Jeffrey Dahmer

Q: How did Jeffrey Dahmer die?

On November 28, 1994, Jeffrey Dahmer was fatally beaten by another prison inmate at the Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage, Wisconsin.

Q: How many people did Jeffrey Dahmer kill?

Jeffrey Dahmer killed 17 boys and young men. The murders were committed between 1978 and 1991, and Dahmer also engaged in cannibalism and necrophilia.

American serial killer

Written by

John Philip Jenkins

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Britannica Editors

History

How did Jeffrey Dahmer die?

How many people did Jeffrey Dahmer kill?

Jeffrey Dahmer (born May 21, 1960, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S.—died November 28, 1994, Portage, Wisconsin) was an American serial killer who murdered 17 boys and young men. Although other serial murderers had claimed far more victims, Dahmer’s crimes were particularly gruesome, involving cannibalism and necrophilia. His arrest in 1991 provoked criticism of local police and resulted in an upsurge of popular interest in serial murder and other crimes. In 1992, in two separate trials, Dahmer received a total of 16 life sentences, and two years later he was fatally beaten by a fellow inmate.

Dahmer committed his first murder in Bath township, Ohio, in 1978. A second murder followed in 1987, and during the next five years he killed—mostly in Milwaukee, Wisconsin—another 15 boys and young men, who were for the most part poor and African American, Asian, or Latino. In July 1991 one of Dahmer’s intended victims managed to escape and stopped two police officers. The victim, who had handcuffs attached to one wrist, told the officers that Dahmer had tried to kill him. The trio went to Dahmer’s apartment, where the police found photographs of dismembered bodies and a human head in the refrigerator. A subsequent search turned up numerous body parts and several skeletons.

Dahmer initially pleaded not guilty but later changed his plea to guilty by reason of insanity. A jury, however, found him sane, and in February 1992 Dahmer was sentenced to 15 consecutive life terms; a 16th consecutive life sentence was added in May for the murder he committed in 1978. He was murdered by a fellow inmate in a Wisconsin prison in 1994.

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The circumstances of the crimes became the subject of much controversy. Some claimed that the fact that Dahmer had escaped detection for so long showed that Milwaukee police attached a low priority to investigating the disappearance of victims who were homosexual or members of racial minority groups.

Dahmer’s life and crimes and the controversy engendered by his arrest were discussed in several books, including The Man Who Could Not Kill Enough: The Secret Murders of Milwaukee’s Jeffrey Dahmer (1992; reissued 2011), by Anne E. Schwartz.