He Cut Their Eyes Out: The Gruesome Story of Charles Albright | Serial Killer Series (Warning: Graphic)

(Charles Albright. Picture credit: Born To Kill)

Here we are in the third instalment of my Serial Killer series and this week the focus is on none other than Charles Albright. I'm sure you are pretty freaked out by the picture above and don't those eyes just say it all? very cold, very haunting and very very dark. His eyes have been described as evil and it's no surprise especially if you have knowledge of who he is and his background. 

It's hard know where to start with Charles because his story is a very twisted one and I have to warn you that some of the details will be disturbing so as with all of my posts I just want you to bear that in mind. I try as always to be as sensitive and respectful as possible without shying away from the facts of theses cases. Just as a side note I am still currently working on my true crime book and will keep you posted about that but let's get into this case, shall we? 

Charles Frederick Albright came into the world on the 10th of August 1933 in Amarillo, Texas and was put up for adoption. His birth mother was a nurse and for some unknown reason she gave him up but it was only three weeks later that a couple by the names of Delle and Fred Albright came along to give him a loving home. Obviously they gave Charles his full name and the couple were delighted with this cute little bundle of joy who was now in their lives. 

The Albrights were a close family and both Delle and Fred doted on little Charles. He was a bright and smiley child and his early years were somewhat normal, no abuse or traumatic events occurred. Both parents were very hands on, especially his mother who seemed to rule the household with an iron fist. Delle was a caring woman and very overprotective of her adopted son but there was also a very strange, somewhat sinister side to her too. 

(Charles Albright with his adopted parents. Picture credits: Texas Monthly)

It seemed the novelty of having an adoptive son was wearing off for Delle and Charles would be subjected to some bizarre punishments for the least little thing. If he couldn't finish eating his dinner he would be locked in a dark room. There were occasions where Charles would be forced to have a nap and if he wasn't sleepy she would tie him to the bed. There was a constant state of confusion for Charles because his mother could be both loving and strict. There was a touch of abuse in a psychological manner but he wasn't physically harmed or neglected but the punishments could be harsh. 

Delle encouraged Charles to collect dead animals that were found by the roadside or in the woods and together they had this horrible hobby of cutting the deceased animals open, taking out the remains and stuffing the bodies before sewing them up again. This is known as Taxidermy and as much of a lover of horror as I am and a true crime enthusiast, I would have to say that Taxidermy is creepy as hell in my opinion. As an adult it's not a pleasant thing but can you imagine partaking in this with a child? You're supposed to take kids to the beach and build sandcastles or watch cartoons with them, obviously Delle had other ideas. 

A significant detail which would come into play pretty much for the rest of Charles's life was his fixation on replacing the dead eyes of the animals and eyes in general. In Taxidermy, the common procedure is to replace the deceased animals eyes with plastic or glass shiny ones as an attempt to make them look more alive. This was quite expensive so Delle would encourage Charles to use buttons instead and this gave the animals an even more sinister look, almost like they had two black holes where the eyes should be.

As Charles got older, not content with collecting dead roadkill, he was given a gun and would hunt for small animals to kill himself and take back home to stuff and put on display. This whole sickening routine was deemed perfectly fine by Delle and Fred. 

Despite the strange home life, he was quite a bright child at school but somewhere something went wrong because Charles began to fall off the deep end and by the age of just 13 he had already set himself on a career path of theft and petty crime. He'd been arrested a couple of times for assaults and theft and the second time he was apprehended he was sent to prison for a year and this seemed to have given him a bit of a reality check, for a short period of time at least. When he got out of prison it seemed that he and turned over a new leaf and enrolled in college. 

In the beginning of his stint at a Teacher's college, Charles seemed to be flying high with fantastic grades and was a popular sportsman. He got on with everyone and was said to be charming and always had a laugh with friends but soon strange behaviours were making his friends feel uncomfortable. Charles had found out that a friend of his had just broken up with his girlfriend. As a prank that Charles thought was going to be hilarious, he broke into his friend's room and took personal pictures of the guy's ex-girlfriend. He cut out the eyes in all of the photographs and stuck them on the ceiling so that his friend would feel like her eyes were on him the whole time. 

It wasn't long before Charles's criminal ways popped up again and he ended up getting kicked out of college for stealing. Not letting this deter him from his desired career in teaching, he forged qualifications and documents and found a role as head of Biology at a school. He'd become quite the master conman and if he wasn't stealing, he was committing forgery and of course it was only a matter of time before his cover was blown and he was fired from this role. 

It's amazing to think that someone could manage to get into a teaching role without the proper qualifications and manage to fool everyone around them but back in those days it took a long time for qualifications to be checked and there was no proper system. Today it can all be done in the space of 5 minutes thanks to our advancement of technology but everything back then was pretty much paper based. 

Despite these shenanigans in his working and educational life, his love life seemed to be going from strength to strength and he married a girl named Dixie whom he met at college. His parents had also had some rental properties which were given to him so he was able to rent these properties out and this gave him some money to get by. For some reason, as talented as he was academically, Charles could not seem to finish anything and when it came to jobs, he could only manage about 3 months before either being fired or just quitting.

His love life soon began to suffer because Dixie was getting fed up of looking after him financially. Despite the small income that he made from the rental properties, it seemed that he had more money going out than coming in and he heavily relied on Dixie's earnings from her day job at a gift shop. To show utter disrespect to the woman who was helping keep clothes on his back and food in his mouth, Charles would wait until Dixie left for work in the morning and he would drive to meet sex workers using some of the money she gave him. 

Charles would either meet the sex workers at motels or use one of his rental properties. There they would engage in sexual activity. It got to the point where Charles was well known by the sex workers and they began to trust him. He would buy them food, drugs, alcohol and sometimes he would give them money if they needed it.

Dixie finally gave up on Charles (it's unknown if she found out about the sex workers or grew tired of constantly footing the bill) and the couple divorced. Not having his constant supply of Dixie's wages to keep him going, he turned to crime again and was caught stealing from a hardware store. He was supposed to have served two years but managed to get away with it again and only served 6 months. 

It seemed to be no matter what Charles did, the mistakes that he made or the things that he did to people, he always landed on his feet. The petty crimes were bad enough but he then started to take things further, much further. Being the charismatic conman that he was, he always involved himself in community activities and got close to his neighbours. Everyone thought he was a swell guy and didn't know anything of his past, he even became a trusted babysitter. 

Things turned even darker when he was accused of sexually assaulting one of the children he was supposed to be looking after and he managed to get away with this too. The girl's family didn't want to put their daughter through the added trauma of a trial and Charles claimed to be innocent but pleaded guilty because he just wanted the whole thing to go away. He was placed on probation and no more was said about the matter. 

By the time 1990 rolled around, Charles was 57 years old and his life of petty crime, forgery and sexual assault was now switching to murder. From my research and from various Criminologists that I have followed over the years, they all say a similar thing, it's very rare that people start to become serial killers in their 40s and 50s and in the case of Charles, will we ever know the truth?

Charles selected sex workers from the infamous red light district known as Jefferson Boulevard. His first victim was said to have been 33 year old Mary Lou Pratt. Mary was a mother who was struggling financially and was desperate to get out of the game when her mutilated body was found posed on the street in a residential area known as Oak Cliff. She was partially nude and had been badly beaten and shot in the back of the head.

At the time in the early 1990s, Dallas had a huge spike in homicides and it wasn't seen as unusual for a sex worker to have been found deceased from either a violent incident or a drug overdose. The term used back in those days was 'prostitute' and as sad as it is, there was a stigma attached and little sympathy for women who were classed as being from the wrong sides of the tracks. 

The cops thought that Mary's murder was just another tragic case of a violent and deadly incident with either a pimp or a customer but what they were soon to discover was that this murder scene was different because not only was she horrendously beaten, shot and posed in a certain manner on a public street, she had her eyes removed from the sockets. Her eyes had been removed in such a careful way as to not leave a mark. It was very gruesome and disturbed seasoned detectives as well as the local community. 

A short while after this a friend of Mary's and fellow sex worker, Veronica had been spotted by the police with injuries to her face and head. When they questioned her she told them that she had been with Mary on the night of her murder, she claimed that a white male with ''salt and vinegar'' hair had picked both of them up in his car and at some point in the evening the man turned violent. Veronica managed to run away from the man after he assaulted her and hid in a drain whilst he was looking for her. Luckily she was able to escape from further harm but unfortunately, Mary was unable to get away. 

The police were not sure whether to take Veronica's statement seriously because she had seemed pretty out of it due to being on some form of substance but later on they did take her story serious when another sex worker was found deceased, posed in the same manner near to the location where Mary was found. The victim, 27 year old Susan Beth Peterson was also a working girl who had been beaten, shot and had her eyes removed. It was in this moment that detectives believed that they had a serial killer on their hands. 

The news horrified the local community as news spread in the media. Everyone had already been shocked and horrified by Mary's murder but for this gruesome scene to have happened again, it caused a huge wave of fear throughout Texas. 

Charles was paying attention to the news and obviously loved the horror and fear he was causing as well as the attention he was getting. He chose the location and the poses that he did because he wanted these women to be discovered and for there to be as much devastation as possible. He wanted to play with the police and tried to switch up his routine a little to try and confuse them and throw them off guard. 

His next victim was an African-American woman by the name of Shirley Williams. Shirley had been found near an Elementary school and this time he was careless in the removal of the eyes. It was a horrible scene, Shirley had been mutilated and posed pretty much the same way as Mary and Susan. Shirley had also been a working girl and her body was found in a public street by a horrified waitress. 

(Charles Albright's known victims: From left to right: Mary Lou Pratt, Susan Peterson and Shirley Williams. Picture credits: NY Daily News)

Hairs were found at the scene and sent off for testing and traced back to Charles Albright. He was arrested and put on trial. The jury found him guilty of the murder of Shirley but although they strongly believed that he was responsible for the murders of both Mary and Susan, there was not enough evidence for them to be 100%. It's no secret to anyone though that Charles committed all three murders and in my opinion, possibly more. As I mentioned before, it's rare for a man to start killing like this from his 50s as a first time and the whole procedure of cutting out the eyes so carefully as to not leave a mark in the cases of Mary and Susan. The sad thing is we may never know because his targets were all sex workers. He may have murdered women before but just didn't remove their eyes? 

He was given a life term without parole and was reported to have covered his cell in pictures of eyes he ripped out of magazines and newspapers. He also talked obsessively about eyes, right up until his death. Charles Albright may have been responsible for many more deaths but sadly we will never know because he took all of his secrets to the grave with him when he passed away at the age of 87 on the 22nd of August 2020. 

This was quite a complex case to write about and for those who know the story, there are people who believe that Charles was not responsible for all three of the murders he was suspected of. Some people believe that he murdered many others who were never identified. Maybe the victims that we don't know about where (as sad as it is to say) 'forgotten girls and women' who ran away from home or were on drugs and forced into sex work who got caught up with Charles and met a horrible ending and placed somewhere that has yet to be discovered? We may never know. 

Thank you as always for checking out my latest instalment in my Serial Killer Series, I hope I have been able to bring some new information and insights into these individuals who you may not have heard of before? There's more to come and I hope you will join me for the upcoming posts. 

I just want to take a moment. as I always do in my posts to think of the victims, the ones we know about and the ones that have never been identified and of course their families. May they rest in peace.


Further Reading And Sources:

- The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers | Book by Michael Newton

- The Big Book of Serial Killers | Book by Jack Rosewood

- The Eyeball Killer | Book by John Matthews

- Charles Albright | Murderpedia

- See No Evil | Texas Monthly

- Charles Albright | Wikipedia

- Charles Albright | Born To Kill (Documentary)


Hope to see you on my socials x

Posted by at 1 comment:
Labels: , , , , , ,

The Serial Killer Who Inspired The Movie 'Scream': The Gainesville Ripper | Serial Killer Series

 
(Danny Rolling. Picture credit: Oxygen)

So I guess you can pretty much see from the title the case that I will be covering in this post which is my second instalment in my Serial Killer series! Thank you for the interest and comments that I received on my socials about my first subject in this series, Jeffrey Dahmer, I really appreciate it. 

As I type this, my eyes keep moving up to the picture above. What do you see? A pathetic figure? A sorrowful face? Someone with remorse? or a cold-blooded rapist and serial killer? Well, his face freaks me out because I know it inspired a horror story, his face and him in general, the sick and twisted things that he did to innocent people. You see, the man in the jumpsuit is none other than Danny Rolling. He may look like he couldn't fight his way out of a chip bag but this man was a monster and his crimes sickened people so much that a horror movie (Scream, written by Kevin Williamson and Directed by the late, great Wes Craven) was inspired by him. 

Look at his face! The pathetic arched eyebrows are not displayed in a moment of remorse, that is how his face looked 24/7. He had that expression all of the time and to me, it looks exactly like the Ghostface mask. Every picture you see of him, he has the exact same expression.  I know the mask is said to be inspired by the Edvard Munch painting (The Scream) but I think it also looks like Danny Rolling. 

So for those who don't know the real horror story that inspired one of the biggest horror movie franchises of all time then prepare to go down the rabbit hole with me in this post and as always, keep in mind that disturbing details will be shared along the way. 

(Ghostface from the Scream movie franchise. Picture credit: NME)

When it comes to childhoods, Danny Rolling had a very tough road. He came into the world as Daniel Harold Rolling on the 26th of May 1954 in Shreveport, Louisiana, USA. To say his home life was violent is an understatement. His father James was a policeman and it's assumed that his mother Claudia must have stayed at home to look after him and his brother Kevin. From day one there was a a feeling of rejection and that wasn't just a paranoid thought on Danny's part, his father actually looked him in the eyes and told him that he did not want him and that he should never have been born. 

Danny's father was a physically and emotionally abusive father and husband and back in those days what went on in a policeman's family stayed in a policeman's family. Married women didn't have many rights when it came to their husbands, rape in a marriage wasn't taken seriously and neither was domestic abuse. Throw all of that in with the fact that his father was a respected policeman and you didn't really have a leg to stand on. It's terrible to think of how so many people suffered and still suffer today. Danny's father dished out violence to both his wife and boys, he was the head of the house and a complete control freak who ruled by fear. His father was a complete psychopath and again, as I mentioned with my first subject (Jeffrey Dahmer) how much was Danny's later behaviour down to nature or nurture? 

His father was a cruel man who made his family suffer terribly. There was an incident where his wife showed up at the hospital with blood all over her wrists claiming that her husband had forced her to harm herself. Due to the control and manipulation he had over his wife, she kept going back to him. Feeling isolated and alone, Danny had a pet dog who meant the whole world to him, he loved the dog and the dog loved him back. James being the sadistic monster that he was, enjoyed inflicting pain on the dog for his own sick pleasure. 

Danny would watch in horror after being beaten by his father or in some cases tried to intervene whilst James physically abused the poor animal. Eventually the dog became weaker and weaker because of the horrendous beatings and this broke Danny's heart. To cause further pain and devastation to his son and to the long suffering animal, he beat the dog to death right in front of Danny and walked away leaving the animal in a bloody mess on the ground. (I had to stop my research at this point and get up and cuddle my two cats - I can't cope with animal cruelty of any kind). The poor dog died in pain in Danny's arms. 

At that moment, one's heart goes out to Danny. There was no excuse for him to go on to what he eventually became but you can see how his traumatic and disturbing childhood set him on a very dark path. As he held his beloved dog in his arms, something must have died inside of him that day, you can imagine a sense of rage, a sense of anger. The dog was all that he had and his father took that away from him too. 

I think it's understandably very difficult for those of us who are animal lovers to even attempt to imagine what that must have been like as a child to witness, to see your own father doing such a thing. It would be horrific and traumatic to witness as a fully grown adult. So one wonders how someone who is a child, with a young brain, processes this. The internal anger and rage must been immense and knowing what he was to do years later with his evilness and complete disregard for life was clearly demonstrated. 

It's no surprise then for me to tell you that Danny, as he continued to get older, was on a road to destruction, forget about an academic career, or positive future prospects, he was getting worse as the years went on. He was never out of trouble and always involved in petty crime. There was also a peeping Tom incident and he found himself in all kinds of trouble which highly embarrassed his father. Despite the fact that he had never shown any love to his son, abused the boy physically, mentally and forced him to watch as he murdered his beloved dog, James continued to remind Danny he was a screw-up and wanted to teach him a short, sharp shock by putting handcuffs on him and taking him away to the police station. It didn't work, all it did was further cement the utter contempt for his father. Danny no longer cared and continued with his path of destruction. 

The relationship between father and son became more toxic and Danny was now old enough to fight back. The pair would come to blows and on one occasion, Danny tried to kill his father. James was left scarred for life losing an ear and an eye in the attack. 

At the time of the attack on his father in 1990, Danny had already gone to the point of no return. The petty crimes had now turned to murder with him committing a sickening and deadly attack on three family members on the evening of November 4th 1989. A grandfather together with his daughter and grandson were just getting ready to sit and have dinner together when Danny sprung upon them. He murdered 55 year old William Grissom, his 24 year old daughter Julie and her 8 year old son, Sean. Julie had been mutilated and posed in a provocative manner. Danny never knew the Grissom family personally, he just targeted them. The murders were still being investigated at the time Danny tried to murder his father. 

His murderous rage didn't stop with the murders of the Grissom family and the attempted murder of his father. In August of 1990 the following murders he was to commit would be the ones that earned him the nickname 'The Gainesville Ripper'. The beautiful student town of Gainesville, Florida was the place to be in the late 1980s, just going into the 1990s. It was the ideal place to study and had been voted as one of the nicest places to live, a very warm and welcoming place with students from all over America and beyond. 

In late August of 1990, that soon changed when Gainesville became a frightening hunting ground for Danny Rolling. On the 24th of August he broke into the apartment of two female students, Sonja Larson (17) and Christina Powell (17). What was originally seen to be for the purpose of a burglary soon turned into a horrendous nightmare for the two young women. As Danny made his way through the apartment it became clear that it was owned by two young women and he found Christina sleeping on the sofa in the living room. He stood over her for a few minutes and it was clear that she was in a deep sleep so he ventured upstairs where he found Sonja Larson. 

Sonja was asleep in bed when Danny grabbed the terrified teenager and put tape across her mouth. He then proceeded to stab her to death before going back down stairs with intentions of murdering Christina. 

He woke Christina and taped her mouth shut and bound her wrists together before subjecting the young girl to a horrific rape. After this sickening act he stabbed her five times in the back. Like what happened with Julie Grissom, he posed both of the deceased girls in a provocative manner. 

His sickening murder spree didn't end there. The next day on the 25th of August, he struck again and this time he targeted another female student who was on her own, Christa Hoyt who was just 18 years old wasn't in the apartment at the time but Danny used his tools (the same tools he used in all of his murders) to get into the premises and waited for the young girl to come home. Once Christa got home he pounced on the frightened teenager and subjected her to a horrendous attack. 

He went through his same sickening routine with Christa, taping her mouth, bounding her wrists and proceeded to choke her. He sexually assaulted her before stabbing her in the back. In an even more sickening twist, he decapitated Christa and placed her head on a bookshelf just in front of her body that he had provocatively posed. He later said that he placed the head on the shelf because he wanted to cause as much horror and shock to whoever found Christa's remains. 

Not yet content with the slaughter of these three innocent young girls, he continued his rampage. The day after this, 27th of August, he broke into a apartment which was shared by a young female and a male, Tracy Paules and Manny Taboada, both were just 23 years old. The pair were asleep in different rooms in the house. Danny prowled the apartment and was surprised to find Manny in one of the rooms, there was a struggle between the pair with the brave Manny trying his best to fight off his attacker and save Tracy in the process. With all of the commotion, Tracy came to see if Manny was ok, only to find Danny Rolling standing over the young man's bloodied body. The terrified young woman ran to her room and did what she could to barricade the door shut but Danny was able to break his way through. 

Again, once he had the poor girl in his clutches, she was subjected to having her mouth taped, hands tied, brutally raped and then stabbed in the back before her body was posed in an undignified manner.

Danny Rolling then fled the scene and the shock and devastation filled Gainesville, everyone was on high alert. Students dropped out of their courses and enrolled in other Universities, the ones that did stay on were subjected to a curfew for their own safety and told to go out in groups as well as share rooms together. All doors and windows had to be tightly locked. It was a very frightening time. Gainesville went from being seen as this happy, cheery and safe place of opportunity to a place of fear overnight. 

You'd think that Danny would want to lay low knowing that the police were investigating and determined to get to the bottom of who was stalking and murdering the young students of Gainesville but no, he carried on without a shred of remorse and this let to his own downfall and arrest. 

(Danny Rolling. Picture credit: IMDB)

He was arrested on the 8th of September 1990 for burglary and the tools he had with him matched up with the same tools and imprints left at each of the crime scenes. There was plenty of forensic evidence linking him to the murders and the further the police investigated him the more they realised that he had also been responsible for the Grissom murders. The way he had posed and murdered Julie Grissom and the female students was exactly the same. They also found materials, poems and songs that he had written that included details of the murders that only the killer would know. In November of 1991 he was charged with the murders and finally Gainesville could breathe a sigh of relief to know that this sick monster was behind bars where he belonged. 

With the huge amount of evidence stacked against him he had no choice but to plead guilty to all the charges put before him and he received a death sentence. 

On the 25th of October 2006 he was put to death by lethal injection. He never showed any remorse for his crimes or expressed any apologies or anything to the families of the victims, instead he sang a gospel song. He did write a letter before he was put to death where he officially confessed to the Grissom murders. 

There was some controversy during his time on death row, he thought of himself as an artist and song writer and would sell his work with the help of his partner. He was involved in a bizarre relationship with a true crime writer, Sondra London. From what I have read about this woman she comes across as a ghoul and an opportunist who had a really disturbing obsession with serial killers. The pair actually got engaged and she proudly told anyone who would listen (or forced to listen) that this convicted murder, rapist and mutilator of young women (who also killed an 8 year old child), was her partner. Some people have no morals or human decency.

There are those of us who write about true crime because we are interested in criminology. I'm also interested in the forensic side of things too. I want to be a fully fledged true crime writer, not for any sick or ghoulish reasons, but for educational purposes. I do not and never have admired murderers in any shape or form. I don't understand the lonely and desperate women who are drawn to serial killers, who write to them in prison or even visit them. It is a fantasy to them in ways which we will never understand. These delusional women almost see serial killers as celebrities and feel that they are the ones to change them. I think I've mentioned this before in a previous post, a story about a woman who became obsessed with The Night Stalker, Richard Ramirez. She wrote to him in prison, sent him money, he of course was just using her. It was all sunshine and rainbows in her mind until she finally went to visit him for the very first time.

In the space of a quick 20 minute visit, she came out of the prison looking like she had seen a ghost. It's unknown what was said during the visit but she vowed never to write to Richard Ramirez ever again. She looked like she had gotten the fright of her life. Some of these women do not know who they are dealing with and they are lucky that these monsters are behind bars and remain behind bars. 

I just want to take this moment to remember the known victims of Danny Rolling. 

RIP:

William Grissom

Julie Grissom

Sean Grissom

Sonja Larson

Christina Powell

Christa Hoyt

Tracy Paules

Manny Taboada

(The five student victims who lost their lives at the hands of Danny Rolling. Picture credit: Murderpedia)


Further Reading & Sources:

- A Monster of All Time | Book by J.T Hunter

- The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers | Book by Michael Newton

- The Big Book of Serial Killers | Jack Rosewood

-Danny Rolling: Article | The Sun

- Danny Rolling | Murderpedia

- Danny Rolling | Wikipedia

- Scream (Movie) | Wikipedia

- Gainesville, Florida | Wikipedia

- The Gainesville Ripper | Discovery (Documentary)

- Danny Rolling | Channel 5 (Documentary)

- Danny Rolling Trial: Opening Prosecution Statement | Court TV

- Danny Rolling Trial: The Opening Defense Statement | Court TV


 I hope that you have learned something new in this second instalment of my Serial Killer series or maybe this is the first time you have discovered Danny Rolling, whatever the case, I appreciate you joining me again for this case. 

I will be taking a break for Easter but I will be back the week after with my third instalment of my Serial Killer series. Thank you so much for all of your amazing support and I wish you a wonderful Easter break.

See you in the next post (and hopefully on my Socials in the meantime) x 

Posted by at 2 comments:
Labels: , , , , ,

''I'm Going To Eat Your Heart'' | The Life & Gruesome Crimes of Jeffrey Dahmer (& Other Details You May Not Know) | Serial Killer Series | Part Two

(Jeffrey Dahmer at his trial. Picture credit: britannica)

Please note, as mentioned in part one, I will be sharing some very disturbing details in this post so please be aware. 

Just a year after the horrific murder and dismemberment of 18 year old hitchhiker, Steven Hicks, Jeffrey had a short stint at university which was a disaster. He became very withdrawn and didn't get on with his fellow students. He drank continuously and stole from the other boys. There was an incident where his flatmates went on a night out but didn't invite him, he took revenge by throwing pizza and furniture all over the room, his flatmates were sick of him. His parents were at a loss at what to do with him so they surprisingly enlisted him in the U.S Army. He trained as a medical specialist. He soon found himself in Germany and when he spoke later of this period in his life he said he enjoyed it. He claimed that he enjoyed the routine of it all and it kept his disturbing fantasies under control. His role in the Army was to be short lived though as his drinking got in the way and he was relieved of his duties. 


A lot of people don't know about this part of Jeffrey's history, that he served in the U.S Army and although he claimed that his sick fantasies has calmed down during this period, some of his fellow soldiers would later claim that he was notorious was drugging and raping boys at the camps. One man claimed that he had been raped and tortured repeatedly by Jeffrey Dahmer over a period of 17 months. 

When Jeffrey was let go from the Army it seemed that his life had no direction. He was very intelligent but couldn't seem to do anything right when it came to going to University and maintaining an Army career. His addiction to alcohol putting the hems on both of these opportunities. 

When he left the Army and returned home, he was still plagued by memories of what he had done to Steven Hicks. He decided to go to the location where he had put some of the remains and found that they had rotted away to just bones. He smashed the bones up as much as he could and proceeded to scatter the fragments around the woods. 

By the late 1980s he found that his fantasies had once again taken full control. There were various previous attempts for Jeffrey Dahmer to have been caught, the time in 1978 when the police stopped his car and saw the bags in the back seat, a further inspection of these bags could have prevented the horrific murders that were to come. There was also an opportunity for something to have been done about his horrendous conduct in the Army but alas he'd gotten away with his actions again. 

In between the dates of his first killing in 1978 right up until the late 1980s. Jeffrey had spent some time in the Army but was then back on the streets in America and frequenting bath houses and gay bars. He was notorious for drugging and raping men at these establishments, months would go by where he would do this and would get banned from various places. He'd been caught, fined and received suspended sentences for exposing himself. His murder of Steven Hicks was unknown at the time or that he was a murderer but it was definitely known that Jeffrey Dahmer was a serial rapist.

His parents thought it would be a good idea for him to go and stay with his grandmother in Milwaukee. This didn't make a difference for Jeffrey in regards to the evilness that was continuing to grow within him. 

He was still trying to control his urge to kill by going to bath houses to drug and rape men and he even stole a mannequin which he took home and would masturbate over, pretending it was a real body. Jeffery was mostly living with his grandmother at the time and she didn't like the idea of the mannequin being in the house so he got rid of it and again focused of a real life scenario. 

Jeffrey later claimed, when discussing his crimes, that he did not enjoy anal sex, he found it uncomfortable plus he didn't like the feeling of not being in control. He always had to be in charge when it came to sex. He enjoyed penetrating other men but not having it done to him. He also said that he found it difficult to maintain an erection when his sexual partner was awake, he claimed that he could only get a full erection when the other person was passed out or deceased. He would drug his sexual partners or victims with sleeping pills and they would be passed out for up to 8 hours enabling him to do whatever he wanted. He claims that he would just masturbate, sometimes up to 3 times whilst the other person was passed out. 

Jeffrey also have a fixation with the movies 'Return of The Jedi' and 'The Exorcist III', apparently he would show some of the scenes of these movies to his victims before he murdered them 

In November of 1987 he went to a hotel with a 25 year old man by the name of Steven Tuomi who he met at a bus stop. Jeffrey already had the hotel room booked beforehand on the chance that he would meet someone to take back for a sexual encounter or in his case, drug and rape an unsuspecting victim. Jeffrey claimed that the pair had been drinking. He'd put the pills in Steven's drink and saw that he had passed out but Jeffrey carried on drinking and claimed to have woken up some time later to find that Steven was deceased. He noticed injuries on Steven's chest and there was some bruising on his own arms indicating there must have been some sort of struggle with Steven trying to defend himself. 

He said he never meant to murder Steven and went into a panic over what he had done. He said that he had flashbacks of what he had done to Steven Hicks. He left the hotel room to buy a suitcase and took Steven's body back to his grandmother's house where he kept Steven's body in his grandmother's cellar for 9 days. 

After 9 days he took Steven's body out of the cellar whilst his grandmother was out of the house and proceeded to cut the corpse open. In doing so, he was sexually aroused and proceeded to masturbate. After he was finished with Steven's body he dismembered his remains and put them into the trash. 

He later told a psychiatrist that the murder of Steven Tuomi was a turning point that he no longer wanted to fight against his urges. He said that he realised that going to a public hotel to rape his victims was too much of a risk as well as being too much trouble for him so he took the other risk of taking men back to his grandmother's house because he felt he could have more privacy there. 

His next victim James Doxtator, was just 15 years old who he met outside of a gay bar. Jeffrey took the young boy back to his grandmother's house whilst she was asleep. He promised the young boy $50 for some nude photographs and the boy agreed. Once at the house they both engaged in sexual contact and drank alcohol. At one point, James announced that he would have to leave to which Jeffrey began to panic and wanted to keep the boy at the house so he strangled him.  

After the boy was quite clearly deceased, Jeffery laid beside him for a period of time before performing anal penetration on the decedent. He kept the boy's body for a week and would take the corpse out at certain times when his grandmother was not around, he would lay next to the corpse and masturbate. After a week when the body was becoming too decomposed and the odour becoming too strong, he removed the skin from the body, dismembered him and put the remains in the trash. 

His fourth victim was 22 year old Richard Guerrero, same situation with taking Richard back to the house, drugging him and performing sexual acts before killing him. He used a different method of disposing of the remains by dismembering the corpse and dissolving the skin in acid. He kept Richard's skull for a period of a time before throwing it in the trash along with the rest of his remains. 

24 year old Anthony Sears was the last victim to be murdered at Jeffrey's grandmother's house, he was also Jeffrey's 5th known victim. Anthony was drugged, murdered and dismembered. Jeffery kept some of his remains and took them with him to his new apartment when he moved out of his grandmother's house. 

Jeffrey realised that he could no longer keep bringing men back to his grandmother's house, it was too much of a risk and too much hard work trying to disguise the smell and get rid of the remains. For once, he was only too happy to be by himself because having his own apartment meant that he could do what he wanted with the bodies for as long as he wanted without fear of getting caught. 

His notorious address at Oxford Apartments at North 25th Street in Milwaukee was the location for what was to be a unimaginable and sickening killing factory, controlled and operated by Jeffrey Dahmer. His evil and sickening rape and murders before had been too much to bare but the things that he did in that Apartment is too horrendous, too sick that no modern day horror movie could match it. During this time he managed to get a steady job working at a chocolate factory and would go to the bath houses and bars at weekends.

Once he was at that apartment he had free reign to do what he wanted and he let his disturbing and sickening fantasies run wild. More young men were to be drugged, dismembered and sexually assaulted before and after death. He bought a huge refrigerator to store dismembered body parts in. He put remains in acid so he could keep the bones and skulls. He painted the skulls and had them on display in his apartment. He kept full skeletons of some of his victims and froze their hearts and other remains so he could cook and eat them later. He also kept the genitals of some of his victims. 

(Jeffrey Dahmer's apartment: Picture credit: Murderpedia)

Jeffrey had also found a new habit of drilling holes into his victims skulls and injecting acid or boiling hot water to incapacitate them so they would be like zombies whilst he carried out his sickening sexual acts. 

The neighbours complained about the terrible smell that was coming from the trash cans outside of the block. The landlord did some investigating and realised the smell was also coming from Jeffrey's apartment. The landlord confronted Jeffrey and was told that it was due to Jeffrey's freezer breaking down. The landlord accepted this excuse because he believed Jeffrey to be a nice, quiet man who kept himself to himself and was no trouble. 

Jeffrey continued his horrendous routine and on one occasion a 14 year old boy by the name of Konerak Sinthasomphone who had been drugged and had his skull drilled appeared to be in a zombie like state so Jeffrey felt confident enough to leave the apartment to buy some more alcohol. He was surprised to see the boy sitting on the sidewalk naked, covered in blood and disorientated, when he returned. There was two women beside him trying to talk to him and help him. Jeffrey tried to convince the two women that the young man was his friend but they didn't believe him and the police were called. 

When the police arrived, they saw how disorientated the boy was and Jeffrey explained this away as the boy being drunk. Jeffrey told the officers that the boy had been 20 years old (not 14) and gave them a false name. He said that the boy was his friend and had been staying with him for few weeks and they'd been drinking, Amazingly, the police bought the story and sent the young man back up to Jeffrey's apartment.

Once Konerak was back in the apartment he was subjected to another injection of acid through the hole in his skull. Jeffrey murdered him, dismembered his body, disposed of the remains apart from the skull which he kept in his freezer. The two officers responsible for sending the naked, blood covered young boy back up to Jeffrey's apartment, were later dismissed from their roles. 

Finally the whole sickening nightmare was to come to an end when Jeffrey approached a group of three men with his usual routine of asking if anyone would like to pose for some pictures for some money. One of them agreed to go back to his apartment to shoot the pictures. 

On the 22nd of July 1991, Jeffrey and Tracy Edwards went back to his apartment to shoot the pictures (obviously, Jeffrey had other sickening plans in mind), they took some pictures and drank some alcohol. Tracy noticed the terrible smell and boxes of acid. At one point during a conversation, Tracy turned his head to look at Jeffrey's fish tank to find himself being handcuffed by Jeffrey. Tracy struggled with him and Jeffrey was unable to handcuff both wrists. Knowing he was in trouble and in fear for his life, Tracy tried his best to remain calm as not to get Jeffrey enraged. He agreed to go back into the livingroom with him to to take more photos. At one point Jeffrey laid his head on Tracy's chest to listen to his heartbeat, he then told Tracy that he wanted to eat his heart. Tracy who was quite obviously more terrified as this saga continued, managed to convince Jeffrey to have some more drinks with him. Jeffrey agreed and they both sat in the livingroom and continued to talk, all the while Tracy was thinking about how he was going to get out of his apartment. At one point Jeffrey appeared to become more relaxed and was no longer holding onto the handcuffs or the knife he had been threatening Tracy with. 

Tracy saw an opportunity and quick as a flash he got up from the sofa claiming that he needed to go to the bathroom and suddenly punched Jeffrey in the face and ran out of the apartment. he was able to flag down a police car and told them what happened. 

The police tried to remove the handcuffs from Tracy's wrist but were unable to do so and the three of them returned to Jeffrey's apartment. Once at the apartment they found Jeffrey who tried to fight the police officers, there was endless pictures of dismembered bodies found in Jeffrey's bedroom. He was arrested, Tracy was taken to safety and the apartment was sealed off to be searched. 

What investigators found was unbelievable. This is this list of evidence found:

- Photographs of dismembered bodies (74 in total) 
- Boxes of acid for the purpose of dissolving human flesh.
- Refrigerator with human blood and human remains inside.
- A bag of organs and flesh
- Two human skeletons
- Two human hands
- Seven human skulls 
- A human scalp
- A human torso
- Two preserved penises

Once arrested, Jeffrey claimed that he was relieved that the nightmare had come to an end because he wanted it be stopped. He claimed the purpose of keeping the skeletons was so that he could create a shrine for himself. He said that he ate some of his victims because he felt that by eating them that they would become a part of him and that would mean that they would never be able to leave him. His confession made for gruesome and horrific reading, it was 200 pages long. 

He pleaded guilty to all the murders and co-operated fully with investigators. He reportedly sat for hours determined to have each of the photographs found in his apartment fully identified. 

He was placed on trial for the purpose of determining whether he was sane or insane. If he was declared insane it would mean that he would spend the rest of his life in a secure psychiatric hospital. If declared sane, then he would simply go to prison. There was no death penalty in Wisconsin at that time. 

He was declared sane and was sentenced on the 15th of February 1992 to 15 terms of life imprisonment. He was later convicted of a 16th murder and another life sentence was added on. One of the murders he didn't receive a sentence due to lack of evidence. 

Not long into his sentence, things took another dramatic turn on the 28th of November 1994, when he and another inmate were found unconscious on the bathroom floor of the gymnasium in the prison. Both men had been severely beaten with a metal bar by a man named Christopher Scarver. Both men died of their injuries, Jeffrey died an hour after he was found and the other man, Jesse Anderson, died two days later in hospital. Jeffrey was 34 years old. 

The man who murdered Jeffrey was an African-American man which for some would seem like some small work of karma considering that most of Jeffrey's victims were African-American. 

Jeffrey's body was cremated but his brain was preserved for some time at his mother's request. Her thought was that the brain could be donated to medical science. A Judge ruled that the brain be destroyed and all of the ashes were split between Jeffrey's parents. 

In 1992, the Apartment where Jeffrey carried out his sickening crimes, was demolished.

(Some of Jeffrey Dahmer's Victims. Picture credit: Daily Mail)

The poor young men who lost their lives at the evil hands of Jeffrey Dahmer were not his only victims, there are numerous men out there who were drugged, raped and tortured by him but were able to escape. Every boy or man that he took back to his apartment was not murdered, some he lost the nerve with. others he was too drunk himself to do anything and on one occasion he'd taken a young man back to his home with plans to kill him but had passed out drunk, waking up the next morning to find that the man had gone and had taken some money from him. 

The story of Jeffrey Dahmer will forever haunt and horrify anyone who has researched the case or followed the headlines in the newspapers at the time. People are still fascinated by him, they don't condone what he did in the slightest but people want to know how can someone be so cold, so evil? How could someone take another human being and treat them like that and who could have sexual thoughts about having sex with corpses and acting upon it? It really is the stuff of nightmares and none of us, even the criminologists, psychologists and investigators who worked on the case and dealt with Jeffery personally will ever understand what he was and why he was driven to do the things he did. 

I think of the victims, the survivors and the families. During Jeffrey's trial, there was a moment when the friends and relatives of the victims were given a chance to speak and a lady stepped forward by the name of Rita Isbell (sister of Errol Lindsey). Jeffrey sat at his table surrounded by lawyers and cops as Rita called him 'Satan' and proceeded to walk towards his table shouting: 

''JEFFREY! I HATE YOU MOTHERF*****! I HATE YOU! DON'T F*** WITH ME JEFFREY I WILL KILL YOU GOD DAMN IT! LOOK AT ME MOTHERF*****! I WANT TO KILL YOU! 

I think anyone who has watched that piece of footage will agree, your heart just goes out to Rita and you can feel her pain. I've watched many trials and been to some court cases myself and there's always been a level of restraint. There is so much the people want to say and do, the urge to just jump over the table and grab Jeffrey is totally understandable. The fact he just sat there without a tear in his eye at any point of the trial and didn't even flinch when Rita (who I felt was incredibly brave and an amazing woman) confronted him just added to the anger. Even people who were not related to the victims, people like myself who have researched and written about this case know of the suffering these young men went through, the ordeals the survivors went through and the pain that the families went through and no doubt continue to go through today. It's a horrible case and Jeffrey Dahmer was pure evil, very manipulative and that's what makes him even more frightening. He just appeared to be a quiet, well spoken guy but behind the scenes was a complete monster. 

I just want to say as I close this post that I appreciate you taking the time to read my first subject in my Serial Killer Series, I know it must have been a harrowing read. I hope you will join me next Sunday for my next subject. 

I welcome any comments here or on my Socials


R.I.P to the known victims of Jeffrey Dahmer:
 
Steven Hicks.
Steven Tuomi.
James Doxtator.
Richard Guerrero.
Anthony Sears.
Raymond Smith.
Edward Smith.
Ernest Miller.
David Thomas.
Curtis Straughter.
Errol Lindsey.
Tony Hughes.
Konerak Sinthasomphone.
Matt Turner. 
Jeremiah Weinberger.
Oliver Lacy.
Joseph Bradechoft. 


The victims were aged between 14 -32. 



Further Reading & Sources: 




 Thank you for joining me for these first two posts in my serial killer series, I hope you will join me again next Sunday, Hope to see you on socials x

Posted by at 1 comment:
Labels: , , , , ,

The Life & Gruesome Crimes of Jeffrey Dahmer (& Other Details You May Not Know) | Serial Killer Series | Part One

 

(Jeffrey Dahmer. Picture credit: Milwaukee Police Department) 

As mentioned in my last post, I am now on to my new series which is focused solely on serial killers. If you are a regular reader of my work, you will know that I have covered a vast number of serial killers in my previous posts. I would list them here but it would be too many to mention, so please check out my 
Archives page where you will find individuals such as Levi Bellfield, Bobby Joe Long and Richard Trenton Chase amongst others. 

It's also important to mention a reminder that in my previous posts as well as this one and the upcoming posts, to bare in mind that I will be sharing some disturbing details, some things might be quite graphic but I will try as always to be as sensitive as I can without shying away from the facts. 

So my serial killer series starts with the infamous Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer. Some may think that he or Ted Bundy would have been obvious choices and the truth is, that I have had those individuals requested many times but I've refused to write about them because (in my opinion) there is a numerous amount of books, documentaries and films about them that I couldn't see myself bringing anything new to the table that people hadn't read or heard of before. 

What I found however is that my readers love my style of writing and my ability to go down the 'rabbit hole' and really delve into these cases bringing details that they may have not heard of before. I was persuaded to write about Jeffrey Dahmer by my fabulous subscriber and incredibly talented musician Shilo who wanted to hear my take on the case and in my style, so here we are. Thank you Shilo for the request and for the amazing support (be sure to check out his music on social media)

You may or may not know that my style of research is very old-school, like the fact that I write a blog instead of having just a podcast or YouTube channel. I'm currently working on my first true crime book as I continue with my blog. I don't listen to other true crime podcasts, on a very rare occasion I will listen to one if I haven't heard about a particular case but I never listen for research purposes. Everything I do is very retro, such as the endless stack of true crime books, encyclopedias of crime and serial killers, law books etc that I have. I read A LOT! I I use the books, newspaper articles, court documents and trial footage as my references in doing my research on a case. I know my blog is referenced many times in podcasts, YouTube channels and other blogs. I also know there is times when my work has been stolen. 

But anyway, that's just a little bit about the background of my research and work leading into this. I went down a very dark hole with Jeffrey Dahmer (it was to be expected if you know anything about his crimes, it's not at all pretty or pleasant in the slightest) and because of how highly publicised (and some would say, as in the case of Ted Bundy, over-glamourised) basically half the books in my bookcase featured him in one way or another so I had a lot of material to work with. 

I will list the books I have been reading and my sources at the end of the post if you are interested in delving even more deeply into the crimes and life of Jeffrey Dahmer but let's begin...

Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer came into the world on the 21st of May 1960 to parents Annette Joyce Flint (known as 'Joyce' but she preferred to be called 'Rocky') and Lionel Herbert Dahmer. He was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA and both of his parents were said to have been quite a good looking couple. The couple had a combined mix of German, Welsh, Norwegian and Irish ancestry so that did a lot to explain Jeffrey's striking looks of auburn hair and blue eyes when he was younger. 

It wasn't just the looks that Jeffrey inherited from his parents, he was very intelligent too (experts would later say that he was somewhat on a 'genius' level). His father had a brilliant mind and studied chemistry and his mother was a teletype machine instructor. So in terms of looks, intelligence and a financial foundation, Jeffrey looked all set but unfortunately, he inherited some of their bad traits too. 

The question of nature or nurture often comes up in the discussion of serial killers, were they born to kill? or was it their upbringing that made them that way? I will leave you to be the judge. All I know is that in my research into his background I found that his parents were reportedly very self-centred. I'm not saying they are responsible for the monster he was to become or for what he did but everyone's brains are wired differently and I think (in my opinion) his childhood relationships with his parents may have played a small part and also with the psychological history of his mother. 

His parents were focused on themselves, his father was 100% dedicated to his career and was often away from home studying. His mother was very over-emotional and suffered mood swings. Even before Jeffrey was born and she was carrying him in pregnancy she went out of her way to manipulate and play emotional games with Lionel to get his attention. His mother wanted to be the sole focus of everything and would play games such as stomping out of the house (fully pregnant with Jeffrey at the time) in the middle of an argument with no boots on in the snow. She walked a few blocks putting her health and that of her unborn child, at risk whilst Lionel frantically searched and finally found her. It seemed she enjoyed the attention, taking Lionel away from his work and making him worry and fuss over her. Both of them displayed narcissistic traits. 

Things weren't any better when Jeffrey was born, Lionel was still busy and his mother often complained of feeling ill and depressed, she spent a lot of time in bed and reportedly had a breakdown. In the beginning she was breast feeding Jeffrey but she felt very uncomfortable doing it so she taped up her breasts and bottle fed him. Experts would later say that this could have played a small factor in his abandonment issues, the child being denied the mother's milk from the breast, breaking that bond. When Lionel argued with her over not breast feeding Jeffrey, she left the house in a bad mood wearing her night dress and laid down in a field. Lionel had to go looking for her again, found her and brought her home.  Young Jeffrey was witness to his father's absence and his mother's strange behaviour and began to believe that he was the sole cause of it all.
 

Jeffrey had his own problems too, as well as witnessing the constant arguments between his parents when his father was at home, he had to wear braces on his legs until he was four years old and had developed a hernia which he had to have surgery for. The trauma of having to undergo a medial procedure at such a young age had a profound affect on Jeffrey which he would talk about many years later. he spoke of the tremendous pain and as a child believing that someone had taken his penis away because of how painful certain areas of his body was. 

Despite the problems at home and the constant upheaval (Lionel moved around due to studies) Joyce fell pregnant again and soon another baby boy was born. Jeffrey was given the honour of naming his baby brother and he called him 'David'. 

At school Jeffrey was said to be quiet but he did have his own group of friends. He did grow to be more private as time went on and nobody really knew what he was feeling or thinking. A trait which he would go on to carry for the rest of his life, his poker face, no expression. He felt more and more abandoned by his parents and rejected. Joyce seemed to be more focused on David and his father was always busy as usual so Jeffrey wasn't quite sure where he fitted in, he felt lonely and did spend a considerable amount of time alone. 

 At school he became fond of a teacher and as a gift he brought her a box full of tadpoles which she put next to the window in the classroom. Seeing the gift he gave her displayed for all to see made him feel wanted, appreciated and special. One day he went into the class and noticed the box of tadpoles had gone. 

He was confused wondering where they were, maybe she took them home? He finally got his answer when he went to visit one of his school friends and noticed the exact same box with tadpoles in his bedroom. Jeffrey was hurt. In his mind she had rejected him and given his gift away to someone else. He felt abandoned again and in a horrible and cruel manner, he poured motor oil into the box, killing the tadpoles.

The incident with the tadpoles was a huge sign of things to come, his complete disregard for life and the attitude of 'If I don't get my way or what I want, then someone is going to pay' and the fact he did this as a child speaks volumes. 

More red flags in his childhood were present especially when he became fixated with animal bones that he found. He asked Lionel how to go about bleaching animal bones and Lionel, thinking his son was taking an interest in Chemistry and Biology was only too happy to show him. 

(Jeffrey Dahmer as a child and into his teenage years. Picture credits: Wikipedia) 

As Jeffrey grew up, he found himself more and more alone at home. He was pretty much left to his own devices. Some young people would enjoy having time to themselves but Jeffrey struggled, he felt out of place and not wanted. When looking into his mother's background, her father was an alcoholic who neglected her and had some strange behaviour and thoughts of his own. The man reportedly drank heavily due to not being able to cope with the thoughts that were in his head. His mother grew up feeling lonely and abandoned and once she got into a relationship with Lionel it seemed as if she was looking for a father figure with the immature behaviour of mood swings and running off for attention. 

Again it brings one back to the thought of there being some sort of genetic factor with Jeffrey's behaviour. 

By the time Jeffrey was 18 he had a full blown 'hobby' of collecting dead animals off the road that had been hit by cars and random deceased ones that he had found in the woods. He was fascinated with how they were put together but this wasn't in some sort of educational manner, he wanted to cut them open and take out their insides, examine them, play with them, bleach their bones and keep them in jars. Apart from the incident I mentioned earlier with the tadpoles, there's no record of Jeffrey being cruel towards animals, he was only interested in animals who had already been killed so that he could examine them. 

Jeffery claimed that he had known since he was a child that he was homosexual as he never really had an interest in girls. As well as his 'hobby' of collecting dead animal remains, he was still able to have his friends although he was growing more and more apart from them. He kept his strange thoughts and activities out of school, private. He also began drinking heavily at a young age in an attempt to help with the loneliness, depression and the fantasies that he was having. He always had strange, macabre thoughts since about the age of 15 but he was able to control them to some extent and using the dead animals helped curb this for a while but what he really hungered for was a human body, a male human body. 

His fantasies revolved around men who were either unconscious or deceased. He imagined himself having complete control over their bodies in a sexual manner. He was particularly fixated on the male torso. He wanted to be able to do what he wanted with the men, lay with them, sleep with them and use them for his own sexual gratification for a long as he wanted. He could only maintain an erection at the thought of these men being 'human zombies', he was never turned on by the thought of an active sexual partner. He had to be in complete control at all times. 

He began to fantasise about a male jogger he would see running near his home every day. He would think about having complete control over this man in a sexual manner. His obsession got to the point where he planned to 'knock-out' this man somehow with a use of a weapon so that the man would be unconscious and he could have sex with him for as long as he wanted. 

He put this horrible plan to action and hid in the bushes with a weapon waiting for the man to run by so that he could attack him and satisfy his sexual perversions. Fortunately the man didn't run past that day and Jeffrey didn't see him again so gave up his plan. One wonders what this poor jogger must have thought, years later, hearing that he could have become a victim of Jeffrey Dahmer. 

Jeffrey's thirst for his fantasy to come to life didn't leave him. He tried his best to control it by drinking. 

It was 1978 and Jeffrey's horrific fantasy was to come to life when he, at the age of just 18, picked up a hitchhiker by the name of Steven Hicks. Steven was on his way to see his girlfriend but agreed to go back to Jeffrey's house for a few drinks and to smoke some weed. At the house the boys talked, smoked and drank but Jeffrey soon realised that Steven wasn't homosexual which disappointed him as he found the 18 year old attractive and enjoyed his company. He didn't feel alone with Steven being there but soon began to fear that it would be time for him to leave and he didn't want to let him go. As Steven was sitting on the bed with his back towards him, Jeffrey picked up a barbell and struck him violently over the head and proceeded to strangle the boy with it. There was a struggle but Jeffrey managed to overpower Steven. 

He then dragged Steven's lifeless body to a crawlspace and the next morning purchased a hunting knife. When he came home he retrieved Steven's body and began to cut it open and examined the remains, cutting off the arms, legs and head. He wrapped the remains in bags and planned to take them to a garbage disposal. On his journey there he was stopped by a police car and questioned, the policeman shone a torch to the backseat and saw the bags, noticed a foul odour but let Jeffrey carry on about his business. That same police officer actually interviewed Jeffrey many years later and the man carried around an enormous amount of guilt at the thought that he was responsible for letting Jeffrey go that night.


Jeffrey passed on the idea of going to the garbage disposal and went straight back home (probably realising what a lucky escape he had but in some ways it must have given him some sort of thrill, to have almost been caught). He went back to the crawlspace with the bags but took out the decapitated, decomposing head and took it to his bedroom where he masturbated in front of it. After he was finished with the remains he dumped them in a wooded area behind his house and got rid of Steven's belongings and the knife by disposing of them in a river and burning his clothes. 

After he had carried out this gruesome murder, he later said that the whole experience was quite traumatic and out of all the names of the people he would go on to drug, rape, torture, dismember and eat, he never forgot about Steven Hicks because he said ''You always remember your first one''. 

The murder of Steven Hicks was the only murder that troubled Jeffrey, years later he would have moments where he would cry when memories of the killing would come flooding back. 

This was a horrifying murder of a young man of 18 by a boy of the same age. Looking back on Jeffrey's past it is as if everything was building up to that point, like the strange and gruesome hobby of collecting dead animal remains, it was like that was just practice for what he really wanted to do to a human being. 

If things weren't already utterly sick and twisted in Jeffrey Dahmer's world, they were about to get much worse, much, much worse...

Continued in part two

(Further reading & sources are shared in my concluding post) 

Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)