Editing Jeffrey Dahmer (section)

====1990 murders====
On May 14, 1990, Dahmer moved out of his grandmother's house and into 924 North 25th Street, Apartment 213, taking Sears' [[mummified]] head and genitals with him.{{sfn|Masters|1993|p=139}}<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2022/09/23/whats-real-fiction-monster-jeffrey-dahmer-story-netflix/8083469001|title=What's Real and What's Fiction in Netflix's Jeffrey Dahmer Series, 'Monster'|last=Radcliffe|first=J.R.|newspaper=[[Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]]|url-status=live|date=September 23, 2022|access-date=October 6, 2022|archive-date=September 23, 2022|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20220923122409/https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2022/09/23/whats-real-fiction-monster-jeffrey-dahmer-story-netflix/8083469001/}}</ref>{{refn|group=n|Shortly after moving into 924 North 25th Street, Dahmer purchased granite spray-paint from an art store. Having removed all flesh from Sears' head, he used this substance to spray-paint the skull and Sears' genitals. Dahmer also retained Sears' scalp.{{sfn|Masters|1993|pp=139–140}}}} Although located in a high-crime area, Dahmer's new apartment was close to his workplace, was furnished, and at $300 per month inclusive of all bills excluding electricity, was economical.{{sfn|Masters|1993|p=139}} Within one week of his moving to this address, Dahmer killed his sixth victim, Raymond Smith. Smith was a 32-year-old prostitute whom Dahmer lured to his apartment with the promise of $50 for sex.{{sfn|Masters|1993|p=141}} Inside the apartment, he gave Smith a drink laced with seven sleeping pills, then [[Strangling#Manual strangulation|manually strangled]] him.{{sfn|Masters|1993|p=142}}

The following day, Dahmer purchased a [[Polaroid Corporation|Polaroid]] camera, with which he took several pictures of Smith's body in suggestive positions before dismembering him in the bathroom. He boiled the legs, arms, and pelvis in a steel kettle with Soilax, which allowed him to rinse the bones in his sink.{{sfn|Masters|1993|p=142}} Dahmer dissolved the remainder of Smith's skeleton—excluding the skull—in a container filled with acid. He later spray-painted Smith's skull, which he placed alongside the skull of Sears upon a black towel inside a filing cabinet.{{sfn|Dvorchak|Holewa|1992|p=174}}

Approximately one week after the murder of Smith, on or about May 27, Dahmer lured another young man to his apartment. On this occasion, Dahmer accidentally consumed the drink laden with sedatives intended for his guest. When he awoke the following day, he discovered the man had stolen several items of clothing, $300 and a watch.{{sfn|Masters|1993|pp=142–143}} Dahmer never reported this incident to the police, although on May 29, he divulged to his probation officer that he had been robbed.{{sfn|Masters|1993|p=143}}

In June 1990, Dahmer lured a 27-year-old acquaintance, Edward Smith, to his apartment, where he drugged and strangled him. On this occasion, rather than immediately acidifying the skeleton or repeating previous processes of bleaching, which had rendered previous victims' skulls brittle, Dahmer placed Smith's skeleton in his freezer for several months in the hope it would not retain moisture. Freezing the skeleton did not remove moisture, and the skeleton of this victim was acidified several months later. Dahmer accidentally destroyed the skull when he placed it in the oven to dry—a process that caused the skull to explode. Dahmer later informed police he had felt "rotten" about Smith's murder, as he had been unable to retain any parts of his body.{{sfn|Masters|1993|p=146}}

{{quote box
| quote = It was my way of remembering their appearance, their physical beauty. I also wanted to keep{{nbsp}}... if I couldn't keep them there with me whole, I at least could keep their skeletons.
| author = Jeffrey Dahmer, recollecting his motivations for both photographing his victims, and retaining sections of their skeletal structure. February 1993.<ref>{{cite news |title=Dahmer Offers No Excuses |date=February 8, 1993 |url=https://journaltimes.com/news/national/dahmer-offers-no-excuses/article_f49dcffb-6964-53c5-b025-372229a0994b.html |newspaper=The Journal Times |access-date=February 25, 2018 |archive-date=March 13, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180313031600/http://journaltimes.com/news/national/dahmer-offers-no-excuses/article_f49dcffb-6964-53c5-b025-372229a0994b.html |url-status=live}}</ref>
| width = 35em
| salign = right
}}

Less than three months after the murder of Edward Smith, Dahmer encountered a 22-year-old Chicago native named Ernest Miller outside a bookstore on the corner of North 27th Street. Miller agreed to accompany Dahmer to his apartment for $50 and further agreed to allow him to listen to his heart and stomach. When Dahmer attempted to perform oral sex upon Miller, he was informed, "That'll cost you extra", whereupon Dahmer gave Miller a drink laced with two sleeping pills.{{sfn|Masters|1993|pp=153–154}}

On this occasion, Dahmer had only two sleeping pills to give his victim. Therefore, he killed Miller by slashing his [[External carotid artery|carotid artery]] with the same knife he used to dissect his victims' bodies. Miller bled to death within minutes.{{sfn|Masters|1993|p=154}} Dahmer then posed the nude body for various suggestive Polaroid photographs before placing it in his bathtub for dismemberment. Dahmer repeatedly kissed and talked to the severed head while he dismembered the remainder of the body.{{sfn|Masters|1993|p=154}}

Dahmer wrapped Miller's heart, liver, biceps, and portions of flesh from the legs in plastic bags and placed them in the freezer for later consumption.{{sfn|Norris|1992|p=214}} He boiled the remaining flesh and organs into a "jelly-like substance" using Soilax, which enabled him to rinse the flesh off the skeleton, which he intended to retain. To preserve the skeleton, Dahmer placed the bones in a light bleach solution for 24 hours before allowing them to dry upon a cloth for one week. The severed head was initially placed in the refrigerator before being stripped of flesh, then painted and coated with enamel.{{sfn|Masters|1993|pp=154–155}}

Three weeks after the murder of Miller, on September 24, Dahmer encountered a 22-year-old father of two named David Thomas at the [[Shops of Grand Avenue|Grand Avenue Mall]].{{sfn|Norris|1992|p=217}} He persuaded him to return to his apartment for a few drinks, with additional money on offer if he would pose for photographs. In his statement to police after his arrest, Dahmer said that, after giving Thomas a drink laden with sedatives, he did not feel attracted to him, but was afraid to allow him to awaken, fearing that he would be angry over having been drugged. Therefore, he strangled him and dismembered the body—intentionally retaining no body parts whatsoever. He photographed the dismemberment process and retained these photographs, which later aided in Thomas's identification.{{sfn|Norris|1992|p=217}}

Following the murder of Thomas, Dahmer did not kill anyone for almost five months, although on a minimum of five occasions between October 1990 and February 1991, he unsuccessfully attempted to lure men to his apartment.{{sfn|Masters|1993|p=153}} He regularly complained of feelings of both anxiety and depression to his probation officer throughout 1990, with frequent references to his sexuality, his solitary lifestyle, financial difficulties, and—shortly before [[Thanksgiving (United States)|Thanksgiving]]—his apprehension regarding meeting and facing his father and younger brother.{{sfn|Schwartz|1992|p=83}} On several occasions, Dahmer also referred to harboring [[suicidal thought]]s.{{sfn|Norris|1992|pp=209–211}}