Milwaukee, WI – From the late 1970s through the early 1990s, a chilling string of disappearances haunted Milwaukee’s gay and Black communities. At the center of it all: Jeffrey Dahmer, a soft-spoken man whose apartment concealed some of the most horrific crimes in U.S. history.
Dahmer’s story has been retold in various documentaries and dramatizations:
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“Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” (Netflix, 2022) – A controversial dramatization starring Evan Peters that became one of Netflix’s most-watched English-language shows.
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“Conversations with a Killer: The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes” – A docuseries featuring real prison audio.
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“My Friend Dahmer” (2017) – A biopic based on a graphic novel by one of Dahmer’s high school classmates.
The case shed light on severe failures in law enforcement. In one tragic incident, 14-year-old Konerak Sinthasomphone briefly escaped Dahmer, only to be returned to him by police, who dismissed community concerns. Konerak was later murdered.
Many criticized authorities for ignoring reports from people of color and members of the LGBTQ+ community, allowing Dahmer to continue his crimes for years.
Jeffrey Dahmer wasn’t just a killer—he became a symbol of systemic negligence, mental illness gone unchecked, and societal bias. Decades later, his crimes remain one of the darkest chapters in modern American criminal history.