Jesse Anderson The Inmate Who Met The Same Fate As Jeffrey Dahmer
The case of prolific serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, a.k.a. the “Milwaukee Monster,” fascinates the public so much that it’s not surprising that his murder at the hands of another inmate dominated the media. Yet there was a second prisoner slain that day too whose death is often overshadowed. That man was Jesse Anderson, and his tale adds another chapter to the sinister story.
Grisly picture
Don’t be surprised if you haven’t heard of Jesse Anderson or his death — it’s certainly not as sensational as Dahmer’s — but it quickly followed the serial killer’s own and paints a grisly picture.
Anderson was serving a life sentence for killing his wife when he was struck down in 1994, though some believe his murder wasn’t just a case of “wrong place, wrong time.” But to explore this fully we need to rewind the clock a little.
Minor scrapes
Anderson’s childhood was pretty unremarkable and there was little to suggest that a killer lurked inside him. He was born in 1957 in Alton, Illinois, where he’d had a few minor scrapes with the law.
Apart from assaulting his stepfather one time, his infractions were petty and largely overlooked. There was no pattern of escalation, either. In fact, at one time Anderson had been a family man.
Worked together
Remember how we said Anderson had murdered his wife? Well, it was technically his second wife. The first time he’d got wed — to a woman called Debra Ann Eickert — their relationship didn’t work out, and they were divorced by 1984.
A year later Anderson took a second wife, Barbara. They settled down in Cedarburg, Wisconsin, and had three children. They even worked together at an oil company: Barbara was the president and Anderson was in sales.
An ordinary night
It had been seemingly just an ordinary night in 1992 when tragedy struck. Passersby at a T.G.I. Friday’s in Northridge Mall, Milwaukee, stumbled on a violent scene in the restaurant parking lot.
It appeared as though a couple had been attacked. A beaten woman lay under a pickup truck, suffering multiple stab wounds to her head and face, and a man, presumably her husband, lay just a few feet away.