On This Day: Jeffrey Dahmer is Arrested For His Crimes
Just before midnight on July 22, 1991, two Miluwakee police officers spotted a man running down the street with one handcuff on, yelling for their help. The handcuffed man, Tracey Edwards, explained how a man named Jeffrey Dahmer threatened to kill him. What police would find in Dahmer’s apartment would make him one of the most infamous serial killers of all time.
On July 22, 1991, Dahmer approached three men and offered them $100 if he could take nude photographs of them and potentially have a beer and eat together. One of the men, 32-year-old Tracey Edwards, agreed to this and followed Dahmer to his apartment. The foul smell which radiated from his apartments apparent the moment Edwards walked in.
Edwards initially considered Dahmer to be friendly, but that changed once Dahmer focused Edwards attention on a fish tank. Dahmer handcuffed Edwards and produced a large knife. Leading Edwards into the bedroom, the pair sat on the edge of a bed and watching the film The Exorcist III.
Dahmer placed his head onto Edwards chest to listen to his heartbeat and told him that he was going to eat his heart. In his attempts to subdue him, Edwards reiterated to Dahmer that they were friends and he would not run away. When Dahmer’s attention was not on Edwards, Edwards punched him in the face and ran out the front door.
When Edwards flagged down police, they didn’t know whether to believe his story. When officers took Edwards to Dahmer’s apartment, Dahmer attempted to explain that the situation was a misunderstanding. The officers almost believed him until they found photographs of dismembered bodies. Dahmer attempted to resist arrest before the officers subdued him.
When they called in additional officers, their findings would be gruesome. Not only did they find multiple albums filled with photos of dismembered bodies, but they found human remains around the entire apartment. Several dismembered heads were found in the fridge. Authorities discovered four other severed heads in the kitchen, skills on top of his computer and bedroom, a torso in his freezer, and two entire skeletons.
During his interrogation in the early morning hours of July 23, 1991, Dahmer was questioned about the bodies and the murders he’d committed in his apartment. He quickly admitted to the murders of seventeen men and boys, one of those being in Ohio. Over a period of two weeks, a confession was written which was over 160 pages long.
In his confession, he explained how he killed his victims. Most of his victims would be unconscious when he’d kill them. Some however, died by Dahmer drilling holes in their heads and injecting acid or boiling water afterwards. Dahmer confessed to have eating hearts, livers, biceps, and various other body parts of his victims. He also would engage in necrophilia with the corpses of his victims.
During a preliminary hearing on January 30, 1992, Dahmer pled guilty to 15 counts of first-degree murder, but wanted to declare himself legally insane. He was found guilty of the 15 counts on February 15 and was declared legally sane. He was charged with 15 life-sentences. He later pled guilty to the murder of Steven Hicks, receiving an additional life sentence.
After his sentencing, Dahmer was taken to the Columbia Correctional Institution where he spent a year in solitary confinement. After a year, he was relocated to a different unit within the general population where he was placed on a work detail.
On November 28, 1994, Dahmer and two other inmates, Christopher Scarver, and Jesse Anderson, were left unsupervised while cleaning the bathrooms in the prison. When officers returned 20 minutes later, they found Scarver had bludgeoned Dahmer and Anderson to near-death with a metal rod. Dahmer was pronounced dead an hour later. Anderson also died as a result from the attack.
In the years since his arrest and murder, Dahmer has become one of the most infamous serial killers in American history. The stories of his victims are overshadowed by the sheer depravity of Dahmer’s crimes. Next Friday, we will discuss each of Dahmer’s victims and tell their stories.
