It’s terrifying to look at photos of innocent children… and then realize that some of them grew up to become mass murderers.
We’re wired to see kids as pure, sweet, and untouchable. That’s why seeing a smiling baby and knowing they later committed unimaginable crimes hits so hard.
And the seemingly sweet, innocent child we’re about to introduce would one day grow into one of the most terrifying killers in American history.
On a warm day in May 1960, a baby boy was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His parents — a 23-year-old chemistry student and a 24-year-old teletype machine instructor — welcomed their first child with hope and dreams for his future.
By all accounts, he was a lively, cheerful boy in his earliest years, full of energy and promise. But something changed.
Shortly before his fourth birthday, he underwent double hernia surgery, and his family noticed an immediate shift in his behavior. The once-bubbly child became quiet, withdrawn, and increasingly uneasy.
Resentment toward his baby brother
By the time he started school at six, the boy was reportedly already grappling with feelings of abandonment and had begun to harbor resentment toward his baby brother. Teachers described him as timid and reserved, often sensing feelings of neglect as his father’s studies kept him away and his mother battled depression and hypochondria.
The household was tense. Arguments between his parents were frequent, and his mother even attempted suicide at least once, demanding constant attention and spending much of her time bedridden. The boy later admitted that he never felt his family was stable, never sure if his home would remain intact.
However, the thin, blonde-haired boy did have a few friends growing up.
“He was a fun kid to be around as a child,” said Ted Lee, who grew up in the same neighborhood.
But as the young man grew, a dark fascination began to emerge. Some people think it started when he was just four years old and watched his father dig up animal bones beneath their house.
The sounds of the bones sparked a strange thrill, and he became obsessed with what he called his “fiddlesticks.” He explored further, searching for bones and even dissecting live animals to study their skeletons.
When the family moved to Bath Township, Ohio, his interest intensified. He began collecting large insects and small animal skeletons in a hut near their wooded property, some preserved in jars of formaldehyde.
His father, assuming it was scientific curiosity, taught him how to clean and preserve bones, skills the boy eagerly adopted.
Escalating obsession
The obsession soon escalated. He started gathering roadkill, dissecting animals, and burying them near his hut. Sometimes, he placed skulls on makeshift crosses.
By 14, he had started drinking heavily, hiding liquor in his jacket and calling it “my medicine.” His parents’ marriage collapsed, ending in a bitter divorce. By the time he graduated in May 1978, his mother had moved out with his younger brother, leaving the 18-year-old alone in the family home.
By age 15, he had decapitated a dog, nailed its body to a tree, and impaled its skull on a stick. In high school, he became known for strange pranks, bleating and faking seizures to get attention.
For example, he began mimicking the slurred speech and awkward movements of a man with cerebral palsy who, he claimed, his mother had once hired as an interior decorator. Some dismissed it as bizarre behavior, even cruelty – but to others, especially his teenage peers who overlooked the tastelessness, he was genuinely funny. Their laughter seemed to fuel him.
He’d stumble past open classroom doors while lessons were in session, peer through windows from outside the building, or make strange bleating noises just out of the teacher’s earshot.
“He would bleat like a sheep,” recalled former friend and classmate John Backderf.
“Sometimes he did it loud. He knew it cracked us up.”
First victim
But underneath the jokes, darker compulsions were forming.
Just three weeks later, on June 18, 1978, the young man picked up a hitchhiker —and committed his first murder.
Over the next 13 years, he killed 16 more young men, dismembering some and, in horrifying cases, consuming parts of their bodies. The majority of his victims were first drugged with sedatives and then strangled to death.
His crimes also included necrophilia, cannibalism, and attempts to create compliant “zombies” by drilling into victims’ skulls and injecting acid into their brains.
Caught in 1991
He was finally caught on July 22, 1991, when one of his intended victims escaped and led police to his apartment. Inside, authorities found photographs of dismembered bodies, severed heads in the refrigerator, and a horrifying collection of human remains.
The boy who once played innocently with “fiddlesticks” had grown into Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer, the Milwaukee Cannibal, one of America’s most infamous serial killers, later chronicled in Netflix’s Monster.
Jeffrey Dahmer met his own violent end on November 28, 1994, when beaten to death by a fellow inmate at age 34.
The inmate who killed Jeffrey Dahmer, Christopher Scarver, claimed that God told him to do it.
When news of Dahmer’s death broke, his mother, Joyce, lashed out at the media, saying, “Now is everybody happy? Now that he’s bludgeoned to death, is that good enough for everyone?”
Reactions from the victims’ families were divided. Some expressed relief, while others said the news only deepened their pain. Catherine Lacy, the mother of victim Oliver Lacy, said, “The hurt is worse now, because he’s not suffering like we are.”
The district attorney who prosecuted Dahmer urged the public not to glorify Scarver, reminding everyone that Dahmer’s killing was still an act of murder.
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