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Monique Wells

Mrs. Bufford

English III 3A

May 01, 2017

Jeffrey Dahmer

Jeffrey Dahmer, also known as the Milwaukee cannibal, was an American serial killer

and sex offender, who raped, murdered and dismembered 17 men and boys between 1978 and

1991. Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on May 21, 1960, Jeffrey Dahmer displayed troubling

behavior following a childhood surgery. He then committed his first murder in 1978, and was

arrested multiple times before finding his second victim in 1978. In addition to killing the men

and teeneagers he lured home, he mutilated, photograph and performed sexual acts on the

victims corpses, keeping body parts as mementos. Dahmer was captured in1991 and sentenced

to 16 life terms. He was killed by a fellow prison inmate, Christopher Scarver, in 1994. Jeffrey

Dahmers murders, and the way the media portrayed them, have had an impact on nearly

everyone. The clean-cut Dahmer instilled fear in the eyes of many, spawned hatred in certain

groups, and has even made his mark in the entertainment industry.

You can say Dahmer had kind of a rough childhood. When Dahmers mother, Joyce, was

pregnant with him doctors prescribed morphine and phenobarbital, among other medications. At

one point, Joyce was taking twenty-six pills a day. Depict this, Dahmer was born without

complications and appeared to be a happy, normal child. He was described as an energetic and

happy child until the age of four. He had to have a surgery to correct a double hernia , and this

operation changed his behavior profoundly afterwards. Noticeably subdued, he became more and

more withdrawn following the birth of his younger brother and his familys frequent moves. He
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became remote, fearful, and distant. He would sit for hours in front of the television without

moving. Even his body language changed. His movements became stiff and labored, just like an

old man. By the time he began grade school, Dahmer had became so shy and reclusive that a

teacher felt compelled to bring his behavior to his parents attention. Nothing was done, and

young Dahmer grew increasingly remote, submerged in a realm of unpleasant fantasies, and in

increasing degrees, alcohol. In early adolescence he often occupied himself by collecting

roadkills, stripping the flesh and assembling the bones in the nearby woods. By his early teens,

he was disengaged, tense and largely friendless. (St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture.)

As Dahmer gets older he tried to turn his imagination into a reality. Shortly after Jeffrey

turned eight, his family moved to Bath, Ohio. Being an extremely withdrawn boy, whose

apparent vulnerability eventually attracted molestation by a neighbor. Signs of disturbance

quickly developed, such as impaled heads of small animals standing on tall sticks in the

Dahmers yard. He once mounted a dogs head on a stick as a bizarre totem. As an adolescent,

Dahmer began to have thoughts of killing his first victim. In 1978 he committed his first murder,

picking up a hitchiker and taking him back to his parents house where he killed the boy with a

piece of gym equipment . On Dahmers first day at his new apartment, he was arrested for

drugging and molesting a 13 year old laotian boy. Dahmer server ten months in a Milwaukee

work-release program, during which his father tried aggressively and unsuccessfully, for

additional treatment for his alcoholism. In March 1990, Dahmer was released on probation.

After his probation he killed several men. (Dictionary of American History)

To conceal his activities, he bought a freezer, installed an elaborate security system, and

separated his bedroom from the rest of the apartment with a heavy metal bed. Dahmer would

hang out in bar and on street corners, trolling for a likely victim from among the hustlers who
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worked his neighborhood. Once he found his victim he would get drinks and invite them to his

apartment. Once secure in his apartment, Dahmer would drug, then strangle his victims; molest

the corpses, and finally eat or preserve parts of his victims, disposing of the remains with

quickness in an enormous plastic bucket. Dahmer was finally apprehended when a victim

escaped and then returned accompanied by police officers, who discovered photographs of dead

and dismembered men scattered about Dahmers bedroom. Hoping to avoid prison, he pled

guilty by reason of insanity. He said he wanted to find out why he did the things he did. The

public was riveted by the trial and fascinated by the details of his crimes. The jury, unmoved by

his plea of guilty, found him guilty in 1992 of murdering 17 men. Dahmer was sentenced to 16

consecutive life terms in prison. While in prison found jesus ans well as the death he had long

desired. Another inmate, Christopher Scarver, bludgeoned him to death in 1994. (The 1992 Los

Angeles Riots)

What makes Jeffrey Dahmer noteworthy or remembered is how he managed to kill all

those people without anyone or his family seeing the clues of his behavior. Because of the people

have studied his behavioral patterns to prevent or stop future serial killers.

Works Cited
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www.easybib.com

Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)

Baers, Michael J. "Dahmer, Jeffrey (19601994)." St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture, edited by
Thomas Riggs, 2nd ed., vol. 2, St. James Press, 2013, pp. 36-37. Gale Virtual Reference Library,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=GVRL&sw=w&u=j043905008&v=2.1&id=GALE
%7CCX2735800682&it=r&asid=4249b1dca143df86f84752c4f7f4988b . Accessed 19 Apr. 2017.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Guth, Robert M., and Christopher Wells. "Serial Killings." Dictionary of American History, edited
by Stanley I. Kutler, 3rd ed., vol. 7, Charles Scribner's Sons, 2003, p. 315. Gale Virtual
Reference Library, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=GVRL&sw=w&u=j043905008&v=2.1&id=GALE
%7CCX3401803811&it=r&asid=05265015ca3c6e68ef2a82b7c3f585f2 . Accessed 21 Apr. 2017.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Prager, Dennis. "The Liberal Philosophy of Defending Black Racial Hatred Led to the Riots."
The 1992 Los Angeles Riots, edited by Louise I. Gerdes, Greenhaven Press, 2014, pp. 99-109.
Perspectives on Modern World History. Gale Virtual Reference Library, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=GVRL&sw=w&u=j043905008&v=2.1&id=GALE
%7CCX3198900020&it=r&asid=56e0e3cb635454e05d534cff0614d240 . Accessed 21 Apr. 2017.