How Jeffrey Dahmer’s Polaroids gave him away after cops believed his explanation for hideous smell in his home

POLICE initially believed Jeffrey Dahmer’s explanation for the hideous smell in his house – before his Polaroid collection gave him away.

Officer Rolf Mueller and his partner Robert Rauth went to his home after they had been flagged down by of one of killer’s victim Tracey Edwards, who was still in handcuffs.

AFP

Dahmer murdered and dismembered 17 boys and men between 1978 and 1991[/caption]

Milwaukee Police Department

Cops discovered Dahmer’s warped photo collection in his apartment[/caption]

Dahmer murdered and dismembered 17 boys and men between 1978 and 1991, unnoticed by cops.

Edwards had escaped and found the two cops and told them about his ordeal at the hands of a “freak”.

When the two officers went round, they were met with a putrefying smell of flesh but Dahmer told them it was pork chops and that had gone off, the Daily Mail reports.

It was an excuse he had also given to his neighbours, telling them that his freezer had gone off.

The decided there was nothing suspicious in the apartment but asked for the key to unlock the handcuffs on Edwards.

The serial killer one of the officers into his bedroom to get the look.

But as he was leaving, the officer spotted an open drawer in a bedside dresser containing a stash of Polaroid photos.

“These are for real,” he said.

Dahmer attempted to flee but the cops managed to wrestle him to the ground and handcuff him – ending his murderous rampage.

Dahmer told officers: “For what I did, I should be dead.”

As they combed through his belongings, they found around 80 Polaroid images of his victims in a bedside table drawer.

Explicit snaps showed Dahmer engaging in sex acts with the bodies of some of his dead victims, while others showed naked dismembered corpses in different poses.

Dahmer photographed his victims as he “wanted to keep them as mementos to keep him company”, according to The American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology, in 1994.

It is understood the sicko also took pictures of his victims at various stages of the murder process so he could “recollect each act afterward and relive the experience”, reports Biography.

Other items included in the evidence sent to the FBI included Dahmer’s tools – such as a selection of saw blades.

It also included a “Sears Craftsman” power drill and a hypodermic needle.

Samples of skull fragments with drill holes were also in the selection, all likely part of Dahmer’s disturbing efforts to create “zombies” or “love slaves”.

Dahmer dreamed of making in his victims into compliant, near brain dead creatures who he could keep around his home.

Police also found sketches of a plan to construct an altar in his house.

The serial killer confessed to making his victims pose for pictures on a black table that he planned to make part of his altar.

Dahmer was handed 16 consecutive life terms and jailed at the Columbia Correctional Institution in Wisconsin in 1992.

He was bludgeoned to death with a metal bar by fellow inmate Christopher Scarver two years later.