acids before being washed down the drains. Dahmer also conceived the bizarre notion of creating "zombies" who would be his live-in sex toys, obedient to his every whim. Instead of using voodoo, Jeffrey opted for a more direct approach. He conducted lobotomies on some of his victims, in an effort to destroy the subject's conscious will, pouring acid into a hole drilled in the victim's skull. Most died instantly, but some lived and functioned in a zombie state for several days, according to Dahmer.

In total Dahmer killed another 15 young men; by July 1991 he was claiming one victim a week, his fantasy being for a compliant sexual partner, and necrophilia.

On September 15, 1987, Steven Tuomi vanished in Milwaukee, the mystery unsolved until Dahmer confessed to his murder in 1991. James Doxtator was the next to die, in January 1988, followed by Richard Guerrero on March 24.

In January 1989, Dahmer was charged with sexual assault for fondling a Laotian boy he had picked up. He remained free pending a formal sentencing scheduled for May. Meanwhile, on March 25, he slaughtered victim Anthony Sears.

The murders continued with Edward Smith in June 1990, then the following month Raymond Smith (no relation to Edward). He killed Ernest Miller and David Thomas in September and then Curtis Straughter in February 1991. Errol Lindsey joined the list in April, followed by Anthony Hughes in May.

Konerak Sinthasomphone almost escaped. He was reported missing from home on May 16, 1991, and was found and reported to the police the following day - naked, dazed, and bleeding from head wounds. Officers questioned Dahmer who described Konerak as his lover, and since Konerak spoke no English, they returned the youth to Dahmer's custody... and to immediate strangulation. Dahmer abused his body before dismembering it, keeping some parts to eat and his skull as a trophy.

The murders didn't stop: Matt Turned killed on June 30; Jeremiah Weinberger on July 7; Oliver Lacy on July 15; Joseph Brandehoft four days later.

On July 22, 1991 Tracy Edwards, who was meant to be Dahmer's next victim, managed to escape from the apartment. With handcuffs still dangling from one wrist he led police back to Dahmer's flat and the human abbatoir was discovered.

The stench of death and rotting flesh was overwhelming. The refrigerator door was covered with Polaroids of mutilated men. A human head sat on a refrigerator shelf.

Dahmer's fought back hard as the police handcuffed him. Edwards recalled Dahmer's threats to "cut out your heart and eat it." Three more heads and human meat were in the freezer. Hands from several victims and a penis were in a stockpot in a closet. Two boiled skulls painted grey were on a bedroom closet shelf. Male genitalia were also found preserved in formaldehyde. A bottle of chloroform was found which had been used to drug the victims. There were hundreds of photos of victims before and during the murders, and after death. There was an altar of candles and human skulls in his closet.

Dahmer was unmasked to the world as one of America's most notorious serial killers. He gave police a 160-page confession detailing how he lured, murdered and then dismembered the remains of his victims.

In all, Dahmer admitted to killing 17 males.

Dahmer's trial, beginning on January 30, 1992, lasted just 2 weeks. He was found to be sane and responsible for his actions and the court imposed 15 consecutive life sentences, thus requiring Dahmer to serve a minimum of 936 years. In May, 1992, a further consecutive life sentence was added for the 1978 Hicks murder.

In prison, Dahmer refused offers of protective custody despite the many threats against his life. On November 28, he was cleaning a bathroom adjacent to the prison gym when another member of the work detail, 25-year-old Christopher Scarver, grabbed an iron bar from a nearby exercise machine and smashed Dahmer's skull, killing him instantly. A second inmate, 37-year-old Jesse Anderson, was mortally wounded in the same attack, dying two days later. A racial motive was initially suspected in the murder since Scarver, like many of Dahmer's victims, was black, but a closer look determined that the killer was deranged, believing himself to be the "son of God," acting out his "father's" command.