Reign of terror: 18 / 06/ 78 - 22 / 07/ 91
Motive: Sex
Crimes:
| Date | Victim | Age | Place |
| 18 / 06 / 78 | Steven Hicks | 19 | Ohio |
| November 1987 | Steven Tuomi | 25 | Milwaukee |
| 16 / 01 / 88 | James Doxtator | 14 | Milwaukee |
| 24 / 03 /88 | Richard Guerrero | 25 | Milwaukee |
| 25 / 03/ 89 | Anthony Sears | 24 | Milwaukee |
| June 1990 | Raymond Smith | 28 | Milwaukee |
| Late June 1990 | Edward Smith | 28 | Milwaukee |
| 24 / 09 /90 | Ernest Miller | 24 | Milwaukee |
| 24 / 09/90 | David Thomas | 22 | Milwaukee |
| February 1991 | Curtis Straughter | 18 | Milwaukee |
| 07 / 04 / 91 | Errol Lindsey | 19 | Milwaukee |
| 24 / 05 / 91 | Tony Hughes | 31 | Milwaukee |
| 27 / 05 / 91 | Konerak Sinthasomphone | 14 | Milwaukee |
| 30 / 06 / 91 | Matt Turner | 20 | Milwaukee |
| 05 / 07 / 91 | Jeremiah Weinberger | 23 | Milwaukee |
| 15 / 07 / 91 | Oliver Lacy | 23 | Milwaukee |
| 19 / 07 / 91 | Joseph Bradehoft | 17 | Milwaukee |
Method: Hicks was hit over the head with a barbell, strangled and his body smashed to pieces. Miller was drugged and his throat was cut. The other victims were all strangled. Their bodies were dismembered.
Sentence: 15 life sentences to run consecutively.
Interesting facts: As a child, Dahmer was always a loner. At home he started to kill his pets and other small animals. At the age of 18, his parents split up and both left the marital home, unwittingly leaving Dahmer alone to fend for himself. This is when the murder of Hicks occurred. His father returned 6 weeks after the murder and Dahmer went to Ohio State University. However, he left after a term as he had become an alcoholic. Instead, he enlisted into the army and trained as a medical specialist. He stayed there for 18 months, until his alcoholism got the better of him again. On his return home, he was sent to live with his grandmother to get a job and sort out his alcohol problems. In 1982 he lost his job and got arrested for flashing. He started frequenting gay bars, picking up men and experimented on them with drugs and sleeping pills. In 1986, he was charged with disorderly conduct after having been seen masturbating and exposing himself, and was sentenced to probation for a year and counselling. In 1988, he moved out of his grandmother's house. Soon after, he was arrested for the second-degree sexual assault of a 13 year old boy. It was recommended that Dahmer receive 6 years imprisonment for this offence - however he received 1 year in prison under a work-release programme and 5 years of probation.
Dahmer murdered most of his victims in the same way. He lured them back to his flat with alcohol, sex, companionship, or money to pose for nude photographs. He would then give his victims sleeping tablets in their beer. Once they fell asleep he strangled them. He would then have sex with their corpses, although at first he had sex with them before he killed them. His first four victims were dismembered and thrown away with the rubbish. From his fifth victim onwards, he collected their skulls as trophies, and took photos of them dead and alive. Dahmer claims that he kept the skeleton of his eighth victim, and ate some of his flesh. Some of the bodies were left to dissolve in acid in a huge barrel he kept for the purpose.
The death of Sinthasomphone could have been avoided. Dahmer had drugged the boy and sexually assaulted him before going to the shops to buy more beer. When he returned, he found Sinthasomphone outside the house, naked talking to police officers. He told the police that Sinthasomphone was his 19 year old lover and was drunk, and so the police escorted them both back to Dahmer's flat, where Dahmer proceeded to kill the boy. Sinthasomphone, coincidentally, was the younger brother of the boy that Dahmer had previously been convicted of assaulting. Dahmer was eventually caught on 22nd July 1991, when 31 year old Tracy Edwards managed to escape from him. He found two policemen sitting in a police car and explained how he had been assaulted by Dahmer. The police officers took the man to Dahmer's apartment, where they asked Dahmer for the keys to the handcuffs that Edwards was wearing. Whilst trying to find these keys in a drawer, the police found photographs of dismembered bodies, and the search of Dahmer's house began. Heads were found in the fridge, torsos were found in a 57 gallon chemical drum and arms and legs were found in plastic bags.