Who was Jeffrey Dahmer: Full List of Victims and True Story Behind Netflix's Series

Jenny Barry September 27, 2022 | 23:04

Jeffrey Dahmer, one of America’s most notorious serial killers, was reimagined in Netflix’s new limited series, Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.

Who was Jeffrey Dahmer on Netflix Series

DAHMER on Netflix

Netflix's DAHMER - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, created by Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan, explore the horrifying case of Jeffrey Dahmer and his victims from previously unseen and unheard angles.

While the series is a fictionalized account of Jeffrey's crimes, it’s based on the real-life, brutal murders he carried out for more than a decade without detection.

The 10-episode limited series stars Evan Peters as the notorious killer and cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer, and will follow him from his high school years up to his death in prison at the age of 34. It will also examine Dahmer's murders of 17 men and boys, mostly individuals of colour.

Peters rose to fame as a key member of the American Horror Story cast and has also made appearances in the X-Men franchise and One Tree Hill. He is joined in the cast by Richard Jenkins and Molly Ringwald, who play Dahmer’s dad and stepmom.

Netflix isn’t the first to document Dahmer’s crimes.

Countless books, shows and movies have been produced regarding Dahmer’s life, including a number of high profile interviews and biographical movies prior to Dahmer’s death. Most recently, Ross Lynch and Alex Wolff starred in the 2017 biopic “My Friend Dahmer,” based on the book by Jack Backderf, one of Dahmer’s high school classmates.

Who was Jeffrey Dahmer - Biography, Early Life

Who was Jeffrey Dahmer: Full List of Victims and True Story Behind Netflix's Series

Jeffrey Dahmer – The Milwaukee Cannibal. The story of Jeffrey Dahmer on Netflix

Jeffrey Dahmer was an American serial killer who murdered seventeen men and boys from 1978 to 1991. Jeffrey Dahmer targeted and killed gay men, some as young as 14. He often kept gruesome souvenirs from his killings.

Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer was born on May 21, 1960 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but spent most of his childhood in Bath, Doylestown, Ohio, where he moved with his parents at the age of 6. His father Lionel worked on PhD in chemistrymother was a housewife.

While there are conflicting reports about family life in the Dahmer household, Jeffrey’s childhood was marked by his mom’s struggle with depression, his dad’s prioritization of work and frequent moves around the Akron area.

In the first years of his life Jeffrey he was a happy and curious child. He picked up almost every object on the road and carefully studied its texture. Especially he was interested in animalsbut when he turned ten he became fascinated by their anatomy.

Already as a teenager he was collecting dead animalswhich he took to the forest where the Dahmer family plot was located. There he gutted them and stared curiously at their guts. Years later, his father admitted that his son’s seemingly innocent behavior was the beginning of his downfall.

Jeffrey Dahmer was becoming more and more withdrawn and lonely. He avoided society and was considered a school clown. At the age of 15, he started fantasize about violence and sexual relations with menwhich then turned into obsession and trauma. As the teenager was unable to cope with his fantasies emotionally, he began looking for solace in alcohol. It is, among others for this reason, he was quickly taunted by his peers.

Divorce of their parents and drinking in school

In his senior year of high school, Jeffrey had a hard time divorce of their parents. His father moved to a motel, and his mother moved to another city secretly from her ex-husband. Jeffrey was left alone as a finger.

A few weeks after graduating from high school Jeffrey Dahmer made his sick fantasy related to sexual attraction and violence. His the victim was 19-year-old hitchhiker Steven Hickswho unfortunately got into Jeffrey’s car.

By early high school, Jeffrey was regularly drinking in school and grew increasingly withdrawn, despite maintaining a penchant for pranks and earning a bit of a reputation as a class clown. He was also coming to terms with his sexuality as a gay man.

Jeffrey reportedly developed sexual fantasies throughout high school, that later involved cannibalism and dissection, a practice he had learned through scientific conversations from his dad, a chemist.

The Full List of Jeffrey Dahme's Victims

Who was Jeffrey Dahmer’s first victim?

Three weeks after his high school graduation, Jeffrey Dahmer picked up a hitchhiker named Steven Hicks who became his first murder victim.

Over the course of the next decade, Jeffrey bounced from different environments -- including a brief stint as a student at Ohio State and in the U.S. Army -- while slipping deeper into alcohol dependency and eventually returning to Milwaukee to live with his grandma.

When did Jeffrey Dahmer murder his second victim?

On Nov. 20, 1987 -- almost a decade after killing Steven Hicks (18) -- Jeffrey committed his second murder, which then sparked a four-year stretch of 15 more murders.

A final would-be victim

A final would-be victim, Tracy Edwards, was able to escape from Jeffrey's clutches on July 22, 1991, just three days after he killed Joseph Bradehoft. Tracy led the police back to Jeffrey's apartment, where they found evidence of his other murders and arrested him.

Jeffrey Dahmer's other victims

• November 20, 1987: Steven Tuomi, 24

• January 16, 1988: Jamie Doxtator, 14

• March 24, 1988: Richard Guerrero, 25

• March 25, 1989: Anthony Sears, 26

• May 20, 1990: Raymond Smith (also went by "Ricky Beeks"), 33

• June 1990: Edward W. Smith, 28

• September 1990: Ernest Miller, 22

• September 24, 1990: David C. Thomas, 23

• February 18, 1991: Curtis Straughter, 18

• April 7, 1991: Errol Lindsey, 19

• May 24, 1991: Anthony "Tony" Hughes, 31

• May 27, 1991: Konerak Sinthasomphone, 14

• June 30, 1991: Matt Turner, 20

• July 5, 1991: Jeremiah Weinberger, 23

• July 15, 1991: Oliver Lacy, 23

• July 19, 1991: Joseph Bradehoft, 25

When was Jeffrey Dahmer caught?

On July 22, 1991, one of Jeffrey’s potential victims escaped his home and flagged down police nearby. An investigation revealed countless body parts and images of victims throughout his Milwaukee house.

Over the course of the next two weeks, Dahmer confessed to all 17 murders -- 16 in Milwaukee and one (Hicks) in Ohio. In 1992, he was convicted of 16 counts of murder -- all serving life sentences.

He wasn’t charged for his first Milwaukee murder as he claimed to have no recollection of the killing and prosecutors didn’t feel like they could prove his involvement beyond a reasonable doubt.

Jeffrey Dahmer pleaded guiltybut claimed to be insane. However, Dahmer’s defenders failed to convince the court that their client was suffering from mental illness.

Jeffrey gave a short speech in the courtroom: "I wish I had caused so much pain to the families of the victims. I understand their anger. If I could give my life for their loved ones still with us, I would. Sorry."

The episode chronicles the night of July 22, 1991, when Dahmer was captured after 32-year-old Tracy Edwards escaped his apartment and flagged down police. Edwards is shown on the show fiddling with the locks and trying to escape, which actually became a point of contention in real life.

Is Jeffrey Dahmer still alive?

Jeffrey Dahmer was sentenced to 937 years in prison. November 28, 1994 Dahmer died on the way to the hospital following injuries sustained in a prison gym, where he was attacked by two inmates.

Following sentencing, Dahmer was transferred to Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage, Wisc. Despite concerns for his safety as a notorious serial killer, Dahmer was integrated into the general prison population.

Dahmer was killed on Nov. 28, 1994 by a fellow inmate, two and a half years after his final conviction.

How did he kill them?

Monster The Jeffrey Dahmer Story

Jeffrey was methodical in the way he sought his victims out and killed them. He often picked the victims up at gay bars, malls, and bus stops, according to Biography, and lured them back to his home with promises of money or sex.

Dahmer invited a newly met man to his home, where he offered him a beer. After a long conversation, the 19-year-old announced that he was going on a further journey, which Jeffrey did not want to agree to at all costs. Dahmer needed the company of someone he understood well and could trust. He decided to keep 19-year-old Hicks with him forever.

Jeffrey Dahmer strangled a man a year his senior. He cut up a part of his victim’s body, put it in rubbish bags and drove it by car to a landfill in the middle of the night. The rest of the remains he buried under the house.

Dahmer was getting bigger and bigger alcohol addictionnot being able to find a job. At the urging of his father, he signed up for therapy of anonymous alcoholicsbut quickly gave it up. After some time, he began studies at the University of Ohio, from which he was expelled after a few months. The next step in life Dahmer was joining the army. The man found himself perfectly in the world of discipline and orders of his superiors. Jeffrey he visibly tighter, gained greater self-confidence, energy and enthusiasm for life.

And when Dahmer seemed to be getting straight, on a training mission in Germany he was dismissed from service. The reason for such a decision was excessive his consumption of alcohol. He was also supposed to have committed himself in Germany rape of two soldiers.

After returning to the USA, he decided to live in Miami Beach, where he got a job as a clerk in a sandwich shop and rented a motel room. When it turned out that most of the money earned was drunk, he lost his roof over his head and landed on the beach in the open air. Then he called his father and asked him for financial assistance.

Jeffrey’s father persuaded him to go home by giving him a plane ticket. Lionel Dahmer once again decided to help his son by saving him on psychological therapy. Each time he drove Jefrrey to the building where the classes were taking place, but after getting inside Jeffrey sneaked out the back exit.

After successive failures Jeffrey went to his grandmother to v Milwaukee, with which he had a very close relationship. For a time he led a normal and stable life, but one time his life the demons made themselves known again. In local library a stranger offered him sexual services, which turned out to be a turning point in Jeffrey’s later life. Dahmer refused to have sexual intercourse but he couldn’t shake off the fantasies coming back about a submissive lover.

He stole a dummy from a shop window and hid it in his room in the house of his grandmother, with whom he was living at the time. He took it out of the closet to then masturbate to it the plastic silhouette of a man.

Jeffrey became a regular at Milwaukee’s gay clubs over time. Killer he drugged his partners with sleeping pillsand when you fell asleep, he lay down by them, listening to the sounds of their bodies.

In November 1987 Jeffrey Dahmer in one of the clubs he met a 25-year-old man, whom he then invited to a nearby hotel. Jeffrey to his guest he put sleeping pills in his drinkand later murdered. In a shop nearby, he bought a huge suitcase in which he hid the body, and then ordered a taxi. The driver who helped Dahmer with his luggage in the car he joked even that Jeffrey seems to be transporting a body in it. He couldn’t have known that his joke was a terrifying truth.

Corpse the man was taken to his grandmother’s house, where he eats in the basement dismembered. The only one purpose of life Dahmer has become the pursuit of sexual pleasure. In 1994, in an interview with American television, he admitted that he had lost control of his obsession and decided to surrender to it unconditionally.