At a casual glance, Jeffrey Dahmer’s $300-a-month, one-bedroom furnished apartment appeared ordinary—a beige couch, a fish tank, an Oriental rug.
Little did anyone suspect that the walls of Apartment 213 also held the sinister secrets of one of the most notorious serial killers in history.
Less than a week after moving into the apartment, Dahmer killed his sixth victim, Raymond Smith.
The day after the murder, Dahmer went out and purchased a Polaroid camera.
Upon returning home, the Milwaukee Cannibal took photos of Smith’s posed body in suggestive positions before dismembering him in the bathroom.
Within the next five months, Dahmer claimed the lives of three more men before involuntarily taking a break.
Between October 1990 and February 1991, at least five of Dahmer’s attempts to lure men into his apartment were unsuccessful.
During his meetings with the probation officer, Dahmer complained of feelings of anxiety and depression with frequent references to his sexuality, his solitary lifestyle, and financial difficulties.
On several occasions, Dahmer also revealed he had suicidal thoughts.
By 1991, residents of the Oxford Apartments repeatedly complained about the fouls smells and occasional sounds of a chainsaw emanating from the Apartment 213.
Building manager Sopa Princewill contacted Dahmer in response to these complaints on several occasions.
Dahmer initially told Princewill that the source of the smell were the spoiled contents of his broken freezer. The second time, Dahmer claimed the odor was coming from his dead tropical fish.
Following his involuntary break from killing, Dahmer claimed seven more victims in five months.
Dahmer’s unquenchable thirst for killing ultimately brought the end to his reign of terror.
On the night of July 22, 1991, 32-year-old Tracy Edwards flagged down two Milwaukee police officers claiming a “freak” kidnapped and handcuffed him.
Edwards accompanied the policemen back to Jeffrey Dahmer’s apartment, where he claimed to have been held captive for five hours.
Upon arrival, Edwards revealed Dahmer also threatened him with a knife and told him he wanted to eat his heart. Surprisingly, Dahmer did not seem bothered by Edwards’ claims and simply directed the officers to a handcuff key on his bedside dresser.
Upon entering the bedroom, the officer stumbled upon a large knife hidden under the bed as well as an open dresser with Polaroid pictures of dismembered human bodies.
“These are for real,” the officer called back to his partner in the living room. The discovery startled Dahmer, who tried to avoid arrest but was quickly overpowered by an officer.
A search conducted by the Milwaukee police’s Criminal Investigation Bureau revealed five severed heads, seven skulls (including some that were painted or bleached), and a tray of blood drippings inside a refrigerator.
Investigators also discovered two human hearts and a part of an arm wrapped in plastic bags on the refrigerator shelves, as well as a torso and a bag of human organs and flesh frozen in ice at the bottom of Dahmer’s freezer.
Further investigation revealed two skeletons, a pair of severed hands, two severed penises, and a mummified scalp, as well as three more torsos dissolving in acid in the 57-gallon drum.
74 Polaroid photographs in total were found detailing the dismemberment of each of Dahmer’s victims.
“It was more like dismantling someone’s museum than an actual crime scene,” the chief medical examiner once said.
Neighbors, curious onlookers, and members of the media flocked to the scene of the killings.
“Everyone in the building felt suckered. We all felt that Jeffrey Dahmer had played us. It’s really hard to become fond of someone, to find out that actually that person had a dagger in your back. I thought this guy was my friend,” Pamela Bass, Dahmer’s neighbor told the press.
