THE father of notorious serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, who vowed to stick by his son even after the details of his heinous murders came to light, has died at age 87.
Lionel Dahmer died in hospice care not far from his home in rural Ohio, a source close to the family confirmed to The U.S. Sun on Tuesday.
An employee at the Medina County Health Department was notified of Lionel's death on Tuesday.
The cause of death was not immediately made available.
The source told The U.S. Sun Lionel had been in hospice care since October as his health began to decline shortly after the death of his wife, Shari - who died on January 13 at age 81.
“It was slow at first, but he didn’t want to get up and move as much," said the source.
“It was almost as if he was ready to go.
"There are plenty people out there who have a lot of respect and admiration for Lionel because of what he went through with Jeff and how he dealt with it.
“It’s a very sad day for those who cared about him.”
The source added that Lionel had heart issues and was taking medication for it.
An attorney who had represented Lionel said: "I have no comment at this time."
The source revealed to The U.S. Sun that the Milwaukee Cannibal's father had hallucinated about seeing his son months before his death.
"In his final months, he was heavily medicated and had hallucinations about seeing Jeff," the source said.
“He was incoherent and asking if people had seen Jeff. He said that Jeff had come to see him.
“He also asked about Shari, it was almost as if he was trying to remember happier times.
Lionel's death comes nearly a year after Shari died in January at a nursing home near the couple’s home in the village of Seville, Ohio, about 23 miles west of Akron.
She is believed to have died due to complications related to health problems she had suffered in recent years.
Years after the heinous crimes of his son were uncovered, Lionel lived out the twilight years of his life under the radar in rural Seville.
In one of his final interviews, the carer of The Milwaukee Cannibal’s dad, Jeb, told The U.S. Sun that Lionel was still angry over his son's gruesome murder in prison.
Fellow inmate Christopher Scarver, now 54, brutally beat Dahmer to death with a metal bar in the prison weight room at the Columbia Correctional Institution in Wisconsin in November 1994.
“When Scarver gets brought up, he gets pissed," Jeb exclusively told The U.S. Sun in October 2022 during the peak of the Netflix series Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.
“He is still very angry about it.
“Why weren’t there any guards standing there watching? All three of them had improvised weapons right there.
“Why didn’t any of them do anything?
“As far as I know, and the last I talked to Lionel, he believes the guards looked the other way and let it happen.”
Shortly after the release of the Netflix crime thriller, Lionel's carer shared with The U.S. Sun that deranged fans would show up to his home acting “hostile and aggressive.”
Concerns over deranged fans have led his team to put up “No Trespassing” signs, and his carer even armed himself.
“This new Dahmer show blew up really quick," Jeb told The U.S. Sun last year.
“Anything Dahmer-related blows up. It seems like every time a movie or series comes out, that's when a lot of the crazy starts happening with the fanboys and the fan girls.
Jeb shared an anecdote about a 20-something woman whose strange behavior included leaving a very personal item of hers in the driveway.
“We even had a lady stop at the end of the driveway, take off her panties, and throw them in the yard," he said.
“I had to go out there with a pair of tongs to pick up this woman’s granny panties. The girl looked like she was in her early twenties and was shouting, ‘I love you Lionel.’"
The love that the crazed woman depicted at the time for the father of the now-deceased serial murderer was not mutual - the attention was not flattering or welcoming in any way to Lionel.
“It’s people like that that we’re trying not to have here, that’s why I put up no trespassing and private property signs. Lionel’s 86, and here’s this 20-year-old lady throwing her underwear at him. It's just like, stop.”
A new documentary released in late September detailed the Milwaukee Cannibal’s relationship with his dad and revealed the tensions between Dahmer and his younger brother, David.
The siblings had issues growing up as they competed for the love of their late mother, Joyce, retired FBI profiler Dan Craft said in an interview on the Fox Nation docuseries My Son Jeffrey: The Dahmer Family Tapes.
Craft interviewed Dahmer and profiled him three times for the FBI and told the network: "Jeff ended up resenting David because his mother favored David, would show him the love.
"I found that to be, you know, abusive.
"He (Jeffrey) just didn’t feel that he mattered, so that can be very powerful, especially for a child in those formative years.
"You don’t think mama loves you, it can be pretty devastating."
The Fox Nation documentary revolves around never-before-heard tapes of conversations between Dahmer and his father while the cannibal was in prison.
It tells how the future murderer grew up in a broken home after his parents divorced in 1978.
Describing his upbringing, a source close to the Dahmer family told The U.S. Sun: "To my understanding, Joyce favored David because David acted and looked more like her.
"He was more like Joyce in their personalities than Jeff was.
"She was an alcoholic, as was Jeff in later life.
"But her mannerisms were more like David, who was more outgoing and talkative than his brother.
"Jeff was more like Lionel, he was more reserved and thought things through, or at least when he was younger, it seemed that way.
"When Joyce took off with David after her marriage with Lionel ended, Lionel only had Jeff to dote on.
"Jeff reminded Joyce of Lionel, and that’s one of the reasons why she didn’t take Jeff with her after the divorce."
The U.S. Sun exclusively pictured David, now 56, near his home in the suburb of a major US city.
David, a father of two, has been living in the suburb city, which The U.S. has decided not to disclose, under a new identity.
While running errands, David sported a full orange tracksuit reminiscent of his older brother’s infamous pictures in a prison jumpsuit.
"I don’t know what you're talking about," he told The U.S. Sun when approached outside his home and asked about his brother.
He then threatened to call the police and headed back into his apartment building.
Dahmer murdered and dismembered 17 young men and boys in Ohio and Wisconsin between 1978 and 1991.
Many of his gruesome murders involved cannibalism, necrophilia, and preserving victims’ body parts.
The serial murderer would frequently meet his victims at bars or nightclubs and lure them back to his apartment by promising to pay them for nude pictures.
His heinous murder spree finally came to an end in 1991 after his would-be victim, Tracy Edwards, managed to escape Dahmer's apartment and notify the police.
Dahmer was convicted of 15 of the 16 homicides he committed in Wisconsin and was sentenced to 15 life terms in February 1992.
Though Lionel admitted that he had no idea what his son was doing, he decided to stand by Dahmer even after his conviction.
"We’ve gotten very close since his arrest," Dahmer told Oprah Winfrey in 1994.
"I still love my son. I’ll always stick by him — I always have."
Lionel continued visiting his son in prison until his murder in 1994.
