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Jeffrey Dahmer

Jeffrey Dahmer was one of the most infamous serial killers in United States history. He was born on May 21, 1960, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. When Dahmer was eight years of age, his family moved to Bath, Ohio. As a child, Dahmer became obsessed with death. He impaled the heads of dead animals on sticks in his backyard. He also briefly attended The Ohio State University. In 1978, he murdered his first victim -- Dahmer's estranged lover -- in Bath. Between 1978 and 1991, Dahmer murdered seventeen men. Most of his victims were young, African-American, homosexual men, and the majority of the murders occurred in Milwaukee.

In 1991, one of Dahmer's intended victims escaped, alerting police authorities. Upon entering Dahmer's apartment, officers discovered body parts, stored by a variety of means, from eleven separate victims. Dahmer was arrested. He plead insanity at his trial, but the court rejected the defense. In February 1992, Dahmer received fifteen life sentences. He would not have been eligible for parole for 936 years.

On November 28, 1994, a fellow inmate killed Dahmer in the Columbia Correctional Institute in Portage, Wisconsin.

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Citation

"Jeffrey Dahmer", Ohio History Central, July 1, 2005, http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=1781

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