At approximately 2 a.m. on May 27, 1991, an 18-year-old woman called the police.

There was a naked boy outside her apartment building. He was bleeding, confused, and struggling to stand. Two young women were trying to help him.

The boy was 14.

A man standing nearby told the police he was his 19-year-old boyfriend. 

They'd had a little argument. Nothing serious. He'd just had too much to drink.

The officers looked at the man. They looked at the boy. They listened to the explanation.

And then they did something that would become one of the most infamous police failures in American criminal history.

They returned the boy to the man's apartment.

The man's name was Jeffrey Dahmer.

And inside apartment 213, there was already a dead body.

Actually, there was going to be a lot more than that (Deep breaths.)

Before we get to apartment 213, let's meet the man who lived there.

Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on May 21, 1960. He wasn't born into some criminal dynasty, and there wasn't an obvious warning sign stamped across his forehead. He was described as a shy, withdrawn child. As a teenager, he became fascinated with dead animals, collecting and examining their remains.

He also developed a serious drinking problem.

In June 1978, just weeks after graduating high school, Dahmer picked up a hitchhiker named Steven Hicks in Ohio. When Hicks wanted to leave, Dahmer killed him. He dismembered the body and disposed of the remains.

He was 18.

And then, for several years, there were no known murders.

Dahmer joined the US Army, was discharged because of his drinking, and eventually moved back to Wisconsin. He lived with his grandmother in West Allis, where he began killing again in 1987.

His victims were mostly young men and boys. He met them in bars, at shopping centres, and other public places. Sometimes he offered money for photographs. Sometimes he offered drinks or company. He would invite them home, drug them, and kill them.

Then came the photographs.

Dahmer took Polaroids of his victims at different stages of his crimes. He kept body parts as trophies. He admitted to cannibalism and necrophilia.

Cannibalism: the practice or act of consuming an individual of the same species as food, such as a human eating human flesh (also known as anthropophagy) or an animal eating another of its own kind.

Necrophilia: a sexual attraction to, or sexual contact with, dead bodies (corpses).

(yes, the case gets that disturbing 💀)

And no, this wasn't some elaborate criminal operation with secret tunnels and a network of accomplices. He was doing this largely alone, in ordinary residential neighbourhoods, while people around him went to work, bought groceries, and minded their business.

The scariest part? He was getting increasingly comfortable with it.

Welcome back to The Crime Times, where every week we get into chilling crimes, bizarre mysteries, and the details that make you question humanity a little.

We're back with the second episode of our Serial Killer Series. And this week, we're stepping into the world of Jeffrey Dahmer, a man who managed to hide 13 years of horrific crimes behind what looked like an ordinary apartment door.

So, put on your detective hat, keep your curiosity switched on, and let's get into it.

In September 1988, Dahmer approached a 13-year-old boy named Somsack Sinthasomphone and offered him money to pose for photographs.

He drugged and sexually assaulted the boy.

Somsack survived, and Dahmer was arrested and convicted. He was sentenced to probation and a year in a correctional facility, with work release. He was released early in 1990.

(So, to recap: a child was assaulted, Dahmer was arrested, and somehow he was back out in the world. The justice system in the great Americas is the real clown 🤡)

Now, remember that surname.

Sinthasomphone.

Because in May 1991, Dahmer would target Somsack's younger brother, 14-year-old Konerak.

Whether Dahmer knew the family connection has been disputed; he later said he didn't. But the connection makes what happened next even harder to stomach.

By then, Dahmer had moved into apartment 213 at 924 North 25th Street in Milwaukee.

He would kill 12 people over the next 15 months.

And the building's residents had no idea what was happening behind his door.

On May 26, 1991, Dahmer met Konerak at a shopping mall and offered him money to pose for photographs.

He took him back to his apartment, drugged him, and subjected him to a horrific assault.

At some point, while Dahmer was away, Konerak managed to get out.

He ended up outside, naked and disoriented. Sandra Smith and Nicole Childress, both 18, found him and called for help. They were worried. They argued with Dahmer when he tried to take the boy back.

The police arrived.

Dahmer told them Konerak was his adult boyfriend. The officers accepted his explanation and accompanied them back to apartment 213.

Here's where it gets worse.

The officers were inside the apartment. They could have checked Dahmer's identity. They could have investigated properly. They could have discovered that he was a convicted child molester.

They didn't.

There was also another victim inside: Tony Hughes, who had been dead for several days.

The officers left Konerak with Dahmer.

Dahmer killed him.

And if you're wondering whether anyone else tried to intervene, yes. A neighbour named Glenda Cleveland repeatedly called the police because she was concerned about the boy. She was told it was all taken care of.

It wasn't.

Glenda kept calling. The two young women kept insisting something was wrong. The people who actually tried to help were being dismissed. Make it make sense.

Police radio traffic from that night was later released. One officer reported:

"The intoxicated Asian naked male was returned to his sober boyfriend."

Read that again.

A naked, intoxicated 14-year-old boy had been returned to a man who was, in fact, a serial killer.

And the officers were done with the call.

Two months later, Dahmer made a mistake.

On July 22, 1991, a man named Tracy Edwards approached police with a handcuff dangling from his wrist. He told them that a man had handcuffed him and threatened him with a knife.

The officers followed Edwards to apartment 213.

Dahmer opened the door.

He was calm and cooperative. He even offered to show the officers where the handcuff key was.

(The audacity of still trying to play the helpful neighbour when your apartment is about to become the centre of a murder investigation????)

One officer followed him into the bedroom.

And there they were: Polaroid photographs of dismembered human bodies.

The officer immediately called for his partner.

The second officer opened the refrigerator.

Inside was a human head.

(Well. That's one way to end a house call.)

The apartment was searched. Investigators found human remains, skulls, photographs, chemicals, and evidence of multiple murders. The smell of decomposition was overwhelming.

Eleven victims' remains were found in the apartment.

The neat, quiet little home had been hiding an entire catalogue of crimes.

Dahmer was arrested. And once investigators began questioning him, the scale of what he had done became clear.

Dahmer confessed to killing 17 people between 1978 and 1991.

He gave investigators detailed accounts of his crimes and helped identify victims. He spoke about wanting control over other people, about his attempts to stop them from leaving, and about the increasingly disturbing things he did to their bodies.

In 1992, he went on trial for 15 murders in Wisconsin. His defence argued that he was legally insane. The prosecution argued that he knew exactly what he was doing and understood it was wrong.

The jury found him guilty and sane.

He was sentenced to 15 consecutive life terms.

During sentencing, Dahmer addressed the court:

"I take all the blame for what I did. I hurt many people."

He also said he had wanted death for himself.

On November 28, 1994, Dahmer was beaten to death by fellow inmate Christopher Scarver while on a prison work detail. He was 34.

But his death didn't undo anything. It didn't bring back the 17 people he killed. It didn't give their families back the years they lost, or erase the fact that some of these murders could have been prevented.

It's easy to turn Jeffrey Dahmer into a larger-than-life monster. To focus on the photographs, the remains, the confession, the sheer horror of apartment 213.

But that risks missing something much more uncomfortable.

Dahmer had been arrested before. A child had survived an assault. Neighbours had complained. Two young women had begged the police to take a closer look. Officers had physically stood inside his apartment and walked right back out.

He wasn't invisible.

People saw things. People spoke up. And still, he kept killing.

So here's what we wanna ask you:

Dahmer managed to kill 17 people over 13 years. But how many of those lives could have been saved if someone had taken the warning signs seriously the first time?

And how many times can someone show you exactly who they are before you finally believe it?

— The Crime Times

(Your smartest friend who's dangerously obsessed with true crime 🧚🏻‍♀️)