How old was Jeffrey Dahmer when he died?

Jeffrey Dahmer needs no introduction, we all know who he is. The cannibalistic serial killer who haunted 1980s Milwaukee with a total of 17 murders connected to him. 

Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer would lure young men back to his apartment and would usually drug them with sedatives before strangling and dismembering them. Most of his victims were ethnic minorities and his youngest victim was just 14 years of age, so yeah, the man truly was a monster.

Every few years his story is told and then re-told to the point that it feels like by now everyone knows the life and history of this notorious killer. The most recent retelling was the clunkily titled Netflix drama, Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story (actually the show’s name) which received mixed reviews with many decrying it for giving too much attention to the murderer and not his long list of victims. Thanks to this and other adaptations We know he was born in 1960, he first killed in 1978 and he was caught in 1991 after numerous missed opportunities. We also know his eventual fate.

How old was Jeffrey Dahmer when he died?

Dahmer was given 15 life sentences which equated to about 936 years according to USA Today although his lengthy prison sentence would be cut very very short with him only serving three of those years before he was brutally beaten to death on Nov. 28 1994. On that day Dahmer was assigned to clean the gym prison showers along with two inmates, Christopher Scarver and Jesse Anderson. It was here that he was attacked by the former who hit him with a metal bar. At this point it’s noted that Dahmer almost seemed resigned to death, according to The Mirror, Scarver claimed he told him, “I don’t care if I live or die. Go ahead and kill me.”

Dahmer would have been 34 years of age when the beating happened. After the attack, he was rushed to hospital but pronounced dead within an hour. Despite 34 being a young age to die that’s still a longer life than any of his victims got, with the oldest of all of them being Ricky Beeks who was murdered by the serial killer at the age of 33.

Christopher Scarver never revealed his motivations for killing the killer. However, Jeffrey Dahmer wasn’t his only victim that day. He also fatally beat Jesse Anderson, the third man on their work detail, to death as well. According to History.com, during his trial, Scarver claimed that God told him to kill both men.