Jeffrey Dahmer's haunting last words before he was killed by fellow inmate

07 November 2023 , 16:31

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Jeffrey Dahmer in court at his trial (Image: AFP via Getty Images)

Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer was beaten to death by a fellow prison inmate after he killed and dismembered 17 males between 1978 and 1991.

Also known as the Milwaukee Cannibal or the Milwaukee Monster, many of his later murders involved necrophilia, cannibalism and hoarding body parts. After arriving at Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage, Wisconsin, Dahmer began studying the bible and claimed he was a born-again Christian.

In the months before he died, Dahmer had questioned whether he was sinning against God by staying alive. In an interview with Stone Phillips on Dateline NBC in 1994, Dahmer said: "If a person doesn't think that there is a God to be accountable to, then what's the point of trying to modify your behaviour to keep it within acceptable ranges? That's how I thought anyway."

And on the day of his death, instead of begging for his life or trying to ask forgiveness for his gruesome crimes, he told killer Christopher Scarver, after being hit the first time with a metal bar: "I don’t care if I live or die. Go ahead and kill me.”

He was sentenced to multiple life terms (Sygma via Getty Images)

Although he was diagnosed with borderline personality disorders and a psychotic illness, Dahmer was determined to be legally sane at trial. He was convicted of 15 of 16 killings in Wisconsin and was given 15 life sentences on February 17, 1992. Dahmer was later sentenced to a further life term for a murder he committed in Ohio in 1978.

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He was attacked on November 28, 1994, after leaving his cell for work duty with fellow inmates, Jesse Anderson and Scarver. The trio were given the job of cleaning the showers in the prison gym. They were unsupervised for around 20 minutes, then just after 8am, Dahmer was found by guards on the floor of the bathrooms.

He had appalling head wounds from being hammered with a 20-inch metal bar and his head had also been battered off a wall. He was still alive and was rushed to a nearby hospital, but pronounced dead one hour later. Anderson had also been beaten with the metal bar and died from his wounds two days later.

Prior to the attack, another inmate had attempted to kill Dahmer. Osvaldo Durruthy tried to slash his throat with a razor embedded in a toothbrush as Dahmer sat in the prison chapel on July 3, 1994 after the weekly church service. But the serial killer only had slight wounds from that attack.

Paul Donald