Jeffrey Dahmer
Jeffrey Dahmer's 1982 mugshot. The serial killer was beaten to death in prison in 1994. Milwaukee County Sheriff's Department

It’s been 20 years since cannibal killer Jeffrey Dahmer was fatally beaten in Wisconsin’s Columbia Correctional Institution. Now, Christopher Scarver, the man responsible for Dahmer’s 1994 death, has spoken out for the first time in an interview with the New York Post published Tuesday.

Scarver, 45, developed a deep disdain for Dahmer after he entered prison in 1992. “He crossed the line with some people -- prisoners, prison staff," Scarver told the Post. "Some people who are in prison are repentant -- but he was not one of them.”

Dahmer, known as the Milwaukee Cannibal, was imprisoned after he raped, murdered and dismembered 17 men and boys between 1978 and 1991. Some of his murders also involved cannibalism and necrophilia. These acts deeply disgusted Scarver, who was convicted of murder after he killed his former boss during a robbery. He even carried a newspaper article about Dahmer’s crimes.

On the day Scarver killed Dahmer and another inmate, Jesse Anderson, one of them had nudged him in the back. “I turned around, and [Dahmer] and Jesse were kind of laughing under their breath,” Scarver said. “I looked right into their eyes, and I couldn’t tell which had done it.”

When the men split up, Scarver cornered Dahmer. He pulled out the newspaper clipping and asked the serial killer if he was guilty of the crimes that “fiercely disgusted” Scarver. When Dahmer said yes, he smashed his head with a metal bar he had taken from the weight room. “He ended up dead. I put his head down,” Scarver said. Then he went after Anderson and killed him too.

Scarver believes prison officials wanted Dahmer to be killed. “They had something to do with what took place. Yes,” he said. Though he said the guards vanished before he fatally attacked Dahmer, he wouldn’t explain further.

Scarver pleaded no contest to the deaths of Dahmer and Anderson and was sentenced to two life sentences on top of the life sentence he already was already serving.

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