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Jeffrey Dahmer: Inside the Mind of One of America's Most Notorious Serial Killers · The conspiracy

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Milwaukee, July 1991. In a rundown apartment building on North
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: 25th Street, tenants had been complaining for weeks about the smell.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: It seeped through the vents, clung to the wallpaper, and
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: curled under locked doors. And some said it was spoiled meat,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: while others thought that it was just plumbing. But one
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: man who lived in apartment 213 always had an explanation.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: He was always quiet, always polite, always alone. And that night,
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: a man ran screaming from that apartment. He was handcuffed, barefoot,
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: and terrified. And he would flag down police officers and
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: lead them inside. And what they found would shock the world. Crime, conspiracy, cults,
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: serial killers, and murder. All things that I love to consume,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: and I know you do too, you sick, twisted, beautiful,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: intellectually minded freak. And today we are talking about probably
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: the most infamous serial killer of all time. If you
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: say his name, you know who he is. There's very
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: few people, I think, that don't know who he is,
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: even if they're not into true crime. And that is
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Jeffrey Dahmer. And today we are doing a deep, deep
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: dive into this man's life, trying to figure out who
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: he is, why he is the way he is, and
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: what atrocities he committed over his lifetime. So without further ado,
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: let's unbuckle our seatbelts, go Mach 5 down the highway,
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: slam on the brakes, and bust through this windshield into
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: this infamous serial killer together. So before the headlines and
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: before the horrors, there was a quiet boy growing up
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: in a quiet town in what seemed like a quiet home.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: But beneath the surface, something was festering. And Jeffrey Lionel
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Dahmer was born May 21st, 1960 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Joyce Annette and Lionel Herbert Dahmer. And from the outside,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: the Dahmers looked like any other middle-class American family. Lionel
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: was a college-educated chemist and Joyce was a teletype machine instructor.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: And they had two children, Jeffrey and David. But behind
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: closed doors, the household was far from peaceful. And as
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: Lionel would later admit in his book, A Father's Story,
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: the home was marked by constant tension. Joyce herself suffered
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: with anxiety and was a hypochondriac, and Lionel was often
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: absorbed in academic or professional work. So their relationship was
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: pretty strained due to this. And the emotional distance only
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: widened after Jeffrey was born. And by the time Jeffrey
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: was four years old, and some accounts say he was
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: six years old at this point, a traumatic event may
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: have left a deep imprint because he underwent a double
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: hernia surgery. And at this time, it was a very
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: painful and invasive procedure that some speculate contributed to his
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: early feelings of violation and disconnection. Because it was after
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: this surgery that his behavior began to change. But, you know,
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: he's four years old. At this point, you don't really
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: know who you are. So I feel like it may
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: have been a factor, you know, but I feel like...
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: It's a nature-nurture kind of thing. But anyway, once happy
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: and energetic toddler, Jeffrey became increasingly withdrawn, quiet, and emotionally distant.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: And people described him as polite, but isolated. Often sitting
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: alone and showing little interest in his peers. Lionel, Jeffrey
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: Dahmer's father, would say, I saw early on that Jeffrey
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: was somehow more withdrawn, less connected than other kids, but
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: I didn't know what it meant. None of us did.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: And the family would move several times during Jeffrey's youth.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: which is a lot. I mean, that's a lot for
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: a kid. From Milwaukee to Doylestown, Ohio, and eventually settling
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: in Bath Township, which was a wooded suburban community. And
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: it was there in an ordinary ranch-style house that some
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: of Jeffrey's darkest fascinations began to take root. So even
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: as a child, Dahmer distributed disturbing curiosity with death. And
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: he was known to collect roadkill, dissect dead animals, and
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: dissolve flesh from bones using chemicals. You know, like every
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: 10-year-old does. And by every 10-year-old, I mean mostly not.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: Most not. Because this behavior just went beyond boyish curiosity.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: And at one point, he even impaled a dog's head
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: on a stick in the woods. Red flags. And it
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: may be important to note that Jeffrey's fascination did not
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: actually lead him to ab * * * animals. Because
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: he was obsessed with things that were already dead. So
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: that's kind of good, I guess. I don't I could
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: see like a parent being like, hey, don't play with
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: dead things. But at this point, he's not going up
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: to live animals and hurting them. He's just trying to
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: find dead things. So I mean, as a parent, I'd
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: be concerned. But would I assume my son would grow
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: up to be a serial killer at this point? Not
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: just yet, but there will be signs. Because he did
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: make note later in interviews that he actually once intended
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: to kill an Irish setter only to then skin it
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: and dissect it. But when the dog looked into his eyes,
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: he just couldn't do it. And then he let the
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: dog go. So there is a part of him that
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: has that empathy, I guess. But by high school, Dahmer
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: started to abuse alcohol. And his alcoholism was daily and severe.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: Because he was drinking straight, hard liquor during class, hiding
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: bottles in his locker. And teachers just mostly turned a
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: blind eye.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: Different times.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: At the same time, Dahmer was grappling with an intense
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: inner turmoil because his emerging homosexuality and an obsessive desire
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: for total control over others was all that consumed him.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: And at this point in his life, there were desires
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: he didn't really understand. Again, different time a little therapy
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: and acceptance who knows where he could have ended up
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: you know but that that is not the case and
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: as we know he would never learn to manage these
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: things so he began fantasizing about dominating unconscious men even
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: dead bodies pretty early on but in real life he
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: had no close relationships at all he was very introverted
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: like he didn't have romantic sexual or or platonic friends
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: so he was very very much alone And to top
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: off that loneliness, his parents' marriage, already crumbling, ended in
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: a divorce. And allegedly, his parents fought custody over who
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: would get his little brother. But they didn't seem to
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: worry too much about how Jeffrey would be affected, which,
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: can't imagine how that would be on the psyche of
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: a lonely, depressed, very confused child. And in the summer
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: of 1988, Jeffrey's life would change forever. Because it was
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: in this summer, during a weekend, where he would be
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: left alone at home. And it was in that vacuum
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: of no family, no supervision, and no connections that the
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: dam finally broke. So it started with a hitchhiker. It
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: was a warm summer afternoon, a house in the woods,
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: and a teenager who would never make it to his concert.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: So just three weeks after graduating high school, 18-year-old Jeffrey
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: Dahmer committed his first murder, as he knew his family
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: would be gone for a few days. And for the
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: first time, Dahmer was completely alone in the family home
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: in Bath, Ohio, which is kind of... Crazy to believe
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: that he was 18 and he'd never been home alone.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: But whatever, I digress. So on June 18th, 1978, Dahmer
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: was driving down a rural road when he spotted a
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: teenage hitchhiker. And that hitchhiker was named Stephen Mark Hicks,
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: who was also 18. And he was shirtless and in
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: the summer heat. And he was thumbing for a ride
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: to a rock concert at Chippewa Lake Park. And Dahmer,
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: seeing an opportunity, pulled over.
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: I had had fantasies about picking up a hitchhiker and...
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: taking him back to the house and having complete control
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: and dominance over him.
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  Speaker 1: So he offered Hicks a ride, but suggested that they
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: stop at his place to drink some beers before going
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: to the concert. And Hicks agreed. And he had no
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: idea what that invitation would cost him. So Jeffrey would
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: drive Hicks to his house, they would go inside, and
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  Speaker 1: the two of them would drink and talk and listen
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: to music for hours. But eventually, Hicks would stand up
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: and say that it was time to leave, because he
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: was going to a concert after all. And it was
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: in that moment that something in Dahmer snapped. He would
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: say in a later interview, I don't know exactly.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: Why I hit him, except I wanted to stay with
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: him longer.
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  Speaker 1: So while Hicks was still in the room with him,
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  Speaker 1: Dahmer would grab a dumbbell and strike him in the
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: back of the head. And when Hicks slumped forward, Dahmer
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: used the dumbbell handle to strangle him to death. And then,
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: with his fantasy finally realized, Dahmer would strip the body
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: and he would have with it. And the next day,
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  Speaker 1: he would drag Hicks's body to the basement and begin
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: this gruesome process of dismemberment. First, he would cut up
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: the body and then he would place the remains in
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: trash bags. And then he would drive a short distance
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  Speaker 1: and bury some of the remains in a very shallow grave.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: But he couldn't leave it there. So later on, he
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: returned and then dug up the body. And then he
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  Speaker 1: would proceed to strip the flesh from the bones and
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: dissolve the soft tissue in acid. And then after the
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: tissue was all up the bones, he would use a
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: sledgehammer to pulverize the bones and crush them up. And
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: then he would scatter the fragments in the woods behind
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: the house. And to eliminate all traces, he threw Hicks's
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: necklace and the dismemberment knife into the Cahuahoga River. Sorry
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: if I said that wrong. And incredibly... No one suspected him,
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: and Hicks would be listed as a missing person. And
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: after that, Dahmer's family wouldn't notice anything, and he would
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: go off to college shortly after. But this would be
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: his first and last kill for nine years. Very long
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: cool-down period, until he killed again. But given the meticulous
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: detail of his first kill and how he got rid
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: of it, it was clearly on his mind for a very,
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: very long time. very long time. Like, the meticulous nature
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: of how he got rid of Hicks' body is disturbing,
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: to say the least. So after killing Stephen Hicks in
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: June 1978, 18-year-old Dahmer was adrift. Having narrowly avoided detection
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: for that first murder, he experienced a lull in his
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: violent behavior, as we know. But his personal life at
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: the same time was completely unraveling. And in the fall
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: of 1978, Dahmer briefly attended Ohio State University at his
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: father's urging. But he would drop out after one semester
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: due to failing grades and rampant alcohol abuse. Don't abuse alcohol, kids.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: So with few prospects, he was persuaded by his father
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: to enlist in the U.S. Army in January of 1979.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: But Dahmer's military service, not unlike his college time, was
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: short-lived and revealing. He would train as a medic and
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: was stationed in Baumholder, West Germany. Baumholder. Am I saying
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: that right? I don't know. And initially, Dahmer was reported
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: to be an average or slightly above average soldier. Nice. However,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: his chronic drinking problem persisted and worsened in the army's
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: barracks environment. I imagine a lot of guys were drinking
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: back then to just get them through it. And by
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: early 1981, his performance had deteriorated due to intoxication on duty.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: And military superiors decided his alcoholism made him unfit for service.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: So he would be honorably discharged. How are you honorably
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: discharged from being an alcoholic? But okay, in March of 1981,
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: after about two years in uniform. And while Dahmer did
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: not commit any known murders at this time, disturbing allegations
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: later emerged that foreshadowed his future crimes. Because two fellow soldiers,
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: Billy Joe Capshaw and Preston Davis, those sound like movie
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: star names, reported that Dahmer SA'd them during the service
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: in Germany. And these incidences, if true, indicate that Dahmer
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: was already acting on violent... sexual urges, albeit short of murder,
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: inside a constrained environment. And as we move through his
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: life and through this case, we will find that this
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: is a pattern. And he would later admit, It.
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: Just wasn't an opportunity to, uh, fully express what I
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: wanted to do. There was just not the physical opportunity
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: to do it then.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: Implying that his homicidal urges never went away. And after
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: his discharge, Dahmer spent some time drifting aimlessly. And instead
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: of returning home to Ohio immediately, he went to Miami,
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: Florida in 1981. And he would take a job at
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: a sandwich shop and attempted to live independently. But his alcoholism, again,
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: don't abuse alcohol, kids, and inability to hold a job
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: just led him to sleeping on the beach for a time.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: Basically just being homeless. And he eventually, obviously, ran out
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: of money. So Dahmer would phone his father up for
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: help and return to Ohio. And at this point, Lionel Dahmer,
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: Jeffrey Dahmer's father, had remarried at this point to Sherry Dahmer.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: And they really tried to straighten Jeffrey out because he
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: had failed so many times, but Jeffrey would be arrested
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: for drunk and disorderly conduct shortly after. And he would
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: be fined with $ 60 and given a 10-day sentence in jail.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: But by late 1981, it was decided that Jeffrey might
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: do better with a change of scenery and more supervision. Thus,
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: in late 1981, Dahmer was sent to live with his
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: paternal grandmother, Catherine Dahmer. And this was in West Allis, Wisconsin,
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: which was a suburb of Milwaukee. And his grandmother was
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: one of the few family members he felt close to.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: And initially, this move actually provided some stability for Jeffrey.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: And for a while, Dahmer helped with chores and attended
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: church with his devout grandmother. And he even found employment.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: And in 1985, he began working at the Milwaukee Ambrosia
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: Chocolate Factory as a mixer. And it was a job
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: that he would hold for several years. And his family
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: just hoped that living in a structured religious home would
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: kind of curb his drinking and troubling proclivities. But unfortunately,
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: Dahmer's inner demons would follow him to Milwaukee. And he
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: would continue to drink heavily, and he began to go
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: out into the city to the gay bars and bathhouses.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: And it was during this period that Dahmer honed a
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: practice of drugging men for s * * * gratification
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: without any resistance. Because Jeffrey Dahmer didn't like when his
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: partners moved. Which is just... foreshadowing beyond belief. And he
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: was actually banned from at least one bathhouse in multiple
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: instances where he laced other patrons drinks with sedatives, leaving
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: them completely unconscious. And obviously he got caught for it.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: But he would effectively use their bodies while they were incapacitated.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: And he called this passive But this predatory behavior just
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: escalated his sense of control over partners. So he began
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: the process of not seeing other people as people, but
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: just things for him to exploit. And in the summer
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: of 1986, he was arrested for lewd behavior after exposing
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: himself and masturbating in front of two boys. And Dahmer
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: would receive a one-year suspended sentence and was required to
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: undergo counseling for the 1986 offense. And incidents like this
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: just kind of show that Dahmer was just testing the waters,
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: testing boundaries, and acting out in s * * *.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: risky ways long before he resumed murder. And a particularly
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: telling incident occurred in 1987, and this was before his
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: second murder. So Dahmer would tell his probation officer an
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: alarming fantasy that he was having, and his fantasy was
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: about a male corpse. In fact, Dahmer later admitted around 1986,
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: he came very close to acting on this idea to
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: steal a freshly buried body from a cemetery. And he
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: went so far as to find an obituary of an
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: 18-year-old male. And he would even attend the funeral to
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: see the body. And then after that, he would attempt
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: to dig up the grave days later. Just bleh. nasty.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: But he would abandon this plan because the ground was
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: too hard and there was a dog in the graveyard
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: that chased him off. So not because he had, you know,
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: reserved feelings, just because it was a little cold outside
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: basically and there was a dog. So his necrophilic desires
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: were reaching a breaking point. Because at this point, as
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: we know, he was willing to break graves to satisfy them.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: But he still hadn't killed yet. Yet. Because the threshold
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: between fantasy and reality was the thinning. And by thinning,
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: I mean he was ready to murder again. And he
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: would do that in November of 1987, which is almost
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: a decade after the first. And the victim would be
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: 24-year-old Stephen Tuomi, whom Dahmer encountered at a gay bar
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: in Milwaukee. And Dahmer, now living in Wisconsin, persuaded Stephen
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: to join him for drinks at an upscale Ambassador Hotel,
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: because Dahmer had rented a room for the night. And
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: according to Dahmer's later statements, he did not initially plan
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: to kill Stephen. His intent was to drug the man
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: into unconsciousness and lie beside him, to indulge in his
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: control fantasy without actually taking his life. Just way better,
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: way better situation. It's not. So Stephen would agree and
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: they would go back to his hotel room and they
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: would drink heavily in his hotel room. And Dahmer claims
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: that he blacked out in an alcoholic haze shortly after.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: Just bullshit. And when he awoke the next morning, he
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: was horrified to find that Steven was laying dead beside
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: him in bed. Because in his intoxicated stupor, Dahmer had
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: savagely beaten Stephen to death. But he later insisted that
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: he had no memory of committing this murder. And you know,
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: maybe it's true, but it doesn't matter regardless because he
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: was going to drug him and take advantage of him.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: His plan was to do awful, illegal things to him anyway.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: So the whole, oh, I don't remember is just like
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: thrown into the wind. But notably, Stephen is actually the
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: only victim in Milwaukee for whom Dahmer was never charged for.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: Because without a body or a crime scene, authorities initially
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: had no evidence that the murder even occurred. So seeing
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: Stephen beside him, in bed, dead, Dahmer panicked. And he
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: knew that he had to dispose of the body discreetly.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: So he would go out and purchase a very large suitcase.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: And using this, he would cram Stephen's lifeless body inside
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: and check out of the hotel. And then the elevator
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: and the lobby, nobody realized the heavy suitcase held a corpse.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: And nobody realized that he didn't have luggage when he
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: checked in. But I guess you wouldn't assume, you know,
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: people walking around with a lot of luggage. There's a
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: body in there, I guess. But I don't know. It's
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: just heartbreaking, you know, for Steven's family. Like, it's... And
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: in fact, Dahmer would actually later recount that an unsuspecting
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: taxi driver even helped him load the luggage. And when
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: the driver remarked about a foul odor coming from the bag,
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: Dahmer just kept silent and he would transport the body
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: to his grandmother's house. And there in the basement, he
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: proceeded to dismember Steven's body, just like he had done
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: with Hicks. But Dahmer would wait about a week before
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: carrying out this dismemberment, letting the corpse kind of decompose slightly.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: And he then would cut the body into pieces and
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: put the parts into garbage bags for disposal with the
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: weekly trash pickup. which is horrifying to think about. I
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: wonder if garbage people think about that, like if there's
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: any sort of body in any of the trash bags,
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: like if there's a certain smell coming in. Oh my God,
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: I can't, I can't, my brain can't go there. Anyway,
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: I digress. But this time Dahmer did something new with
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: his victim, Stephen. He would keep a part of Stephen
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: as a souvenir. So Dahmer severed Stephen's head and retained
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: it for a time, just fascinated of the idea of
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: preserving a piece of the man he'd killed. He's like, oh,
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: I didn't mean to do it. But meanwhile, he has
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: Stephen's head in a freezer, like, f * * *
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: ing monster. So he would keep Stephen's head wrapped in
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: a blanket for about two weeks in the freezer. And
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: then he would attempt to permanently preserve it by boiling
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: the head in a chemical bath. So the boiling process
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: stripped the flesh, but ultimately rendered the skull too brittle.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: So when the skull just crumbled in Dahmer's hands, he
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: would pulverize the rest of the pieces and get rid
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: of them. So in the end, no remains of Stephen
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: were ever found. And his murder remained a missing persons
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: case until Dahmer's confession. I can't even imagine how the
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: family felt during this time. But Dahmer's ability to eliminate
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: all evidence of the crime ensured that, at a time,
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: police did not even clap. Stephen as a homicide. So
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: this was his second murder, and it was a near
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: perfect crime, if you can call it that. And it
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: just emboldened Dahmer to continue. So in early 1988, Dahmer
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: would strike again. And his third victim would be James
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: Jamie Dox Tater. And Jamie was a 14 year old
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: runaway from home and was just surviving on the streets
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: of Milwaukee. So Dahmer met the young teen at a
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: bus stop near the city's gay nightlife district. around January 16th, 1988.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: And exploiting the boy's desperation, Dahmer promised James easy money,
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: and he offered him $ 50 in exchange for the boy
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: coming home with him to pose for nude photos. So
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: Jamie would agree, and he would accompany Dahmer to the
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: West Allis house, where he lived with his grandmother. And
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: once they were alone in the basement, Dahmer drugged the
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: teen by spiking his drink with sleeping pills. And after
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: Jamie fell unconscious, Dahmer would say him. Then he would
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: repeat his now established method. And Dahmer would strangle Jamie
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: to death. And after that, he would leave Jamie's body
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: in the basement for about a week. And it was
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: after this week that Dahmer would proceed to get rid
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: of the body how he got rid of the others.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: And this would ensure that no physical evidence of the
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: boy would ever be found. And like Stephen, Jamie remained
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: a missing person until Dahmer's arrest, when the killer provided
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: details of the murder. So at this point, Jeffrey Dahmer
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: was refining a very deadly routine. Approach a stranger, lure
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: him with the promise of money or sex, drug him
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: into unconsciousness, then strangle him. and then dispose of them.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: And he would learn how to carry out murder and
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: disposal with chilling efficiency. So Dahmer's fourth victim was Richard Guerrero,
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: and he was a 25-year-old man from Milwaukee. And on
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: March 24th, 1988, Guerrero met Dahmer outside a gay bar
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: in the city south side. And Dahmer would approach him
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: in the early morning hours and offered $ 50 for Guerrero
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: to accompany him home for the night. And Guerrero unfortunately accepted.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: So Dahmer would bring him back to his grandmother's residence
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: and follow his now standard script. He would spike his
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: drink with sleeping pills and wait till he was unconscious.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: And then when he was unconscious, he would be strangled
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: to death and essayed. So this was now just his MO,
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: his pattern. And he often even went on to commit necrophilia,
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: deriving a perverse... thrill from violating his victims' bodies after death.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: And then after, Dahmer set out to dismember Guerrero within
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: roughly 24 hours after the murder. And like his other victims,
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: he attempted to preserve the skull and then would later
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: pulverize it and get rid of it. And Guerrero's family
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: was just desperate for answers at this point. But the
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: search for him, as we know, was just in vain.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: and he was only ever identified after Dahmer's 1991 confession,
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: when Dahmer was able to point out Guerrero's photograph and
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: acknowledge his fate. However, by this time, hiding the evidence
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: was proving to be challenging for Dahmer, because dismembering bodies
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: and storing parts at his grandmother's house was causing foul odors,
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: as you could imagine. In fact, Dahmer's grandmother, Catherine Dahmer,
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: had begun complaining about horrible smells emitting from the basement
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: and garage. And she also grew alarmed by her grandson's
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: habit of bringing young men home late at night. And
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: Dahmer managed to explain the smells away by saying, oh,
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: it's rotting meat or it's sewage backups. But he was
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: aware that his activities were raising suspicions at this point.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: But still, he had remained undetected. Because I'm assuming, you know,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: your grandma doesn't assume that you're doing all the things
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: she's doing. So after Guerrero, Dahmer lured a man named
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: Ronald Flowers Jr. to his grandmother's basement. But that evening,
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: his grandmother came down to check on him and saw
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: the two of them together. And fortunately, this was before
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: Flowers had passed out from the drugs Dahmer had given him.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: So Dahmer did not hurt Flowers that night. And instead,
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: he actually took him to the hospital. Thank God for Grandma.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: Because Flowers, having been seen by Dahmer's grandmother that evening,
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: ultimately just saved his life. And Dahmer knew that if
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: anything were to happen to him, he would get caught.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: So by the summer of 1988, Dahmer had killed four
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: people in Wisconsin without discovery. And the mounting decomposition odors
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: and the grandmother's unease finally pushed Dahmer out of her home.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: Because Catherine, disturbed by the smells and her grandson's odd
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: business hours, she requested him to move out. And in
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: September of 1988, shortly after Richard Guerrero's murder, Jeffrey Dahmer
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: did move into his own apartment. And the move would
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: lead to a temporary pause in his killings. But that pause, however,
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: was not due to a... crisis in conscience but to
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: Dahmer's arrest for a different crime and that was an
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: essay of a 13 year old minor. So luckily this
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: boy escaped from Jeffrey's clutches and would report on it
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: but Dahmer would be released on bail having only spent
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: a week in jail. But before his forced hiatus Dahmer
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: would claim one more victim. Anthony Sears was 24 years
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: old and became Dahmer's fifth victim on March 25th 1989,
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: which is Easter weekend of that year. And Sears was
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: an aspiring model with a lively personality and big dreams.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: And Dahmer would encounter Sears at a gay bar in Milwaukee,
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: and the two struck up a conversation. And at the time,
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: Dahmer was awaiting sentencing from a previous... offense, but despite
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: the risk Dahmer proceeded to hunt another victim. Cooldown period
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: is getting real short now. And fearing he was being
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: watched by police, he chose to take Anthony Sears back
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: to his grandma's home instead. And in the early morning
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: hours in his grandmother's basement, Dahmer drugged Sears and then
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: strangled him to death. And with Anthony Sears, Dahmer crossed
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: a new line and he began trophy keeping because Sears
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: was the first victim in which Dahmer deliberately preserved body
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: parts as keepsakes. So after killing and dismembering Anthony, Dahmer
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: carefully cut off the man's head and also removed his genitals.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: And he would treat these parts in acetone to preserve them.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: And they would be kept together in a small wooden box.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: And Dahmer stored this grisly box of mementos in his
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: closet and later at his workplace. In fact, while serving
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: his jail sentence in 1989 for the earlier molestation case,
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: Dahmer hid Sears' skull and preserved remains in his work
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: locker at the Ambrosia Chocolate Factory, only to retrieve them
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: after he was released on probation. And the concealment is
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: just jaw-dropping, because for months, a box containing a human
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: head sat quietly at his job site, unbeknownst to anyone.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: And Dahmer would even occasionally open the box and look
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: at the remains of Anthony Sears. deriving a sick sense
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: of comfort and arousal at the same time. And Dahmer
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: would even speak candidly about these souvenirs later on.
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: A box in my bedroom closet, and it contained the
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: mummified head and genitals of a young man I met
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: in one of the bars down in Milwaukee. And it
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: was a locked metal box.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: So preserving parts of his victims, Dahmer explained, was a
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: way to possess them even after death. And it just
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: fed his necrophilic urge to control. So by keeping body parts,
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: Dahmer could relive the murders and feel that a piece
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: of the person stayed with him. Aww, what the f
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: * * *? And this behavior just escalated after Sears,
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: because from this point on, collecting trophies, skulls, bones, even
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: preserved organs, just became part of his regular Dahmer ritual.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: And as one psychiatrist later noted, for Dahmer, the trophies
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: were gratification, reliving the experience of knowing these people. Yeah, whatever, dude.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: It was just basically a twisted way of memorializing his
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: victims and keeping their presence in his life. Some people
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: keep photos, but not Dahmer. You'll just keep your f
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: * * * ing femur in a box. But not
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: long after the murder of Sears, Dahmer faced accountability for
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: earlier essays. And in May of 1989, he was actually
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: sentenced to 12 months in jail with work release and
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: five years probation. And this enforced jail time meant a
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: temporary halt to his murders. Thank God. However, the dark
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: trophies of Anthony Sears waited for him. And Dahmer would
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: actually be released early in 1990, and he would retrieve
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: his preserved head and genitals, and he would bring them
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: back to his new apartment at 924 North 25th Street
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: in Milwaukee. And there, he placed Sears' skull in a
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: filing cabinet. which was a grim foundation for what would
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: become a personal shrine of skulls and bones. So Jeffrey
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: Dahmer was now fully entrenched in his pattern. Kill, violate, dismember, preserve,
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: and repeat. And with his own apartment, Apartment 213, the
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: infamous Apartment 213, and no watchful relatives living with him,
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: his killings were about to accelerate with horrific violence. So
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: apartment 213 was a one bedroom unit in a nondescript
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: building on North 25th street in Milwaukee. And rent was
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: dirt cheap and neighbors just kind of kept to themselves.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: And behind one locked door, the unimaginable was unfolding. So
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: it was May of 1990 that he would move into
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: this apartment. And on paper, it looked like a fresh start.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: He had recently been released from jail and was on probation.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: And he was working at the Ambrosia Chocolate Factory. And
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: to most people, he seemed like a quiet, if somewhat odd, tenant.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: But inside the apartment, Dahmer was spiraling into a depth
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: of depravity no one around him could see. And here,
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: the ritual just evolved. And it was no longer just
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: about killing. It became about preserving, collecting, and... consuming. A
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: new thing. Wow. A new part of the ritual. He
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: basically just built a private ecosystem of horror. He would
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: get a 57 gallon drum in the corner, which was
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: used to dissolve torsos, a freezer and refrigerator stocked with
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: severed heads and human flesh, a growing collection of skulls
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: neatly cleaned and displayed in drawers, and Polaroids of his victims. Oh,
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: he did keep photos. And those weren't enough. and some
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: posed in life, others staged in death, And with some
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: documenting the step-by-step process of dismemberment. Oh, it's so f
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: * * * ing horrifying. And above all, just a
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: craving for absolute control. Not just over the moment of death,
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: but over the victim's body long after they died. And
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: it was also at the Oxford apartments where cannibalism became
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: part of his routine. Because Dahmer began eating portions of
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: his victims, including their hearts and bodies. biceps and he
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: would just cook them the way you cook any other meat.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: And it obviously wasn't out of hunger, but it was
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: it was about possession. Everything he did was about possessing
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: these people during and after death.
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: It made me feel like they were a permanent part
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: of me.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: Meanwhile, neighbors were complaining about foul f * * *
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: ing odors, loud power tools, and very strange behavior. But
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: Dahmer would deflect with practice lies. Again, it was spoiled meat,
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: it was plumbing issues, it was a broken freezer. And
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: his quiet demeanor just kind of made him seem harmless.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: And he wasn't like this big hulking guy like Ed Kemper.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: He was kind of like spindly and looked, you know,
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: kind of nerdy and just like, unassuming. So between May
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: 1990 and July 1991, Dahmer would murder 12 more young
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: men and boys inside apartment 213, accelerating in cool down period, frequency, boldness,
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: and brutality. And he even experimented with new methods as well,
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: including chemical lobotomies and preservation attempts. And yet for over
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: a year, he remained undetected. So the Oxford apartments weren't
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: only the scene of Dahmer's most gruesome crimes. They were
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: the epicenter of one of the most horrific killing sprees
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: in American history. And what followed would stun the world.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: And it all began with a man he met on
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: May 20th, 1990, Raymond Smith. So after his release from
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: jail in 1990, Dahmer did not take long to kill again.
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: His sixth victim and his first victim killed in Dahmer's
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: infamous North 25th Street apartment was Raymond Lamont Smith. And
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: Raymond was a 32-year-old man whom friends also knew by
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: the alias Ricky Beaks. And Smith, at this point in
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: his life, had fallen on hard times and occasionally engaged
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: in s * * t work. And on May 20th, 1990,
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: Dahmer propositioned Raymond Smith, offering him $ 50 in exchange for
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: s * * ts at Dahmer's apartment. And Smith would agree,
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: thinking nothing of it, and would accompany Dahmer to apartment 213.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: So inside the apartment, Dahmer would mix a cocktail for
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: Raymond Smith, and it was spiked with... a sedative. And
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: once Smith fell unconscious on the couch, Dahmer would proceed
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: to strangle him to death. So with Raymond Smith's body
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: now at his disposal, Dahmer indulged in acts that were
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: becoming habitual for him. So he posed the corpse in erotic,
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: suggestive positions and used his Polaroid camera to take a
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: series of photographs. And these Polaroids showing Smith's lifeless body
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: arranged in various erotic portrayals were kept by Dahmer as
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: a personal trophy and aid for alone time fantasies. And
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: the recovery of these disturbing photos later by police would
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: provide undeliable evidence of Dahmer's crimes. So after capturing his photoshoot,
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: Dahmer set about dismembering Raymond Smith in his small bathroom
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: of his apartment. And after dismembering and separating the flesh
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: from bone, he would boil the flesh in a large
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: pot with a caustic chemical solution, which was a mix
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: of Soylex and bleach to reduce the sludgy substance. And
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: this allowed him later to flush or dispose of the
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: soft tissue easily. And the remaining bones he dissolved in
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: a vat of acid that he obtained for this purpose.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: And in the end, almost nothing of Raymond Smith remained,
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: except for his skull. Just, I just, again, just horrible, horrifying.
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: I just think, every time I'm talking, I just think
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: about the families and them having to hear about this
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: and it's, It makes me want to throw up and
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: I feel so awful. Like I feel horrified for them.
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: My heart always goes out to the families with these cases.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: So Dahmer would keep Smith's skull and store it in
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: the filing cabinet next to Anthony Sears' skull. And this
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: is where his personal collection of human skulls would form.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: And not surprisingly, the process of dismembering and dissolving Raymond
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: Smith produce very strong odors. And neighbors in the Oxford
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: apartments noticed the foul stench emanating from Dahmer's unit. And
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: when complaints were raised, Dahmer shrugged them off with an excuse.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: And he simply said that his refrigerator had malfunctioned and
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: a bunch of meat spoiled inside, causing the terrible smell.
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: And this lie apparently placated people for the time being.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: And remarkably, no one investigated.
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: Further at that moment.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: And it would be just a few weeks later in
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: June of 1990 that Dahmer would kill again, this time
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: experimenting with a new method of preserving his victims. So
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: the seventh victim was Edward Warren Smith, and he was
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: a 27-year-old acquaintance of Dahmer's. And despite sharing a last name,
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: Edward Smith was not related to Raymond Smith. So Eddie
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: Smith was known in Milwaukee's gay community and was known
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: to be very friendly. And he even had a nickname,
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: The Sheik, for his habit of wearing a turban-styled bandana.
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: And it's believed that Dahmer met Eddie Smith at a
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: bar and lured him on the pretext of just hanging
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: out and making some easy money, much like his prior victims.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: And in late June 1990, Smith went to Dahmer's apartment
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: to 13th. and, like the others, was given a sedative
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: lace drink. And once incapacitated, Dahmer would strangle him to death.
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: But what distinguished Edward Smith's case was Dahmer's attempt to
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: retain the body instead of immediately disposing of it. So
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: after killing Smith, Dahmer placed the body in his apartment
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: chest's freezer instead of dismembering it right away. And he
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: had hoped that freezing might prevent the corpse from decomposing.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: And this was an experiment to see if he could
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: have a long-lasting specimen. And for several months, Smith's frozen
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: corpse was kept intact. And perhaps Dahmer just fantasized that
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: he could revive it, or at least that would satisfy
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: his necrophilic urges to have an unrotted body at his disposal.
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: But unfortunately for Dahmer's aims, the experiment failed, because the
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: freezing process caused the tissues to become dried out and
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: freezer burned. So when Dahmer eventually thawed the body, he
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: found it had decomposed badly and was not in a
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: condition to be preserved or displayed. So frustrated, Dahmer proceeded
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: to get rid of Edward Smith's remains entirely. And he
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: defrosted and dismembered the body and then used his now
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: standard method of destruction, acid and pulverization. In fact, Dahmer
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: actually tried another tactic. He actually attempted to dry Smith's
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: skeleton in his oven, which caused the bones to explode
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: from heat. I just need a minute. It's a lot.
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: Are you good?
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: You good to continue? All right, we're gonna continue. So
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: this obviously ruined any chance of keeping the skeleton intact.
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: And in the end, Dahmer disposed of all of Eddie
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: Smith's remains. So not a single bone or body part
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: was recovered by the police in 1991, when he was
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: eventually caught. Meaning Dahmer successfully destroyed all of the evidence.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: And he had derived a sort of excitement from the
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: idea of keeping a whole body or significant parts of one.
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: And when asked about Edward Smith, Dahmer laminated that the
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: freezing had ruined the flesh. And he was upset that
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: he did not get to keep any of Smith's body parts.
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: And this failure may have spurred him to refine other
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: methods of preservation in subsequent murders. And it's notable that
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: around this time, Dahmer's murderous focus was intensifying. And he
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: was killing roughly one person a month in 1990 and
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: finding new ways to fulfill his disturbing fantasies. Because preserving
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: skulls was just no longer enough for this guy. He
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: wanted entire bodies or at least larger sections to keep
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: with him. So the tragic case of Edward Smith illustrates
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: the escalation. And sadly, this meant that Edward Smith's life
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: was gone and even his remains were lost to his
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: grieving family. And in early 1991, Edward's sister allegedly received
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: a prank phone call. And it said, don't bother looking
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: for your brother, he's dead. Which is so sad. So
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: incredibly sad. And though he was reported missing shortly after
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: his disappearance, the family did not learn the truth of
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: his fate until Dahmer's arrest. So by September 1990, Dahmer
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: was growing more depraved.
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: In his actions.
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: And his eighth victim, Ernest Marquis Miller. Ernest Marquez Miller
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: was killed on September 2nd, 1990. And with this murder,
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: Dahmer introduced both cannibalism and new killing technique into his pattern.
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: So Ernest Miller was a 22-year-old and was a former
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: dance student who graduated from Milwaukee High School of the Arts.
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: And he was in town from Chicago to visit family
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: over Labor Day weekend. And Dahmer encountered Miller loitering outside
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: a bookstore near 27th Street of Wisconsin Avenue. And the
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: young man was very low on funds and he was
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: looking for a good time. So Dahmer approached him and
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: offered him $ 50 if Miller would come back to Dahmer's
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: apartment for a few drinks and some photographs. And Ernest Miller, unfortunately, agreed.
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: So inside Dahmer's apartment, the situation proceeded like the previous incidences,
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: up to a point. Because Dahmer gave Miller a drink
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: laced with sedatives, but realized he had only a few
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: sleeping pills left. So it wasn't enough to knock Miller
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: fully out. So as Dahmer began to make advances, Miller
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: reportedly said, quote unquote, that'll cost you extra. And Dahmer
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: then decided to act quickly. So in deviation from his
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: strangulation method, Dahmer grabbed a knife and actually slashed Ernest
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: Miller's throat, cutting the carotid artery. So Miller would bleed
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: to death within minutes on Dahmer's bedroom floor. And this
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: was the only known instance in which Dahmer used a
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: knife to kill his victim. So with Ernest Miller's dead
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: body before him now, Dahmer indulged in some of his
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: grisliest behaviors. He would pose the body in various ways
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: to get his pictures, and then he would move his
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: body to the bathtub where he would dismember him. And
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: he allegedly kissed and spoke to his severed head while
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: doing all of this. And while dismembering Miller, he also
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: decided to eat parts of him while he was doing it.
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: A practice that he had been contemplating, I guess, in
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: the back of his mind. So he would remove sections
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: of Miller, notably the heart, the biceps, and a portion
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: of his leg, and set it aside in the freezer
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: to be eaten later. And over the following days, Dahmer
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: would cook and consume pieces of Ernest's flesh, frying them
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: in a skillet and seasoning them to taste. And this
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: was the beginning of Dahmer's reputation as the Milwaukee Cannibal.
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: And he would later admit that he found the meat
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: tasted like beef. Ugh. and that consuming his victims gave
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: him pleasure and a sense of permanent ownership over them.
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: And in addition to cannibalizing Miller, Dahmer preserved other body
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: parts as well. And he not only kept the head,
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: but he also kept Ernest's entire skeleton as well. So psychologically,
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: this was allegedly Dahmer's way of overcoming his fear of rejection,
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: because if he ingested or physically retained parts of his victims,
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: they could never leave him. And when Miller's family reported
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: him missing, they had no idea he had met such
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: a fate. And in a heartbreaking footnote, about two weeks
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: after Miller vanished, his grandmother received a prank phone call
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: as well, where a faint voice on the line cried, help, help.
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: It's just, that gives me chills. That just makes me so...
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: So incredibly sad for the family. The call was unlikely related,
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: but it underscored the agony of Miller's loved ones. And
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: yet again, they would not know the true fate of
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: Miller until Dahmer confessed in 1991. So three weeks after
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: Ernest Miller's murder, Dahmer would kill again, claiming his ninth victim,
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: even though by his own account, his desires for this
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: particular victim had waned. And this victim was David C. Thomas,
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: and he was a 22-year-old man and father of a
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: two-year-old girl. Dahmer would meet him on September 24th, 1990,
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: near the Grand Avenue Mall in Milwaukee. And the two
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: would strike up a conversation, and Dahmer, ever on the prowl,
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: offered Thomas money to come back to his apartment for
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: drinks and photos. And Thomas reluctantly agreed, not realizing the
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: deadly trap he would be walking into. So back at
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: apartment 213, he followed his routine. He would give him
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: a drink and he would wait till he was unconscious. However,
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: Dahmer later said that once Thomas was passed out, he
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: actually realized that he didn't find him as attractive as
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: his other victims. So this presented Dahmer with a problem
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: because Thomas was alive and unconscious in his apartment, but
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: Dahmer wasn't compelled by him. But ultimately Dahmer decided he
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: had to kill David Thomas anyway. And this wasn't out
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: of desire this time, but it was out of self-preservation
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: because he knew that if Thomas woke up, he could
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: potentially fight back or report the drugging. So despite the
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: lack of interest, Dahmer strangled David Thomas to death while
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: the man was still unconscious. And after killing him, Dahmer
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: made no effort to keep any mementos from Thomas, though
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: he still documented the dismemberment process via photos. But after
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: he was done with his body, he would discard of
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: all of it. And unfortunately, nothing of David Thomas was
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: ever recovered. And tragically, Thomas's ex-girlfriend and family spent months
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: looking for him, not knowing he had been brutally slain.
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: And at Dahmer's trial, David Thomas's mother, Inez, addressed the court,
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: saying through tears, you took away his two-year-old child's father.
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: She sits at the window asking, where is dada? It's
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: just so f * * * ing sad. So the
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: full horror of what happened to Thomas only emerged when
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: Dahmer gave a detailed statement. And until then, Thomas's case
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: was a missing persons mystery with no leads. And by
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: the end of 1990, Jeffrey Dahmer had killed four people
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: that year. Smith, Smith, Miller, and Thomas. So he had,
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: at this point, murdered nine individuals. But his appetite for
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: destruction was not satisfied. In fact, it was accelerating. And
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: when 1991 began, Dahmer's killing spree would reach its climax
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: with the most shocking crimes yet to come. Curtis Durrell
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: Strouder was Dahmer's 10th victim. He was just 17 years
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: old and had recently lost a job as a nursing aide.
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: And he was known by his friends as a gentle,
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: fun-loving teen who sometimes went by the nickname Demetra in
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: the local gay community. And on February 18th, 1991, Dahmer
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: spotted Curtis Strouder waiting on a bus stop near Marquette
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: University in Milwaukee. And seizing the opportunity, Dahmer approached Strouder
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: and struck up a conversation. And he quickly offered him
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: money in exchange for posing for nude photographs and. And
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: Curtis would agree and accompany Dahmer back to apartment 213.
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: And inside the apartment, Dahmer handed Strouder a drink laced
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: with sedatives, rendering the teenager unconscious. And then Dahmer would
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: methodically strangle him to death using a leather strap. And
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: then he would continue his routine as he did all
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: the others. He would photograph, dismember, and then retain trophies.
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: And Curtis's disappearance in 1991 was deeply felt by his
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: family and the community. Because he had lived with his
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: grandmother and had plans to get his GED and attend
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: modeling school. But they had no idea what had actually
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: happened to Curtis until the horrifying truth came out. But
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: for Dahmer, however, Strutter's murder only fueled his desire to continue.
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: Errol Lindsay was the 11th victim of Jeffrey Dahmer. He
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: was a 19-year-old man described by a family as an
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: outgoing mama's boy who loved joke-telling and had a bright
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: future ahead. But on April 7th, 1991, Lindsay left his
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: home to go get a key cut at a local
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: shop and he never returned. And it's believed that Dahmer
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: encountered Lindsay on the street that day. And Dahmer, now
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: extremely practiced in deception, managed to get the teenager to
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: accompany him to his apartment. And at apartment 213, Dahmer
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: carried out his familiar routine at first. He gave Lindsay
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: a drug to drink that rendered him unconscious, but then
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: Dahmer had a different plan for Lindsay because his obsession
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: for control had reached the point where he wanted a
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: compliant breathing. partner. Essentially, just a mindless slave. So once
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: Lindsay was unconscious, Dahmer fetched an electric drill. And in
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: a truly nightmarish procedure, Dahmer drilled a hole into Lindsay's
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: skull while the young man was still alive but sedated.
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: And then Dahmer would inject a solution of hydrochloric acid
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: through the hole directly into Lindsay's brain. And Dahmer hoped
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: this would chemically induce a zombie-like state, even though he had...
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: No business doing this and had no idea if it
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: would work. But this procedure left Lindsay alive, but in
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: a vegetative, unresisting condition. So this was the first time
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: Dahmer tried to improvise a lobotomy technique. But not shockingly,
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: the experiment did not go as Dahmer envisioned. And after
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: the acid injection, Lindsay woke up. And he actually regained consciousness,
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: reportedly saying, I have a headache, what time is it?
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: And this was a sign that he was not incapacitated enough.
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: And Dahmer was kind of astonished that Lindsay was still functional.
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: So he quickly gave Lindsay more sedatives to subdue him again.
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: And then he would strangle him to ensure that he
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: was dead. But for all we know, Lindsay had already
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: been dying from the head trauma that he endured. So
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: with Lindsay now deceased, Dahmer continued to push the boundaries
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: of his depravity. So he would decapitate Lindsay's body as
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: he did the others, and he would put his head
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: aside for processing later. But this time, instead of dismembering
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: the corpse, he decided to fillet. the corpse, meaning he
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: peeled the skin from Lindsay's body. And Dahmer would attempt
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: to preserve the skin, presumably to keep it supple and
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: perhaps to later use it to display it. And according
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: to his confession, he soaked Lindsay's skin in a saline
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: solution and stored it for a few weeks in hopes
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: it wouldn't decay. And ultimately, this attempt failed. And the
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: skin became too frayed and smelly and Dahmer reluctantly disposed
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: of it. But the fact that he tried indicates the
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: extreme lengths he was willing to preserve a physical piece
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: of his victims. And Lindsay's murder is also very significant
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: because of the psychological insight it provides. Because Dahmer's attempt
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: at creating a zombie slave reveals the depth of his
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: need for control.
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: Then I tried to keep the person alive by inducing
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: a zombie-like state. by injecting first dilute acid solution into
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: their brain or hot water. And it never did completely work.
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: And Lindsay's family was absolutely devastated by this loss because
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: they had lost a beloved son and brother in the
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: most horrifying way imaginable. And Lindsay's mother, Mildred, struggled to
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: understand how her shy, home-loving boy even met Dahmer, saying,
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: So the randomness and brutality of his death at the
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: hands of Jeffrey Dahmer would forever haunt them. Anthony Tony
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: Hughes was 31 years old and was murdered by Dahmer
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: in May 1991. And Tony Hughes was unique among Dahmer's
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: victims because he was actually deaf and mute. He had
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: lost hearing when he was an infant due to illness.
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: So on the night of May 24th, 1991, Hughes went
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: out dancing in a nightclub in Milwaukee. And it was
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: there that he would cross paths with Jeffrey Dahmer. And
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: communication between them was done through written notes and perhaps
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: some lip reading on Tony's part. And Dahmer invited Tony
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: back to his apartment for a photo shoot proposition. offering
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: him money in return as he does. And Tony Hughes,
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: who was visiting from Madison, was staying with family in
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: Milwaukee at the time. And he would be last seen
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: alive on May 24th. And we know from Dahmer's confession
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: that Hughes went to Dahmer's apartment willingly that night. And
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: once inside, Dahmer wasted no time in drugging his guest.
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: And Tony Hughes, unable to hear, would not have realized
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: if Dahmer locked the door or if any unusual sounds occurred.
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: So he drank the laced beverage and became unconscious. And
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: Dahmer would then attempt to make another zombie, drilling a
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: hole into Hughes' head and then injecting hydrochloric acid. But
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: this time the attempt was fatal. So at this point,
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: Dahmer had another corpse in his apartment, but he did
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: not immediately dispose or dismember Tony Hughes. For whatever reason,
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: Dahmer left Hughes' body intact on the bedroom floor for
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: a couple of days. And the corpse of Tony Hughes
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: was laying in Dahmer's apartment on the evening of May 26th, 1991,
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: when Dahmer decided to go out to find another victim.
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: And this decision would prove almost catastrophic for Dahmer's freedom,
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: as it set the stage for an infamous incident. And eventually,
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: after the events with Conorac, which will be detailed next,
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: Dahmers returned to Tony Hughes' body and he would take
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: Polaroid photos. And then he would continue to dismember Hughes,
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: keeping two significant pieces of Tony, which was the skull
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: and his vertebrae. And Shirley Hughes, which was Tony's mother,
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: had to endure the confirmation that those remains belonged to
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: her son. And in court, she movingly spoke and even signed...
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: in sign language, I love you to her deceased son
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: as a farewell. And the Netflix dramatization of Dahmer's story
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: highlighted Tony's chapter, imagining a deeper relationship. But in reality,
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: Dahmer and Tony only met that night and there was
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: no romance. I don't know why the they would do that.
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: It actually makes me sick to my stomach that Hollywood
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: thinks that they need to like romanticize this and to
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: make it feel I don't know, like deeper than what
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: it was when Jeffrey Dahmer was literally just a f
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: * * * ing monster and they're so dishonest to
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: his real story and for the family to watch that
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: and see them like, make a fake story about their
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: son is just, it just infuriates me. Because Tony was
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: simply ensnared by Dahmer's false friendliness, like all the others,
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: and he would be victim number 12. And his murder
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: directly preceded one of the worst failures of law enforcement
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: in the Dahmer case. And Tony Hughes' mother later said
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: of her son's murderer, I don't see how someone could
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: be that evil. He destroyed my family. And Tony's story
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: just underscores the utter vulnerability of Dahmer's victims. Even a cautious,
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: kind man who couldn't hear his predator's footsteps was not spared.
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: Conorac Sintham Sumphong, age 14, suffered perhaps the most infamous
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: and heartbreaking fate of all of Dahmer's victims. Larger because
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: there was a moment when he could have been saved. So,
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: Konorak was the younger brother of Somsak, who was the
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: boy mentioned earlier that Dahmer had essayed, not killed, but escaped,
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: and then went to jail for in 1988. And the
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: Sathasinfam family were refugees from Laos, and had no idea
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: the man who had assaulted their older son years before
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: would come for Conorac. But on May 26, 1991, Dahmer
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: went out looking for another victim, and he would find
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: Conorac on Wisconsin Avenue. Despite being only 14, Conorac was
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: out alone that evening, and Dahmer would meet him and
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: convince the boy to come back to his apartment, offering
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: money to pose for nude photos. And once they reached
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: apartment 213, Dahmer gave Conorac drugged liquor as he had
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: done with others. And with the 14-year-old now unconscious, Dahmer
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: carried out yet another one of his zombification procedures he
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: had attempted on Lindsay. And he would drill a hole
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: in Conorac's skull and inject hydrochloric acid into his frontal
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: lobe of his brain. And Conorac was smaller and younger
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: than Lindsay, and the acid put him into a deeply
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: unconscious and semi-lobotomized state. And Dahmer would just leave his
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: body on the floor next to Tony Hughes' dead body
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: and went out to purchase more alcohol. So we're kind
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: of going back to that timeline where he went to
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: go look for another victim when Tony Hughes was still
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: on his bedroom floor. So now they were just lying
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: on the floor next to each other. This was before
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: he disposed of Tony. So it was now in the
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: early hours of May 27th 1991. And during Dahmer's absence,
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: Conorac actually woke up and escaped the apartment, which was
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: a rare opportunity for one of Dahmer's victims. But despite
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: the skull fracture and acid in his brain, the resilient
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: teenager regained consciousness enough to stumble out of the door.
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: And naked and bleeding and obviously disoriented, Conorac made it
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: to the street outside the apartment complex. And there, at
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: about 2am, three women spotted the boy. And their names
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: were Sandra Smith, Tina Spivey and Nicole Childress. And they
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: were alarmed. I mean, this was a teen boy who
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: was nude and bruised and seemed completely incoherent, and they
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: would call 911.
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: Where is he at?
• 53:53
  Speaker 3: He's just on the corner of 25th and State.
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: He's just on the corner of the street?
• 53:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he's in the middle of the street. He fell out.
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: We tried to help him.
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: Some people tried to help him.
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: So as they tried to help the dazed boy, Dahmer
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: returned to find his experiment literally out on the street
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: surrounded by concerned bystanders. And that's when a tremendous a
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: tragic miscarriage of justice ensued because Milwaukee police officers, John
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: Belkerzak and Joseph Gabrish arrived in response to the 911 call.
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: And Dahmer, ever composed under pressure, told the officers that
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: the boy was his 19-year-old boyfriend and that Conorac was
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: just drunk after a lover's quarrel. But the three women
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: who decided to call 911 empathetically argued with Dahmer and
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: the police that the boy was a child in danger.
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: But Dahmer convinced the officers that Conorac was an adult.
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: And he produced his Polaroid snapshots of Conorac posing in
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: his underwear as supposed proof of their relationship. And the officers, unfortunately,
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: decided to believe Dahmer's story. And they literally escorted Conorac,
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: who was weakly protesting, back into apartment 213 with Dahmer.
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: And inside, they did notice the foul smell coming from
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: Tony Hugh's body, which was inside Dahmer's bedroom at this point.
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: But Dahmer casually explained it all away, as he usually did.
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: And the police did not investigate any further. And they
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: did not run Dahmer's name through any system. Just f
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: * * * ing failure of the justice system. Like,
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: incredibly so. I'm sure they felt so much guilt after
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: the fact, and they should. because that is a miscarriage
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: of justice. So after they brought Conorac and Dahmer back
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: to the apartment, they would, say, take good care, and
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: they would leave. And the women were outraged and tried
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: to warn the police, but they were threatened to butt
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: out of what the officers considered a domestic issue. And
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: once the police left, Dahmer wasted no time, and he
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: would inject a second load of acid into Conrack's brain,
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: this time using a larger quantity, and the boy would
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: die shortly after. And in the following days, he would
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: dismember Conrack, and he would dispose of him. once again,
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: saving his skull. But the Conorac incident is one of
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: the most notorious episodes in American true crime. It's just
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: exemplified that not only Dahmer's cunning, but also systemic failures,
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: but potential racial biases, discrimination towards gay couples, and just
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: sheer negligence. And after Dahmer's arrest, it was revealed via
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: police radio recordings that the two officers had actually made
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: discriminatory remarks and jokes after leaving the scene, even laughing
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: about how they reunited lovers. So obviously the community was
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: outraged and these police officers were later fired, though they
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: were reinstated years after, which I don't even want to
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: talk about. And for the family, the pain was indescribable.
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: Not only had they endured one son's abuse by Dahmer,
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: but they lost another son to him due in part
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: to the preventable police blunder. And Dahmer himself admitted that
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: after the police returned the boy to him, he could
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: not believe his luck. And it just emboldened him to
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: continue feeling untouchable at this point. And he would go
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: on to kill four more people after Conrack, confident that
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: he could deflect any sort of suspicion, even under the
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: most unlikely circumstances. So just a few weeks later, Dahmer
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: continued his murderous spree. And his 14th victim, Matt Turner,
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: a 20-year-old young man from Chicago, had just participated in
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: the Chicago Pride Parade on June 30th, 1991. And at
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: a bus station after the Pride event, Turner happened to
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: meet Jeffrey Dahmer. And Dahmer, likely scouting the bus station
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: for potential targets returning from the festivities, struck up a
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: conversation with Turner. And he offered an all-expenses-paid trip to
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: Milwaukee to participate in a professional photoshoot. And eager for
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: such an opportunity, Matt Turner agreed and boarded the Greyhound
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: bus with Dahmer from Chicago to Milwaukee that very day.
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: And upon arriving in Milwaukee, Dahmer brought Turner to apartment 213.
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: And almost immediately, he proceeded with his routine. Spiking his drink,
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: giving him sedatives, and knocking him unconscious. And then after,
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: strangling him to death, and then dismembering his body. And
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: while doing so, he would decapitate Turner and keep his
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: head in his freezer. And Dahmer would leave Turner's dismembered
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: torso submerged in a chemical bath to break it down.
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: And then there was Jeremiah Weinberger, who was 23 and
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: became Dahmer's 15th victim. He was another young man from
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: the Chicago area. And Weinberger was a very cheerful, organized
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: individual who worked in a customer service at a video
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: store and just loved art. And on July 5th, 1991,
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: Jeremiah went to a popular Chicago gay bar called Carol's
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: Speakeasy for a night out. And it was there that
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: he would meet Jeffrey Dahmer. And Dahmer would invite Jeremiah
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: to spend the weekend with him back in Milwaukee, framing
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: it as just like a fun getaway. And Jeremiah's friends
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: later recount seeing him leave the club with an unidentified man.
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: So they would take a Greyhound bus from Chicago to Milwaukee,
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: arriving at Dahmer's apartment the very next day. But Dahmer
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: did not kill Weinberger immediately. Reportedly, they actually spent the
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: first date together, and Weinberger's even consented to some sexual
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: activity with Dahmer. However, that following day, Weinberger mentioned that
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: he wanted to return to Chicago so than planned. And
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: unwilling to let Weinberger leave, because he likes to possess
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: the people he's with, Dahmer knew that this was the
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: time to act. So after Weinberger was unconscious, Dahmer did
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: attempt to zombify him as well. this time using boiling
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: water instead of acid. But the scalding water would cause
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: irreparable damage to Weinberger's brain. And Weinberger did not wake
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: up or get revived after the procedure. However, he did
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: not die instantly. He allegedly was rendered into a comatose
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: state and clung to life for a day or so
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: during this condition, which I can't even imagine. what that
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: was like for him. Dahmer proceeded to dismember his body
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: and decapitate him, and his severed head would also go
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: in Dahmer's freezer, and the rest of him would be
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: placed in an acid drum. But at this point, the
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: acid drum still contained Matt Turner's remains, so it was
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: at this point where his acid drum was actually getting
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: quite full, which is disgusting to think about and horrifying.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: And back in Chicago, Weinberger's friends became concerned when he
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: didn't return after the weekend. So they would post missing
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: persons flyers all over Chicago when he failed to come home.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: But sadly, Jeremiah was already gone. And next was Oliver Lacy,
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: who was 23 years old and was Jeffrey Dahmer's 16th victim.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: And Oliver was an athletic man originally from Oak Park, Illinois.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: And in July, 1991, he was living in Milwaukee with
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: plans to eventually bring his fiance and young son, he
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: had a two-year-old, to join him. And Lacey had actually
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: moved to Milwaukee shortly after his father's passing. And he
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: was described by family as very outspoken and very friendly,
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: and he was always wearing a cross around his neck
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: for good luck. But unfortunately, Lacey would cross paths with
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: Jeffrey Dahmer on July 15th in 1991, near 27th Street.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: And Dahmer would proposition him with a familiar offer of
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: money to pose for nude photos. And he went with
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: Dahmer back to his apartment. And once there, the two
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: actually engaged in sexual activity before Dahmer drugged him. However,
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: Dahmer did something different this time. He actually attempted to
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: prolong the experience to the fullest. And Dahmer would use
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: chloroform on Lacey repeatedly over the course of a day,
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: trying to keep him in a long-lasting daze. But obviously,
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: it didn't work indefinitely. And Dahmer phoned in to work
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: to request a day off, and it was granted. But finally,
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: Dahmer strangled Oliver Lacey to death when he could no
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: longer keep him under. And once Lacey was dead, Dahmer
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: did what he did always with the corpse. He would
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: defile the corpse, dismember it, and decapitate him. And he
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: would actually place Lacey's heart in the refrigerator. And he
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: would put Lacey's head next to the other heads that
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: he had in his freezer. And Lacey's other remains were
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: handled similarly as Dahmer's other victims. But he would actually
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: put Lacey's skeleton in the freezer as well, alongside other
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: collected bones from earlier victims. But outside his... successful murder
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: spree Dahmer's life was beginning to unravel externally because he
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: was actually fired from his job at the ambrosia chocolate
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: factory for missing too many shifts and the firing just
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: sent him into a despairing spiral so jobless and with
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: an eviction looming over him Dahmer fell the world closing
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: in on him. And it made him both reckless and desperate.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: And he would strike again very quickly. Joseph Arthur Braidhoff
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: was 25 years old and was Jeffrey Dahmer's 17th and
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: final victim. Joseph was a Midwestern father of three who
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: had come to Milwaukee from Minnesota in a search for employment.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: And in July 1991, he was temporarily staying at his
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: brother's family's on the north side of Milwaukee while looking
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: for work. And on July 19th, 1991, Joseph spent the
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: morning job hunting and had an interview scheduled. But unfortunately,
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: that afternoon, he would cross paths with Jeffrey Dahmer at
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: the bus stop. And Dahmer, prowling yet again, even though
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: there was chaos ensuing in his life, struck up a conversation.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: And he would invite Breidhoff back to his apartment. And
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: Breidhoff would accept. And inside the apartment, the pattern repeated
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: once again. They had consensual s * * *. And
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: then Dahmer handed Breidhoff a drugged drink. And once the
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: young man was unconscious, Dahmer strangled him with a leather strap.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: And Joseph thus met the same fate as the 16
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: victims before him. And after killing Joseph, he actually laid
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: him on his bed. And he just left Joseph's corpse
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: lying on the bed for a couple of days while
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: he rested and plotted his next move. However, by July 21st,
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: Dahmer knew he had to get rid of Joseph's body,
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: especially since it was decomposing faster due to the summer heat.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: Because even though it had only been a couple days,
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: he had actually found maggots covering the head when he
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: uncovered the body. So he would get rid of the body,
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: same as he did the others, and he would keep
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: the trophies, same as he did the others. And little
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: did Dahmer know that this would be the last victim
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: that he would claim. So after 17 murders across 13 years,
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: it ended with the one man who said no. The
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: one man who ran, and the one man who lived.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: So on the evening of July 22nd, which was a
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: day after he got rid of his last victim, Jeffrey
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: Dahmer left his apartment with the intention of finding victim
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: number 18. And that man would be Tracy Edwards. And
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: Tracy was a 32-year-old man living in Milwaukee, and he
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: was outgoing and very street smart. And Dahmer would meet
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: him near Grand Avenue Mall, and he would offer him
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: $ 100 to come back to his place to pose for
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: photos and have a few drinks. And Edward would agree,
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: as many before him did. So Jeffrey and Tracy would
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: go back to apartment 213. And from the moment he
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: stepped inside, Tracy felt something was off because the smell
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: was overpowering inside the apartment. Boxes of hydrochloric acid were
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: sitting just out in the open and he got suspicious immediately.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: So they talked briefly and Dahmer directed Edwards to look
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: at his tropical fish. And that is when he would
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: place a handcuff on one of Edward's wrists. And Edward
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: grew visibly uncomfortable asking, what's happening? And that's when Dahmer
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: attempted to place the other handcuff on Edward's, but he
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: was unsuccessful. And he was trying to guide him to
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: the bedroom to pose for photos. And in the bedroom,
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: Edward saw the blue 57-gallon drum where the smell he
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: noted before was coming from. And he also noted a
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: TV playing The Exorcist 3 on VHS, a movie Dahmer
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: said he watched frequently.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 3: I felt so hopelessly... And that's when Dahmer would pull
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 3: a knife on him.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: And Edwards also noticed that Dahmer's rocking back and forth,
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: chanting under his breath, I'm going to eat your heart.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 2: So funny.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: Fucking horrifying. I can't even, I can't, I literally can't
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: even imagine. That's when Edwards attempted to keep Dahmer calm
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: through conversation while looking for a way out. Very smart man.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: He would even ask to use the bathroom and then
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: he asked if they could have a beer in the
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: living room afterwards. And Dahmer would then agree and they
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: would move into the living room. And that's when Edwards
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: requested to go to the bathroom. Again, noting that Dahmer's
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: concentration had lapsed. And that's when he would punch Dahmer
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: and escape through the front door, and he would run
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: down the street with a cuff still attached to his wrist.
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: F * * * ing metal. And that's when he
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: would flag down a Milwaukee police officer, Robert Roth and
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: Ralph Mueller, telling them that a freak had just tried
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: to kill him. And that's when he led them back
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: to apartment 213. And Dahmer would answer the door. Very calmly.
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: And when the officers stepped inside, they noticed the smell immediately.
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: And they would ask about the key to the handcuff
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: that was still on Tracy's wrist. And Dahmer mentioned it
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: was in the bedside drawer. And he would actually attempt
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: to try to get it before the officers did. But
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: he was instructed to back off. So Officer Mueller would
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: walk into his bedroom and open the drawer. And that's
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: when he would completely freeze. Because inside were Polaroid photographs.
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: Dozens of them showing dismembered bodies, decapitated heads, and images
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: taken during the process of dismemberment itself.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 2: So Mueller.
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: picked up the photos and brought them to Ralph and said,
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: these are real. And Dahmer realized at that moment what
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: was happening. And he would lunge toward the officers, but
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: it was too late. And he was wrestled to the
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: ground and arrested immediately. And inside the apartment, authorities would
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: find two human hearts and a portion of bicep in
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: the fridge, four severed heads in the kitchen, a 57
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: gallon drum filled with acid and decomposing torsos, an entire
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: torso in the freezer, seven skulls, some painted, some bleached,
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: displayed like trophies, multiple hands, and internal organs, 74 Polaroids
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: documenting each stage of murder and mutilation. The scene was
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: just completely beyond comprehension. And in the middle of it
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: all was Dahmer. And he was initially distraught, saying, I
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: can't believe I was so stupid. I never thought I'd
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: get caught like this. I was always so careful. But
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: then he was very quiet and cooperative, just realizing that...
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: There was nothing he could do. And he would say,
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: for what I did, I should be dead. And eventually
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: Dahmer would go over 60 hours of confession to detectives,
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: describing all 17 murders in chilling, precise detail. And the
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: world would begin to understand the horrific scale of what
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: had happened inside apartment 213. So on July 22nd, 1991,
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: Jeffrey Dahmer sat down in an interrogation room with detectives
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: Patrick Kennedy and Dennis Murphy. And over the next six weeks,
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: he would speak openly, calmly, and in graphic detail about
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: the murders of 17 young men and boys, giving investigators
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: a blow-by-blow account of every killing, every method, and every motive.
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: And according to Kennedy, Dahmer never actually asked for a lawyer.
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: He said that he created this horror, and it only
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: makes sense I do everything to put an end to it.
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: So Dahmer would confess to everything. To luring victims with
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: money alcohol modeling gigs, to drugging them, to strangling them,
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: to performing SA acts on the corpses, to dismembering them,
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: to committing necrophilia, to keeping body parts as trophies, to
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: taking Polaroids, to attempting zombie experiments by injecting acid or
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: boiling water into his victims brains, to eating body parts
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: of his last three victims. And he had parts of
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: his other victims stored for eventual consumption as well. And finally,
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: building an altar of skulls and bones meant to be
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: a memorial where he could sit and feed his obsession.
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 3: And what was the purpose of the altar going to be?
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 3: As a sort of memorial. A point where I could
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 3: I don't know. It's so bizarre and strange, it's hard
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 3: to describe. A place where I could collect my thoughts.
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: Um.
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 3: and feed my obsession.
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: And Dahmer was just unusually self-aware and deeply, deeply disturbed.
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: And he told police that his killings weren't driven by
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: hatred or rage, but by the need to possess.
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 3: I had these obsessive desires and thoughts wanting to control them, to,
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 3: I don't know how to put it, possess them permanently.
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 3: And that's why you killed them. Right.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 2: Dahmer would say, The killing was a means to an end.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 2: That was the least satisfactory part. I didn't enjoy doing that.
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 2: That's why I tried to create living zombies with uric
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 2: acid in the drill, but it never worked. No, the
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 2: killing was not the objective. I just wanted to have
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 2: the person under my complete control, not having to consider
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 2: their wishes, being able to keep them there as long
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 2: as I wanted.
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: Despite the horrific nature of his crimes, Dahmer remained very polite, respectful,
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: and almost eerily calm during his entire confession. And he
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: didn't seem to regret his actions either.
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 2: In fact, he.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: Regularly claimed that he would have continued doing this if
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: he hadn't gotten caught. But he didn't seem confused as
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: to why he had the compulsions he did. And he
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: recognized that they were wrong, but he owned it and
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: made no excuses. And in the end, Dahmer helped police
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: identify each victim, often recalling names, dates, and even details
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: from memory aided by photographs that he had taken. And
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: his confession became the core evidence in his trial to come.
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: But it also served as something else. And that was
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: a horrifying map of the mind of a man who
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: for 13 years killed in secret and told no one.
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: So Dahmer would be charged with 16 counts of first-degree murder.
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: But the legal process that followed would be viewed by
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: the world and raise disturbing questions about mental health, justice,
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: and the very definition of evil. So on July 25th, 1991,
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: Dahmer would be formally charged with four murders. And over
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: the next few weeks, additional charges were filed, eventually totaling
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: 15 murder charges in Wisconsin and one murder charge in
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: Ohio for the 1978 killing of Stephen Hicks. And he
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: ultimately stood trial for 15 murders committed in Wisconsin between
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: 1987 and 1991. And the trial would begin January 30th, 1992,
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: in Milwaukee County Circuit Court, before Judge Lawrence Graham. And
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: Dahmer would plead guilty, but insane, to all charges. Yeah,
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: f * * * ing right, dude. Acknowledging that he
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: had committed the murders, but arguing that he was suffering
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: from a severe mental disease at the time. And the
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: courtroom was... Because in the gallery sat families of the
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: victims and behind the defense table sat Dahmer listening quietly
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: as his crimes were recounted in detail. And he was
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: very calm and clean cut during the whole trial. And
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: the prosecution's goal was very clear, to prove Dahmer was
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: sane and that he knew what he was doing and
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: understood the consequences. But the defense argued that he suffered
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: from necrophilia, borderline personality disorder, schizotypal personality disorder, and psychotic
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: compulsions so overwhelming that he was incapable of stopping himself. Yeah. Okay.
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: So over the course of the trial, many witnesses were called,
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: and these included... FBI profilers testifying about serial offender behavior,
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: forensic psychologists debating whether Dahmer fit the legal definition of insanity,
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: and detectives describing the contents of apartment 213, medical examiners
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: detailing the cause of death for each victim, and family
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: members giving powerful victim impact statements. But none were more
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: searing than Rita Isbell, which was a sister of the
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: victim Errol Lindsay, whose outburst toward Dahmer became one of
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: the most iconic moments in true crime history. And she said,
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna kill you. Ow! And she actually had to
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: be physically restrained and Dahmer just showed no reaction. And
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: when asked if he wanted to speak, Dahmer would read
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: from a prepared statement that lasted about five minutes long
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: and his voice was flat and his expression was unreadable.
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: And he would say, Your Honor, it is over now.
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: This has never been a case of trying to get free.
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: I didn't ever want freedom. Frankly, I wanted death for myself.
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 3: This was a case to tell the world that.
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: I did what I did, not for a reason of hate.
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: I hated no one or both. Now I believe I
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: was sick. The doctors have told me about my sickness
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: and now I have some peace. I know how much
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: harm I have caused and I understand their rightful hate.
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: I should have stayed with God. I tried and failed
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: and created a Holocaust. Thank God there will be no
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: more harm I can do. I know my time in
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: prison will be terrible, but I deserve whatever I get
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: because of what I have done. That is like a
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: compacted version of what he said. And on February 15th, 1992,
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: the jury returned its decision and he would be found
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: guilty on all 15 counts of murder and obviously criminally
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: sane and criminally responsible for each killing. And Jeffrey Dahmer
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: was sentenced to 15 consecutive life sentences terms and there
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: would be no death penalty. And a few months after
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: his conviction in Milwaukee, Dahmer faced trial for his first
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: murder in Ohio. And he pleaded guilty in the sentence
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: to a 16 life sentence on May 1st, 1992. And
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: with that, Dahmer was sent to the Columbia Correctional Institute
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: in Portage, Wisconsin, where his final chapter would begin. So
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: Dahmer was initially placed in protective isolation due to his
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: notoriety of his crimes and potential threats from other inmates.
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: So for approximately a year, Dahmer was kept mostly separated,
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: and he was allowed out of a cell only with
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: restraints and under guard. But he was described as a
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: model inmate. He was quiet, compliant, and not prone to trouble.
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: And during his early imprisonment, Dahmer experienced a personal transformation,
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: becoming increasingly remorseful and turning to religion. And in May
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: of 1994, he would actually be baptized into Christianity by
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: Minister Roy Radcliffe within the prison. And the baptism occurred
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: on May 10th, 1994. And the same day, serial killer
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: John Wayne Gacy was executed in Illinois. And there was
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: also a solar eclipse. So I don't know what the
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: f * * * that means, but it's weird. But
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: Dahmer expressed a desire for forgiveness and salvation, and acknowledged
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: that many would view his conversion as... skeptical. Which, yeah,
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: fair enough. But after about a year of protected custody,
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: in mid-1993 Dahmer was allowed limited interaction with other inmates.
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: And he was assigned to simple work duties such as
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: cleaning prison bathrooms or working in the library under supervision.
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: And then eventually convinced authorities to let him into the
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: gen pop, which is general population of the prison, on
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: a limited basis. understanding the risks involved. And in gen pop,
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: Dahmer initially tried to keep a low profile, but infamy
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: made that impossible. And some inmates were openly hostile, while
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: others were morbidly fascinated. And Dahmer would sometimes lean into
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: his dark reputation, making macabre jokes and shaping prison foods
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: into severed limbs, using ketchup as blood. Real Christian of you.
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: And these antics were reprimanded by guards and angered fellow inmates.
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: And in July 1994... Inmate Osvaldo Dorothy attempted to slash
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: Dahmer's throat with a razor blade shank after chapel service,
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: but Dahmer would receive only superficial wounds. And prison officials
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: would offer him a return to protective isolation, but Dahmer
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: would refuse. And he actually maintained a very close relationship
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: with his family during his prison time as well, particularly
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: with his father, Lionel, who visited regularly and maintained contact.
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: And his mother, Joyce, who had moved to California, began
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: speaking with him by phone. And they would actually have
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: weekly calls. But his brother, David, was the exception. He
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: had allegedly distanced himself from the family completely. Understandable. Even
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: changing his name and living an anonymous life completely disconnected
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: from all of it. And Dahmer also had people write
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: to him. He received letters, money orders, and other items
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: from admirers of morbid curiosity.
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 2: Which is so.
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: Disgusting. And on the morning of November 28th, 1994, Dahmer
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: was assigned to a cleaning detail in the prison gym
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: bathrooms with two other inmates, Christopher Scarver and Jesse Anderson.
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: And the three men were left unsupervised by guards for
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: approximately 20 minutes, which was against protocol for high risk inmates,
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: which Dahmer was. And according to Scarver's later account, One
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: of the two, either Dahmer or Anderson, poked him in
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: the back while they were cleaning, as if joking around.
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: And Scarver, already harboring anger towards Dahmer, confronted him with
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: a newspaper clipping about his crimes. And Scarver would then
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: retrieve a 20-inch, 5-pound steel bar from the weight room
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: and bludgeon Dahmer, crushing his skull with multiple heavy blows.
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: And then he attacked Anderson with the same bar, inflicting
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: fatal head injuries. And the guards would then return and
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: find Dahmer barely alive with severe head trauma. And he
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: would be pronounced dead about an hour later at a
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: nearby hospital. And Anderson would also die from his injuries
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: two days later. So Jeffrey Dahmer was now dead. And
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: the reaction to his death came in different waves. Dahmer's mother, Joyce,
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: was distraught and questioned whether he had truly found peace
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: with God before he died. And his father, Lionel, was heartbroken,
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: hoping Jeff's conversion was genuine and that he could have
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: aided research or investigation. been a case study. But Dahmer's
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: body was cremated in September of 1995, and his ashes
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: were divided between his parents. And an actual legal dispute
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: arose over his brain, which was retained separately. Joyce wanted
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: it studied for potential biological factors behind his behavior, while Lionel,
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: his father, objected. But Jeffrey's will had requested that he
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: be cremated. The judge eventually ordered the brain destroyed at
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: Lionel's request, honoring what was said to be Jeffrey's own wishes,
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: which I don't know how he has allowed to have
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: a say in what happens, but okay. And Christopher Scarver
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: received two additional life sentences for the murder of Dahmer
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: and Anderson and remains incarcerated. And for the families of
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: the victims, Dahmer's death brought no true closure. Most had
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: received no remains to bury, and some had endured media harassment,
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: racist policing, and neglect from the justice system that discriminated
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: against homosexuals. And Milwaukee itself was forced to confront a
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: series of hard truths. How did the police miss multiple
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: opportunities to stop Dahmer, especially including a Conrad escape? And
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: why was Dahmer's behavior dismissed as a gay domestic dispute
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: rather than investigated with urgency? And how many lives could
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: have been saved if one officer had simply looked around? Thankfully,
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: after Dahmer's incarceration, the Oxford apartments ultimately were demolished in
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: No one wanted to live there anymore, obviously. But Dahmer's
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: case just sparked an explosion of coverage that continues to
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: this day. And notable media inspired by the case include
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: books like A Father's Story, The Shrine of Jeffrey Dahmer,
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: dozens of documentaries like The Jeffrey Dahmer Files, Dahmer Mind
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: of a Monster, Conversations with a Killer, The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes,
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: And there was also feature films and TV dramatizations like Dahmer,
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: Raising Jeffrey Dahmer, My Friend Dahmer, Dahmer Monster, The Jeffrey
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: Dahmer Story. And then Evan Peters, who played Dahmer and
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: won Best Actor in a Limited Anthology Series, actually sparked
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: backlash for re-traumatizing victims' families. And Dahmer just became a
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: cultural phenomenon. A quiet man with glasses hiding something in
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: the fridge. So many have rightfully asked, Why do we
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: keep romanticizing and Hollywoodizing this story?
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 2: And the question lingers.
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: Was Jeffrey Dahmer born a monster or was he made
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: into one? And psychologists remain divided. Some point to early
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: brain trauma from the hernia surgery, extreme social isolation, alcoholism,
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: family dysfunction, and repressed homosexuality that collided with intense necrophilic fantasies.
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: And others argued he showed signs of antisocial personality disorder,
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: borderline personality disorder, and s * * *. sadism, but
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: they empathize that he remained lucid, calculated, and fully aware
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: of right and wrong. And even Dahmer himself offered no
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: clear answer. In the end, Dahmer wasn't a horror movie villain.
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: He was worse because he was real. And for 13 years,
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: he got away with murder. Again, and again, and again,
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: and again. And a story is not one of madness,
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: but of missed warnings, systemic failure, and the terrifying truth
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: that monsters don't always look like monsters. Sometimes they just
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: look like normal people. And that is the end of
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: today's video. It was a long one. A lot of
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: you guys requested it. So if you have any other
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: cases you want me to go over, let me know
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: down below. I always read the comments and make sure
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: to be safe out there and take care of yourself.
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: I will see you beautiful face in the next video.
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: All right. Bye.