Anthony Lee Sears was a 24-year-old Black man living in Milwaukee when he disappeared in March 1989. Federal investigative records list his date of birth as January 28, 1965, and show that he was last seen at his home on the morning of March 25. A friend reported him missing to the Milwaukee Police Department on March 29 after he failed to return. Sears would remain missing for more than two years, with his family having no confirmation of what had happened to him.
During the evening of March 25, Sears encountered Jeffrey Dahmer in Milwaukee. Investigative and court records established that Sears later accompanied Dahmer to the home of Dahmer's grandmother at 2357 South 57th Street in West Allis. Prosecutors ultimately placed the killing there on or about March 26, 1989. Dahmer later admitted that he drugged Sears before killing him and dismembering his body. Sears became the last known victim Dahmer murdered at his grandmother's West Allis residence before Dahmer's later series of killings centered on his Milwaukee apartment.
Sears' disappearance remained unresolved until Jeffrey Dahmer was arrested in Milwaukee on July 22, 1991. The investigation of Dahmer's apartment at 924 North 25th Street uncovered human remains belonging to multiple victims. Among the remains investigators eventually identified were Sears' skull and other preserved body parts. FBI records state that Sears was identified through dental records and that his parents were notified of his death on July 26, 1991. The discovery finally provided an answer to the family that had been waiting since 1989 to learn what had happened to him.
Authorities determined that Sears had not been killed at Dahmer's Milwaukee apartment, despite his remains eventually being recovered there. Instead, investigators concluded that the homicide occurred at Dahmer's grandmother's West Allis home and that Dahmer subsequently transported and retained portions of Sears' remains. When Milwaukee County prosecutors filed their amended criminal complaint against Dahmer, Sears' killing was listed as Count One. The charge alleged that on or about March 26, 1989, at 2357 South 57th Street in West Allis, Dahmer intentionally caused Sears' death, constituting first-degree intentional homicide under Wisconsin law.
Dahmer ultimately admitted responsibility for Sears' murder along with numerous other killings. On January 13, 1992, he changed his pleas in the Wisconsin cases and pleaded guilty while maintaining a defense of not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect, leaving a jury to determine whether he was legally responsible for his actions. Because guilt was no longer contested, the highly publicized proceeding focused on Dahmer's mental condition at the times of the murders rather than on whether he had committed them.
On February 15, 1992, the Milwaukee County jury determined that Dahmer was legally responsible for the 15 Wisconsin murders for which he had been prosecuted. Two days later, Judge Laurence C. Gram Jr. sentenced him to 15 consecutive life terms in prison. The sentence covered the first-degree intentional homicide conviction for Sears' death as well as the other murders included in the prosecution. Sears' case, which had begun as an unexplained disappearance in March 1989, was therefore formally resolved through the identification of his remains, Dahmer's admission, the homicide charge, his conviction, and the resulting life sentence.
