By Addison Aloian
Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, Netflix’s newest limited series about the life of American serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, has officially dropped.
The show is a fictionalized retelling of Dahmer’s 17 known murders, and the youngest of his victims was just 14 years old. The killings took place for over a decade, the later of which involved necrophilia, dismemberment, and cannibalism.
Although his murders took place 1978 and 1991, what some may not know is that he was actually in the military during this time. It’s touched on in episode four of the show, and Dahmer even bragged about some of his killings while being deployed.
Dahmer was eventually caught and sentenced to 15 consecutive life terms during his 1992 trial, before being beaten to death in jail 1994 by inmate Christopher Scarver.
Ahead, find out what Jeffrey Dahmer did in the army, how long he served, why he was kicked out, and if he killed anyone during his time in the service.
Was Jeffrey Dahmer in the army?
Yes, Dahmer was an Army medic in Germany under a three-year enlistment. He was stationed there from July 1979 to March 1981, per The Cinemaholic and AP News.
Six weeks after his first murder (Steven Hicks, an 18-year-old), in June of 1978, he began college at Ohio State University where he majored in business, according to Newsweek. Dahmer’s father wanted him to go to college, but he dropped out just three months into his first semester, so his father instead encouraged him to enroll in the army, as reported by The Cinemaholic.
Dahmer was an “average or slightly above average” soldier, as stated by his first year reports, according to Distractify.
What did Jeffrey Dahmer do in the military?
Dahmer served as an Army combat medic in the 2nd Battalion, 68th Armored Regiment, 8th Infantry Division, per The Cinemaholic.
How long did Jeffrey Dahmer serve in the army?
Dahmer served for almost two years.
He first enlisted and trained as a medical specialist in January 1979 in Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas, according to The Cinemaholic. He was then stationed in Baumholder, West Germany, in July of 1979, where he helped as a combat medic. Dahmer was then honorably discharged in March of 1981.
Where did Jeffrey Dahmer serve?
Jeffrey Dahmer was stationed in central Germany, within the Rhineland-Palatinate state, according to AP News.
Why did Jeffrey Dahmer get kicked out of the army?
Dahmer was deemed unsuitable for military service as a result of his alcohol abuse—he started drinking when he was a young teen, per Distractify. He was honorably discharged (a.k.a., “formally released after serving a period of honest and faithful service,” according to Newsweek) from the military in 1981 through Chapter 9 of the Code of Military Justice, per The Cinemaholic.
On March 24, 1981, Dahmer had a debriefing in Fort Jackson, South Carolina, and was given a plane ticket anywhere. He flew to Miami Beach for a couple of months and got a job at a delicatessen, but was evicted by the hotel he was staying in because he wasn’t paying rent, per Newsweek.
Dahmer then moved back to Ohio with his father, Lionel, and stepmother, Shari, but was arrested just two weeks later for drunk and disorderly conduct, for which he had to pay $60 and received a suspended 10-day jail sentence, according to Newsweek.
Two months after coming home, Dahmer went to live with his grandmother in West Allis, Wisconsin. He became a phlebotomist at the Milwaukee Blood Plasma Center, drawing blood from patients. Dahmer was laid off ten months later, and began working at the Milwaukee Ambrosia Chocolate Factory in 1985, per HITC.
He was arrested several more times for indecent exposure, lewd and lascivious behavior, and disorderly conduct, per Newsweek.
Did Jeffrey Dahmer kill anyone while he was in the army?
The military looked into unsolved murder cases that occurred during his service years once Dahmer’s killings became known to the public in 1991. And police in Germany reopened cases from Dahmer’s time in the country, but didn’t find any connections, per The Cinemaholic.
Jeffrey Dahmer sexually assaulted two men while in the military.
At one point, Dahmer was working in a medic unit with a man named Preston Davis, who was 20 years old at the time, per The Sun. Davis, a Black man, noted that Dahmer was a “racist individual,” and “once he started drinking, he became a very obnoxious individual,” per the New York Daily News. He even mentioned that Dahmer would brag about his victims: “Jeffrey had killed his first victim a year before joining the military, and he would get drunk in the barracks and say, ‘I killed the guy in Ohio.’”
Davis worked with Dahmer between October 5 and October 25, 1979, according to his survivor story published on Protect Our Defenders, a national human rights organization aiming to ending sexual violence and racism in the military. The two were training together when their vehicle broke down and had to be wheeled to the train station for the last three or four days of the exercise.
At that point, Davis says he was alone with Jeffrey: “Somewhere in that time frame, I was sexually assaulted, which included penetration. I believe that I was drugged because I lost time and have memory gaps…I had very little recollection of the event,” he wrote.
Davis says that the only reason Jeffrey didn’t kill him was because they were out in the middle of Belgium, and Jeffrey didn’t know how to get back to Germany, according to The Sun.
After the experience, Davis left to work in a different unit, but his career began to go downhill from the trauma, per The Cinemaholic. Davis wrote that he “still blames himself for all the terrible things that Jeffrey Dahmer did to another victim,” on Protect Our Defenders.
Billy J. Capshaw, Dahmer’s 17-year-old roommate, also claims that Dahmer sexually assaulted him. He said Dahmer raped him “eight to 10 times,” per The Independent. Dahmer would also lock Capshaw inside their room and take mail from his family, according to the New York Daily News.
Capshaw said that Dahmer was nice when sober, but violent while drunk. “He was tying me to the bunk with motor-pool rope,” Capshaw said of some of the incidents. “He took all my clothing from me. He would either beat me before he raped me, or he would beat me after.” Other people allegedly knew about Jeffrey’s abuse but would return Capshaw to him after his many attempts to escape, per The Sun.
Although Capshaw reported Dahmer and took a rape test, the results were ignored, and Dahmer continued his assaults for another 17 months, The Cinemaholic reported. Now, Davis and Capshaw have connected over their shared experience with the serial killer, per Distractify.
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Here’s Why Serial Killer Jeffrey Dahmer Got Kicked Out Of The Army (msn.com)
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