Yet amidst the tension, he had a few friends who remembered him as fun and engaging. But a disturbing fascination began to emerge early on. Around age four, he watched his father dig up animal bones beneath their house. The sounds sparked a strange thrill. Soon, he began exploring, dissecting small animals, and collecting bones — calling them his “fiddlesticks.”
When the family moved to Bath Township, Ohio, his obsession intensified. He preserved skeletons in jars of formaldehyde, collected insects, and dissected roadkill. His father, believing it was scientific curiosity, taught him how to clean and preserve bones — skills he eagerly adopted.
By his early teens, his obsession escalated further. He started drinking secretly, hiding liquor in his jacket. At 15, he decapitated a dog, nailing its body to a tree. His high school years were marked by bizarre pranks and strange behaviors — bleating like a sheep, mimicking the disabled, and sneaking through classroom doors — that left peers both unnerved and amused.
But beneath the antics, darker compulsions were forming. On June 18, 1978, shortly after graduating high school, he picked up a hitchhiker — and committed his first murder.
Over the next 13 years, he would kill 16 more young men. His crimes included dismemberment, necrophilia, and cannibalism. He experimented with sedatives, strangulation, and horrifying attempts to control victims’ minds through injections into their skulls.
Authorities finally caught him on July 22, 1991, after one intended victim escaped and led police to his apartment. Investigators found photographs of dismembered bodies, severed heads in the refrigerator, and a horrifying collection of human remains. The boy who once played with “fiddlesticks” had grown into Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer — the Milwaukee Cannibal, one of the most infamous serial killers in U.S. history.
Dahmer’s own life ended violently on November 28, 1994, when he was beaten to death by fellow inmate Christopher Scarver, who later claimed God had guided him. Reactions to Dahmer’s death were mixed: some victims’ families felt relief, while others, like Catherine Lacy, mother of victim Oliver Lacy, said the pain only deepened.
The case remains a grim reminder: evil can hide behind innocence, and the signs sometimes emerge long before tragedy strikes.
What do you think drives someone from innocence to crime? Share your thoughts in the comments below.