Inside the Controversial Fascination With Jeffrey Dahmer

According to Schwartz’s book, there was a whole head in the refrigerator when he was arrested, plus heads in a deep freezer, a skeleton dangling from the showerhead, assorted skulls on a kitchen shelf, hands in a stockpot, genitalia floating in jars and, in the corner of the bedroom, a big blue vat of…something.

“Just to look at the barrel and know what was inside made me nauseated,” Schwartz wrote.

All of which meant that his victims, to the outside world, simply disappeared. This is what happened to Anthony Sears, 24, in March 1989; Raymond Smith, 32, in May 1990; Eddie Smith, 28, in June 1990; Ernest Miller, 22, in September 1990; David Thomas, 22, three weeks after Miller; and Curtis Straughter, 17, in February 1991. 

Then, according to authorities and the killer himself, he wondered if there was a way he could get someone to stay without killing him. Starting with 19-year-old Errol Lindsey in April 1991, Dahmer drilled a small hole in the young man’s head while he was unconscious, and injected what he said was muriatic acid into his brain. 

Lindsey woke up, according to Dahmer, but he re-drugged and strangled him.