Jeffrey Dahmer’s AltarWhen serial killer, cannibal and necrophile Jeffrey Dahmer was arrested for the murders of sixteen young men in Wisconsin, and one in Ohio during the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, he made a confession to the many bizarre and horrific things he did to his victims. The culmination of his crimes would have been the creation of Jeffrey Dahmer’s altar, a shrine to those he had murdered.
On July 22, 1991, Jeffrey Dahmer, a 31-year-old unemployed Milwaukee chocolate factory worker was arrested by police after a young black man reported having escaped his Oxford Apartment where he had been handcuffed and threatened with rape and murder. When officers went to Dahmer’s apartment, they found Polaroid pictures of dismembered bodies.
Placed under arrest, Dahmer’s apartment was searched and found to contain the remains from the many bodies of young men who had been murdered, dismembered and portions of their bodies stored in his refrigerator. When this was opened by one policeman, there were the severed heads of two men sat on a shelf.
In a 57-gallon drum located in the bedroom, three bodies were found dissolving in an acid solution, while in a metal stockpot contained the decomposed hands and penis of another victim. Along with the head in the refrigerator, three others were stored in the freezer, while another seven more had been stripped of flesh, painted grey and kept as trophies.
During his interrogations, which began the day after his arrest, he waived his right to have an attorney present, and gave detectives a candid confession of the many ghastly and bizarre crimes he had committed since his first murder in 1978. Towards the end of his murder spree, Dahmer was killing at a rate of one murder a week.
He claimed “It was an incessant and never-ending desire to be with someone at whatever cost. Someone good looking, really nice looking. It just filled my thoughts all day long.” When detectives asked why he kept so many of his victims skulls, some of which had been painted, others bleached, Dahmer offered up a truly shocking explanation.
Dahmer stated he had kept so many of his victims skulls and other body parts because he was in the process of constructing what he referred to as Jeffrey Dahmer’s altar, “a private shrine of victims skulls,” which he had intended to display on the black table that was located in his living room, and upon which many of his victims bodies had been photographed upon.
He also admitted to carrying out acts of necrophilia with the bodies, and to consuming portions of some victims. When asked why, Dahmer stated “I suppose, in an odd way, it made me feel they were even more a permanent part of me.” After two weeks of confessions, Dahmer was charged with sixteen counts of first degree murder.
While he was incarcerated awaiting trial, detectives conducted further interviews with Dahmer about his crimes and the strange altar he mentioned in his initial confessions. On November 14, 1991, Jeffrey Dahmer provided investigators, and his defense attorney Wendy Patrickus, with a hand-drawn sketch of how he intended his altar to appear.
On a piece paper from a yellow legal pad, the crudely drawn diagram consisted of a large black table, upon which was arranged the many skulls of his victims. This would have included the four severed heads found in his kitchen, which would have been stripped of flesh, alongside the skulls he had already collected, and an additional future victims’ skull.
Incense sticks were to be placed at each end of the black table, above which Dahmer intended to place a large blue lamp with extending blue globe lights. This display of skulls was to be adorned at each side with the fully articulated and painted skeletons of his victims, Ernest Miller and Oliver Lacy.
The entire construction was to be placed before a window covered with a blue, opaque shower curtain, in front of which Dahmer intended to sit in a black plush leather chair. Above it all, sat a wall plaque, with a drawn image that appeared to represent an animal skull of some type with horns protruding.
“He saved the entire bodies of these two on the end,” Patrickus said, noting that Dahmer “had a thing for hands, he’d save the hands a lot of times and obviously the penis.” She went on to describe how Dahmer, “had this lamp that had these globes that went over the top of each one of the skulls that he would have to kind of highlight it.”
“And then he would just sit there in his chair and it was his own little shrine to himself.” According to the drawing, one of the skeletons was shown to be in the bathroom, where Dahmer would be removing the flesh from its bones. Towards the end of his killing spree, Dahmer was close to completing the fantasy of having his own altar.
During another interview on November 18, 1991, Dahmer was asked to whom the altar would be dedicated to. He replied, “Myself… It was a place where I could feel at home.” He further described his intended altar as a “place for meditation”, from where he believed he could draw a sense of power, adding: “If this [his arrest] had happened six months later, that’s what they would have found.”
Dahmer also said, “I could sit in this black chair surrounded by my best friends and they could never leave me cause’ they were physically [and emotionally] part of me. When I could sit in that chair I would finally feel powerful.” One of the most significant explanations he gave for committing his crimes, was his fear of abandonment, the fear that his partners would leave him, something he could not tolerate.
The control aspect of his crimes was another fundamental and almost all consuming fantasy that dictated the very nature of his crimes. With the cannibalism of his victims’ bodies, devouring their very being, and the experimentation he carried out to perfect his need for a submissive partner, Jeffrey Dahmer had, by his own admission, dabbled with Satanism.
He described how, just having the bodies of his victims around him made him feel “thoroughly evil.” One body, that of Tony Hughes, was kept in the bedroom of his apartment even as he had invited another victim over to pose for nude photographs. One thing his surviving victim, and even the police noticed, was the overpowering smell of death in his apartment.
“I have to question whether or not there is an evil force in the world and whether or not I have been influenced by it. Although I am not sure if there is a God,” Dahmer said, “or if there is a devil, I know that as of lately I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about both.” It is unknown to what extent Dahmer explored Satanism, but it was evidently not as extreme as the Night Stalker Richard Ramirez’s fascination was with the dark arts.
However, Jeffrey Dahmer’s altar, his shrine to his victims that would take centre stage in his apartment, featuring all of his trophies, his statue of a griffin, the incense that burned in the skulls of his victims, was intended to afford him something more supernatural. Dahmer confessed the desire he would receive “special powers and energies to help him socially and financially.”
During his interrogation, Jeffrey Dahmer told detectives that he needed only one more skull to complete the morbid shrine he had planned to his victims. It is unknown if the completion of Jeffrey Dahmer’s altar would have prompted him to cease his murderous spree, or if he would continue past his intended victim count.
By the time of his arrest, Dahmer had previously lost his position at the Milwaukee Ambrosia Chocolate Factory on July 19, 1991. With his employment terminated, Dahmer would have been forced to look for other work, or face the prospect of losing his tenancy at the Oxford Apartments, meaning he would have likely had to move back in with his grandmother.
This was something that was likely to affect Dahmer’s plans for his altar, however his arrest just five days after he was fired from his job, meant his murders came to an abrupt end, and any further plans he had to create his private altar of death were to forever remain just a dark fantasy of an evil serial killer.
John Brennan Crutchley Dubbed the Vampire Rapist, John Brennan Crutchley was a suspected serial killer who drank the blood of one of his kidnapping victims.
Red Inn Murders The Red Inn Murders were occurred in France during the 19th century, where the proprietors of an inn killed and cannibalised their clientele.
George “G” Williams During the 1990’s and early 2000’s, George “G” Williams carried out a murderous vendetta against Suge Knight and his Death Row Records.
Nancy Guthrie Kidnapping The Nancy Guthrie Kidnapping occurred on February 1, 2026, when the 84-year-old mother of US News anchor Savannah Guthrie vanished.
Atlas Vampire Case The unsolved murder of a Swedish prostitute has become known as the Atlas Vampire case, because the killer drank the victims blood.
Ian Watkins As the lead singer of Welsh rock band the Lostprophets, Ian Watkins had legions of fans, but few could know he was a prolific child abuser.
Copyright © 2025 The True Crime Database. All Rights Reserved.
