Murder In America - EP. 24 WISCONSIN - Jeffrey Dahmer, The Milwaukee Cannibal (PT. 2)

Episode Date: July 18, 2021

Jeffrey. Dahmer. One of the most notorious serial killers in American history. Everybody knows his name. But do YOU know his true story? Join us as we dive deep into the cannibalism, the darkness and the bloody truth behind one of America's deadliest citizens. This, is Pt. 2 of the Jeffrey Dahmer story. And you're listening, to MURDER IN AMERICA. We used portions of interviews with Jeffrey Dahmer conducted by Nancy Glass and Stone Phillips in this episode. This podcast episode is sponsored by BetterHelp!! Our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com/MIA. If you love our show, go try it out so we can get more ads and produce MORE episodes of the show!! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Life is a journey. I know this. I think we all know this. Some days feel good and other days feel absolutely overwhelming. Whatever's keeping you up at night, it's easy sometimes to feel like you have to figure it all out on your own. But the truth is, nobody has all the answers.

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Trigger warnings from the stories we cover may include violence, rape, murder, and offenses against children. This podcast is not for everyone. You have been warned. It's the year 1989 and young men in Milwaukee, Wisconsin are going missing. No one has any idea what happened to them, and many people don't even care. Jeffrey Dahmer had been prowling the streets of Milwaukee praying on the gay community, taking his victims home, drugging them, murdering them, and raping their dead bodies.

But the horror of Jeffrey's crimes didn't stop here. In part one of this episode, we went in depth describing how Jeffrey would lure his victims to their death and how he would subsequently dismember and dispose of their bodies. you haven't listened to part one, I suggest you go to episode 23 and give it a listen, and then hop back over to this episode, because the story of Jeffrey Dahmer is far from over. In fact, it is just begun. This is part two of the story of Jeffrey Dahmer, the Milwaukee Cannibal. I'm Courtney Shannon. And I'm Colin Browne. And you're listening to Murder in America. Last week, our story left off with Jeffrey going to prison for drugging and molesting the 13-year-old boy that was on his way home from school.

This incident would land Jeffrey in prison for one year. But because he was granted a work release, Jeffrey got to continue his job at the Ambrosia Chocolate Factory while serving his sentence. And it was here in his work locker where Jeffrey kept the head and genitals of his latest victim, Anthony Sears. I kept the mummified head and skull of one of the victims in a caring case in my locker at work. Were you almost flaunting it? Yes, but that's how strong the compulsion was. That's how bizarre the desire was. I wanted to keep something of the person with me.

And while Jeffrey was serving his time in prison, it was said that he was on his best behavior, and he didn't get into any trouble. Because of this good behavior, Jeffrey was let out of prison after only serving 10 months of his one-year sentence. After being released from prison, Jeffrey rented room 2.13

at the Oxford Apartments. The very apartments that we mentioned at the very beginning of part one. And it was here, where Jeffrey would go on to kill 12 more young men. When Jeffrey moved in, on May 14, 1990,

he transported Anthony Sears' head and genitals from his workplace to his new apartment. Just a few days after moving in, he was ready to find his next murder victim. Before you went out to pick up a man, was there any kind of ritual you went through? I'd go to the nightclubs, drink,

watch the strip tea shows, and if I didn't meet anyone at the bars, I'd go to the bath clubs and meet someone there. offer them money and we'd go back to the apartment have a few drinks I'd have the the sleeping pill mixture already prepared person would drink it to fall asleep and that's when they would be strangled in that is exactly what he would do to his next victim 33-year-old Raymond Smith a local sex worker Jeffrey found him out

outside of Club 219, offered Raymond some money to come back to his apartment. And unfortunately, Raymond agreed. Shortly after the two got back to the apartment, Jeffrey performed his signature move and gave Raymond a drink laced with sleeping pills. Raymond slowly started to drift off, not knowing that he would never open his eyes again. Once he was fully asleep, Jeffrey strangled him to death, and then raped his corpse. Jeffrey spent the next few hours admiring his work, eyeballing the lifeless body lying in his new apartment. He knew he would have to dismember the body soon, but he wanted a way to remember this moment. He wanted to capture the way the body looked so that he could go back and reminisce. So the next day, he goes to the store and purchases a Polaroid camera.

When Jeffrey got back home from the store, he positioned Raymond's body in sexually explicit poses and took a bunch of Polaroid pictures, prolonging his humiliation even after death. After this, Jeffrey dragged Raymond's body to the bathroom and placed him in the bathtub. He then spent the next few hours sawing his arms, legs, pelvis, and head. Then boiled the body parts and rinsed off the bones. But once again, he decided to keep Raymond's head, and he put it right next to Anthony Sears. Raymond Smith was Jeffrey Dahmer's sixth murder victim. Why did you photograph them?

It was my way of remembering their appearance, their physical beauty. I also wanted to keep something. If I couldn't keep them there with me whole, at least I felt that I could keep their skeletons. About a week later, Jeffrey had found another man to bring back to his apartment. And, of course, he did the same old routine. He poured the two of them some drinks and laced one of the drinks with sleeping pills. The two downed their drinks and Jeffrey was more than ready to start his murderous fun. But as they are sitting there and Jeffrey is waiting for his victim to fall asleep,

he himself starts to feel the effects of the sleeping pills. Jeffrey had accidentally drank the laced drink himself. And when he awoke the next day, he found out that his guest had robbed him of $300. Pretty good karma, if you ask me. Jeffrey's next victim was a 16-year-old waiter who agreed to go back to his apartment with him. But at this point, Jeffrey was out of sleeping pills, so he tried to hit him in the head with a mallet to knock him unconscious. The young man freaked out and asked Jeffrey to call him a cab, and surprisingly, he did. The young man told the authorities about this incident, but the police didn't follow through with the investigation.

Luckily, this 16-year-old boy escaped with his life and would not be one of Jeffrey Dahmer's victims. A few weeks later in June of 1990, Jeffrey lured 27-year-old Edward Smith to his Oxford apartment, where he drugged, killed, and raped his corpse. And Jeffrey wanted to experiment a little bit with this victim's body. Previously, he would boil the bodies in a bleach solution and then dry the bones out on newspaper around his apartment. But he didn't like how brittle dismayed their bones. So he decided to go out and buy a five-square-foot freezer. Jeffrey put Edward's body in this new freezer for a few months in an attempt to preserve it.

But this didn't end up working, so Jeffrey just disposed of his skeleton and put the head in the oven. He was obsessed with the thought of collecting all of his victim's skulls, and he thought that the oven would take the moisture out of Edward's head. But instead, Edward's head exploded. This situation really bothered Jeffrey because he wasn't able to keep any parts, of Edward's body for his collection. Edward Smith was Jeffrey Dahmer's seventh murder victim. About three months later, in September of 1990,

Jeffrey was itching for another kill. So he goes out back to the bars to prowl and to look for his next victim. While he's out, he comes across 22-year-old Ernest Miller, and he offers him $50 to come back to his apartment. Once back at the apartment, Jeffrey handed Ernest his laced drink. But after a while, Jeffrey realized that the pills weren't working.

Ernest was a little out of it, but he was still coherent. And Jeffrey wasn't sure what to do. He didn't want to let him go, but he hadn't given him enough pills to knock him out. So thinking quickly, Jeffrey grabs a butcher knife, walks over to Ernest, and stabs him in the carotid artery. It took a few minutes for Ernest to bleed out, and I can only imagine that that scene was a bloodbath, very different than Jeffrey's usual silent strangulation. This was the first time Jeffrey had used a knife on a victim. He would go on to say later that he didn't like this method of killing.

If you can remember, Jeffrey wasn't turned on by the actual kill itself, but rather the dead body. So he wasn't a fan of this bloody mess. Was it the killing that excited you, or is it what happened after the killing? No, the killing was just a means to an end. That was the least satisfactory part. I didn't enjoy doing that. No, the killing wasn't the objective. I just wanted to have the person under my complete control to do with as I wanted.

It's not easy to say that, but that's what the motive was. Once Jeffrey had started taking Polaroid pictures of his victims, it became an obsession of his, and he actually took pictures of his victims in all stages, including right after the kill and while he was dismembering them. With Ernest, he staged his body in sexual position. and photographed him and then raped his corpse. There's this one Polaroid picture in Jeffrey's collection that has always stuck out to me. It's a picture of a man completely nude with his head cut off.

And he's lying on Jeffrey's mattress with his body completely folded backwards. This is a picture of Ernest and it's very disturbing. But after Jeffrey took these photos, he then took Ernest's body to the bathtub and completely dismembered his corpse with a saw. Jeffrey photographed this process as well. And Jeffrey was disturbingly obsessed with Ernest. While he was cutting up the body in the bathtub, he had set his decapitated head off to the side. And while he was sawing off the arms and the legs, he would look at Ernest's head, kiss it, caress it, and even talk to it. Jeffrey then boiled the body parts in soy legs, which turned the flesh into a jelly-like substance that he could rinse down the drain.

He washed Ernest's bones in bleach and was able to preserve his skeleton. Ernest's head would be put in Jeffrey's collection. And strangely enough, he put Ernest's heart in flesh in the fridge. Later on, Jeffrey bought a tenderizer and tenderized Ernest's heart. He then put it on a plate, lathered the meat up and condiments, cut it up, and ate it. It. Jeffrey went on to say that it tasted like beef and that eating Ernest gave him a sexual thrill. Ernest Miller was Jeffrey Dahmer's eighth murder victim and the first victim that Jeffrey would eat.

I was branching out. That's when the cannibalism started, eating of the heart and the arm muscle. It was a way of making me feel that they were a part of me. At first it was just curiosity and then it became compulsive. As time went on, yes, I did get a, there was a sexual part to that. I started saving the skeletons and preserving other parts. And one thing led to another, it took more and more deviant type behaviors to satisfy my urges.

And so it just spiraled out of control. Why the cannibalism? That was another step. It made me feel like they were a permanent part of me. Besides the just mere curiosity of what it would be like, it made them feel that they were a part of me in it. It gave me a sexual satisfaction to do that. What it would be like, it made them feel that they were a part of me in it.

It gave me a sexual... Hey, everybody. So, lately Courtney and I have both been struggling with our mental health. We've been so busy that we've barely had any time to spend with each other. We've been traveling to a different city every weekend. It's been absolutely crazy. Yeah, when you are constantly writing stories about murder, death, suicide, the weight of the subject matters tends to get to your head.

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and free shipping when you visit Nutraful.com and enter promo code M-I-A. That's Nutraful.com, spelled N-U-T-R-A-F-O-L-L-com, promo code MIA. A few weeks later, Jeffrey was walking around the Grand Avenue Mall and came across 22-year-old David Thomas. The two struck up a conversation and Jeffrey asked him to come back to his place for some drinks. I think we all know where this is going. David was actually straight with a one-year-old son, so he initially declined the offer.

But he was down bad and really needed some money. So when Jeffrey offered him some cash, he agrees. David goes back to apartment 2.13 and drinks one of Jeffrey's list. As soon as the sleeping pills start to kick in, Jeffrey is looking at David and realizes that he isn't attracted to him at all. But since he had already been drugged, Jeffrey knew that he had to follow through with the kill. So once David goes unconscious, Jeffrey strangles him to death and brings his body to the bathroom for dismemberment. Jeffrey took pictures throughout the process, but he didn't end up keeping any of David's body parts because he simply wasn't attracted to him and remembering this victim

wouldn't serve Jeffrey's sexual needs. David Thomas was Jeffrey. Domer's ninth murder victim. For the next five months, Jeffrey took a killing hiatus. It's unknown why he took this break, but it's not uncommon to see this within serial killers. After murdering David, Jeffrey wouldn't find his next victim until February of 1991. Unfortunately, this victim would be 17-year-old Curtis Stratter, whom Jeffrey found waiting by a bus stop.

Jeffrey offered him some cash to pose for nude photos, and Curtis agreed. Once he was back at Jeffrey's apartment, Jeffrey drugged him, strangled him, raped and dismembered him, photographing every part of the process. Jeffrey kept Curtis's head and in genitals, putting them all in his growing collection of male body parts. Curtis Stratter was Jeffrey Dahmer's 10th murder victim. Two months later, Jeffrey would lure 19-year-old Aero Lindsay back to his apartment. He gave him his lace drink and once he fell asleep, Jeffrey decided to change things up a bit. He doesn't want to kill his victim right away, because once you kill them, you can only have them for so long.

So this time, Jeffrey decides that he's going to try and make him a living zombie. So he walks over to Arrow with a drill in hand and presses it firmly against his skull. Jeffrey had drilled a hole into his head, but he didn't stop there. Next, Jeffrey grabs some acid and injects it directly into Arrow's brain. As soon as Jeffrey pours the solution, Aero immediately sits up and says, I have a headache. What time is it? Jeffrey was alarmed at this response,

and he strangles him soon after. He then decapitates Aero's head and places it in his collection, and then cuts off several strips of skin. Before this kill, Jeffrey had purchased these blue barrels and filled them with acid. But these acid-filled barrels

would be how Jeffrey would dispose of certain parts of his victims, especially the victim's torsos. Errol was Jeffrey Dahmer's 11th murder victim. On May 24th, 1991, Jeffrey goes prowling about Milwaukee's gay bars, and he sees a deaf man named Tony Hughes, using sign language with the bartender. Apparently, Jeffrey had known Tony. They had met before.

In wanting to take advantage of the situation, he walked over to him and wrote him a note asking if he wanted to come home with him for some drinks. Tony agrees, and they went back to Jeffrey's apartment, where Tony was then drugged and raped. Jeffrey performed the same drill experiment that he did on his previous victim, wanting to create a living zombie. But Tony died soon afterwards. After this failed experiment, Jeffrey was frustrated. He wanted to get this process perfected. But first, he had to dismember Tony's corpse.

and dissolve his remains in the barrel of acid. Tony Hughes was Jeffrey Dahmer's 12th murder victim. It was around this time when residents of the Oxford Apartments started noticing foul smells coming from apartment 213, the unmistakable smell of death. I don't know if you've ever smelled something that is decomposed, but even something as small as a rat will emanate the most putrid smell. At this point in our story, Jeffrey has the body parts

of around seven decomposing men within the small walls of his apartment. And you have to imagine that it smells terrible, and the residents of the Oxford apartments that lived around Jeffrey were starting to complain. At one point, the apartment's manager even reached out to Jeffrey about this putrid smell. Jeffrey profusely apologized and told the manager that his freezer broke and everything inside of it spoiled. Later on, when the smell wasn't getting any better, Jeffrey told the manager that the fish in his fish tank died, and that was the reason his apartment smelled. All these excuses sounded reasonable, but no one had any idea. that the real reason behind the smell in apartment 213

was the fact that one of America's most disturbed serial killers had been murdering and dismembering young men behind that closed door. When the bodies were still in your apartment, there was no time when you would see them and say, this is grotesque. What have I done? There were times. There were times, but a compulsive obsession with doing what I was doing overpowered any feelings of revulsion.

On May 26, 1991, just two days after Jeffrey had murdered Tony Hughes, he was ready to kill again. And this time, he was hoping to perfect his method of creating his living zombie. So he starts driving around the city, and he comes across 14-year-old Conorak Synthesisbone. Jeffrey pulls his car over, and he asks, the young boy if he would come back to his place and pose for some pictures. Conorac declines the offer at first, but when Jeffrey offers him money, he agrees.

When the two get back to Jeffrey's apartment, Jeffrey drugs him and takes several nude photos of the minor. Jeffrey then brings Connerac into his bedroom, where the body of Tony Hughes is lying naked on the floor. Jeffrey stated later that he thought Conorac saw the body, but he never said anything because the drugs were starting to kick in. Jeffrey then orally rapes Conorak and sodomizes him. At this point, Jeffrey decides that he's going to try out the living zombie scenario again, and he thinks that maybe this time he will get it right. So Jeffrey takes his drill, walks over to Conorak, and drills a hole into the 14-year-old's head. He then injects acid inside of his brain. Now, obviously, Conorac goes unconscious after this horrific act is carried out, but he doesn't

die immediately. So Jeffrey decides that he's going to leave Conorak in the apartment for a while while he goes to the bar for a few drinks. But this would prove to be a big mistake on Jeffrey's end. While Jeffrey is out of the bar getting drinks, 14-year-old Conorak miraculously wakes up after having acid poured inside of his brain. He's disoriented and confused. but he knows that something is terribly wrong and he needs to get out of there immediately.

So he stumbles over to the door and runs outside completely naked. As he's out there, two of Jeffrey's neighbors who are our mother and daughter see Conorak and know inside of them that something is extremely wrong. They stated that Conorak was clearly in a lot of distress. He was terrified, incoherently speaking Laotian, completely naked, with a stream of blood coming out of his rectum. And they didn't know exactly what happened, but they could tell him. that the boy needed help. So they called 911.

What's your emergency? I'm on 25th in state and there's this young man. He's buck naked. Right, we'll send an officer out. Before law enforcement arrives, Jeffrey Dahmer pulls back up to his apartment and he sees the chaos going on outside. Jeffrey runs over to where they're standing and Conorak immediately retracts away from his attacker. Jeffrey tried to convince the woman that Conorak was his boyfriend and that this was all a big misunderstanding. But the two women can sense that something is wrong.

So they put themselves in between Conorak and Jeffrey until the police arrive. The cops show up a few minutes later. Keep in mind, Conorak is drugged out of his mind, and he has a hole in his head that was filled with acid, and he isn't speaking any English. So the cops just talk to Jeffrey instead, and Jeffrey assures them that this is his 20-year-old boyfriend named John Mung, and that the two had gotten into a fight

and that Conorac was just really drunk. But the women at the scene knew that something was wrong, and it was very clear to them that that boy was not 20 years old. He was obviously just a child. But Jeffrey insists. And instead of the cops looking further into the situation and reading all the signs that the boy in front of them was giving them, showing them that he was in trouble,

the cops decided that they didn't want to deal with it. The two officers then grabbed 14-year-old Conorac by the arms and helped him get back inside of Jeffrey Dahmer. apartment and within 20 minutes of Conorak being back inside of apartment 213, Jeffrey once again pours more acid into his brain and he dies immediately. Conorak's synthesim phone was Jeffrey Dahmer's 13th murder victim. This is audio from one of the officers that responded to that call, speaking at the trial. 7191, you were a city of Milwaukee police officer, is that correct?

That's correct. You pulled into that alley with your squad lights on. the headlights of the squad car were on, yes. And you got out of the car? That's correct. What did you do after you got out of the car? What did you see and what did you do? I exited the car. I was the passenger of the car.

There was a group of people in the alley, and they were all pointing to a white mill and a second Asian male who was naked just east of our location in the alley. my partner came up to me and told me that he had obtained information from the white male to whom he was talking to and basically that the Asian male's name was John Hmong and that he was 20 years old and that he had been staying with him for the last I believe he said two to three weeks had been staying with whom with Mr. Dahmer he also had obtained Dommer's name at that point. Officer Perupkin and myself and the Asian mail and Jeffrey Dahmer began walking toward the rear of the apartment. While we walked back to the

apartment, Mr. Dahmer spoke of the crime in the neighborhood and how bad he thought it was. He said he was glad that the police were in the neighborhood and that there was a need for the police. I believe he may have been smoking a cigarette during that time. As he's we got near to the apartment building, it was the rear of the apartment building, obviously. He spoke of the need for extra locks on his apartment and that he had a security system because of the crime and the nature of the neighborhood. He showed you up to his apartment. Correct.

And he convinced you that you could go about your business, that he had everything under control. We were convinced that all was well. And there wasn't anything that you saw that could for one moment. moment have caused you to believe that there was any problem at all. Correct? There was nothing. The police officers involved in this night were Joseph Gabrish and John Bouserzac. They would later be fired for this incident for a number of reasons. First, neither officers wrote a report about what happened that night. Secondly, after it happened, the two officers were heard radioing back and forth, and they were laughing about the incident because it was between two gay men. Here,

is a little clip of their banter. Lastly, they also radioed in about needing to get cleaned off after having dealt with a gay couple. Conorac, Syntheson phone, would probably still be alive today if the police officers would have done their job that night. If they would have just looked up Jeffrey's history, they would have known that Jeffrey had recently gone to prison for molesting Conorak's older brother. That's right.

The 13-year-old that Jeffrey had gone to prison for molesting. years earlier was Kiesen Syntheson. And fortunately enough for him, he was able to escape Domer that day. His younger brother, Conorak, unfortunately did not, and would become one of Jeffrey Dahmer's 17 victims. At this point in our story, Jeffrey had hurt a number of families, savagely taking their loved ones away. But the hurt that the Synthesim foam family experienced was immeasurable. If the police would have done their job that night and helped the naked. 14-year-old who was scared. With a hole in his head and blood coming from his rectum, he would still be here today. And Jeffrey would have never had the opportunity to go on and

kill four more victims. Jeffrey knew that this incident was a very close call, so he decided to travel two hours to Chicago to look for his next victim. Jeffrey went to Chicago's gay pride parade, but didn't have any look finding someone that would go home with him. But at the bus station, He ran into 20-year-old Matthew Turner. Jeffrey introduced himself as a photographer and asks Matthew if he would like to come back to Milwaukee with him for some professional pictures. Matthew agrees and the two make their way to the Oxford Apartments. They share some drinks, watch the Exorcist Three, and have sex.

Jeffrey then drugs him, strangles him, and rapes his dead corpse. Jeffrey went on to decapitate Matthew's head, placing it alongside the others in his collection. And then he puts the body in the barrel of acid. Matthew Turner was Jeffrey Dahmer's 14th murder victim. Five days later, Jeffrey goes back to Chicago and meets 25-year-old Jeremiah Weinberger. The two hit it off, and Jeffrey asks him to come spend the weekend with him in Milwaukee, to which he agrees. Once back at the apartment, the two had consensual sex. But as soon as Jeremiah wanted to leave, Jeffrey drugged him.

And Jeffrey was very attracted to Jeremiah and wanted him to stay alive as long as possible. So he drilled a hole into Jeremiah's head. And this time, he poured boiling water inside of his brain. Jeremiah woke up after this, but was very incoherent. Strangely enough, Jeremiah stayed alive a lot longer than any of the other victims and was at Jeffrey's apartment for a whole two days before he eventually died. Jeffrey would go on to take many Polaroid pictures of Jeremiah's dead body, both intact and dismembered. Jeffrey put his head in the freezer and the rest of his body in the barrel of acid. Jeremiah Weinberger was Jeffrey Dahmer's 15th murder victim.

Jeffrey's living zombie experiments were not working, and Jeremiah would be the very last victim to experience this nightmare. At first it was just curiosity and then it became compulsive. I tried to keep the person alive by inducing a zombie-like state, injecting first dilute acid solution into their brain or hot water. Never did completely work. On July 15, 1991, Jeffrey ran into 23-year-old Oliver Lacey, an attractive young man who was an aspiring bodybuilder.

Jeffrey really liked the biceps and calves of his victims, and he really liked that Oliver was built well. He told Oliver that he would pay him to take some nude photos, and Oliver agreed, and headed back with Jeffrey to the Oxford apartments. Oliver at the time had no idea that Jeremiah's headless body was inside of Jeffrey's bathtub the entire time he was there. Jeffrey drugged, strangled, and raped Oliver's corpse. He then decapitated his head and placed it in his growing collection. And while Jeffrey is dismembering Oliver in the bathtub, he makes sure to set aside his heart and some of his muscles to put in the fridge so that he could eat them later on.

Jeffrey has a number of limbs, organs, heads, and skeletons in his apartment by now. And he's starting to dream about creating an altar. Police would later get Jeffrey to draw out his vision for the altar, and boy, is it disturbing. We'll post a picture of this drawing on our Instagram, but let me try to explain it to you. On this piece of paper, Jeffrey drew out a black table lined with his victim's painted skulls. On each side of the table are two full skeletons. He drew a lamp with blue globe lights to shine on the altar and a black chair in front so that he could sit and admire it.

Jeffrey was proud of his work, of his kills, and he wanted this altar so that he could sit and look at his victims every day. If I couldn't keep them there with me whole, at least I felt that I could keep their skeletons. And I even went so far as planning on setting up an altar with the ten different skulls and skeletons. And what was the purpose of the altar going to be? As a sort of memorial. a point where I could, I don't know. It's so bizarre and strange, it's hard to describe, a place where I could collect my thoughts and feed my obsession.

Jeffrey's obsession was growing day by day, and he was neglecting all other aspects of his life so that he could rape, murder, and cannibalize young men around Milwaukee. Soon after murdering Oliver Lacey, Jeffrey would get fired from his job at the Ambrosia Chocolate Factory. And it's crazy to think that he was working with chocolate the entire time he was also dealing with dead bodies. And it was clear that Jeffrey's life was falling apart, the more his obsession grew. The very day that he was fired, on July 19, 1991, he went on the search for his next victim. At a bus stop, Jeffrey found 25-year-old father of three.

Joseph Breedahoft. Joseph was in town looking for a job when Jeffrey approached him, offering money to pose for nudes. Joseph was struggling financially, so he agreed. Once Joseph got back to Jeffrey's apartment, he was drugged, Jeffrey strangled him, and then raped his corpse. Instead of immediately dismembering Joseph, Jeffrey left his body on the mattress for a few days, even sleeping with it at night. On the second day, Jeffrey noticed that Joseph's head was filled with maggots, so he cut it off, cleaned it, placed it in the refrigerator, and put the rest of the body in the barrels of acid. We'll post pictures of Jeffrey's mattress because it is very clear looking at the red and brown stains that he had had many dead bodies laying on it. Joseph Bredahoft was Jeffrey Dahmer's 17th and final

murder victim. But there's one more victim in this story, and his name is Tracy Edwards. Real quickly, everybody, I just want to give a shout out to our wonderful patrons that are out there on the Murder in America a Patreon. We are going to be uploading a lot of different true crime content on there in the near future. We already have a bunch of bonus episodes that you guys can go listen to. So if you love the show, please consider becoming a patron. Just type in Murder in America on Patreon to find that page. And if you like what we're doing, if you like this show, you love the podcast, please take a screenshot of your screen right now and upload it to Twitter, to Instagram, to Facebook, to any social media and tag us. Every bit of promotion helps. So if you really are enjoying our show,

help us out. It's free. And just give us a shout out on some of your social media. It helps so much. Thank you to everybody that has already done that for us. And yeah, we got some exciting episodes coming up soon. Glad you guys are enjoying this. And let's get back to the show. On July 22nd, 1991, Jeffrey walks up to a group of three men. He strikes up a conversation and offers them money to pose for nudes. And one of the men in the group agrees. It's 32-year-old. old Tracy Edwards. On the ride over to his apartment, Tracy had no suspicions about Jeffrey. After all, he seemed like your average guy. The two pull up to the Oxford apartments. Jeffrey unlocks the door to room 213 and lets Tracy inside. As Tracy steps into the apartment,

he is immediately hit with a putrid smell. He looks around, taking in his environment, and he notices that there are boxes of hydrochloric acid on the floor. When he asks Jeffrey about the acid, he replies that it's for cleaning purposes. Jeffrey hands him a lace drink and Tracy notices that Jeffrey is starting to act more strange. He's nervous and he keeps anxiously looking over at him. Tracy slowly sips on his drink of rum and Coke and Jeffrey asks him if he wants to take a look at his tropical fish. Tracy walks over to the fish tank when all of a sudden he feels something cold slip around his left wrist. It was handcuffs.

Jeffrey tries to get the other handcuff on him, but Tracy fights back and asks Jeffrey what the hell is going on. Jeffrey then pulls out a knife and tells Tracy to go to the bedroom and start getting undressed for the photo shoot. Tracy was crippled with fear at this point, and with a knife being pointed at him, he listens, and he walks over to the bedroom. Once he enters, he notices big blue barrels in the corner of the room,

and the Exorcist 3 playing on the team. Jeffrey would go on to say that this movie would inspire him to murder, and he watched it with a number of his victims before killing them. I felt so hopelessly evil and perverted that I actually derives a sort of pleasure from watching that tape. Did you like feeling evil? No. No, I didn't. But I tried to over it. overcome the thoughts and it worked for a while but eventually I gave in. Jeffrey and Tracy watched the Exorcist 3 for a while. Then, with Jeffrey still holding the knife, he orders Tracy to undress. Tracy nervously takes off his shirt and Jeffrey was getting

visibly excited at the side of it. Swaying back and forth, he walks slowly towards Tracy, places his head on his chest and he listens to his heartbeat. He then looks at Tracy and tells him I'm going to eat your heart. Tracy did his best to assure Jeffrey that everything was fine and that they were friends. He knew that if he didn't do this,

Jeffrey would kill him and the next few minutes were a roller coaster of emotions for Tracy. Jeffrey would seem to let his guard down for a moment, but then get anxious again. And this continued back and forth for a while. This is how Tracy described it in court. At times he would go through different changes with me.

Tell us about that. One minute he's like nice, then he was telling you didn't want people to leave him or abandon him, things of this nature. What did you think about him as a person? What impression was made on your mind of this fellow that you're dealing with here? That at times he wasn't himself. at times he was like a nice guy. It would come and go different times, you know.

Throughout the whole time, then he would, like, sit, being quiet at times, watching the movie, wanted me to watch the movie, the tanning sounds, you know. Did you observe him watching the movie and how he would react to the movie? Right, he would like to start rocking back and forth, you know, certain parts of it. You have to say, what did he say, man? He was like chanting at certain times and rocking back and forth. Tell us about his chanting.

that all about? I'm not even sure, sir, but it was just like, I can't tell you the words I can understand what he was saying at that time. Can you mimic him? How it sounded? It's like a slow slur, like, something of that nature, something close like that, I'm not sure. Did it keep on for a period of time? Off and on throughout the ordeal. At this point, Jeffrey was intently watching The Exorcist 3, and Tracy told him that he needed to use the restroom. Jeffrey wasn't holding on to his handcuffs anymore and he saw the opportunity to escape. So he punches Jeffrey in the face and runs out of the front door. Then I just for some reason I said, well, I need to go to the bathroom again and he then followed me at that point. So I reached up, I got up, and then I got hit him and I ran out.

You hit him? Right. Did you have any other belongings there? I have my bag right there at the end of the couch. I sit in exactly the same place that I sit when I went in there. So when you got up, you let go of your cuff to let you go to the... the bathroom again? He didn't even, he just like, just let me stay there. I was going to go for the window. At that point, he didn't even have the cuff. It's like I wasn't even there anymore. And when you saw that, what'd you do? I just seized the opportunity. I said, well, at least I'm going to die trying. I'm not just going to sit here. What did you do, son? I hit him, and I ran towards the door and he was right there,

tried to grab me, get me back in there. And what happened? Then I made it outside. So he wasn't able to bring you back in. Bring me back in here. You try. Help me. Help me, officers. Please help me. This freak, this crazy guy, he's trying to hurt me.

He put these handcuffs on me, and I've been trying to escape his apartment for hours. He's trying to kill me. You've got to help me. The two police officers are Robert Ralph and Rolf Mueller, and they see the handcuffs hanging off of Tracy's wrist. But their immediate thought is that this is just a gay couple having a domestic dispute. But Tracy is adamant that this guy. is dangerous. So the police officers follow him back to Jeffrey's door.

Jeffrey opens the door, looking friendly and innocent, and the officers ask him if they could have the keys for the handcuffs. Jeffrey assures them that this was all just a big misunderstanding, and the officers honestly just wanted to get the keys and move on with their night. So they stepped inside, and Tracy again tries to tell them that Jeffrey was trying to kill him. But the officers at this point still aren't really buying it. And as they're standing inside of the Dirty apartment, Tracy, with the handcuffs still attached to his wrist, runs to the bedroom, grabs the butcher knife, and shows it to the officers saying, Look, this is the knife he's been using on me.

The situation is starting to look more suspicious than the officers had initially thought. And as they're all standing there observing their environment, something catches one of the officer's eyes. It's a pile of Polarade pictures, but they aren't just any Polarade pictures. As the officers shuffle through them, they see. see dozens of images of dead bodies. Among the pictures, there are several sets of severed and bloody hands, legs, calves, arms, torsos, chest cavities that have been pried open, bodies folded in unnatural positions, and many decapitated heads of young men. The officers immediately know

that they had just come across one of America's most heinous serial killers. and he's standing right in front of them. One of the officers then yell, cuff him. And Jeffrey Dahmer is finally arrested. What was the turning point for you that made you suddenly realize that you had done something terribly wrong, something you should be sorry for?

It was the night of the arrest. I have no memory of what happened during the six hours before the last, victim ran out of the apartment. I heard a knock on the door, and the police were there with the last victim. They asked me where the key was to the handcuffs. My mind was in a haze.

I sort of pointed to the bedroom, and that's where they found the pictures. And they yelled cuff them. I was handcuffed. And it was just, it was just. just the realization that there was no point in trying to hide, hide my actions anymore. The best route was to help, help the police identify all the victims and just make a complete confession. When crime scene investigators got to room 213 of the Oxford apartments, they were faced with the unthinkable.

When they opened Jeffrey's fridge, they immediately saw the decapitated head of a young male. and throughout the kitchen they would go on to find several more heads in various stages of decomposition. Two human hearts, several half-eaten organs, strips of flesh, a portion of a bicep, an entire torso, and a tray filled with blood. Throughout the rest of Jeffrey's apartment, investigators found seven skulls, two complete skeletons, penises, scalps, a pair of severed hands, and three different torsos inside of the acid barrel. At the end of their investigation, they discovered the body parts of 11 different victims inside of Jeffrey's apartment. Jeffrey immediately confesses to his crimes, knowing that his 13-year murder spree was over. He told investigators about how he would lure his victims, drug them, strangle them, rape them, and how he would take their bodies to his bathtub and cut off their heads, arms, legs,

open them up and remove all of their organs. He admitted to his acts of necrophilia and how he would cut the bodies open and engage in sex with their organs. He admitted to eating certain parts of his victim's hearts, arms, and legs. Investigators were completely beside themselves. The young, unassuming man in front of them

didn't look like a monster, but this genuine confession made him one of America's most disturbed killers. Jeffrey Dahmer would later be charged with 15 counts of murder in Wisconsin and one count of murder in Ohio, where he killed his first victim, Stephen Hicks. Investigators actually went to Jeffrey's childhood home and found Stephen's bone fragments scattered around the property. They didn't add the murder charge of Stephen Twolme, his second victim, because they never found his remains. On January 13, 1992, Jeffrey pleads guilty by reason of insanity. The courts, however, proved that Jeffrey was legally sane,

and they sentenced him to 15 life terms and over 900 years in prison. Months later, he was also convicted for the murder of Stephen Hicks in Ohio. The families of the victims then got to read their victim impact statements. My name is Dorothy Stratter. I'm Curtis Stratter's mother. I didn't have nothing prepared to say. It's just a few things that I would like to say. You took my 17-year-old son away from me. I'll never get a chance to tell him that I loved him. I'd have a chance to tell him that I love him the last time I saw him, which will be a year tomorrow.

You took my daughter's only brother away from her. She'll never have a chance to sing and dance with him again. You took my mother's oldest grandchild from her, and for that I can never forgive you. My name is Rita Isbell, and I'm the oldest sister of Arrow Lindsay. Whatever your name is, hey, father have to go through this again. What's your name, family? What's your name, family? And for Jeffrey's final statement, he said this.

Your Honor, it is over now. This has never been a case of trying to get free. I didn't ever want freedom. Frankly, I want a death for myself. This was a case to tell the world that I did what I did, not for reasons of hate. I hated no one. I knew I was sick or evil or both.

Now I believe I was sick. The doctors have told me about my sickness, and now I have some peace. I know how much harm I have caused. I tried to do the best I could after the arrest to make amends, but no matter what I did, I could not undo the terrible harm I have caused. I feel so bad for what I did to those poor families, and I understand their rightful hate. I decided to go through this trial for a number of reasons.

One of the reasons was to let the world know that the people know that these were not hate crimes. I wanted the world in Milwaukee, which I deeply hurt, to know the truth of what I did. I didn't want unanswered questions. All the questions have now been answered. I wanted to find out just what it was that caused me to be so bad and evil. But most of all, Mr. Boyle and I decided that maybe there was a way for us to tell the world that if there are people out there with these disorders, maybe they can get some help before they end up being hurt or hurting someone. I think the trial did that. Jeffrey would spend the remainder of his short life in Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage, Wisconsin.

During this time, he did an interview with Stone Phillips that we've referenced many times. And Phillips asks Jeffrey about how he believes he got this way. And Jeffrey responds with this. I feel it's wrong for people who commit crimes to try to shift the blame onto somebody else, onto their parents or onto their upbringing or living circumstances. I think that's just a cop-out. I take full responsibility. How do you feel about what you did?

I'm glad that it's over. Any words I say to the victim's families are just going to seem trite and empty. I don't know how to express the regret, sorrow that I feel for what I've done for their sons. I can't find the right words. Jeffrey received a lot of threats in prison, so he spent the first year of his sentence in solitary confinement. Later, he would be moved to general population, where he discovered his love for God, and he was even baptized in 1994. In July of that same year, an inmate tried to kill Jeffrey with a razor, but he escaped with minor injuries.

And Jeffrey was not well liked in prison. It was confirmed that when it was time to eat, Jeffrey would form his food in the shape of body parts to mess with the other inmates. And about four months later, on November 28, 1994, Jeffrey and two other inmates named Christopher Scarver and Jesse Anderson were assigned work duties near the prison's wait room. Christopher Scarver was in prison for murder, and it was known that he didn't like Jeffrey.

Once the guards left, Scarver asked Jeffrey if he really did commit the crimes he was accused of. and Jeffrey replied, yes, yes I did. Then Christopher took a metal bar from the gym and beat Jeffrey over and over and over again. Christopher also took the metal bar to the other inmate in the room, killing them both that day. Christopher beat Jeffrey so hard that his face was completely unrecognizable. Jeffrey lived for about an hour after the attack and then succumbed to his injuries. Many people, including Christopher Scarver, believe that the guards purposefully left the men unsupervised that morning, knowing that Jeffrey Dahmer would be murdered.

But we truly don't have those answers. At the end of writing this episode, I had a lot of thoughts about this case. Like, what would have happened if Tracy Edwards never ran out of apartment 213 that day? We believe that Jeffrey would have gone on to kill a lot more victims. His good look and charms had caused him to slip through the fingers of law enforcement time and time again. Before Jeffrey's death, Stone Phillips asked him this. Is it still there, Jeff? Does it ever go away?

In part, no, it never completely goes away. I'll probably have to live with it for the rest of my life. I wish it would go away. I wish there was some way to completely get rid of the compulsive thoughts, the feelings. It's not nearly so bad now that there's no avenues to actually act on it. But, no, it never seems to go completely away. So the thoughts still come to you. Sometimes, yeah.

If you were out on the street now, would you still be committing the crimes? Probably if this hadn't happened, there's no doubt I probably would be. I can't think of anything that would have stopped me. Now, at the end of the story, we always want to leave you guys with a question, but there are so many questions in this case that you're left to think about, to ponder. Who is your neighbor? Courtney and I live in an apartment complex. We don't know our neighbors.

What are they up to when we're not watching? No one had any idea that Jeffrey was slaughtering these young men in his apartment. And yet, he was able to get away with it for years. And at the end of the day, I've done so many paranormal investigations in my life. I really do feel like a place like Jeffrey Dahmer's apartment would have been that holy grail of a location just filled with this terrible energy from these tragic crimes. It just, it would have been very powerful, a very, very powerful negative energy there. But unfortunately, the Oxford apartments, along with room 213, were demolished a few years ago. So on that land where Jeffrey Dahmer once slaughtered his victims, there's no building.

There's nothing. It's just land. But what happens to that energy? Is it still there? Is the land stained forever? I guess those are questions that we'll just never have answers to. But this story, this story really does prove that you can't trust anybody and that the real monsters are not the ghosts, the boogeymen. They're people like you and I. There's probably someone

out there listening to this podcast that has some sort of a dark tendency or thought. But we'll just never know. That's why you always have to just keep a watch. Always look over your shoulder. Because you never know if you might be moving in right next to another Jeffrey Dahmer. Hey everybody. And thank you for listening. to another episode of Murder in America. I'm so glad that we finally got to cover the Jeffrey Dahmer case. Courtney and I have always loved this story, and it is so gruesome and dark.

It's just absolutely insane that this happened right here in America. But I just want to remind you guys, if you love what we're doing, if you want to see the photos from the Jeffrey Dahmer, crime scenes and everything, go follow our Instagram at Murder in America. My personal is Colin Brown. Courtney's is Court Shan.

Our Twitter handle is the same. And if you want to become a patron and get access to bonus episodes, go search Murder in America on Patreon. We are so unbelievably thankful for all of you out there listening. It's the same old question. If Jeffrey Dahmer's apartment was still there, do you think that that energy from those killings would have hung around? It makes you wonder, the dead don't talk, or do they? See on the next one, everybody, and thanks for listening.