Ryan Murphy’s latest drama series on Netflix, Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer, presents a fictionalized account of the serial killer’s very real crimes. The show, which stars Murphy’s longtime collaborator Evan Peters, follows the titular killer’s 17 murders, which he committed between 1978 and 1991. During some of this time, Dahmer was actually serving in the military, a fact which is alluded to in the fourth episode.
What was Jeffrey Dahmer’s job in the military?
Dahmer enlisted in the U.S. Army after dropping out of Ohio State University after a single semester in 1978, after being urged by his father to sign up. He trained as an Army medic at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas, and was stationed with the 2nd Battalion, 68th Armored Regiment, 8th Infantry Division at a base in Baumholder, West Germany, where he was described in his service reports as an “average to slightly above soldier.”
Dahmer was stationed in Germany from early 1979 to 1981.
Did Jeffrey Dahmer commit any crimes while in the Army?
After Dahmer’s murders became public knowledge, German authorities reopened investigations into multiple unsolved death cases which occurred during his period of service in Baumholder, although ultimately no connection was found.
While he was in the Army, Dahmer was accused of sexual assault by two different young men. Preston Davis, a 20-year-old Black medic who worked with Dahmer in 1979, reported that he was subjected to racist rants and that Dahmer would often brag about his crimes while drinking. During a training exercise in Belgium in which the two men were alone together, Davis alleged that Dahmer drugged and raped him.
“Somewhere in that time frame, I was sexually assaulted, which included penetration,” he later wrote in a story for Protect Our Defenders. “I believe that I was drugged because I lost time and have memory gaps. I must have been so ashamed because I had very little recollection of the event.” Davis also claimed that he believes the only reason Dahmer didn’t kill him was because he didn’t know how to get back to the base in Germany by himself.
Dahmer’s 17-year-old roommate Billy J. Capshaw also accused Dahmer of sexual assault, recalling several occasions in which he would be imprisoned, beaten and raped while Dahmer was under the influence of alcohol. Capshaw reported the assaults and took a rape test, but law enforcement ignored the results—the failings of the police are explored thoroughly in Monster—and Dahmer was able to continue his abuse of Capshaw for over a year.
When and why was Dahmer discharged?
Dahmer was stationed in Germany for nearly two years before being honorably discharged in 1981 due to his issues with alcohol abuse. He then returned to the United States, where he stayed in Miami Beach for a while, before being kicked out of his hotel for failing to pay, after which he moved back to Ohio to live with his father and stepmother.
Philip Ellis is a freelance writer and journalist from the United Kingdom covering pop culture, relationships and LGBTQ+ issues. His work has appeared in GQ, Teen Vogue, Man Repeller and MTV.
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