A warm All Things Crime Blog welcome to Amanda Seaton, our newest guest contributor.
by Amanda Seaton
When a child is born, parents have a tendency to believe that the infant is that perfect child, flawless if you will, but inevitably that same child grows up to be a toddler, then a preschooler, next comes elementary school, then the challenging teenage years, and eventually adulthood. We can rest assured that throughout the growth process, although parents may think or fantasize any number of things about their precious child, no parent looks at their child and thinks that they are going to grow up and shock the entire 
nation with their actions; not one parent thinks their kid is going to be a sadistic serial killer, necrophiliac, cannibal and sex offender. Born on May 21, 1960 in West Allis, Wisconsin, Jeffrey Dahmer came into this world as a beautiful, bouncing baby boy, showing no immediate signs that he would one day grow up and become one of American’s most notorious serial killers and sex offenders, all before turning 35. Dahmer had a relatively normal child hood, according to multiple sources, but interviews with Dahmer himself speak quite differently of growing up in the Dahmer family home.
Dahmer reportedly had a fetish for killing animals, mostly impaling them on stakes. Even though he had been killing these animals since the tender age of four, his parents failed to seek help. Correct me if I am wrong, but most four-year-old children do not think it’s a bright idea to take a stick and impale an animal on it, but this was normal in Jeffrey’s world. In high-school, Jeffrey was much the recluse, but maintained consistently decent grades. It seems to have been quite a blow to Jeffrey when his parents divorced right before his 18th birthday, which was, oddly enough, the year that he took his first victim. Nonetheless, he made it to adulthood, after a fashion, living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and working at the Milwaukee Ambrosia Chocolate Factory as a mixer.
Dahmer lived a good portion of his life as a closet gay man and collected most of his victims from gay bars. Others he found hitch-hiking on the side of the road. He was only 18 when he first killed in 1978. This would become one of the most remarked upon killings in American history — the murder of Steven Hicks who Dahmer murdered with a 10-pound-weight in his father’s Ohio home. Dahmer managed to tough it out for nine years before he murdered again — Steven Tuomi was his second victim in 1987, but Dahmer would later claim that he had no recollection of killing that young man. After the second killing, the memory of the adrenaline rush at the time of the dark deeds took deep root in his body and mind. He chose two more victims in 1988, yet another in 1989 and by 1991, the grim death march had caught fire; Dahmer began killing a new victim every week before finally being caught.
Dahmer defied everything investigators, psychologists, and behavioral specialists knew about serial killers and the way they operate. He showed no apparent liking for one particular race or ethnic background, no particular liking of a certain age group as his victims were as young as 13 all the way up to bar-room age. Like Ted Bundy, Dahmer allowed his fantasies to overcome him to the point that he was driven to act them out. Jeffrey not only killed his victims; he literally gutted them like animals, put their body parts in formaldehyde and saved the meat for stew, like some kind of everyday diner plan.
Dahmer made a name for himself because he literally went above and beyond, challenging much that had been previously been believed about the way serial killers operate. In the end, Dahmer was found guilty of 17 murders and was sentenced to nearly one-thousand years behind bars. Two short years into his sentence, Dahmer was bludgeoned to death in prison by another inmate who told investigators and the court that God had told him to kill Dahmer. Shortly after that, Dahmer’s parents went to court to fight over the ownership rights to Dahmer’s brain. Dahmer’s parents would not to let their son’s brain be studied for scientific purposes. His body was cremated and in the end his brain was too which is incredibly sad because science could have learned much by undertaking a diligent study of this frightening man’s brain.
Amanda Seaton is a freelance writer/editor and graduate student. Ms. Seaton earned a Bachelors of Science degree in Criminal Justice and Homeland Security in April of 2013, and began a Masters of Science program in Forensics in June of 2013 where she is acing every class.