First murder and Army service
Dahmer committed his first murder in the summer of 1978, at the age of 18, just three weeks after his graduation. At the time, he was living alone in the family home: owing to his recent divorce from Dahmer's mother, Dahmer's father temporarily lived in a nearby motel and his mother had relocated to Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin[33]with his younger brother. On June 18,[34] Dahmer picked up an 18-year-old hitchhiker named Steven Mark Hicks.[35][36] Dahmer lured the youth to his house on the pretext of the pair drinking alcohol together. Hicks, who had been hitchhiking to a rock concert in Lockwood Corners, agreed to accompany Dahmer to his house. According to Dahmer, after several hours' drinking and listening to music, Hicks "wanted to leave and [I] didn't want him to."[37] In response, Dahmer bludgeoned him with a 10 lb. dumbbell. Dahmer later stated he struck Hicks twice from behind[38] with the dumbbell as he (Hicks) sat upon a chair. When Hicks fell unconscious, Dahmerstrangled him to death with the bar of the dumbbell, then stripped the clothes from Hicks' body before masturbating as he stood above the corpse.[38]
The following day,[39] Dahmer dissected Hicks' body in his crawl space; he later buried the remains in a shallow grave in his backyard[40] before, several weeks later, unearthing the remains and paring the flesh from the bones.[41] He dissolved the flesh in acid before flushing the solution down the toilet; he crushed the bones with asledgehammer and scattered them in the woodland behind the family home.[42]
Six weeks after the murder of Hicks, Dahmer's father and his fiancée returned to his home where they discovered Jeffrey living alone at the house. That August, Dahmer enrolled at Ohio State University, hoping to major in business.[43] Dahmer's sole term at Ohio State University was completely unproductive, largely because of his persistent alcohol abuse throughout the majority of the term.[44][45] On one occasion, Lionel Dahmer paid a surprise visit to his son, only to find his room strewn with empty liquor bottles. Despite his father having paid in advance for the second term, Dahmer dropped out of university after just three months.[46]
In January 1979,[47] upon his father's urging, Dahmer enlisted in the U.S. Army,[48] where he trained as a medical specialist at Fort Sam Houston before, on July 13, 1979, being deployed to Baumholder in West Germany where he served as a combat medic. According to published reports, in Dahmer's first year of service, he was an "average or slightly above average" soldier.[49][50] One soldier stated in 2010 that while stationed at Baumholder, Dahmer had repeatedly raped him over a 17-month period.[51] This soldier stated that he reported the abuse to his commander, but was not believed.[52]
Owing to Dahmer's alcohol abuse, his performance deteriorated and, in March 1981, he was deemed unsuitable for military service and later formally discharged from the Army,[53] albeit honorably as his superiors did not believe any problems Dahmer had in the Army would be applicable to civilian life.[54]
On March 24, 1981, Dahmer was sent to Fort Jackson for debriefing and provided with a plane ticket to travel anywhere in the country. Dahmer later told police he felt he could not return home to face his father, so he opted to travel to Miami Beach, Florida, both because he was "tired of the cold"[55] and in an attempt to live by his own means. In Florida, Dahmer found employment at a delicatessen and rented a room in a nearby motel. Dahmer spent the lion's share of his salary on alcohol, and was soon evicted from the motel for nonpayment. He initially spent his evenings on the beach as he continued to work at the sandwich shop before, in September 1981, phoning his father and asking to return to Ohio.[56]