Arrest at Dahmer's apartment follows escape; 15 murder charges filed

On the night of July 22, 1991, a man flagged down two police officers on a Milwaukee street. He was handcuffed, disoriented, and told them he had just escaped from an apartment. That man, later widely reported as Tracy Edwards, led officers to the apartment of Jeffrey Dahmer, a 31-year-old chocolate factory worker. Inside, according to police reports, they found photographs of dismembered bodies, a severed head in the refrigerator, and other human remains. Dahmer was arrested at the scene.

The arrest opened a case that would stretch back more than a decade. According to the source material, Dahmer murdered seventeen young men and boys between 1978 and 1991, primarily in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with earlier killings in Ohio. The first killing occurred in 1978 in Bath Township, Ohio, where Dahmer killed a hitchhiker named Steven Hicks. The remaining murders took place in Milwaukee between 1987 and 1991.

After his arrest, Dahmer confessed to the killings in detail, according to the source. He described how he drugged, strangled, and dismembered his victims, and in some cases kept body parts. He cooperated with police, leading them to other remains. Evidence collected from the apartment included a Polaroid camera, photographs of victims in various states of undress and dismemberment, skulls, a torso, a drill, acid, and a barrel he reportedly used to dissolve bodies.