Mugshot/Netflix Dahmer and the sandwich
One of the most gruesome and chilling scenes in the Netflix series on serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer shows Dahmer handing his neighbor a sandwich.
That has people wondering: Did Dahmer really give his neighbor a sandwich? Since Dahmer was an admitted cannibal, that has many people wondering: Was it human meat? What was in the sandwich?
First of all, Dahmer’s next-door neighbor was not Glenda Cleveland as depicted in the Netflix show. It’s true that the real-life Cleveland tried to save a teenage youth from Dahmer, but Milwaukee police gave the boy back to the serial killer. However, Cleveland’s character appears to be an amalgamation of the real Cleveland and Dahmer’s across-the-hall neighbor, Pamela Bass.
In a documentary on Dahmer called “The Jeffrey Dahmer File,” Bass revealed that Dahmer did actually give her a sandwich, and she now fears it was human body meat. “I have probably eaten someone’s body part,” she said, according to the Tab. What was really in the sandwich is not knowable for sure.
Here’s what you need to know:
Dahmer’s Neighbor Pamela Bass Said His Apartment Was Neat & Clean
According to a 1991 article in the Sheboygan Press, Pamela Bass was inside Dahmer’s apartment a week before he was arrested and described it as “neat and clean.”
However, that article says that the apartment had an “odd” smell and a video surveillance camera pointed toward the door. Neighbors heard a “sawing” noise one night, the article said.
Vernell Bass, another neighbor at the Oxford Apartments, said that he and his wife “heard sounds of sawing from Dahmer’s apartment day and night,” according to a 1991 article in the Daily Tribune.
“I used to hear him over there, talking to himself, cussing to himself, talking real loud, and I knew he didn’t have anyone over there,” Pamela Bass said, according to that article. She lived across the hall from Dahmer.
According to a 1991 Capital Times article, police did not find food in Dahmer’s apartment, only beer.
But Larry Marion, the apartment manager, said the smell was bad in the apartment. Dahmer claimed his refrigerator was broken, that article said.
Dahmer’s Apartment Emitted a Foul Smell, Neighbors Said
Mugshot/GettyWas Jeffrey Dahmer a cannibal?
One neighbor thought Dahmer was building something in his apartment, the Capital Times article states.
“I’ve never seen him bring any food in there,” Pamela Bass said in that article.
The La Crosse Tribune, in a 1991 article, quoted Bass as saying, “He was just a quiet guy who kept to himself. He was kind of dirty and he’d walk through the alleys at all hours of the night. I thought he was a little strange, but this goes beyond strange.”
That article quoted another neighbor as saying, “He always had an excuse (for the odor). Whenever the manager would get on him, the smell would die down. This happened last summer, when it got hot. Everyone was cleaning and searching around to see where it was coming from.”
“I thought it was sewage. You’d open the door and you’d smell it,” neighbor Gene Mitchell said, according to that publication.
The Oxford apartments no longer exist. They were torn down.
READ NEXT: Jeffrey Dahmer’s Cause of Death.