A look back at serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer through photos (2024)

Jeffrey Dahmer in a jail booking shot from Bath, Ohio, in 1981.

The former Ambrosia Chocolate Co. in downtown Milwaukee where serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer worked in the 1980s. The building is now gone.

Exterior view of Jeffrey Dahmer's apartment building in January 1992.

Officials wearing hazardous material suits lower Jeffrey Dahmer's freezer down steps at his apartment building in 1991.

Evidence being removed from serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer's apartment in July 1991.

Milwaukee County Medical Examiner Jeffrey M. Jentzen (center, in sport coat) supervises the removal of at least 10 boxes that police said contained human remains from the apartment of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer in 1991.

Members of the news media and others flocked to the scene of killings at 924 N. 25th Street. The size of the crowd swelled after a television news conference about the slayings at the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner's Office in July 1991.

Onlookers line the balconies of a neighboring building to get a better view as Milwaukee police search serial killer Jeffrey L. Dahmer's apartment for evidence in 1991.

Neighbors gather near the Oxford Apartments on July 24, 1991, in Milwaukee, as police continued to investigate their discovery of body parts in the apartment of Jeffrey Dahmer.

A police photographer focuses on bones found in the backyard of a building across the alley from 924 N. 25th St., where Jeffrey Dahmer lived. It could not be determined at the time whether the bones were human. In addition to an extensive search of the apartment in which 11 skulls and other body parts were found, police expanded their search to include the area and buildings around the apartment building.

Members of the media gather Wednesday at the home of Oliver Lacy on North 24th Place. Lacy is the first identified victim of Jeffrey L. Dahmer.

A neighborhood youth reads a handwritten note posted on the door at the home of Catherine Dahmer on South 57th Street in West Allis. Dahmer is the grandmother of Jeffrey L. Dahmer, who was charged Thursday with four counts of first-degree intentional homicide. The note asked that the family be left alone and said the family had received crank phone calls.

This photo taken in March 2012 shows the Walker's Point neighborhood along South 2nd Street in Milwaukee where serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer hunted his victims.

Another view of the Oxford Apartments at 924 N. 25th St. where serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer lived.

The flag flies at half-staff outside the Oxford Apartments, 924 N. 25th St. An alderman fears the 49-unit building, former home to suspected serial killer Jeffrey L. Dahmer, might become a morbid tourist attraction and plans to ask the Common Council to pay for demolition of the structure. The man in this image was not identified.

Attorney General James E. Doyle (from left), Mayor John O. Norquist and state Rep. Gwendolynne S. Moore (D-Milwaukee) during a news conference at St. Michael's Church, 1445 N. 24th St. on July 30, 1991. Norquist called for more community-oriented policing and police sensitivity training.

Members of the media pack the Milwaukee County courtroom where Jeffrey L. Dahmer, 31, was charged with four counts of first-degree intentional homicide and habitual criminality. More charges are expected.

Jeffrey L. Dahmer in Milwaukee County Circuit Court on August 7, 1991, was charged with eight counts of first-degree homicide, raising the total counts against him to 12.

A large group of Milwaukee residents, many carrying signs against the Police Department, protest the way the department handled the investigation into mass murderer Jeffrey L. Dahmer.

Hundreds of marchers on East Kilbourn Avenue were on their way to MacArthur Square after an hour-long candlelight vigil in Juneau Park in remembrance of victims of serial killer Jeffrey L. Dahmer. The march took place in August 1991.

Hundreds of people gather at MacArthur Square in Milwaukee on Aug. 6, 1991, as they held a candlelight vigil in remembrance of the victims found in the Jeffrey L. Dahmer apartment on July 22.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, standing at lower left, addresses a large crowd from the steps of St. Luke's Baptist Church in Milwaukee on Aug. 8, 1991. Jackson was in Milwaukee to help the families and friends of victims whose bodies were found in the apartment of Jeffrey L. Dahmer on July 22. Jackson also led the group in a march from Dahmer's apartment to the church.

Edna Parker of Milwaukee used her new video camera to tape the exterior of the Oxford Apartments at 924 N. 25th St. in August 1991. The apartments were home to serial killer Jeffrey L. Dahmer. Parker said she used to live in the neighborhood and had tried to rent one of the apartments several years ago.

A glass wall (left) kept spectators separated from the rest of Judge Laurence C. Gram Jr.'s courtroom, where the sanity trial of Jeffrey L. Dahmer was held. This photo was taken at Dahmer's plea hearing in January 1992.

District Attorney E. Michael McCann points to Jeffrey L. Dahmer as he cross-examines Fred S. Berlin during trial in February 1992.

The Rev. Gene Champion (right) consoles Jeffrey L. Dahmer's stepmother and father, Shari and Lionel, during a break in testimony during Jeffrey Dahmer's sanity trial in February 1992.

The prosecution introduced into evidence this photograph of the interior of serial killer Jeffrey L. Dahmer's apartment, taken after his arrest in July 1991.

Defense lawyer Gerald P. Boyle (right) pointed to a photo held by a witness during Jeffrey L. Dahmer's trial in February 1992.

Jeffrey L. Dahmer hands a doctored newspaper made from clippings of different news sources to Carol Boyle of Chicago, sister-in-law of defense attorney Gerald P. Boyle, during a break during trial in February 1992. "It's amazing what they come up with," Dahmer said. A Milwaukee Journal nameplate was pasted over the cover of an edition of the Weekly World News, which carried a headline that said "Milwaukee Cannibal Kills His Cellmate.

A 1992 photo shows how police cruisers were used to simulate the lighting conditions on the night that police confronted Jeffrey L. Dahmer, as members of the Police and Fire Commission tour the area near Dahmer's former apartment on North 25th Street.

A chain-link fence topped with barbed wire keeps squatters and other outsiders out of the Oxford Apartments, 924 N. 25th St. -- the former home of serial killer Jeffrey L. Dahmer. The fence was installed in preparation for the demolition of the building.

Relatives and supporters of serial killer Jeffrey L. Dahmer's victims console one another as they watch the demolition of the Oxford Apartments, Dahmer's former residence at 924 N. 25th St. Catherine Lacy (left), mother of victim Oliver Lacy; Jeannetta Robinson, founder and director of Career Youth Development Incorporated; Shirley Hughes, mother of Anthony Hughes; and Valerie Thomas, sister of David C. Thomas, watched the demolition on Nov. 17, 1992.

Demolition continued on the Oxford Apartments, 924 N. 25th St., where Jeffrey Dahmer lived and committed many of his murders.

A workman looks on as demolition continues at Oxford Apartments in Milwaukee in November 1992. The building is where serial murderer Jeffrey L. Dahmer lived.

About 45 people hold hands in a circle in front of the Police Administration Building in November 1992, urging the Fire and Police Commission to uphold the firings of two police officers involved in the Jeffrey L. Dahmer case.

Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer is interviewed by Nancy Glass at Columbia Correctional Facility in Portage, Wis., Jan. 12, 1993, for the syndicated television show "Inside Edition." Dahmer, who was serving a life sentence for the murders of more than a dozen young men and boys in Milwaukee, said he killed, dismembered and ate parts of his victims' bodies "not because I hated them, but to keep them with me."

Summit County Sheriff's Detective Larry Momchilov sifts through debris as Dr. Thomas Marshall, a forensic expert with the Sheriff's Department, checks a burned barrel at the former house of Jeffrey Dahmer on July 30, 1991, in Bath Township, Ohio.

Members of the Summit County Sheriff's Department and Bath Township police videotape pieces of evidence found at the former residence of Jeffrey L. Dahmer on July 31, 1991, in Bath Township, a suburb of Akron, Ohio. Authorities were looking for the remains of Steven M. Hicks, allegedly the first victim killed by Dahmer. Hicks went missing in June 1978.

Convicted killer Christopher Scarver listens to one of his attorneys, Daniel Patrykus, during a special hearing on May 15, 1995, in Portage, Wis. At the hearing, Scarver changed his not guilty plea in the beating death of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer and Jesse Anderson to no contest on two first-degree intentional homicide charges.