Jeffrey Dahmer’s first murder victim was 18‑year‑old hitchhiker Steven Mark Hicks , whom Dahmer killed in June 1978 at his parents’ home in Ohio.

Quick facts

  • Steven Hicks was 18 years old and reportedly on his way to a rock concert when Dahmer picked him up hitchhiking in Ohio in June 1978.
  • Dahmer took Hicks back to his parents’ house, where he later struck him with a barbell and strangled him, then dismembered and disposed of the body.
  • This killing is widely documented as Dahmer’s first known murder, committed shortly after he graduated from high school.

Context and impact

  • Hicks’s murder remained undiscovered for years; investigators only learned the details after Dahmer confessed following his arrest in 1991.
  • The case is often cited in true‑crime discussions as the beginning of Dahmer’s later series of murders of young men and boys between 1978 and 1991.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.