By the time Jeffrey Dahmer checked into his room at the Ambassador Hotel, he had already murdered one man and had raped at least 12 men, using sleeping pills to render them unconscious. He was deep into his alcoholism and his criminal behavior was escalating quickly.

On November 20, 1987 Dahmer met 25 year old Steven Tuomi at a gay bar near the Ambassador Hotel. Dahmer convinced Tuomi to come back to his room at the Ambassador where he intended to drug and rape Tuomi. There, in room 507, Dahmer drugged, raped, and beat Tuomi to death while in a drunken stupor. Dahmer later claimed that he had not intended to kill Tuomi, but when he awoke to find Tuomi’s lifeless body with him in the bed, it was too late.

To cover his crimes, Dahmer purchased a large suitcase and brought the body back to his grandmother’s house where he was living at the time. He later decapitated Tuomi’s body and disposed of everything but the severed head in the trash. He used a chemical solution to remove the flesh from the head, and used Tuomi’s bleached skull as stimulation for masterbation until it ultimately became too brittle. He pulverized the skull in his grandmother’s yard and scattered the pieces.

In 1990, Dahmer moved into an apartment just a few blocks from the Ambassador Hotel where he would commit the majority of his crimes.