The Night of the Arrest

 Jeffrey Dahmer was arrested in the late hours of July 22^nd  and taken into custody on July 23^rd  1991 by Detective Patrick Kennedy and his partner Detective Michael Dubis. Earlier that night, at around 11:25 p.m., two policemen (Rauth and Mueller) were taken to apartment 213 by Tracy Edwards, the next would-be victim. Edwards managed to escape Dahmer's apartment as Dahmer ran out of Halcion pills to drug his victim and was too intoxicated to physically keep him restrained. He did, however, manage to put handcuffs on one of Edwards' hands. As the policemen could not get Edwards uncuffed, they returned to Dahmer's apartment to look for the key. Dahmer had actually lost the key but did not stress about it, as he could get the handcuffs off by cutting off the victim's hands postmortem. On the night of the arrest, he was too intoxicated to prevent the policemen from entering his apartment. As one of the police officers looked for the key in his bedroom dresser drawer, he stumbled upon polaroid pictures of dismembered bodies. He called for his partner to arrest Dahmer and subsequently a physical fight broke out. The police officers managed to get Dahmer restrained (hogtied) and noted that he was “no pussy” and put up a hell of a fight. 

 

“I looked at the suspect as he lay on the floor. His light colored hair was greasy and wet with perspiration. The faded denim shirt he wore was drenched with sweat, and I noticed he was bleeding slightly from the corner of his mouth. There was an obvious rug burn on his right elbow, glistening blood red. He appeared completely defeated, but his condition showed that a great struggle brought him to that point. He was motionless but made an ever-so-faint crying whine, like that of a child or cat in the night.”  Grilling Dahmer page 35

 

The officers also found a severed head in Dahmer’s refrigerator and decided to call for backup. The detectives showed up a while later and decided to call the Chief and the forensics team to inspect the scene. Det. Kennedy took Dahmer down to the squad wagon  93 and into the interrogation room, tasked with getting the confession and identifying all the victims. Det. Dubis stayed at the scene and spent the next few days uncovering the human remains scattered around Dahmer’s apartment. 

The state of Dahmer's living room at the time of the arrest. There are clear signs of a struggle occurring before the arrest. Also, note the number of cans of Budweiser beer on the coffee table. Dahmer was extremely intoxicated when he was arrested. 

One of the photos depicting Dahmer's bedroom. The open drawer contained the polaroid pictures that got Dahmer arrested. In the right corner, we can see the infamous blue drum and in the left corner, a part of Dahmer's mattress that can be seen in some polaroid photos of decapitated victims posed with their torso extended. 

Dahmer's apartment plan 

 

30 Years Since Arrest

Today marks the 30th anniversary of Jeffrey Dahmer’s arrest. Tracy Edwards escaped apartment 213 and flagged down a police car down the street. The rest of the night and the subsequent months were spent identifying the human remains found scattered around Dahmer’s apartment - pots, drawers, fridge, freezers. On that night, Milwaukee became the centre of not only national but global attention.

Footage from the night of the arrest

Video downloaded from True Crime Magazine on Youtube

On this day 30 years ago...

    On May 27th, 1991, Jeffrey Dahmer killed Konerak Sinthasomphone, a 14-year-old boy. His case is especially tragic, as he was famously returned to Dahmer by the police after escaping the apartment. He was drugged and naked, with a small hole drilled into his skull. 17-year-old local Nicole Childress and her 18-year-old cousin Sandra Smith, found Konerak stumbling in the streets and called 911. In the meanwhile, Dahmer had returned from his trip to the liquor store and tried to take Konerak back to his apartment. Because he was drugged, Konerak only managed to speak in his native tongue, Laotian, and not in English. When 911 arrived at the scene at 2:06 a.m., the two officers, Joe Gabrish and John Balcerzak decided that Dahmer's story was more believable. Jeffrey stated that the boy, whom he named John Hmung, was 19 years old and his lover. In the meanwhile, Childress left to fetch her aunt, who she hoped would, as an adult, have more authority. When they returned, the scene was clear. The two officers escorted Sinthasomphone back to Dahmer's apartment. Dahmer showed them polaroids of conscious Konerak in his underwear and pointed to his clothes folded neatly nearby. The two officers decided that that was enough proof for them, and left Dahmer's victim in the apartment. Not long after their departure, Dahmer injected another dose of the hydrochloric acid solution. This proved fatal immediately. Here you can view the polaroids Dahmer showed the police officers.

    What the officers failed to notice, was the body of Tony Hughes lying in Dahmer's bedroom. They failed to conduct a basic background search on Dahmer, which would have shown his criminal record and sex offender status. They simply did not want to get involved in the homosexual drama. They decided to dismiss the two women trying to save Konerak's life, treating them as just two crazy black ladies. They decided to believe the mild-mannered white man, who later took Konerak's life. When  Smith's mother, Glenda Cleveland, called the police station to inquire what happened, she was dismissed. The two officers were actually accompanied by a third, Rick Porubcan, who arrived later and avoided most of the media onslaught that followed. 

    When news of this gross police misconduct reached the public after Dahmer's arrest, the officers involved were fired but were reinstated in 1994. In 2005, Balcerzak was even elected as the president of the Milwaukee Police Association. 

The 911 phone call made by Childress and Smith, followed by Dahmer's recollection of the event in his interview with Robert Ressler with the follow-up phone call by Cleveland and ending with the officers reporting back to the police station after returning Konerak to Dahmer. Source

A clip from Dahmer's testimony for a lawsuit when Konerak's family sued the city of Milwaukee in 1993. source

Sinthasomphone's grave

The memorial service

Public outcry after the news of what happened broke

Rest in Peace, Konerak Sinthasomphone.

May 21st 2021

 Today, Jeffrey Dahmer would celebrate his 61st birthday, the 29th of which he would have had in prison had he lived this long. 

Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer was born on this date at 4:34 pm at the Evangelical Deaconess Hospital in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 

                                                        Jeffrey Dahmer's birth certificate

When he was born, his mother Joyce Dahmer, later known as Rocky Flint, filled out a baby book, full of Jeff's "firsts". These are the screenshots from her interview on Hard Copy:

Baby feet and a hand outline

Jeff's first baby picture

A strand of his light baby hair 

Below are some more photographs of infant Jeff with his parents. Probably the most well-known baby pictures of his. Photographs like this are often used to illustrate that no matter what horrific thing the person commits in their adulthood, we all started off as innocent children.  

Across The Hall by Vernell Bass

 

Ok so as I've mentioned, it's been years since I last read Across the Hall and I honestly could not remember if it offers any new information. As it turns out, I forgot most of it exactly because of that - nothing much is revealed.

Vern and his then-wife Pam lived in the apartment right opposite the infamous 213. They were friendly with Jeff, occasionally sharing beers and cigarettes. Pam has actually appeared in the fantastic documentary "The Jeffrey Dahmer Files" and the more recent two-part series "Dahmer on Dahmer". Here they can be seen looking at Jeff's apartment after he was captured. 

Vern's book is self-published and it does contain typographical errors, but it never pretends to be anything more than a personal story. It starts off talking about how he and his wife moved into the Oxford apartments and then briefly details their relationship with Jeff. The latter half of the book centres around Dahmer's arrest and trial and the way it affected Vern's job and his and his wife's personal lives. 

Here are some quotes from the book that I found interesting:

    "It was no surprise to see Jeff wearing his light gray jacket walking at 9:00pm through someone's backyard or taking a short cut through the alley headed towards the Oxford Building. He'd walk among dope peddlers to have them approach him and ask him 'you looking...?' 'You straight..?' Meaning do you want to buy drugs but he would either shake his head negatively or ignore the peddlers all together. [...] I recall once telling Pam that I thought he had a lot of heart to live in this area. He never showed any sign of being fearful, he didn't have a kick ass type of attitude." page 26

Dahmer apparently installed an alarm system that would ring every time his front door would open. This indicates his daily schedule: 

    "Later that night we heard an almost funny light ringing sound. The alarm he had gotten would ring lightly every time his door opened. The ringing became familiar to us as he would leave every night during the week at 10:05pm to catch the 10:15pm [bus] on the corner of 25th and Wisconsin Ave. heading east towards downtown near the chocolate factory. Pamela would hear it again at 8:30am when he would return to his apartment." page 28

When foul odours of rotting flesh started to permeate the apartment building, Jeff often invited Vernell into his apartment to ask if he could still smell anything. They talked about his freezer that apparently broke during Jeff's night shift and contained the spoiled meat.  Jeff apologised and said "Everyone's on my fucking case about the smell." page 41 Yea, who would have thought. 

The freezer in question contained human remains: three heads, a torso and human organs.

This describes one of Vernell's visits:

    " It was Sunday morning, he looked through the peep hole to see that it was me. He opened the door to allow me inside. He was wearing a long knee length terry cloth bathrobe and didn't have on his glasses. I assumed that he was still in bed or sleeping. [...] He went into the bedroom and returned with a pack of Marlboro cigarettes and a red lighter. He has also put on his glasses. I had stepped inside the apartment and closed the door behind me as he had walked towards the bedroom to get the cigarettes. The awful smell was still lingering in his apartment but it was mild but far from none existing. After giving me a cigarette, he offered me a seat on the couch. I took the lighter from him and sat down. After giving me the lighter he went back to close the sliding door that led to the small hallway to the bedroom and bathroom. His apartment was neat and clean, everything seemed to be in place. There were no dishes in the kitchen sink." page 42. 

He then describes some of the small talk they had and how Jeff had made up an ex-girlfriend. Vern noted that he had never seen him with a woman or anyone, he was always alone. Later on he even told Jeff that one of the women in the building fancies him, to which he "flat out told me he wasn't interested." page 47. 

On a different occasion, Dahmer visited Vern and Pamela in their apartment:

    "He entered as I came out of the bathroom, I told him to have a seat so he sat on the couch. He began to tell me how nice he thought our apartment was and the small talk about different what-knots we had around the apartment. I walked to the refrigerator and removed the 64 oz. bottle of beer and got two glasses from the cabinet. He had left his jacket in his apartment and had brought his smokes with him. He put them on the table next to where I had put his glass of beer. He was very impressed when he saw our cat walk out of the bedroom picking her up and saying he likes cats a lot. [...]  The three of us sat in our living room for nearly an hour chopping it up about the neighborhood, the apartments, our children that Pam and myself had and our jobs. He worked at the chocolate factory and offered to bring Pam a box of chocolates one day. Of all the guests we've had in our apartment, he appeared to be no different doing or saying nothing unusual." page 49

This was right around Thanksgiving 1990, the day when Jeff's parents visited him to see his apartment. From the timing, we can presume that the white jacket is the same one he's seen wearing in the home video from Thanksgiving. 

Later on, nearing Jeff's arrest, Vern notes that he heard Jeff using power tools in the evening:

    "I could hear the sound of a power tool being used in Jeff's apartment. The time was around 8:00pm. It could have been a power saw or a power drill. [...] When I entered I asked Pamela...'What the hell is Jeff building over there baby?' 'I think he's building a bookcase because he's been trying to dress up his apartment lately.' She went on to say that she'd seen him carrying boxes and large bags in and out. Things he had been shopping for and getting rid of to decorate his place." page 61.  

Some of the tools found in Jeff's apartment

Not soon after that, Dahmer was arrested. The book also talks about how the residents felt about this - spoiler not good. If you want to read the book, it's available on Amazon.

Best Resources for Reading about Jeffrey Dahmer

 When dealing with subjects so heavily covered by the media and sensationalised (and monetised) to no end, the importance of critical thinking cannot be overstated. Admittedly, I have probably only scratched the surface when it comes to written publications and documentaries regarding Dahmer. There. is. just. so. much. content. Ideally, I will be able to add on this list as time goes by but for now, these are the sources I find most credible:

When it comes to a written, fairly objective account of what was happening, you cannot miss with The Shrine of Jeffrey Dahmer by Brian Masters. It's probably the most detailed and factual book dealing with Jeffrey Dahmer's life and trial you can get your hands on. It's also the most readily available for a cheap price. You can find it on basically every bookseller's website. 

As far as personal accounts go, A Father's Story by Lionel Dahmer is an invaluable hub of information. It's also the most emotional of the bunch, as expected. Like with all personal accounts, this book must be approached with caution - being involved in the story makes you an unreliable narrator. Thankfully it doesn't go deep into the intricacies of the crimes and trial, but the way Lionel Dahmer perceived his son is not necessarily the way his son perceived himself. In their joint interview with Stone Philips, Jeffrey Dahmer noted that he wasn't as incredibly shy and introverted as his father portrays him in his books (something, I believe, is supported by Dahmer's depiction in Derf Backderf's novel). True or not, it is the way his father saw him, and that is valuable too. As we know, Jeffrey Dahmer was a master manipulator and seeing the discrepancies between how Jeffrey truly was and the way his family saw him is incredible. A Father's Story isn't a super common find in bookstores so I suggest you look in the used books section on Amazon. I've also seen a digital copy floating around (mainly on tumblr but I'm  sure it's available elsewhere).

As mentioned above, My Friend Dahmer by Derf Backderf gives us a look into Dahmer's teenage years right up until his first murder a few weeks after graduation. It's probably one of the most known books about Dahmer by someone who knew him, recently being adapted as a movie starring Ross Lynch (I haven't watched it because I tend to avoid non documentary films about real serial killers, but apparently parts of it were filmed inside Dahmer's childhood home). The graphic novel (you heard that right!) is an amazing peek at Dahmer's pre-murder years and when you see all the red flags - MANY red flags - and how they went by unnoticed (or rather ignored), it will send chills down your spine. The novel is available for purchase at most bookstores (being a fairly recent and popular release). I'd also recommend you check out the author's blog at http://derfcity.blogspot.com. In some of his earlier posts, he publishes unseen doodles from high school featuring the Dahmer fanclub (as they called themselves). 

Moving from Dahmer's pre-murder years to his inevitable capture, The Dahmer Detective by Patrick Kennedy is a true gem. The incredibly likable detective spins an incredibly captivating narrative. The book starts when he first meets Dahmer on the night of the arrest and carries us through the whole investigation process right up until the sentencing. Sadly the physical copy has been sold out and is now being resold for OBSCENE prices so hopefully, we'll get a reprint soon. 

During his short-lived stay in prison, Dahmer re-discovered faith. For a deeper look into this aspect of him, I'd recommend Dark Journey Deep Grace by Roy Ratcliff. Ratcliff is the minister who baptised Dahmer in prison and who, not soon after, helped organise his funeral. It's an interesting look into how religion shaped Dahmer's later days. We also get some insight into the funeral and some small details about Jeffrey's relationship (or non-relationship) with his brother David. The book is actually quite well written and I never got a sense of the author trying to inflate or distort anything in order to get his book sold. It is, of course, heavily religious so if that bother's you perhaps pass on it. It is written by a minister after all. The book is also available for a rather low price on Amazon so I think it's worth a read. 

TBA? In 2022 one of Dahmer's attorneys Wendy Patrickus is releasing a book titled Defending the Devil. The title seems a bit...suspiciously out there, but I have high hopes for the book considering the author was so deeply involved in the trial. We'll see.

The honorable mentions for this category are: 

Across The Hall by Vernell Bass. This is a self-published book and I needs to be read with some reservations. Putting some grammatical errors aside, this book does offer a nice glimpse into what Vernell's and Pam's lives were like being neighbours with Dahmer. At times, it does read a bit as a sensational novel, but some parts are really really interesting. I wouldn't recommend this as the definitive source on what was happening, but if you're already knowledgeable and want to branch out a bit, definitiely give it a go. It is readily available on Amazon. 

I Have Lived in the Monster by Robert K. Ressler and Tom Shachtman. This is more of an all around serial killer book, but it does contain a part of a transcript and some descriptions of Ressler's interview with Dahmer. Ressler did testify at his trial as a psychologist. He's also the man who coined the term "serial killer" so I think he's a pretty reliable source. The book is available on Amazon. 

Hi

 I feel like a short intro is in order huh? I'm not really expecting to amass any readers (do people still read blogs nowadays?) but hey... if you're here and reading this - good for you.

This time of the great corona plague has re-sparked an interest of mine that I thought I left back in the mid 2010s. I actually used to run a tumblr blog not so different to this, but it eventually got removed by the platform. I never posted any weird or nsfw content but alas, my blog succumbed to the same fate as many others in the true crime pool. To be honest, I was slighly over it towards the end there; the tag was full of memes and "jeff is so cute uwu" posts that just didn't sit entirely right with me. I am sad, however, that a large collection of information and images/videos was just gone overnight. 

This is why I thought a blog would be the best next thing for me to share and keep information if I ever come back to this in the future. I just hope that the reason then will not be boredom born out of quarantine during a massive virus breakout. 

Stay safe.