Jeffrey Dahmer is considered one of America’s most heinous serial killers. He was sentenced to 15 consecutive life sentences in 1996 after pleading guilty to the rape, murder, dismemberment, and ingestion of many victims, although he only lived for three years. You’re undoubtedly wondering how Jeffrey Dahmer died because he didn’t receive the death punishment for his heinous acts.
Conversations with a Killer:
The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes, a Netflix documentary series, and Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, a scripted drama series starring Evan Peters (American Horror Story) as Dahmer. According to the synopsis, the latter will investigate this monstrous individual from the perspective of those who were victimized by him, as well as the racist, systemic failures “that enabled one of America’s most notorious serial killers to continue his murderous spree in plain sight for over a decade.” Dahmer, also known as the Milwaukee Cannibal, eluded detection for 13 years after his first victim, Steven Hicks, in 1978. But let’s get back to how Jeffrey Dahmer died and whether the relatives of his victims believed justice was done.
What caused Jeffrey Dahmer’s death?
What happened to Jeffery Dahmer? On November 28, 1994, Dahmer was beaten to death by a fellow inmate, Christopher Scarver. Both guys were imprisoned at Wisconsin’s Columbia Correctional Facility. Wisconsin was the first state to abolish the capital sentence in 1853, hence Dahmer avoided the death penalty despite his heinous acts (though he wished for his death). (More on this later.) Scarver arrived in the jail about the same time as Dahmer in 1992, serving a 25-year term for an armed robbery-turned-murder. The safety of the serial killer was a big concern for jail officials. According to the New York Times at the time, Dahmer had spent his first year in prison in guarded isolation. Authorities assumed that executing one of the state’s most known murders would win a convict an “honored place in the prison world.” Later, authorities determined that he could be safely absorbed into the population of 622 convicts. An attempt on Dahmer’s life was undertaken in July 1992. An inmate attempted but failed, to cut Dahmer’s throat with a makeshift plastic knife. No one was injured, and jail officials felt it was an isolated incident.
Dahmer was notorious for upsetting his fellow convicts. According to Scarver, the serial killer would tease other inmates with prison food shaped like severed limbs, dripping on packets of ketchup to resemble blood. Scarver told the New York Post in 2015, “He would position them in locations where people would be.” “He went too far with some people—prisoners, prison officials.” Some prisoners are regretful, but he was not one of them.”
Scarver avoided Dahmer because of his conduct, but he always carried a news article outlining the cannibal’s misdeeds in his pocket. Scarver snapped when he suspected Dahmer had prodded him in the rear. He took a weight-lifting bar from the weight room and confronted Dahmer about his misdeeds. “I questioned him whether he did such things because I was horrified. He was taken aback. “He was,” Scarver confirmed to the Post. “He started hunting for the door right away. “I stopped him.” It just took two swings of the bar to Dahmer’s head. Dahmer’s skull was smashed, and he died an hour after arriving at the hospital. He was 34. “He was killed. Scarver described the slaying as “putting his head down.”
the actor who’s playing a serial killer… the actor who isn’t evan peters while you’re watching the show, who is jeffrey dahmer, a sex offender and serial killer who murdered poc like hellooo ?? you can like evan but while he’s playing dahmer? cmon now… https://t.co/Pos5c6TBMx
— kei 🩸🪄 (@xplrbower) September 25, 2022
Rita Isbell, the sister of Errol Lindsey, one of Dahmer’s final victims, said she expected Dahmer to be killed in prison. According to the New York Times, she had received phone calls for two years from guys purporting to be prison inmates saying Dahmer would be “taken care of.” “You don’t know who I am,” she stated the callers said. I’m with Jeffrey Dahmer up here. Don’t be concerned. We’ll deal with it.” “I wouldn’t say I wanted things to happen like this,” she said, “but Jeffrey tore my family apart.”
How was Jeffrey Dahmer apprehended?
On September 8, 1996, Jeffrey Dahmer was arrested after contacting three men and offering them $100 to pose for naked photographs. Tracy Edwards, 32, agreed, and when he arrived at Dahmer’s flat, he detected a terrible odor and a box of hydrochloric acid, which Dahmer claimed was for cleaning. Dahmer attempted to handcuff Edwards’ wrists together but was only able to clasp one before brandishing a knife and ordering him to stand naked. After five harrowing hours, Edwards escaped by claiming to need to use the restroom and punching Dahmer, causing the serial killer to lose his equilibrium. Edwards summoned two police officers, telling them that a “freak” had pulled a knife on him. Officers returned to Dahmer’s residence, where they discovered Polaroids of human remains in the bedroom and decapitated heads in the refrigerator. “These are real,” one cop stated as he showed the other the images. When Dahmer realized what the cop was holding, he assaulted them and attempted to resist arrest, but he was defeated. He is claimed to have said, when pinned to the floor, “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 more detailed investigation of Dahmer’s residence. There was also a torso in his freezer, among other terrible finds. “It felt more like deconstructing someone’s museum than an actual crime scene,” said the chief medical examiner at the time.
The confession of Jeffrey Dahmer
Jeffrey Dahmer admitted to seducing, murdering, and dismembering 17 men and boys. After his arrest, Dahmer was subjected to approximately 60 hours of police interrogation, and the serial killer forfeited his right to have an attorney present during the interrogations. In an interview with Inside Edition in 1993, Dahmer explained why he did what he did. “I had these obsessive cravings and thoughts of controlling [my victims] and possessing them permanently,” he explained. “Is that why you killed them?” the reporter inquired. “Right, not because I was mad at them, not because I despised them, but because I wanted to keep them with me.” And as my fixation intensified, I began to save body pieces like skulls and skeletons.” He went on to say that his impulse to murder and mutilate people did not “come overnight,” but that his transformation to dehumanizing others and seeing them as objects happened gradually. Dahmer was later diagnosed with schizotypal personality disorder, psychotic disorder, and borderline personality disorder, yet he was found to be legally sane enough to stand trial.
On September 10, 1991, Dahmer pled not guilty to 15 charges of murder, but altered his plea to guilty but crazy in January 1992, removing the necessity for a criminal trial but focusing instead on his sanity. In contrast to earlier criminal cases, a decision did not have to be unanimous. For a guilty verdict to stand, 10 of the 12 jurors must agree on the defendant’s mental condition. “In the instance of Dahmer, he stated that he understood his activities were bad, so the question became whether or not he was able to control himself,” A&E True Crime psychologist Dr. Holly Schiff explained. “Dahmer had the burden to establish to the jurors [since 10 out of 12 must agree] that he was insane at the time of the crimes” by pleading insanity. For three weeks, jurors were told about Dahmer’s heinous actions and heard from relatives of his victims about their loss. Dahmer told the court after obtaining 15 consecutive life sentences, the highest punishment Judge Laurence C. Gram Jr. of Milwaukee County Circuit Court could impose, that he wanted might be executed for the “holocaust” he was responsible for, according to the New York Times at the time. Christopher Scarver seemed to have granted him his request.
