Matt Turner, a 20-year-old Black/African American man who was living in Chicago and was also known as Donald Montrell, was killed in Milwaukee on June 30, 1991. Turner encountered Jeffrey Dahmer in Chicago after a Gay Pride event, with contemporary charging documents stating that Dahmer offered him money to pose for photographs and watch videos. Turner agreed to accompany Dahmer to his apartment at 924 North 25th Street in Milwaukee, unaware that Dahmer had already killed numerous other young
men.
According to the criminal complaint, once they were inside the apartment, Dahmer gave Turner a drink containing a sleeping drug. After Turner became incapacitated, Dahmer strangled him with a strap. Dahmer then dismembered Turner's body, photographed portions of the remains, placed his head in a freezer, and put other remains into a large 57-gallon container that he kept in the apartment. The killing occurred during the final and most rapidly escalating period of Dahmer's series of murders.
Turner's disappearance did not immediately bring investigators to Dahmer. The case broke open on the night of July 22, 1991, when Tracy Edwards escaped from Dahmer's apartment while partially handcuffed and stopped Milwaukee police officers. Edwards led the officers back to the apartment. The resulting search exposed human remains and photographs documenting dismembered victims, and Dahmer was taken into custody. Investigators subsequently discovered identification belonging to Turner inside the apartment.
Turner's remains were formally identified during the investigation. Milwaukee police records later provided to the FBI state that fingerprints obtained from severed hands designated by the medical examiner as "hands C" were checked through the Chicago Police Department's automated fingerprint identification system and identified as Turner's. Milwaukee authorities confirmed the match, and investigators also identified his complete skeletal remains. Police records indicate that Turner's father was notified of his death on July 25, 1991. The homicide investigation was assigned Milwaukee case number M2473.
That same day, July 25, prosecutors charged Jeffrey Dahmer in connection with Turner and three other recently identified victims: Jeremiah Weinberger, Oliver Lacy and Joseph Bradehoft. Turner was one of the first victims whose killing was formally included in the criminal case against Dahmer. As investigators continued identifying remains and comparing Dahmer's confessions with missing-person reports, additional homicide charges followed. By August 6, Dahmer had been charged with twelve killings, and the Wisconsin prosecution ultimately encompassed fifteen murders.
The prosecution did not ultimately require a conventional trial to determine whether Dahmer had committed Turner's murder. In January 1992, Dahmer entered guilty-but-insane pleas to fifteen Wisconsin killings, including Turner's. The pleas acknowledged that he had committed the homicides but left a jury to determine whether he was legally responsible or legally insane when they occurred. After a highly publicized sanity trial in Milwaukee County Circuit Court, the jury determined on February 15, 1992, that Dahmer was legally sane in each of the fifteen murders.
On February 17, 1992, Judge Laurence C. Gram Jr. sentenced Dahmer to fifteen consecutive life prison terms. The sentence ensured that he would spend the remainder of his life incarcerated and covered Turner's murder along with the other Wisconsin killings for which Dahmer had admitted responsibility. What had begun with Turner's trip from Chicago to Milwaukee on June 30, 1991, ended several weeks later with the discovery and identification of his remains and, ultimately, with the prosecution and conviction of the man responsible for his death.
