The Dahmer Files

Steven Tuomi

On November 20, 1987, Dahmer at the time residing with his grandmother in West Allis encountered a 25 year old man from Ontonagon, Michigan Steven Tuomi, at a bar and persuaded him to return to the Ambassador Hotel in Milwaukee, where Dahmer had rented a room for the evening.

According to Dahmer, he had no intention of killing Tuomi, but rather intended to simply drug him and lie beside him as he explored his body. The following morning, however, Dahmer awoke to find Tuomi lying beneath him on the bed, his chest "crushed in" and "black and blue" with bruises.

Blood was seeping from the corner of his mouth, and Dahmer's fists and one forearm were extensively bruised. Dahmer stated he had no memory of having killed Tuomi, and later informed investigators that he "could not believe this had happened."

To dispose of Tuomi's body, Dahmer purchased a large suitcase in which he transported the body to his grandmother's residence. One week later, he severed the head, arms, and legs from the torso, then filleted the bones from the body before cutting the flesh into pieces small enough to handle.

Dahmer then placed the flesh inside plastic garbage bags. He wrapped the bones inside a sheet and pounded them into splinters with a sledgehammer. The entire dismemberment process took Dahmer approximately 2 hours to complete. He disposed of all of Tuomi's remains excluding the severed head in the trash.

For a total of two weeks following Tuomi's killing, Dahmer retained Tuomi's head wrapped in a blanket. After 2 weeks, Dahmer boiled the head in a mixture of Soilax (an alkali based industrial detergent) and bleach in an effort to retain the skull, which he then used as stimulus for masturbation. Eventually, the skull was rendered to brittle by this bleaching process, so Dahmer pulverized and disposed of it.