Jeffrey Dahmer Attempted Some Unsettling Experiments On His Victims

Jeffrey Dahmer remains one of the most notorious, malicious, and avidly condemned serial killers to ever exist. His horrific spree of homicidal mayhem lasted between 1978 and 1991 and swallowed at least 17 confirmed victims, generally young homosexual men of Black or Asian descent, in its wake. What set Dahmer apart from other true crime serial killers like Ted Bundy or Aileen Wuornos was his predilection for experimenting on his victims, often while they were still alive. In fact, he claimed that killing wasn't even the end goal and that it was simply an occupational hazard of his experiments (via CNN). 

The inhuman experiments that Dahmer performed on his victims spoke volumes about what he was really trying to achieve: total sexual submission from the subject. In order to make this happen, he employed a system of trial and error that, to his discontent, never produced the results he thirsted for. 

His insatiable quest to produce the perfect "zombie sex slave" prompted Dahmer (above, in 1978) to do things that are difficult to understand, let alone imagine. Shortly after his arrest, The Washington Post reported that coroners discovered holes in the skulls of his victims that he had put there in order to dissect their brains and perform experiments on them. "He had hoped to control and keep them around longer by making them zombie-like," Frederick Fosdal, a medical examiner assigned to Dahmer's case, shared as news of the sadistic exploits of "The Milwaukee Killer" proliferated. 

Lobotomies were once a very common practice among medical experts and brain surgeons, but their usage died out in the mid-20th century as the inhuman nature and blatant ineffectiveness of them became more and more apparent (per Britannica). Sadly, this readily available historical medical evidence wasn't enough to deter Dahmer from testing out lobotomies himself, and numerous lives were lost as a result. 

As if drilling holes into a person's skull isn't barbaric enough, Dahmer also admitted to injecting muriatic acid, boiling water, and various other fluids directly into the brains of some of his victims. His process generally started with drugging the unsuspecting individual as soon as they were alone together (oftentimes by mixing sleeping pills into a beverage) and waiting for the victim to fall asleep before beginning the ghastly experiments, as Biography reports. Everyone who was subjected to this twisted trial died. 

According to AP News, Dahmer admitted to injecting acid into the brain of 14-year-old Konerak Sinthasomphone before the boy escaped from his apartment. After discovering him wandering the streets naked and lethargic, police returned Sinthasomphone to the care of Dahmer, who claimed to be the "man's" boyfriend. Back at his residence, Dahmer administered another dose of acid into Sinthasomphone's brain that ultimately killed him. ″I listened for a heartbeat right after I injected him and there was none,″ Dahmer stated during the trial. ″I wasn't trying to kill him but that's what happened″ (per AP News).