Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer (May 21, 1960 – November 28, 1994) was an American serial killer

Serial killer

A serial killer, as typically defined, is an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological gratification...

 and sex offender

Sex offender

A sex offender is a person who has committed a sex crime. What constitutes a sex crime differs by culture and by legal jurisdiction. Most jurisdictions compile their laws into sections such as traffic, assault, sexual, etc. The majority of convicted sex offenders have convictions for crimes of a...

. Dahmer murdered 17 men and boys between 1978 and 1991, with the majority of the murders occurring between 1987 and 1991. His murders involved rape

Rape

Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...

, dismemberment

Dismemberment

Dismemberment is the act of cutting, tearing, pulling, wrenching or otherwise removing, the limbs of a living thing. It may be practiced upon human beings as a form of capital punishment, as a result of a traumatic accident, or in connection with murder, suicide, or cannibalism...

, necrophilia

Necrophilia

Necrophilia, also called thanatophilia or necrolagnia, is the sexual attraction to corpses,It is classified as a paraphilia by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association. The word is artificially derived from the ancient Greek words: νεκρός and φιλία...

 and cannibalism

Cannibalism

Cannibalism is the act or practice of humans eating the flesh of other human beings. It is also called anthropophagy...

. On November 28, 1994, he was beaten to death by an inmate at the Columbia Correctional Institution

Columbia Correctional Institution

Columbia Correctional Institution, , is an adult male maximum-security correctional facility operated by the Wisconsin Department of Corrections Division of Adult Institutions in Portage, Wisconsin. The facility was constructed on at a cost of $38.6 million dollars. It has inside the perimeter...

, where he had been incarcerated.
Dahmer was born in West Allis, Wisconsin

West Allis, Wisconsin

West Allis is a city in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, United States. It is part of the Milwaukee metropolitan area. The population was 61,254 at the 2000 census. Its name derives from Edward P. Allis, who started the Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing Company in the 19th century. The site of the town was...

, the son of Joyce Annette (née Flint) and Lionel Herbert Dahmer, an analytical chemist

Analytical chemistry

Analytical chemistry is the study of the separation, identification, and quantification of the chemical components of natural and artificial materials. Qualitative analysis gives an indication of the identity of the chemical species in the sample and quantitative analysis determines the amount of...

.