Serial Killer

Serial Killers

Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on May 21, 1960. His family moved to Iowa while his father, Lionel, worked on his Ph.D. in chemistry. When Jeffrey was six years old, his family moved again to Bath, Ohio. It was at this time his parents noticed a change in Dahmer’s behavior. He became withdrawn and lost his outspoken personality. He also had developed a strange fear of others and unknown situations. Dahmer’s situation became worse as he grew into his teenage years. Jeffrey became increasingly withdrawn, isolated and began drinking heavily while in high school. Although Dahmer was intelligent, he did not perform well at academics, and his grades were very inconsistent.

Dahmer’s parents had gone through bitter divorce and custody battle over his younger brother. Jeffrey was left on his own in his parents' home for a period of time. It was at this time that Dahmer's first victim, 19-year-old Steven Hicks vanished. Dahmer had gone to Ohio University for a semester but was released because of his failing grades. In 1978 Dahmer joined the US. Army medical corps. He was discharged in 1981 and spent a brief amount of time in Miami, Florida. He was unable to keep employment so he then moved in with his grandmother, a retired schoolteacher in Milwaukee, Minnesota, in 1985.

In Milwaukee Dahmer worked as a stock clerk at the Ambrosia Chocolate factory. He was terminated from this position due to his constant absenteeism from work. His grandmother began to complain about Dahmer’s drunken behavior and the offensive stench in her basement, she then asked Dahmer to move out of her home. Dahmer moved into his own apartment September 25, 1988. Shortly afterward, Dahmer was arrested and found guilty to sexual exploitation of a child and second-degree sexual assault. He had offered a 13-year-old Laotian boy, money to pose nude for some pictures. Dahmer drugged the boy and fondled him. May 23, 1989, Dahmer was sentenced to five years of probation with a suspended sentence of eight years in prison. He was never sent to prison but served one year of work release in the House of Correction. Dahmer only served ten months before he received an early release. Despite Dahmer’s father's requests and the recommendations of three psychologists for hospitalization and intensive treatment, Dahmer never received any treatment for his alcoholism or his psychological problems. Dahmer moved into another apartment on May 27, 1991, a young Laotian boy was found dazed and naked in the streets near Dahmer's apartment. By a coincidence, he was the younger brother of the boy Dahmer was convicted of sexually abusing in 1989. When the police arrived Dahmer told the police that the boy was his drunken lover and apologized for his behavior Witnesses argued with the police, they had seen the young man's obvious terror and his efforts to escape from Dahmer. The police believed Dahmer's story and walked Dahmer and the boy back to Dahmer's apartment.

On July 22, 1991, two Milwaukee police officers saw a man running down the street with handcuffs attached to one hand. The man frantically told the officers that he just escaped from a "weird dude" who threatened to cut his heart out with a butcher knife. To investigate the officers entered Dahmer's apartment. Jeffrey Dahmer gave them permission to look around the apartment. In his bedroom were pictures of corpses in various stages and a 57 gallon drum full of a foul-smelling liquid. In the refrigerator, the officers discovered human head next to a box of baking soda.

After his arrest, Dahmer confessed to his crimes, and described them in detail. He admitted to the murder of nineteen-year-old Steven M. Hicks in Ohio as early as 1978, Dahmer admitted to a total of seventeen murders of young men and boys. Most of his victims were black. Over time, the murder increased in frequency and at the end of his rampage Dahmer was killing on a weekly basis. Dahmer pleaded guilty on reason of insanity but the prosecution felt Dahmer was a psychopath who planned and committed the murders in cold blood with full knowledge. Dahmer was found guilty and sane on all fifteen counts of murder. He was sentenced to fifteen consecutive life terms, a total of 957 years in prison. Dahmer was sent to the Columbia Correctional Institute in Portage, Wisconsin. On November 28, 1994, Dahmer was assigned to a work detail with two other murderers, Jesse Anderson and Christopher Scarver. The guards left the three inmates alone. On their return, they found Dahmer and Anderson had been brutally beaten by Scarver, a delusional schizophrenic. Dahmer was pronounced dead upon his arrival at the hospital.

Charles Manson was born as Charles Milles Maddox on November 12, 1934 in Cincinnati, Ohio. His father was rarely at home and his mother was