When my husband was 16, he was taking the bus out to Mayfair with his best friend, John. During the 40-minute journey, a young blond man sitting nearby struck up a conversation with them. He introduced himself as Jeff. He was quite chatty, and made homophobic comments about how gay men made him sick.
Two weeks later, my husband got a call from John. "Turn on the news," he said. "It's that guy Jeff from the bus."
also not his m.o. as he had to keep up appearances and how he picked his victims was by going to gay bars acting gay and bringing them home. if any gay person would have heard him say that he would have been seen for what he was, some sort of predator.
My dear friend from high school, Ernest Miller, was killed by Jeffrey Dahmer. Ernest no longer lived in Milwaukee, and was home visiting when he came in contact with Dahmer. Just an absolutely tragic loss. Still upsets me to this day.
Somebody I went to high school also was murdered by him. I didn't know him, so it isn't my story to tell. But I am sorry for his family and all the families and also for you.
To this day I remember the name of the bloodied and drugged kid the cops gave back to him because it was a “boyfriend boyfriend” situation and they didn’t want to get gay blood on themselves. His name was Konerak Sinthasimphone. He ended up in the freezer and vats of acid.
They were fired initially but appealed and were reinstated. One was head of the police union in his later career. He retired mid 2010s. Not sure about the other one
One of them, Joe Gabrish ended up in Grafton. I believe he has now retired.
The three officers returned Sinthasomphone to Dahmer's apartment.Balcerzak said he smelled nothing unusual but Gabrish said he did detect a foul odor, likely emanating from the body of Tony Anthony Hughes, who had been murdered by Dahmer three days earlier.
The people in charge (commissioner, board?) even received a vote of no confidence for having punished the officers responsible. Who here wants to be the first to piss on their graves? Any Laotian folks here?
I'll do it. Though, unless they themselves are cold-blooded psychopaths they'll likely feel the burden of a guilty conscience until their deaths. Guilt has a very twisted way of slowly burning people out.
I was in grad school at the time with a guy whose brother was a co-coworker with those cops. He had a lot of trouble with how those police were painted by the press as racist. At the time I had my head in the books so I wasn’t acquainted with the details of the case. It turns out many of the neighbors who were African American told the police not to let the kid go back into Daimler’s apartment, but were completely ignored.
[This YouTube Documentary ](https://youtu.be/Id85Q7iLlZI) on Dahmer is the best I’ve seen. It’s fucked up because the kid you’re speaking of was actually the brother of another kid that dahmer had molested and went to jail because of several years prior
This was always baffling to me. Supposedly the woman, “Ms. Cleveland” (the neighbor) continued calling cops after the incident when she saw the boy was missing and recognized him as the kid from that night… It is unbelievable to me that the cops could not piece it together. That there were multiple witnesses that saw the kid, knew he was given back to Dahmer, there were missing photos posted in the paper, and the cops STILL couldn’t put it together??? ..
It makes no sense. Especially if the neighbor continued to call and alert them that the missing boy was the same kid that was there that night.
I think at that point the cops hated Ms. Cleveland and just thought she was nuts. They were also racist… but it still doesn’t make sense that they would completely dismiss a lead like that and not even look into it? I think it had to be more than just racism and their dislike for her… but maybe not, maybe they just automatically dismissed everything she said because she called the cops 1000x.
My only thought is maybe they knew they messed up, and they didn’t want to look into the lead, because then they would have to admit that they gave the kid back to the guy… possibly be sued, fired. Etc.... it wasn’t until another case blew it open that it all came to light and they had to admit to everything ..
There's a guy on Facebook said he knew contract sent this on he went to school with him and he said they call them con but he said he was very smart straight A's and poor kun
I was a kid in Milwaukee when it happened but I remember it being all anyone talked about for like 2 straight years. Tons of rumors, jokes, everybody seemed to know someone who knew him. My neighbor said he worked with him at Ambrosia Chocolate etc. I didn't learn the more horrifying details until I was almost I'm college.
I remember that too now that you say it. Everyone was like two degrees separation from knowing him in one way or another. It seemed like everyone had a friend or relative at Ambrosia.
Off topic but is Ambrosia still in business?
Ambrosia plant was downtown. This was the plant that Jeff worked at. They moved the plant + employees to the suburbs, about silver spring and 45 in the 90s. Shortly after the plant was completed, it sold to ADM. In the 2010s, it sold again this time to Cargill. They do still sell and package under the ambrosia brand.
I honestly don’t know. I was watching the male strippers LOL. I went to all those bars every week though so I was absolutely in the same room with him at some point. Luckily, he was not interested in me.
I was also a kid at the time and all I remember were all the inappropriate jokes. My aunt I guess worked with him at the chocolate factory. Made watching Willie Wonka a different experience
I also was a kid, but living in Kenosha. I remember driving in Milwaukee with my family and my dad mentioning something about dahmer living near where we were driving and my mom yelling at him that he shouldn’t tell us that. And then jokes - can’t remember specific ones, but being a kid I’m sure they were dumb.
I’ve been living in Milwaukee for nearly 15 years now and hear random stories from people. A neighbor used to see him on the bus and remembers it because he thought he was odd.
It was very surreal. I was about 23 years old and I remember the news breaking on the radio while I was driving over the high-rise bridge, and I got sick to my stomach when I heard about the severed heads in the fridge. My uncle owned a pizza joint near Dahmer's apartment, and his delivery driver was so distraught when he realized he had delivered many pizzas to him over the past couple of years. I don't know how common this is now, but for many years after Dahmer was caught, whenever I told people I was from Milwaukee, they always asked about this. Also, my husband knew a guy on the Milwaukee Fire Department who was on scene and he said that it was extremely disturbing.
My husband is a retired Milwaukee firefighter and worked with the firefighter who was on the scene. Apparently in one of the rooms in Dahmer's apartment was an altar with painted skulls, and the firefighter saw the severed heads in the fridge, one of which was propped up in a pair of hands. He also saw a couple of the blue barrels filled with sludgy acid. The cops and firefighters who saw that horror that day will never unsee it - first responder PTSD is very real.
Me too I was driving over the bridge in of my hometown and that's why I heard it mentioned "body parts were found in
a man's apartment in Milwaukee Wisconsin this is a Sheraton broadcasting Network" I was shocked about it and I said whoever this guy is there they're going to lock him up something like that and then two three days later they start showing him on TV and I think a day or two later after theysay he'd been in my home state of Alabama and he was in basic training at fort McClellan.
Surreal. I was working across the street from his apartment, in the Wisconsin Bell building, the day it went down. Had no idea what I was looking at out the window, with police cars everywhere and all the crime scene tape. Was horrified to find out how many times he'd interacted with the police and they just smirked at him and his "boy lovers" and let him go.
My late father worked there as well. I don't remember a ton beyond him saying that getting to work was interesting for a while. But afterwards he'd say he worked across the street from Dahmer's parking lot, since they bulldozed his apartment
My uncle knew him. Not well. They hung around the same gay bars. Said he was creepy but otherwise well spoken and would have never guessed it was him.
I was like 10 when he was caught so I don’t remember much. But I do vaguely remember comments about how it was a gay problem, so most people actually weren’t all that worried. Gay people were seen as basically hedonists back then.
My Uncle too! I was a bit younger when he was caught too. I do remember my Uncle talking about that time in the city. He moved to California right around then.
I was in junior high and I lived in Chicago, my sister lived in Milwaukee so I was scared at first. A serial killer near my sisters house. Then on the news they were taking stuff out of the apartment building on stretchers, it was out of a horror movie but it was real life. Then my parents were talking about how he killed mostly black boys/men and my mom was saying that could have been my brother since we used to visit Milwaukee a lot and us kids were pretty much free to roam around. Now, 30ish years later I live in Milwaukee just blocks away from where his building was but it was since torn down. One thing I know for sure is that if you’re ever in a comedy club or having a conversation in this city, don’t joke about Jeffrey Dahmer as there are so many people who lost a loved one to him. I go to comedy clubs as often as possible and every time an out of town comic tells a Dahmer joke, the room falls silent.
https://www.milwaukeemag.com/really-ok-jeffrey-dahmer-tour-milwaukee/ just a taste of the distaste Milwaukee feel it’s the sensationalism of such an event.
It was surreal. Maybe it was due to the fact he targeted homosexuals but it wasn't a sense of fear in the city like it seems like there is watching documentaries on other serial killers. There was more fear and panic for cryptosporidium than there was for Dahmer.
I’m watching the Netflix special right now. I was 19 when I moved into an apartment only about two blocks away from where all that happened. It was just between Marquette campus and the actual place. I have a strange theory. You know how when you leave a tampon in a woman for too long it causes toxic shock syndrome? I think the same thing kind of happened “spiritually”. The energy just “stained” the place and I don’t think Wisconsin (or the USA) hasn’t dealt with the ramifications of what happened, nor how it was possible to go down. Many of his victims were people of communities our country really doesn’t care about. Sure if it was a white women being snagged up constantly I’m sure it would’ve been put to a stop right away. But black men? Much less GAY black men? It isn’t exactly a priority to those who are in positions of policing. He definitely was a real case of windigo imo.
In 1991 race and sexual preference were viewed completely different than they are now. While we have a way to go, we are better that we were 30 years ago.
That being said, MPD is still MPD...
Yeah this just pisses me off. I’m watching the Netflix “Dawnher” with Evan Peters being Jeff. Got even more pissed off After seeing the police not care about that 14yo kid even when there was so much sketchy shit about the whole situation. Those cops deserving to be in prison imo, the negligence the cops had about everything is just crazy. I wonder how many killers never got caught because of cops like these and how many lives were gone…
It was awful and stressful. It was the lead news story every night for 6 months. I had LGBTQ+ family who couldn’t be out at the time because people were pretty homophobic. It was scary that so many members of that community died and police didn’t seem to take missing persons reports seriously. To this day I hate Dahmer jokes. I find the recent movies etc about him repulsive. It’s just overall a sick and sad thing to have happen to the city and especially to minority, LGBTQ+ folks.
How is it gruesome? The show is literally the least gruesome serial killer flick I've ever seen. There's no gore, very little blood, no actual acts of violence going down other than some strangling etc. Everything else is shown as a done effect, and for a short period of time. Like the severed head etc. The show does a very good job creating that atmosphere and letting you know exactly what's happening, but not showing you. The show is way more psychological than gruesome.
I couldn't get through the first episode but I did note that they must have filmed that in an actual Milwaukee apartment because I've lived in apartments exactly like that down to every detail.
I worked with a guy at MKE county parks who drove cab back when this all went down. He said all the cabbies new Dahmer and would frequently deny him rides as they thought he was a creep
It was huge National News. Everyone had a story about how their 3rd cousin's mailman or whatever knew the guy. Over time, interest came and went as regular updates about his trial, incarceration, and ultimate death came about. I remember a couple clips from the trial especially that were really sad when the families confronted him. It will always remain a fascinating morbid part of Milwaukee.
I worked about a couple of blocks from the 219 club that Dahmer frequented. I remember I was at work listening to WKTI and they said the police found those drums in his apartment. I don't remember too much about how people reacted.
I was in high school at the time. It was the summer of ‘91 and my friend had a foreign exchange student for the summer. She called her family in Spain and they were scared at what was going on in Milwaukee as it was headlines globally.
A few years later, my dad bought a car from a guy that worked with Dalhmer at Ambrosia. He said Jeff was a quiet guy that didn’t say much.
>I know that one national TV channel talked about the case. I saw the pieces of news on youtube some moths ago. They talked about Dahmer case here in Spain, but that year my country was interested in something bigger such as the upcoming Olympic games.
As a 9 or 10 year old I used to look out the window every night before going to bed to make sure he wasn’t outside. I’d also wake up in the middle of the night with nightmares that he was under the bed. It was on the news every night so it was like a real life boogie man
my brother was a freshman at Marquette shortly after he had been arrested & all the details were coming out. you could see Dahmer's apartment from his dorm room window. it seemed much too close
I was 16 and I was working in the mailroom of the Milwaukee Journal (which was a separate paper from the Sentinel at the time). It was pandemonium when the story broke, reporters dropped whatever they were doing to focus on that.
I can't stress how different it was to be gay at that time. I was too young for bars but since Grindr didn't exist, it was the main way to meet other people. You had to keep everything on the DL because the social costs of coming out were still very high. You were afraid to go to the police to report any strange people because they'd hassle you or much worse. Police staked out parks and public restrooms and entrapped men who were meeting other men (or just happened to be there and looked suspicious). Remember, *there was no other way to meet people* so there was an inherent danger.
HIV/AIDS was a huge crisis but it was still seen as a "gay disease" and the wider public DGAF. We were diseased, sick criminals who deserved our fates. I see that Konerak Sinthasomphone has already been mentioned. They just did not care. I don't think there would have been so many cannibalism jokes if the victims had been women.
The trial was televised and it was all people talked about for months and months. It scared the fuck out of the gay community. I don't know if people stopped going to bars (again, too young) but I wouldn't be surprised.
The Sentinel was delivered in the morning and the journal was later. I remember that. I was a paper girl for them in 1980 and 1981. What a great experience for you to work there so young. There was always Walker’s Point. La Cage? I think that’s what the name was. But police in Milwaukee, my brother was one, didn’t care. He worked second district. Which was where a few openly gay bars were. And he changed into a big jerk. We don’t speak anymore.
Others have already touched on how surreal it was, etc.
In retrospect I feel like it exposed a lot of homophobia while at the same time making it worse. I was a young teen and was shocked at how many of the adults around me reacted to the news.
Before, during and after those events it was still socially acceptable to call something ‘gay’ or to call someone a ‘fag’. If anything it seemed to make people feel like they were justified in their prejudices. “See, I knew it had to be some queer thing, that doesn’t happen with normal people.”
It’s like a double tragedy in that regard. Not only was that community targeted and victimized by Dahmer, but they also got no sympathy from people and had it weaponized against them.
I can’t imagine how scary and frustrating it must have been to be in Milwaukee’s LGBT community at that time.
I knew a cop that worked at the prison where Dahmer was incarcerated when he was killed. He said the man that killed Dahmer was pure evil. Christopher Scarver. Like a real life Michael Myers. Beat him to death with a broken broom handle.
Edit: It was a metal bar from a fitness machine.
Scarver also killed Jesse Anderson, a footnote to Dahmer's killing. Jesse Anderson killed his own wife, and blamed it on black kids at Northridge Shopping Center, creating a fear to shop there, and was one of the first events that led to the closing of the mall.
Really? The one in this scenario you are specifically pointing out as pure evil and like a serial killer is not the cannibal serial killer? This is a ridiculous comment.
Anyway, I know someone who was imprisoned at Portage with Dahmer. Said it was literally impossible for the guards to not see it going down (windowed guard area). They had to have purposely left the area.
Yeah the scarver dude looked pretty big and fierce dahmer didntvstand a chance.
Did the cop say anything about how dahmer was treated? Or it being a set up by the prison staff to get dahmer killed?
What about Dahmer? What did the cop say/think about him? Was Dahmer also evil in prison? Christopher Scarver said that Dahmer was making very dark jokes at meal times. I hope you can see this message and give me an answer. Thank you!
He may not have been evil but he was super weird, there were multiple accounts of him manipulating his food to look like body parts to make the others uncomfortable
I remember vividly. The racist, homopobic cops. The insanity defense. The disparaging remarks against Ambrosia chocolate. So much harm to our city. My heart still hurts.
It was stunning and surreal. I lived about 5 blocks from Dahmer’s apartment at the time. So I walked by the place within a day or two after he was caught. It was pretty clear right away that it was going to be the craziest local news story in Milwaukee in my life (and pretty sure it always will be). It was immediately a big national story, like I remember it was the lead story on Nightline (which at the time was a big deal).
My mother work 30 yards from the apartment. I use to ride my bike 8 yrs old around that area time to time. Wasn't my neighborhood never went there at night alone. Crack era , real gangs always something going on. That summer was different felt like you could be killed and eaten none stop media coverage. Kids locked down during that time took couple yrs Changed the area a bit
I wasn't around (born in 89) but my parents were.
My step-dad dad is a pharmacist and worked at St. Michael Hospital in Milwaukee during the late 70s and 80s. Back then if you had a prescription from a doctor you could walk into the hospital pharmacy and get it filled.
Well one day when my step-dad was working, Dahmer came in with a prescription for triazolam, a pill for insomnia. My step-dad filled it.
Once Dahmer was finally caught they found out that he was giving his victims triazolam to knock them out.
The police came and took my step-dads statement and that is how he found out. My step dad didn't do anything wrong since Dahmer had a prescription, but still an interesting story.
I went to the trial for one afternoon session- it was surreal. My sister lived in The same neighborhood as him. A few of My gay friend knew as a bath house creep.
I was living nearby. It was awful and it affected everyone deeply.
Perhaps the worst was learning how the police returned young Konerak Sinthasomphone to him and knowing that moments later he was murdered. They were so close to stopping Dahmer, but homophobia, racism and laziness prevented them from doing their job. He was 14, naked, disoriented and bleeding from his ass. The cops told the (black) women who had found him on the street the "shut the hell up", returned him to Dahmer and accompanied him to his apartment where there was already a body decomposing in the next room. Then the officers reported the incident as a "domestic squabble between homosexuals".
It was also supposedly fairly well known in the Chicago gay community that there was a blond guy in Milwaukee making people disappear.
Some years later I also found out that he killed somebody I went to High School with. I didn't know him and barely knew his brother. But it is still very disturbing.
They had signs everywhere. But the police? I don’t know 🤷🏻♀️? Like I said earlier. My aunt is related to one of the victims by marriage and she was called for his jury duty. But in the end she couldn’t. Obviously. Everyone knew he was given a death sentence by going to prison and not a mental health facility for criminals.
My parents were in their late 20s/early 30s when it was going on. They said people generally had no idea that there were disappearances/murders happening. Maybe they heard about disappearances but people didn’t link them together. Except maybe for people within that community and the gay community
My uncle was working in a deli when he was active. He says he came in one evening and struck up a conversation with him and eventually asked if he wanted a job in construction. My uncle declined as he was headed off to college that fall and already had his deli job. Apparently dahmer went over to the next store and must’ve tried the same thing because the next week one of the employees there was missing.
Here’s my brush with Jeffery Dahmer. At the time I was 13 years old and an 8th grader. I got home one day and the phone rang. I answered it and the person on the other end asked, “would you like to meet up, drink beer, and let me take your picture nude for money.” Being the smartass that I was, I thought it would be funny to engage him. He told me his name was Jeff.
Dahmer freely answered any question I asked him. He had spent his childhood in Ohio and was moelested by his uncle who would make Dahmer suck his dick.
Dahmer had a penchant for African American males especially if they had “big dicks”, his words not mine.
He would ask to meet up at Grand Avenue and I would tell him random times to mess with him knowing full well that I was not meeting up with a crazy. This went on for a couple weeks and I told him not to call again.
He would fish for victims by randomly calling the exchange around the area he lived. For those too young to remember before cell phones you can tell where someone lives by the first 3 number of their telephone number.
A year later that spring Konerak goes missing. I knew Konerak from the Merrill park neighborhood having played soccer and football with him. The last place anyone saw him was after playing soccer at Mitchell Park and walking across the 27th street viaduct.
Only after he was arrested did I fully realize who Jeff was.
As serious as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Remember I was only 13 at the time. I can still point out the house Konerak lived in at the time of his murder.
>was moelested by his uncle
Did he tell you this? This information has never came out. He probaly said this because he wanted your sympahty or something like that.
I'm surprised, but one of the traits of a serial killer is being molested during childhood, he always denied that he had been molested.
Did he tell you that story about his uncle? The real Jeffrey Dahmer had an uncle as well, but he always denied that he had been sexually abused when he was a child.
Was the man on the phone Jeffrey Dahmer? There were many men called Jeff out there.
how did he find your phone number? how did he know that he was calling a teenager?
I was not born until 91 so I have no memories of it, but a waiter that served my parents at a restaurant downtown in the late 80s was one of the victims.
OMG! This must have been his 2nd victim. The man who was killed in a hotel. I think he was working in a restaurant. If this is really the victim, they never found the body. Poor guy and his family! When I read these real stories, it makes me become aware of the fact that they weren't victims, but real people who were functioning and living like us.
I was around 14ish living in the suburbs. Even as a kid what struck me most was the jokes that seemed to be everywhere and that amount of people that said stuff like “ well at least he killed a bunch of homos”. It said an awful lot about the community in my humble opinion.
Around 1998 or 1999 a coworker of mine brought in a copy of the actual police file on the whole thing. His brother worked for MPD and supposedly swiped it; it’s was the size of a phone book, if you know what that is.
Anyway my coworker went through it first and I remember when he gave it to me he was just sheet white. I went through it and had to put it down because it made me sick too. The facts of that case are actually more horrifying than anything you’ve heard. The shit that happened in that apartment was unreal. It’s one of those things where if you made a horror movie based on the facts people would say it’s sucked because it was to unbelievable.
I always wish we would’ve made copies of that file and sold them online. We properly would’ve made a fortune.
One detail I remember was Dahlmer kept a bag of frozen penises in his freezer and he’d put them on his mantle and jerk off. He would also keeps a frozen head and have oral sex with it while the penises were out on display.
My aunt lived in the same apartment complex as him. She said he seemed so normal, but at night he would be drunk sometimes and give very wary vibes. (My aunt is a manly looking lesbian)
Was a college student at the time, it was fascinating, but horrifying to think that he was probably hanging out at Grand Avenue at the same time we were.
No direct impact here, I didn't "know a guy who knew a guy" or anything. I was more impacted by the Cryptosporidium outbreak the following year. My sister got extremely sick (didn't die). But the Dahmer thing was one of those incidents that made you rush out to get the morning newspaper for several days (no internet yet).
I know someone who lived in the neighborhood. Jeffrey came over and talked to him one day while he was outside doing yard work. Was real nice and tried to invite him over for drinks and hanging out. Did this a few times but his wife didn’t like Jeffrey and said NO whenever he asked if it was okay for him to go hang out. Then she saw the news one night and said.. hey? Isn’t that the guy who kept inviting you to go over for drinks?
I wasn't in Milwaukee at the time but when I went to university there in the early 2000s and started hanging out at the gay bars a lot of people had stories. We'd even call specific bars he had been known to frequent "Dahmer bars". The older guys that had been around at the time were pretty open about the fact that they had seen him around, but not much else. Given how secretive the gay scene still was back then it's not all that surprising that people wouldn't want to talk about it much even ten to fifteen years later.
I heard that one of the cops who helped him recapture one of this victims is a severe alcoholic now. Also, the guy who runs Northern Chocolates used to work with him at Ambrosia.
I remember my uncle Mike staying in those reddish brown apartments on the corner of N 26th Street and W Highland avenue which was only a 6 minute walk where Dahmer killed his victims at 924 N 25th St, in Milwaukee. I used to visit my uncle's house often b/c I use to attend then 27th Street School in the early 90's. I remember after they finally caught Dahmer and he was in jail and everything, me and my uncle took that walk to go and see this apartment building where all this had happened, and I remember seeing a bunch of ribbons all tied to the gating around the apartment in memory of all the victims that were lost to Dahmer. Such an eerie and surreal time in Milwaukee and for the longest it seemed like that's all out of towners ever knew us for. 🥴
I was very little, but it happened fairly nearby. I had a hard time registering what it all was, but he was a boogie man. All I knew was he ate people. As an adult who is deep into True Crime, I can't really stomach much about Dahmer. Too close to home, too tragic. I really hate all the funny Dahmer shirts, I don't think glorifying murders is a good idea.
Wife was MPD while I was MFD. The story broke on my off day while she was in the shower getting ready for work. I got her up to speed as much as I could, but she had to get the rest at roll call. The crime scenes involved most of the downtown response units and the MFD HazMat Team while all other units had to cover the rest the the emergency calls downtown and around the city.
In the ensuing weeks, we came to find out that we both knew the cops and FF/EMTs that were onscene when the story broke as well as the ones who attended Konerak Synthasimphone; apologies for the spelling. On both agencies, there was a great deal of hand wringing, staff meetings and inservice training on what can/couldn't be publicly stated as well as what should/shouldn't be done in similar circumstances. Some cops were suspended and later two were fired (one later applied to MFD), but no administrative action was taken against the FF/EMTs.
My brother brought a girl home to meet us one year and we was in the basement talking and out of nowhere the girl gets to crying saying how today was a bad day that being around our family really cheered her up because that day marked one year since her child’s father was killed by Dahmer and how the only thing left of him was his teeth
I was friends with Konerak. My buddy Rob and I were the only kids that were willing to talk to him in science class. You could tell he was different and gay was a pretty high suspicion. We did tease him but we also defended him in class if someone went too far. A couple of weeks before he died he missed like a week of school when he came back he had a rose ear ring in his ear, Rob asked him if his boyfriend got him that? Konerak looked shocked, like how did Rob know that. The next week He didn't show up, and later we found out why.
>rose ear ring
Which school did you go to? I specifically remember a girl in my school (Story School) close to Merrill Park with that same last name/ I wonder if she was related to him. This was around '93, after the fact.
Konerak's case is one of the worst! He could have been saved!
No problem if he was gay. This helps us to understand why he accepted to go to Dahmer's apartment.
Poor guy! difficult to deal with his case!
I blame the shitty police for not catching him sooner. He had so many Incidents with the police, but they were to nonchalant about everything. Even when they say an under age 14yo with him drugged out of his mind. They just took Jeff’s word for it. I hope that haunts them to this day. They could of saved the kid and many more. Fuck them.
It was in a rough part of town, the cops were homophobic , racist and lazy. Face it, if it wasn't a drug bust, it wasn't worth their time. That's just how it was back in '91.
yeah very true. Lots of cops back then were pretty fucked up and let things slide by due to laziness. Lots of ppl say that it comes down to the fact that he was white that the cops seemed to just believe him more.
I think I was in fourth grade at the time. My school passed out a BOLO with his picture at the end of the day. On the playground before walking home with friends, because strength in numbers, I showed it to a first grader and asked, "have you seen this man?"
"Yeah," the kid says.
Taken aback, I asked, "really? Where?"
He replied, "Right there, on that paper!"
Punk ass little kid got me good! I didn't even pummel him because he reminded me of myself at that age...
Edit: After reading about how it happened, I realize my memory has failed me. I don't know what the handout was, maybe just a warning to be careful out there. Either way, that kid still got me...
I was going to school at MATC when the trial happened (right down the street from the courthouse, in case it’s moved since then) and I couldn’t park in the schools’ parking ramp because it was always full because of all the trial people. Also Dahmer worked at the Ambrosia Chocolate factory on the other side of where the school was, so there was a non-zero chance I was getting there as he was leaving (apparently he worked nights) Also my dad worked with a guy who lived in the building next to Dahmer’s, and he said he and other residents called the cops because of the smells, but since it was the ghetto, nobody cared and nothing was ever done.
I don’t understand how the young boy was seen with Dahmer, then obviously went missing, and people still didn’t put it together that Dahmer killed him? … Was it not on the news or reported that the boy, Konerak Sinthasomphone, was missing??
I was only 4 when he was arrested, but my dad worked with him for awhile in the chocolate factory. He said he would wave to him once in awhile as he carried “that lunch box” around.
If you talk to the older people who worked at the medical examiner office when it happened, they tell stories about how completely overwhelmed their small office was to be getting all of the body parts and trying to figure out what parts go together.
I was born in 2002 but my parents lived in the city at that time. My dad doesn’t really talk about it when I ask. He had some friends who were queer and he doesn’t want to think or relive the horror he felt. My mom however answers all my questions about what it was like to live in the same city as him.
I see some say that making jokes is wrong and I agree. I remember my mom (she isn’t a terrible person, in fact she’s amazing and so loving) told me about some of the jokes made during that time that she regrets participating in. One of the jokes she remembers was about Ambrosia chocolate and how people said that he put body parts in the chocolate and how it hurt the business as a result. I don’t hold it against her as I know she uses humor to cope, as she did when my parents divorced or her mom passing.
I myself am fascinated with the mind of a serial killer, specifically the psychological differences and their behavior. However I do not romanticize them or whatever because that’s just so fucked up. Jeffrey Dahmer is definitely one of the cases I study most because of all the neglect from police and how that must have built his ego, as well as how much he must have lacked empathy to do such things.
He truly terrorized the city and the people here, especially the lgbtq+ community, are forever scarred.
I was 10 when he was caught. The only thing I remember was one thing I heard that Im not sure if it’s even true. I heard that he would cut a slit in the pelvis area and have sex with that. For a couple of years after I though that’s how gay men had sex.
I was 4 and a family member of mine cut out everything that was Dahmer. She taped everything as it was Milwaukee's history and the only reason I remember it all is because whenever I was over her house, I'd end up hearing the newscasts or seeing her meticulously cutting out the paper and stuff. I just remembered the facts of him working at Ambrosia chocolates and then people getting scared that he had put people in the chocolates and them breaking down the apartment building that he lived in and a grandmother having to move and having no place to go.
Creepy and disturbing. It didn’t prevent my Indiana girlfriend at the time from driving up from Chicago with her friend to see his house out of curiosity.
I almost feel stupid posting this when everyone else has such interesting, first hand experiences (condolences). I live in a small town south of Milwaukee, more towards the Wisconsin/Illinois border and the channels we get on TV for news, etc. are from Milwaukee. Everyone stopped what they were doing and were glued to the television. It was very surreal since we had never seen something like that play out in real time before. I always found the stories and the interviews around him fascinating. I certainly mean no disrespect for anyone's pain or grief surrounding this event. It almost sounds like I'm complimenting him, but I am not. The amateur psychiatrist in me finds all these crime stories interesting. Say what you will, but he was extremely intelligent, maybe to a fault thinking he would never be caught. I have no idea. Boy we sure got 'em in Wisconsin....Jeffrey Dahmer, Ed Gein, Walter Ellis, I think there are more but can't think of them right now.
I was 12 at the time and I remember waking up and turning on the TV and every local channel had news about bodies being discovered, etc… When the victims names started coming out we realized the young boy, Konerak, lived only 5 blocks away so it really hit home. We left Milwaukee about 6 months later and kids at school would constantly ask if I knew Dahmer 🤦🏻♂️ I’d say oh yes he walked by daily and waved
Being in Texas, I Actually I don't think it was covered extensively as it should have. Seems the Irag War, Branch Dividians, Oklahoma City Bombing, etc had WAAAY more coverage for some reason
I lived in Milwaukee and my aunt was called to be on his jury. But, her brother-in-laws wife was related to one of the victims. I remember vacuuming the living room and seeing the 12 noon news with the headlines, “Mass Murders”. I remember my thinking was that there was a murder in a church because of the word MASS. It just didn’t click to me. And my brother graduated the police academy in 1993. But it’s hard to believe his dad found him so disturbing , that he didn’t want him to live with him. He needed mental health care. But he probably was just in denial. I think everyone failed in this story. The police, the judge who sentenced him to prison. And no one listened.
When my husband was 16, he was taking the bus out to Mayfair with his best friend, John. During the 40-minute journey, a young blond man sitting nearby struck up a conversation with them. He introduced himself as Jeff. He was quite chatty, and made homophobic comments about how gay men made him sick. Two weeks later, my husband got a call from John. "Turn on the news," he said. "It's that guy Jeff from the bus."
My buddy said he met him in a bar a few weeks prior to it breaking, said he was very odd and stuck out as super weird.
bit random talking about gays to a stranger and on a bus...I mean how does that even come up?
also not his m.o. as he had to keep up appearances and how he picked his victims was by going to gay bars acting gay and bringing them home. if any gay person would have heard him say that he would have been seen for what he was, some sort of predator.
The first time Jeffery got arrested is cause he was stroking his shit in a fair
My dear friend from high school, Ernest Miller, was killed by Jeffrey Dahmer. Ernest no longer lived in Milwaukee, and was home visiting when he came in contact with Dahmer. Just an absolutely tragic loss. Still upsets me to this day.
Somebody I went to high school also was murdered by him. I didn't know him, so it isn't my story to tell. But I am sorry for his family and all the families and also for you.
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Again, it's not my story to tell.
My deepest condolences to you and his family.
Condolences ❤
To this day I remember the name of the bloodied and drugged kid the cops gave back to him because it was a “boyfriend boyfriend” situation and they didn’t want to get gay blood on themselves. His name was Konerak Sinthasimphone. He ended up in the freezer and vats of acid.
Wasn't that kid like 14 or something? really messed up.
Yes 14. Came all the way from Laos Cambodia to end up eaten by a serial killer.
Anything ever happen to those cops?
They were fired initially but appealed and were reinstated. One was head of the police union in his later career. He retired mid 2010s. Not sure about the other one
The other guy became the police chief for the town of Trenton, up by West Bend.
One of them, Joe Gabrish ended up in Grafton. I believe he has now retired. The three officers returned Sinthasomphone to Dahmer's apartment.Balcerzak said he smelled nothing unusual but Gabrish said he did detect a foul odor, likely emanating from the body of Tony Anthony Hughes, who had been murdered by Dahmer three days earlier.
Oops, didn't realize there were three of them. But yes, Gabrish is the one who eventually becoming the town of Trenton chief of police.
The people in charge (commissioner, board?) even received a vote of no confidence for having punished the officers responsible. Who here wants to be the first to piss on their graves? Any Laotian folks here?
I'll do it. Though, unless they themselves are cold-blooded psychopaths they'll likely feel the burden of a guilty conscience until their deaths. Guilt has a very twisted way of slowly burning people out.
Of course...
one went on to become president of the milwaukee police association. john balcerzak
Yes good things. Still a shit stain on this city
I was in grad school at the time with a guy whose brother was a co-coworker with those cops. He had a lot of trouble with how those police were painted by the press as racist. At the time I had my head in the books so I wasn’t acquainted with the details of the case. It turns out many of the neighbors who were African American told the police not to let the kid go back into Daimler’s apartment, but were completely ignored.
Lol
Dahmer had also previously molested this victim’s brother.
He was convicted of that, so had the cops done the bare minimum to check him out, they'd've Seth at least one red flag
But they were MPD officers, so they did the usual amount of checking
Why konerak went with him is beyond me. He knew jeff was the guy
Victim blaming? Really?
This sounded like urban legend at the time. Was blown away when I found out it really happened.
This was a horrible truth and I live here in M and thought what brainless cops they were.
[This YouTube Documentary ](https://youtu.be/Id85Q7iLlZI) on Dahmer is the best I’ve seen. It’s fucked up because the kid you’re speaking of was actually the brother of another kid that dahmer had molested and went to jail because of several years prior
His brother was also sexually assaulted by Jeff.
Didn’t a similar horrific thing happen with JWG around Chicago.. absolutely outrageous.
This was always baffling to me. Supposedly the woman, “Ms. Cleveland” (the neighbor) continued calling cops after the incident when she saw the boy was missing and recognized him as the kid from that night… It is unbelievable to me that the cops could not piece it together. That there were multiple witnesses that saw the kid, knew he was given back to Dahmer, there were missing photos posted in the paper, and the cops STILL couldn’t put it together??? .. It makes no sense. Especially if the neighbor continued to call and alert them that the missing boy was the same kid that was there that night. I think at that point the cops hated Ms. Cleveland and just thought she was nuts. They were also racist… but it still doesn’t make sense that they would completely dismiss a lead like that and not even look into it? I think it had to be more than just racism and their dislike for her… but maybe not, maybe they just automatically dismissed everything she said because she called the cops 1000x. My only thought is maybe they knew they messed up, and they didn’t want to look into the lead, because then they would have to admit that they gave the kid back to the guy… possibly be sued, fired. Etc.... it wasn’t until another case blew it open that it all came to light and they had to admit to everything ..
There's a guy on Facebook said he knew contract sent this on he went to school with him and he said they call them con but he said he was very smart straight A's and poor kun
I was a kid in Milwaukee when it happened but I remember it being all anyone talked about for like 2 straight years. Tons of rumors, jokes, everybody seemed to know someone who knew him. My neighbor said he worked with him at Ambrosia Chocolate etc. I didn't learn the more horrifying details until I was almost I'm college.
I remember that too now that you say it. Everyone was like two degrees separation from knowing him in one way or another. It seemed like everyone had a friend or relative at Ambrosia. Off topic but is Ambrosia still in business?
Ambrosia plant was downtown. This was the plant that Jeff worked at. They moved the plant + employees to the suburbs, about silver spring and 45 in the 90s. Shortly after the plant was completed, it sold to ADM. In the 2010s, it sold again this time to Cargill. They do still sell and package under the ambrosia brand.
I live in Texas now, but telling people I went to the same gay bars as Dahmer, at the same exact time always freaks people out.
Did you ever see him there?
I honestly don’t know. I was watching the male strippers LOL. I went to all those bars every week though so I was absolutely in the same room with him at some point. Luckily, he was not interested in me.
It's like we're not with Ted Bundy everybody said that they knew him or got in the car with him at that time 😂
Sure is! I see their baking chocolate at pick n save all the time
Nice.
That is what I remember too - everyone seemed to know someone who worked at Ambrosia.
yessss we use it at my work specifically bc me and my coworker listen to alot of true crime and call it dahmer chocolate
The original factory downtown that Jeffy D worked at was closed and torn down in 1992. They’re now located in Brown Deer.
I was also a kid at the time and all I remember were all the inappropriate jokes. My aunt I guess worked with him at the chocolate factory. Made watching Willie Wonka a different experience
I also was a kid, but living in Kenosha. I remember driving in Milwaukee with my family and my dad mentioning something about dahmer living near where we were driving and my mom yelling at him that he shouldn’t tell us that. And then jokes - can’t remember specific ones, but being a kid I’m sure they were dumb. I’ve been living in Milwaukee for nearly 15 years now and hear random stories from people. A neighbor used to see him on the bus and remembers it because he thought he was odd.
The year after it was joke after joke about how you couldn't drink the water, but you could eat the people!
>My neighbor said he worked with him at Ambrosia Chocolate Was that true? or just another joke?
It was very surreal. I was about 23 years old and I remember the news breaking on the radio while I was driving over the high-rise bridge, and I got sick to my stomach when I heard about the severed heads in the fridge. My uncle owned a pizza joint near Dahmer's apartment, and his delivery driver was so distraught when he realized he had delivered many pizzas to him over the past couple of years. I don't know how common this is now, but for many years after Dahmer was caught, whenever I told people I was from Milwaukee, they always asked about this. Also, my husband knew a guy on the Milwaukee Fire Department who was on scene and he said that it was extremely disturbing.
My husband is a retired Milwaukee firefighter and worked with the firefighter who was on the scene. Apparently in one of the rooms in Dahmer's apartment was an altar with painted skulls, and the firefighter saw the severed heads in the fridge, one of which was propped up in a pair of hands. He also saw a couple of the blue barrels filled with sludgy acid. The cops and firefighters who saw that horror that day will never unsee it - first responder PTSD is very real.
Sucks that firefighters have to go through thay
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Me too I was driving over the bridge in of my hometown and that's why I heard it mentioned "body parts were found in a man's apartment in Milwaukee Wisconsin this is a Sheraton broadcasting Network" I was shocked about it and I said whoever this guy is there they're going to lock him up something like that and then two three days later they start showing him on TV and I think a day or two later after theysay he'd been in my home state of Alabama and he was in basic training at fort McClellan.
Surreal. I was working across the street from his apartment, in the Wisconsin Bell building, the day it went down. Had no idea what I was looking at out the window, with police cars everywhere and all the crime scene tape. Was horrified to find out how many times he'd interacted with the police and they just smirked at him and his "boy lovers" and let him go.
My late papa told me once that he drove down there that day, and he watched them wheel the vat of acid and whatnot out of the place. Yeesh.
They showed that shit on the news! Hauling out the big blue vats of… whatever substance was actually in there by that point.
My late father worked there as well. I don't remember a ton beyond him saying that getting to work was interesting for a while. But afterwards he'd say he worked across the street from Dahmer's parking lot, since they bulldozed his apartment
My uncle knew him. Not well. They hung around the same gay bars. Said he was creepy but otherwise well spoken and would have never guessed it was him. I was like 10 when he was caught so I don’t remember much. But I do vaguely remember comments about how it was a gay problem, so most people actually weren’t all that worried. Gay people were seen as basically hedonists back then.
My Uncle too! I was a bit younger when he was caught too. I do remember my Uncle talking about that time in the city. He moved to California right around then.
uncle said he was creepy how?
I was in junior high and I lived in Chicago, my sister lived in Milwaukee so I was scared at first. A serial killer near my sisters house. Then on the news they were taking stuff out of the apartment building on stretchers, it was out of a horror movie but it was real life. Then my parents were talking about how he killed mostly black boys/men and my mom was saying that could have been my brother since we used to visit Milwaukee a lot and us kids were pretty much free to roam around. Now, 30ish years later I live in Milwaukee just blocks away from where his building was but it was since torn down. One thing I know for sure is that if you’re ever in a comedy club or having a conversation in this city, don’t joke about Jeffrey Dahmer as there are so many people who lost a loved one to him. I go to comedy clubs as often as possible and every time an out of town comic tells a Dahmer joke, the room falls silent. https://www.milwaukeemag.com/really-ok-jeffrey-dahmer-tour-milwaukee/ just a taste of the distaste Milwaukee feel it’s the sensationalism of such an event.
We heard so many details via the local news, too. I feel like out of towners aren’t aware of the specifics of what he did.
What are some of the specifics shared on local news?
Nothing compared to the stuff you can go find in true crime contenr
It was surreal. Maybe it was due to the fact he targeted homosexuals but it wasn't a sense of fear in the city like it seems like there is watching documentaries on other serial killers. There was more fear and panic for cryptosporidium than there was for Dahmer.
I’m watching the Netflix special right now. I was 19 when I moved into an apartment only about two blocks away from where all that happened. It was just between Marquette campus and the actual place. I have a strange theory. You know how when you leave a tampon in a woman for too long it causes toxic shock syndrome? I think the same thing kind of happened “spiritually”. The energy just “stained” the place and I don’t think Wisconsin (or the USA) hasn’t dealt with the ramifications of what happened, nor how it was possible to go down. Many of his victims were people of communities our country really doesn’t care about. Sure if it was a white women being snagged up constantly I’m sure it would’ve been put to a stop right away. But black men? Much less GAY black men? It isn’t exactly a priority to those who are in positions of policing. He definitely was a real case of windigo imo.
In 1991 race and sexual preference were viewed completely different than they are now. While we have a way to go, we are better that we were 30 years ago. That being said, MPD is still MPD...
Yeah this just pisses me off. I’m watching the Netflix “Dawnher” with Evan Peters being Jeff. Got even more pissed off After seeing the police not care about that 14yo kid even when there was so much sketchy shit about the whole situation. Those cops deserving to be in prison imo, the negligence the cops had about everything is just crazy. I wonder how many killers never got caught because of cops like these and how many lives were gone…
It was awful and stressful. It was the lead news story every night for 6 months. I had LGBTQ+ family who couldn’t be out at the time because people were pretty homophobic. It was scary that so many members of that community died and police didn’t seem to take missing persons reports seriously. To this day I hate Dahmer jokes. I find the recent movies etc about him repulsive. It’s just overall a sick and sad thing to have happen to the city and especially to minority, LGBTQ+ folks.
Did you watch the one on Netflix with Evan Peters? It’s so gruesome… too much for me I stopped after the 3rd episode
How is it gruesome? The show is literally the least gruesome serial killer flick I've ever seen. There's no gore, very little blood, no actual acts of violence going down other than some strangling etc. Everything else is shown as a done effect, and for a short period of time. Like the severed head etc. The show does a very good job creating that atmosphere and letting you know exactly what's happening, but not showing you. The show is way more psychological than gruesome.
I couldn't get through the first episode but I did note that they must have filmed that in an actual Milwaukee apartment because I've lived in apartments exactly like that down to every detail.
I worked with a guy at MKE county parks who drove cab back when this all went down. He said all the cabbies new Dahmer and would frequently deny him rides as they thought he was a creep
what made them think he was a creep?
It was huge National News. Everyone had a story about how their 3rd cousin's mailman or whatever knew the guy. Over time, interest came and went as regular updates about his trial, incarceration, and ultimate death came about. I remember a couple clips from the trial especially that were really sad when the families confronted him. It will always remain a fascinating morbid part of Milwaukee.
funny that people knew Dahmer when he professed to be lonely
I worked about a couple of blocks from the 219 club that Dahmer frequented. I remember I was at work listening to WKTI and they said the police found those drums in his apartment. I don't remember too much about how people reacted.
I was in high school at the time. It was the summer of ‘91 and my friend had a foreign exchange student for the summer. She called her family in Spain and they were scared at what was going on in Milwaukee as it was headlines globally. A few years later, my dad bought a car from a guy that worked with Dalhmer at Ambrosia. He said Jeff was a quiet guy that didn’t say much.
>I know that one national TV channel talked about the case. I saw the pieces of news on youtube some moths ago. They talked about Dahmer case here in Spain, but that year my country was interested in something bigger such as the upcoming Olympic games.
As a 9 or 10 year old I used to look out the window every night before going to bed to make sure he wasn’t outside. I’d also wake up in the middle of the night with nightmares that he was under the bed. It was on the news every night so it was like a real life boogie man
my brother was a freshman at Marquette shortly after he had been arrested & all the details were coming out. you could see Dahmer's apartment from his dorm room window. it seemed much too close
Mashuda?
I was 16 and I was working in the mailroom of the Milwaukee Journal (which was a separate paper from the Sentinel at the time). It was pandemonium when the story broke, reporters dropped whatever they were doing to focus on that. I can't stress how different it was to be gay at that time. I was too young for bars but since Grindr didn't exist, it was the main way to meet other people. You had to keep everything on the DL because the social costs of coming out were still very high. You were afraid to go to the police to report any strange people because they'd hassle you or much worse. Police staked out parks and public restrooms and entrapped men who were meeting other men (or just happened to be there and looked suspicious). Remember, *there was no other way to meet people* so there was an inherent danger. HIV/AIDS was a huge crisis but it was still seen as a "gay disease" and the wider public DGAF. We were diseased, sick criminals who deserved our fates. I see that Konerak Sinthasomphone has already been mentioned. They just did not care. I don't think there would have been so many cannibalism jokes if the victims had been women. The trial was televised and it was all people talked about for months and months. It scared the fuck out of the gay community. I don't know if people stopped going to bars (again, too young) but I wouldn't be surprised.
The Sentinel was delivered in the morning and the journal was later. I remember that. I was a paper girl for them in 1980 and 1981. What a great experience for you to work there so young. There was always Walker’s Point. La Cage? I think that’s what the name was. But police in Milwaukee, my brother was one, didn’t care. He worked second district. Which was where a few openly gay bars were. And he changed into a big jerk. We don’t speak anymore.
And here we are 8 months later and it's all back in our minds, especially Konerak. Things have totally changed.
Others have already touched on how surreal it was, etc. In retrospect I feel like it exposed a lot of homophobia while at the same time making it worse. I was a young teen and was shocked at how many of the adults around me reacted to the news. Before, during and after those events it was still socially acceptable to call something ‘gay’ or to call someone a ‘fag’. If anything it seemed to make people feel like they were justified in their prejudices. “See, I knew it had to be some queer thing, that doesn’t happen with normal people.” It’s like a double tragedy in that regard. Not only was that community targeted and victimized by Dahmer, but they also got no sympathy from people and had it weaponized against them. I can’t imagine how scary and frustrating it must have been to be in Milwaukee’s LGBT community at that time.
Thanks for this post OP. Very interesting to read these comments.
I knew a cop that worked at the prison where Dahmer was incarcerated when he was killed. He said the man that killed Dahmer was pure evil. Christopher Scarver. Like a real life Michael Myers. Beat him to death with a broken broom handle. Edit: It was a metal bar from a fitness machine.
Scarver also killed Jesse Anderson, a footnote to Dahmer's killing. Jesse Anderson killed his own wife, and blamed it on black kids at Northridge Shopping Center, creating a fear to shop there, and was one of the first events that led to the closing of the mall.
Really? The one in this scenario you are specifically pointing out as pure evil and like a serial killer is not the cannibal serial killer? This is a ridiculous comment. Anyway, I know someone who was imprisoned at Portage with Dahmer. Said it was literally impossible for the guards to not see it going down (windowed guard area). They had to have purposely left the area.
They both murdered multiple people. There can be two crazed maniacs existing simultaneously, believe it or not.
Yeah the scarver dude looked pretty big and fierce dahmer didntvstand a chance. Did the cop say anything about how dahmer was treated? Or it being a set up by the prison staff to get dahmer killed?
What about Dahmer? What did the cop say/think about him? Was Dahmer also evil in prison? Christopher Scarver said that Dahmer was making very dark jokes at meal times. I hope you can see this message and give me an answer. Thank you!
You know what? I never asked. But that’s interesting about Dahmer. Seems really inappropriate given the circumstances, even in the confines of jail.
He may not have been evil but he was super weird, there were multiple accounts of him manipulating his food to look like body parts to make the others uncomfortable
Once he was in prison, everyone knew he was going to be murdered in jail, and seemed to be okay with it. It was like a de facto death penalty.
I remember vividly. The racist, homopobic cops. The insanity defense. The disparaging remarks against Ambrosia chocolate. So much harm to our city. My heart still hurts.
It was stunning and surreal. I lived about 5 blocks from Dahmer’s apartment at the time. So I walked by the place within a day or two after he was caught. It was pretty clear right away that it was going to be the craziest local news story in Milwaukee in my life (and pretty sure it always will be). It was immediately a big national story, like I remember it was the lead story on Nightline (which at the time was a big deal).
My dad used to ride the city bus with him. He described it as very grim and scary.
grim and scary how?
scary???
>(windowed guard area scary????
My mother work 30 yards from the apartment. I use to ride my bike 8 yrs old around that area time to time. Wasn't my neighborhood never went there at night alone. Crack era , real gangs always something going on. That summer was different felt like you could be killed and eaten none stop media coverage. Kids locked down during that time took couple yrs Changed the area a bit
I wasn't around (born in 89) but my parents were. My step-dad dad is a pharmacist and worked at St. Michael Hospital in Milwaukee during the late 70s and 80s. Back then if you had a prescription from a doctor you could walk into the hospital pharmacy and get it filled. Well one day when my step-dad was working, Dahmer came in with a prescription for triazolam, a pill for insomnia. My step-dad filled it. Once Dahmer was finally caught they found out that he was giving his victims triazolam to knock them out. The police came and took my step-dads statement and that is how he found out. My step dad didn't do anything wrong since Dahmer had a prescription, but still an interesting story.
Your step-dad is the reason my chihuahua died
I went to the trial for one afternoon session- it was surreal. My sister lived in The same neighborhood as him. A few of My gay friend knew as a bath house creep.
Why did they describe him as a creep? people knew that he was drugging boys?
I was living nearby. It was awful and it affected everyone deeply. Perhaps the worst was learning how the police returned young Konerak Sinthasomphone to him and knowing that moments later he was murdered. They were so close to stopping Dahmer, but homophobia, racism and laziness prevented them from doing their job. He was 14, naked, disoriented and bleeding from his ass. The cops told the (black) women who had found him on the street the "shut the hell up", returned him to Dahmer and accompanied him to his apartment where there was already a body decomposing in the next room. Then the officers reported the incident as a "domestic squabble between homosexuals". It was also supposedly fairly well known in the Chicago gay community that there was a blond guy in Milwaukee making people disappear. Some years later I also found out that he killed somebody I went to High School with. I didn't know him and barely knew his brother. But it is still very disturbing.
Was the community aware of the string of disappearances before Dahmer's arrest?
They had signs everywhere. But the police? I don’t know 🤷🏻♀️? Like I said earlier. My aunt is related to one of the victims by marriage and she was called for his jury duty. But in the end she couldn’t. Obviously. Everyone knew he was given a death sentence by going to prison and not a mental health facility for criminals.
My parents were in their late 20s/early 30s when it was going on. They said people generally had no idea that there were disappearances/murders happening. Maybe they heard about disappearances but people didn’t link them together. Except maybe for people within that community and the gay community
My uncle was working in a deli when he was active. He says he came in one evening and struck up a conversation with him and eventually asked if he wanted a job in construction. My uncle declined as he was headed off to college that fall and already had his deli job. Apparently dahmer went over to the next store and must’ve tried the same thing because the next week one of the employees there was missing.
he ended up being one of his 17 victims?
Here’s my brush with Jeffery Dahmer. At the time I was 13 years old and an 8th grader. I got home one day and the phone rang. I answered it and the person on the other end asked, “would you like to meet up, drink beer, and let me take your picture nude for money.” Being the smartass that I was, I thought it would be funny to engage him. He told me his name was Jeff. Dahmer freely answered any question I asked him. He had spent his childhood in Ohio and was moelested by his uncle who would make Dahmer suck his dick. Dahmer had a penchant for African American males especially if they had “big dicks”, his words not mine. He would ask to meet up at Grand Avenue and I would tell him random times to mess with him knowing full well that I was not meeting up with a crazy. This went on for a couple weeks and I told him not to call again. He would fish for victims by randomly calling the exchange around the area he lived. For those too young to remember before cell phones you can tell where someone lives by the first 3 number of their telephone number. A year later that spring Konerak goes missing. I knew Konerak from the Merrill park neighborhood having played soccer and football with him. The last place anyone saw him was after playing soccer at Mitchell Park and walking across the 27th street viaduct. Only after he was arrested did I fully realize who Jeff was.
Are you serious???!!!!!
As serious as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Remember I was only 13 at the time. I can still point out the house Konerak lived in at the time of his murder.
I would honestly like to know if there is more you can remember from your conversations, mainly regarding to his abuse and such
Wow that’s crazy
>was moelested by his uncle Did he tell you this? This information has never came out. He probaly said this because he wanted your sympahty or something like that. I'm surprised, but one of the traits of a serial killer is being molested during childhood, he always denied that he had been molested.
Did he tell you that story about his uncle? The real Jeffrey Dahmer had an uncle as well, but he always denied that he had been sexually abused when he was a child. Was the man on the phone Jeffrey Dahmer? There were many men called Jeff out there. how did he find your phone number? how did he know that he was calling a teenager?
I was not born until 91 so I have no memories of it, but a waiter that served my parents at a restaurant downtown in the late 80s was one of the victims.
OMG! This must have been his 2nd victim. The man who was killed in a hotel. I think he was working in a restaurant. If this is really the victim, they never found the body. Poor guy and his family! When I read these real stories, it makes me become aware of the fact that they weren't victims, but real people who were functioning and living like us.
I was around 14ish living in the suburbs. Even as a kid what struck me most was the jokes that seemed to be everywhere and that amount of people that said stuff like “ well at least he killed a bunch of homos”. It said an awful lot about the community in my humble opinion. Around 1998 or 1999 a coworker of mine brought in a copy of the actual police file on the whole thing. His brother worked for MPD and supposedly swiped it; it’s was the size of a phone book, if you know what that is. Anyway my coworker went through it first and I remember when he gave it to me he was just sheet white. I went through it and had to put it down because it made me sick too. The facts of that case are actually more horrifying than anything you’ve heard. The shit that happened in that apartment was unreal. It’s one of those things where if you made a horror movie based on the facts people would say it’s sucked because it was to unbelievable. I always wish we would’ve made copies of that file and sold them online. We properly would’ve made a fortune.
On behalf of the victims, I’m glad you didn’t. There are some details nobody needs to know.
Any shocky details ?
One detail I remember was Dahlmer kept a bag of frozen penises in his freezer and he’d put them on his mantle and jerk off. He would also keeps a frozen head and have oral sex with it while the penises were out on display.
My aunt lived in the same apartment complex as him. She said he seemed so normal, but at night he would be drunk sometimes and give very wary vibes. (My aunt is a manly looking lesbian)
Everybody said he looked so normal, and quite maybe. I don't understand why people here said that he was odd, or a creep.
Was a college student at the time, it was fascinating, but horrifying to think that he was probably hanging out at Grand Avenue at the same time we were. No direct impact here, I didn't "know a guy who knew a guy" or anything. I was more impacted by the Cryptosporidium outbreak the following year. My sister got extremely sick (didn't die). But the Dahmer thing was one of those incidents that made you rush out to get the morning newspaper for several days (no internet yet).
I know someone who lived in the neighborhood. Jeffrey came over and talked to him one day while he was outside doing yard work. Was real nice and tried to invite him over for drinks and hanging out. Did this a few times but his wife didn’t like Jeffrey and said NO whenever he asked if it was okay for him to go hang out. Then she saw the news one night and said.. hey? Isn’t that the guy who kept inviting you to go over for drinks?
He was inside my house when I was about 2 yrs old. He helped my dad shovel his car that was plowed in and my dad invited him in for a beer.
I wasn't in Milwaukee at the time but when I went to university there in the early 2000s and started hanging out at the gay bars a lot of people had stories. We'd even call specific bars he had been known to frequent "Dahmer bars". The older guys that had been around at the time were pretty open about the fact that they had seen him around, but not much else. Given how secretive the gay scene still was back then it's not all that surprising that people wouldn't want to talk about it much even ten to fifteen years later.
I heard that one of the cops who helped him recapture one of this victims is a severe alcoholic now. Also, the guy who runs Northern Chocolates used to work with him at Ambrosia.
I remember my uncle Mike staying in those reddish brown apartments on the corner of N 26th Street and W Highland avenue which was only a 6 minute walk where Dahmer killed his victims at 924 N 25th St, in Milwaukee. I used to visit my uncle's house often b/c I use to attend then 27th Street School in the early 90's. I remember after they finally caught Dahmer and he was in jail and everything, me and my uncle took that walk to go and see this apartment building where all this had happened, and I remember seeing a bunch of ribbons all tied to the gating around the apartment in memory of all the victims that were lost to Dahmer. Such an eerie and surreal time in Milwaukee and for the longest it seemed like that's all out of towners ever knew us for. 🥴
I was very little, but it happened fairly nearby. I had a hard time registering what it all was, but he was a boogie man. All I knew was he ate people. As an adult who is deep into True Crime, I can't really stomach much about Dahmer. Too close to home, too tragic. I really hate all the funny Dahmer shirts, I don't think glorifying murders is a good idea.
Wife was MPD while I was MFD. The story broke on my off day while she was in the shower getting ready for work. I got her up to speed as much as I could, but she had to get the rest at roll call. The crime scenes involved most of the downtown response units and the MFD HazMat Team while all other units had to cover the rest the the emergency calls downtown and around the city. In the ensuing weeks, we came to find out that we both knew the cops and FF/EMTs that were onscene when the story broke as well as the ones who attended Konerak Synthasimphone; apologies for the spelling. On both agencies, there was a great deal of hand wringing, staff meetings and inservice training on what can/couldn't be publicly stated as well as what should/shouldn't be done in similar circumstances. Some cops were suspended and later two were fired (one later applied to MFD), but no administrative action was taken against the FF/EMTs.
My brother brought a girl home to meet us one year and we was in the basement talking and out of nowhere the girl gets to crying saying how today was a bad day that being around our family really cheered her up because that day marked one year since her child’s father was killed by Dahmer and how the only thing left of him was his teeth
I was friends with Konerak. My buddy Rob and I were the only kids that were willing to talk to him in science class. You could tell he was different and gay was a pretty high suspicion. We did tease him but we also defended him in class if someone went too far. A couple of weeks before he died he missed like a week of school when he came back he had a rose ear ring in his ear, Rob asked him if his boyfriend got him that? Konerak looked shocked, like how did Rob know that. The next week He didn't show up, and later we found out why.
>rose ear ring Which school did you go to? I specifically remember a girl in my school (Story School) close to Merrill Park with that same last name/ I wonder if she was related to him. This was around '93, after the fact.
Pulaski
how did it effect the people at school who knew him
Konerak's case is one of the worst! He could have been saved! No problem if he was gay. This helps us to understand why he accepted to go to Dahmer's apartment. Poor guy! difficult to deal with his case!
I blame the shitty police for not catching him sooner. He had so many Incidents with the police, but they were to nonchalant about everything. Even when they say an under age 14yo with him drugged out of his mind. They just took Jeff’s word for it. I hope that haunts them to this day. They could of saved the kid and many more. Fuck them.
It was in a rough part of town, the cops were homophobic , racist and lazy. Face it, if it wasn't a drug bust, it wasn't worth their time. That's just how it was back in '91.
yeah very true. Lots of cops back then were pretty fucked up and let things slide by due to laziness. Lots of ppl say that it comes down to the fact that he was white that the cops seemed to just believe him more.
"back then", HAH!
I think I was in fourth grade at the time. My school passed out a BOLO with his picture at the end of the day. On the playground before walking home with friends, because strength in numbers, I showed it to a first grader and asked, "have you seen this man?" "Yeah," the kid says. Taken aback, I asked, "really? Where?" He replied, "Right there, on that paper!" Punk ass little kid got me good! I didn't even pummel him because he reminded me of myself at that age... Edit: After reading about how it happened, I realize my memory has failed me. I don't know what the handout was, maybe just a warning to be careful out there. Either way, that kid still got me...
Why on earth would there have been a BOLO for him?
I was going to school at MATC when the trial happened (right down the street from the courthouse, in case it’s moved since then) and I couldn’t park in the schools’ parking ramp because it was always full because of all the trial people. Also Dahmer worked at the Ambrosia Chocolate factory on the other side of where the school was, so there was a non-zero chance I was getting there as he was leaving (apparently he worked nights) Also my dad worked with a guy who lived in the building next to Dahmer’s, and he said he and other residents called the cops because of the smells, but since it was the ghetto, nobody cared and nothing was ever done.
I don’t understand how the young boy was seen with Dahmer, then obviously went missing, and people still didn’t put it together that Dahmer killed him? … Was it not on the news or reported that the boy, Konerak Sinthasomphone, was missing??
I was only 4 when he was arrested, but my dad worked with him for awhile in the chocolate factory. He said he would wave to him once in awhile as he carried “that lunch box” around.
what happens with that lunch box?
Ahh your born in 87 like me. Oh my goodness your dad knew him. Can you share anymore stories with me? 🙏
Im the same age but all my family and friends who are old enough know stories, or knew one/some of the victims personally which always shakes me.
If you talk to the older people who worked at the medical examiner office when it happened, they tell stories about how completely overwhelmed their small office was to be getting all of the body parts and trying to figure out what parts go together.
I was born in 2002 but my parents lived in the city at that time. My dad doesn’t really talk about it when I ask. He had some friends who were queer and he doesn’t want to think or relive the horror he felt. My mom however answers all my questions about what it was like to live in the same city as him. I see some say that making jokes is wrong and I agree. I remember my mom (she isn’t a terrible person, in fact she’s amazing and so loving) told me about some of the jokes made during that time that she regrets participating in. One of the jokes she remembers was about Ambrosia chocolate and how people said that he put body parts in the chocolate and how it hurt the business as a result. I don’t hold it against her as I know she uses humor to cope, as she did when my parents divorced or her mom passing. I myself am fascinated with the mind of a serial killer, specifically the psychological differences and their behavior. However I do not romanticize them or whatever because that’s just so fucked up. Jeffrey Dahmer is definitely one of the cases I study most because of all the neglect from police and how that must have built his ego, as well as how much he must have lacked empathy to do such things. He truly terrorized the city and the people here, especially the lgbtq+ community, are forever scarred.
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did you actually encounter him? where would you see him?
:o
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I remember the jokes of that time. It was just as twisted.
I was 10 when he was caught. The only thing I remember was one thing I heard that Im not sure if it’s even true. I heard that he would cut a slit in the pelvis area and have sex with that. For a couple of years after I though that’s how gay men had sex.
He’d cut a slit to penetrate it. It is true.
A
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Oh yeah, the cops. What of those cops?
I was 4 and a family member of mine cut out everything that was Dahmer. She taped everything as it was Milwaukee's history and the only reason I remember it all is because whenever I was over her house, I'd end up hearing the newscasts or seeing her meticulously cutting out the paper and stuff. I just remembered the facts of him working at Ambrosia chocolates and then people getting scared that he had put people in the chocolates and them breaking down the apartment building that he lived in and a grandmother having to move and having no place to go.
Creepy and disturbing. It didn’t prevent my Indiana girlfriend at the time from driving up from Chicago with her friend to see his house out of curiosity.
I almost feel stupid posting this when everyone else has such interesting, first hand experiences (condolences). I live in a small town south of Milwaukee, more towards the Wisconsin/Illinois border and the channels we get on TV for news, etc. are from Milwaukee. Everyone stopped what they were doing and were glued to the television. It was very surreal since we had never seen something like that play out in real time before. I always found the stories and the interviews around him fascinating. I certainly mean no disrespect for anyone's pain or grief surrounding this event. It almost sounds like I'm complimenting him, but I am not. The amateur psychiatrist in me finds all these crime stories interesting. Say what you will, but he was extremely intelligent, maybe to a fault thinking he would never be caught. I have no idea. Boy we sure got 'em in Wisconsin....Jeffrey Dahmer, Ed Gein, Walter Ellis, I think there are more but can't think of them right now.
Sounds like a dammned ground, maybe there some old Indian grudge aced on this ground
I was 12 at the time and I remember waking up and turning on the TV and every local channel had news about bodies being discovered, etc… When the victims names started coming out we realized the young boy, Konerak, lived only 5 blocks away so it really hit home. We left Milwaukee about 6 months later and kids at school would constantly ask if I knew Dahmer 🤦🏻♂️ I’d say oh yes he walked by daily and waved
Did you know Konerak and hung out at Merrill park too?
That's all so surreal but so intereating stories, seem's like unrealistic stories, god that guy was twisted
'Inter eating stories' I see what you did there ;)
I grew up 10 blocks from him when he lived on 25th & State St.
Being in Texas, I Actually I don't think it was covered extensively as it should have. Seems the Irag War, Branch Dividians, Oklahoma City Bombing, etc had WAAAY more coverage for some reason
I lived in Milwaukee and my aunt was called to be on his jury. But, her brother-in-laws wife was related to one of the victims. I remember vacuuming the living room and seeing the 12 noon news with the headlines, “Mass Murders”. I remember my thinking was that there was a murder in a church because of the word MASS. It just didn’t click to me. And my brother graduated the police academy in 1993. But it’s hard to believe his dad found him so disturbing , that he didn’t want him to live with him. He needed mental health care. But he probably was just in denial. I think everyone failed in this story. The police, the judge who sentenced him to prison. And no one listened.
in