The Disgusting Reason That Jeffrey Dahmer's Grandmother Asked Him To Move Out

The following article contains descriptions of violent crimes and murder.

Lionel Dahmer finally had enough. The middle-aged man's frustrations with his son Jeffrey were mounting over the last several years. Ohio State University (OSU) was the first of several failures. The Lantern, OSU's newspaper, reports that Dahmer was an on-campus resident for half a semester that fall but either dropped out or was expelled. The publication reports that little is known about Dahmer's academic career, as his transcripts are under hold. What is easy to determine, however, is that his time there was relatively brief.

Following his college debacle, Dahmer was encouraged to join the military. He signed up for a three-year enlistment, hoping to become a military police officer (MP). Instead, he trained as a U.S. Army medic and was stationed in Germany (per Yahoo News). 

While in Germany, he began to drink excessively. His command staff became aware of his alcoholism and determined that it was making him unfit for duty, and another servicemember accused Dahmer of sexual assault. Dahmer was eventually discharged from the military a year after he joined. When he was discharged, the army gave him a one-way ticket to wherever he wanted. He chose Miami, Florida, and began a job in a sandwich shop. But his drinking soon resulted in his eviction from the motel he was staying in, leaving him homeless on the beach (via The Galveston Daily News). He moved back to Ohio with his father and stepmother for a brief period in 1981 but was soon sent packing to live with dear grandma in hopes that he would get his life together.

By the time Dahmer moved in with Lionel's mother, Catherine, his "body count" was relatively low — he had only killed one person. The summer he graduated from high school, Dahmer picked up a young hitchhiker named Stephen Hicks and bludgeoned him to death, later scattering his remains in the backyard. But when Dahmer was forced to move out of his grandmother's house in 1990, he added four more victims to his kill count — one that would eventually grow to 17. 

Dahmer took his second life in 1987 when he beat Steven Tuomi to death in a hotel room. He packed Tuomi's body in luggage and returned to his grandmother's house, where he dismembered it and put it out for the trash. Then he lured 14-year-old James Edward Doxtator and 22-year-old Richard Guerrero back to Grandma Dahmer's house in 1988; both of whom he murdered. Dahmer dismembered their bodies and put them out for the trash like Tuomi's. 

In 1989, Dahmer murdered 24-year-old Anthony Sears; the last victim killed at his grandmother's house (per Biography). Sears was the first victim whom Dahmer kept anatomical pieces, which were recovered after he was arrested in 1991. Dahmer would sometimes keep the bodies of his victims around for days after he killed them before dismembering and disposing of them. 

As far as Grandma goes, she was unaware of the disturbing activities on her property — at least for a little while. While her eyes were averted from her grandson's murderous actions, Catherine's nose caught on to some clues that something wasn't right.

According to Distractify, in 1988, Catherine Dahmer began to notice foul smells coming from the basement. Even though he eventually put the body parts out with the trash, before Dahmer worked to dismember his victims' bodies in her basement, he had a habit of keeping them around for a bit before doing so. The smells of decomposition, as can be imagined, did not go unnoticed, and Catherine began to complain to her grandson about it. He was dismissive of this, blaming the odors on his taxidermy hobby.

The smell of his victims' bodies is what led Catherine to eject Dahmer from her home that same year. Though he was able to move back in several months later, he didn't stay there long. In 1990, Dahmer moved into an apartment, living there until his July 1991 arrest. In less than two years, Dahmer took the lives of an additional 12 men and teenage boys. Comfortable in his own space, Dahmer began collecting anatomical parts of many of his victims. When he was arrested, police were overcome with the smell of rotting human flesh. Their search yielded body parts in the refrigerator and freezer as well as stashed away inside a large container in his bedroom (via Biography).