This story contains disturbing content; please read it at your own discretion. Jeffrey Dahmer is regarded as one of the most heinous serial killers in the United States. In 1992, after eventually pleading guilty to many counts of rape, murder, dismemberment, and consumption, he was sentenced to 15 consecutive life terms but only lived to serve three.
Given that he did not receive the death punishment for his heinous acts, you may be curious about how Jeffrey Dahmer died.
His story is the inspiration for the Netflix documentaries Conversations with a Killer: The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes and Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, starring American Horror Story’s Evan Peters as Dahmer.
According to the synopsis, the latter endeavors to examine this monstrous individual from the perspective of those who were victimized by him and the racist, systemic failures “that enabled one of America’s most notorious serial killers to continue his killing spree in plain sight for over a decade.”
Dahmer, also known as the Milwaukee Cannibal, evaded detection for thirteen years after his first victim, Steven Hicks, in 1978. Back to how Jeffrey Dahmer died, though, and if the families of his victims felt that justice had been done.
How Did Jeffrey Dahmer Die?
How did Jeffey Dahmer die? Christopher Scarver, a fellow inmate, beat Dahmer to death on November 28, 1994. Both guys were held in Wisconsin’s Columbia Correctional Facility.
Wisconsin was the first state to abolish the capital penalty in 1853, hence Dahmer did not get the death punishment despite his heinous acts (though he wished for his death.
More on that later). In 1992, Scarver, who was serving a 25-year term for armed robbery-turned-murder, arrived at the same prison as Dahmer. Scarver was also serving a 25-year sentence. The safety of the serial killer was a big concern for the jail personnel.
At the time, the New York Times reported that Dahmer had spent his first year in prison in guarded isolation. As one of the most known murderers in the state, authorities considered that killing him would win a criminal an “honored place in the prison world.” However, they later determined that it was safe for him to be absorbed into the population of 622 inmates. In July 1992, an attempt was made on Dahmer’s life.
With a makeshift plastic knife, a prisoner unsuccessfully attempted to cut Dahmer’s throat. The jail personnel anticipated it would be an isolated incident with no injuries.
Dahmer was notorious for agitating his fellow inmates. According to Scarver, the serial killer taunted other inmates by creating meals that resembled severed limbs and coating them with ketchup to resemble blood.
Scarver told the New York Post in 2015, “He would position them in areas frequented by people.” “He crossed the line in his interactions with detainees and prison staff. However, he was not one of those penitent prisoners.
Scarver avoided Dahmer because of his behavior, but he always carried a newspaper article describing the cannibal’s misdeeds. Scarver snapped when he suspected Dahmer of poking him in the back. He grabbed a weight room bar and challenged Dahmer with it about his misdeeds. “I questioned him whether he did such things because I was disgusted to the core.
He was astonished. “He was,” Scarver confirmed to the Post. “He began searching for the door quite quickly. Two swings of the bar to Dahmer’s skull were sufficient to stop him. Dahmer’s skull was fractured, and he was pronounced dead one hour after his arrival at the hospital. He was 34. “He ended up dead. “I cut off his head,” Scarver stated of the murder.
Rita Isbell, the sister of one of Jeffrey Dahmer’s final victims, Errol Lindsey, stated that she had anticipated Dahmer’s execution in prison.
The New York Times stated that Dahmer’s mother had received phone calls for two years from persons pretending to be jail prisoners and assuring her that Dahmer would be “taken care of.”
She reported that the callers said, “You don’t know me. Here I am with Jeffrey Dahmer. Don’t fret. We’ll handle it. She said, “I wouldn’t say I wanted this to happen, but Jeffrey ripped my family apart.”
How Was Jeffrey Dahmer Caught?
Jeffrey Dahmer was apprehended on July 22, 1991, after offering $100 to three guys to pose for naked photographs. Tracy Edwards, 32, agreed, and upon arriving at Dahmer’s flat, he observed a terrible odor and boxes of hydrochloric acid, which Dahmer claimed were for cleaning.
Dahmer attempted to bind Edwards’ wrists together but only succeeded in securing one. He then demanded that Edwards stand naked while brandishing a knife.
Edwards escaped after five frightening hours by claiming to need to use the restroom and punching Dahmer when the serial killer’s guard was down, forcing him to lose his footing. Edwards flagged down two police officers and said that a “freak” had attacked him with a knife.
Edwards led the officers back to Dahmer’s flat, where Polaroids of human remains were discovered in the bedroom and decapitated heads were found in the refrigerator. “These are authentic,” one officer replied while displaying the photographs to the other.
As soon as Dahmer saw what the cop was holding, he assaulted them and attempted to fight arrest, but he was ultimately subdued. As he was pushed to the ground, he reportedly remarked, “For what I did, I should be dead.”
A team from Milwaukee’s Criminal Investigation Bureau discovered four decapitated heads in the kitchen, seven skulls in Dahmer’s bedroom, blood drippings in the refrigerator, and two human hearts during a thorough investigation of his flat.
There was also a complete torso and a multitude of other terrible discoveries in his freezer. The chief medical examiner remarked at the time, “It was more like disassembling someone’s museum than a true crime scene.”
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