Green Bay Press-Gazette from Green Bay, Wisconsin • Page 12

Perspective Contact Opinion Page Editor Mike Blecha at (920) 431-8248 or mblechagreenbaypressgazette.com Green Bay Press-Gazette A-12 Sunday, July 15, 2001 I r-r 1 1 T.I I1. im' a wis l-- A I 'it I ,1 I SA LaTaryn Williams stands last week in front of the vacant lot in Milwaukee where Jeffrey Dahmer's apartment building once stood. Williams, who lives two doors away, says she gets an eerie feeling when she walks past the lot. The Associated Press Dahmer arranged some of his victims. Since then, Smith, 46, has struggled with depression.

She's on medication and seeing three psychiatrists, but they don't help, she said. She's afraid to leave her apartment alone. "When somebody cuts your brother's head off and then says 'hmm. I don't know what to do with it. I'll put it in the closet for three How do you live with that?" Smith supports herself with disability payments.

She's still angry at Dahmer's father, Lionel, and his stepmother, Shari, whom she said promised the families profits from Lionel's book. Dahmer's father and stepmother declined an interview request. His mother, Joyce "Rocky" Flint, died last year. Meanwhile, Milwaukee fights to forget. Tom Jacobsen, an attorney for eight of the victims' families, tried to sell Dahmer's belongings, including knives and the refrigerator he used to store body parts, in a public auction to benefit victims' families in 1996.

But a business group led by Joseph Zilber, a Milwaukee real estate magnate, spared the city another stint in the national spotlight when it bought all the items for $407,225 and destroyed them. Marquette University, a private Catholic college about two miles from Dahmer's apartment, bought the building for nearly $500,000 in 1992 and razed it, hoping to destroy the memories. Today, the lot still stands empty in a neighborhood of boarded-up windows and street-corner drug deals. No developer is interested. Hume, of the Lesbian Alliance, said nothing will erase Jeffrey Dahmer's presence.

"I don't think it's something that will ever be 100 percent gone, even though the man is dead now. Unfortunately, it will always be part of our history." The Associated Press MILWAUKEE Jeffrey Dah-mer still haunts LaTaryn Williams. She dreads passing the litter-filled lot where the serial killer's apartment building once stood. "When I walk past, I look up and get an eerie feeling, especially on rainy days. There's a presence there," said Williams, 22, who lives two doors away.

"I remember them bringing out the freezer with the body parts. Never forget it. Never." A decade ago this summer, police burst into Dahmer's rancid, gore-filled apartment, ending a killing spree that still stains this blue-collar city's memory "Jeffrey Dahmer and Milwaukee are synonymous with each other," said Ron Holmes, who teaches a serial murder course at the University of Louisville. Dahmer confessed to killing 16 young men, mostly blacks, in Milwaukee and one in Ohio. He told police he had sex with the corpses, hacked them apart and cannibalized them to satisfy his fantasies.

"I knew he was a sick puppy," said Dahmer's defense attorney, Gerald Boyle. "This is a guy, since the age of 14, who thought about this morning, noon and night. He had all these years to plan how to pull it off. And he was terrific at it." So good, in fact, police caught him only by accident. Tracy Edwards, Dahmer's would-be 18th victim, escaped when he wasn't looking.

A handcuff still dangling from his wrist, he led police to Dahmer's apartment the night of July 22, 1991. What they found horrified a nation. Human torsos were soaking in acid. The refrigerator contained severed heads. Two hearts Dahmer planned to eat later were in a freezer.

A closet held decomposing body parts. Skulls were scattered in a filing cabinet drawer. Dahmer said eating parts of his victims made him feel like 3 Yy niir i i ii 1 turn Jeffrey Dahmer is led into Milwaukee Circuit Court on July 25, 1991, for his initial appearance in the deaths of several men. FileThe Associated Press al killer. Officers found the naked, bleeding boy wandering in the street after he escaped the apartment.

Dahmer strode up and persuaded them they were having a lovers' quarrel. He killed Sinthasomphone minutes later. He killed four others before Edwards escaped. Two officers were fired and one was placed on a year's probation. The fired officers were later reinstated, but the incident cut a deep rift between minorities and police.

Because of Dahmer, gay leaders now help police develop diversity training, said Stephanie Hume, a Lesbian Alliance of Metro Milwaukee board member in 1991. For the families of Dahmer's victims, peace may never come. The serial killer still chases Carolyn Smith. He killed her brother Eddie in June 1990, stuffing his remains in the garbage. Nine years later, her other brother Ernest was stabbed to death, his body found posed to resemble how responsible for 16 deaths fffij s3 1 4 IS 11 My L5a tMJ Hz MM mm ClL Guerrero Sears Beeks Smith Miller Thomas Straughter County District Attorney E.

Michael McCann, who prosecuted Dahmer. Dahmer is part of the city's folklore, particularly in its gay community, where he hunted his victims. Jerry Johnson, editor of the now defunct Wisconsin Light gay newspaper, said he's planning a Dahmer chapter in a gay history book he's writing. He included Dahmer clippings in a display at the city's Pridefest in June, against the advice of many in the gay community. Dahmer can't be ignored, Johnson said.

"Milwaukee's always going to be black-clouded because of it," he said. Dahmer stalked his victims in gay bars, preying on outcasts no one would miss. Despite the disappearances, police did not know a serial killer was operating in Milwaukee, FBI profiler Neil Purtell said. Tensions between police and minorities who long felt authorities ignored them escalated after Dahmer's arrest, especially when community leaders learned police had returned one of Dahmer's victims, Konerak Sinthasomphone, 14, to the seri- Dahmer The Associated Press Jeffrey Dahmer was sen tenced to life in prison for killing 15 men in Milwaukee and one in Ohio. Authorities suspected Dahmer in another slaying in Wisconsin, though he was not charged because there was not enough evidence.

The victims were: imniinjjMuii I Steven Hicks, I jT 19. Last seen in I A Ohio, June 1978. I Steven Tuomi, 28. Last seen in September 1987. Dahmer was never charged in his death.

Hicks James Doxta-tor, 14. Last seen in January 1988. Richard Guerrero, 25. a Last seen March Doxtator Key events in the case: July 22, 1991: Dahmer arrested after a man escapes his apartment and flags down a police car. Police find remains of 11 victims in Dahmer's Milwaukee apartment.

July 25: Dahmer is charged with four counts of murder after admitting he killed 17 people since 1978. Bail is set at $1 million. July 26: Three Milwaukee policemen are suspended with pay after authorities learn a naked, bleeding 14-year-old Laotian boy found in the street May 27 was returned to Dahmer over witnesses' objections. "I knew he was a sick puppy." Gerald Boyle, Dahmer's defense attorney. "I don't think I'm going to have another case like that.

Boyle and McCann will be forgotten. Dahmer's name will live on in infamy." Milwaukee County District Attorney E. Michael McCann, who prosecuted Dahmer. "For the families of the victims, those scars will remain they were a permanent part of him. He said he wanted to have the person under his complete control.

Dahmer was convicted of 15 homicides in Wisconsin and sentenced to 16 consecutive life sentences. Another inmate beat him to death in prison in 1994. Although Dahmer is gone, he remains as much a part of Milwaukee's image as its breweries. "When I first traveled people said 'you're from the beer city' Then it became 'you're from the place where they eat people. Dahmer's I still hear it," said Jeannetta Robinson, a social worker who counseled the mothers of two of Dahmer's victims.

Dahmer biographies pop up on cable television. Video stores rent tapes of his trial. People still leave flowers for his victims near the vacant lot where the Oxford Apartments stood. He made Newsweek magazine-NBC's top villains of the 20th century in 1999, behind Adolf Hitler, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and Cambodian dictator Pol Pot. "He's among the immortal horribles," said Milwaukee they now? Fresno, Calif.

She attempted suicide after her son was arrested in July 1991. Flint died of breast cancer in November 2000. She was 64. Patrick Kennedy, the de tective who listened to Dahmer confess to killing 17 men: He resigned from the Milwaukee Police Department in 2001 to join an international children's relief organization. Dennis Murphy, Kennedy's partner.

He retired from the Milwaukee Police Department in 2000. He and Kennedy wrote a book about the case and are trying to find an agent. Joseph Zilber, Milwaukee real estate magnate who bought Dahmer's belongings to prevent a public auction: He still serves as chairman of the Towne Group, the Milwaukee real estate and construction company he founded. Christopher Scarver, the inmate who beat Dahmer and fellow inmate Jesse Anderson to death at the Columbia Correctional Institution: He plead ed no contest to Dahmer and Anderson's slayings and was sentenced to two consecutive life terms plus 30 years. He was serving a life sen tence before the killings for shooting a man during a rob bery.

He was initially sent to a Col orado prison. Authorities returned him to Wisconsin in April 2000. He is housed at the Supermax prison in Boscobel. i I COURTROOM DRAMA: Milwaukee County District Attorney E. Michael McCann points at Jeffrey Dahmer during closing arguments of his 1992 trial.

FileThe Associated Press Lindsey Huges Sinthasomphone Turner Weinberger Lacy Weinberger 1988. Bradehoft 14. Last seen May 1991. Matt Turner, 20. Last seen June 1991.

Jeremiah Weinberger, 23. Last seen July 1991. Oliver Lacy, 23. Last seen in July 1991. Joseph Bradehoft, 25.

Last seen in July 1991. March 29, 1994: Dahmer's mother, Joyce Flint, attempts suicide in Fresno, Calif. June 16: A judge reinstates the two fired police officers. July 3: An inmate tries to slash Dahmer's throat. Dahmer suffers only a scratch.

Nov. 28: Another inmate beats Dahmer to death at Columbia Correctional Institution. June 26, 1996: Milwaukee business leaders purchase Dahmer's belongings and have them destroyed. Nov. 27, 2000: Dahmer's mother dies of breast cancer.

The Associated Press wanted to keep them with him. We just kept asking how many more." Dennis Murphy, of Milwaukee Police detective who, along with detective Pat Kennedy, took Dahmer's confessions. "He knew exactly what he was. He was the personification of evil. He just didn't know why." Boyle.

The Associated Press David Thomas, 23. Last seen September 1990. Curtis Straughter, 18. Last seen March 1991. Errol Lindsey, 19.

Last seen April 1991. Tony Huges, 31. Last seen May 1991. Konerak Sinthasomphone, timeline Sept. 24: Prosecutors in Ohio charge Dahmer in a 1978 killing after police, using a map Dahmer drew, find the victim's bone fragments at Dahmer's boyhood home.

Jan. 13, 1992: Dahmer changes his plea to guilty but insane for 15 Wisconsin murders. Feb. 15: Dahmer is found sane on all 15 counts. He is sentenced to 15 life terms.

May 1: Dahmer pleads guilty to aggravated murder in Ohio. He is sentenced to a 16th life sentence for the 1978 death of 18-year-old Steven Hicks. Nov. 16: Dahmer's apartment building is razed. own words when one of those tabloids had a picture of him saying he ate his cellmate in jail.

He was livid." Boyle. "We tried to show him we weren't disgusted. When we got into the conversation about drilling holes into the heads and eating the body parts, he got reluctant. He didn't want us to think bad of him. He said he did it for a reason.

He said he really loved these people and Anthony Sears, 24. Last seen March 1989. Ricky Beeks, 33. Last seen May 1990. Eddie Smith, 28.

Last seen June 1990. Ernest Miller, 24. Last seen September 1990. Dahmer Aug. 6: Prosecutors file eight more murder charges against Dahmer.

Bail is raised to $5 million. Aug. 22: Prosecutors file three more murder charges, for a total of 15 in Wisconsin. Prosecutors say they lack evidence to file charges in one Wisconsin death. Sept.

6: Milwaukee police chief fires two officers and places a third on a year's probation. The chief says their investigation of the May 27 incident involving the boy was shoddy Sept. 10: Dahmer pleads innocent and innocent by reason of mental disease or defect to 15 murder counts. In their until the mothers and siblings are buried." McCann. "A lot of these kids thought, 'oh, here's a few bucks for a Maybe they thought they could rip him off.

Of course, nobody knew what Dahmer had planned." Michael Lisows-ki, who knew three of Dahmer's victims. "He was very polite, very easy to talk to The only time I ever heard him complain was Where are The Associated Press Here's a look at what's become of some of the major people in the Jeffrey Dahmer case: Jeffrey Dahmer: The serial killer served two years of 16 consecutive life sentences at Columbia Correctional Institution before he was beaten to death by another inmate in November 1994. Gerald Boyle, Dahmer's defense attorney: The former Milwaukee County prosecutor has established himself as one of the top criminal defense attorneys in Wisconsin with a penchant for high-profile cases. Boyle defended former Green Bay Packer Mark Chmura, accused of sexually assaulting a 17-year-old girl in April 2000. Chmura was acquitted in February Boyle still keeps copies of front-page newspaper stories of the Dahmer case on his office wall.

E. Michael McCann, the Milwaukee County District Attorney who prosecuted Dahmer: McCann still serves as Milwaukee County's district attorney. Lionel and Shari Dahmer, Dahmer's father and stepmother: They live in Seville. Ohio. Lionel wrote a book about his son.

Joyce "Rocky" Flint, Dahmer's mother: She worked as an HIV case manager and managed a retirement center in.