‘Conversations With a Killer: The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes’: Who Was Steven Mark Hicks, the Killer’s First Victim?
Netflix debuted the third installment of its serial killer limited series, Conversations With a Killer. The docu-series uses real-life footage, documents, testimonies, and more regarding the heinous crimes of the Milwaukee cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer. Interest in the killer peaked after Netflix’s controversial series, Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story. Both Conversations With a Killer: The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes and the series explores his first victim, Steven Mark Hicks.
[SPOILER ALERT: Spoilers regarding Conversations With a Killer: The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes.]
The future killer grew up in a dysfunctional home and developed a hobby for taxidermy
The story begins in Dahmer’s childhood. By many accounts, he had normal adolescence and was incredibly shy and reserved. But his father, Lionel, noticed his son was different from the other children. In hopes of helping him come out of his shell, Lionel got him interested in taxidermy. But Dahmer would soon face the turmoil of his parent’s arguments and their eventual divorce.
While Dahmer’s mother left him with her younger son in tow, his father moved to a motel. Dahmer was left to his own devices and growing fantasies. At the age of 18, Dahmer committed his first murder. But according to Dahmer, he never planned on killing his first victim.
Steven Mark Hicks died in 1978 before Dahmer spiraled into his heinous tendencies as a serial killer or developed his Modus Operandi. The young man was an unforeseen tragedy and killed only three weeks after Dahmer graduated from high school.
‘Conversations With a Killer: The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes’ explores how Steven Mark Hicks met his killer
The murder that started it all for Dahmer was that of Steven Hicks. Conversations With a Killer: The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes explains that Hicks was a hitchhiker looking for a ride to a rock concert. According to The Cinemaholic, Hicks was 18 years old at the time, the same age as Dahmer, and recently graduated from Coventry High School. Many described Hicks as being kind and open to new friends but not keen on violence.
The docu-series explains Dahmer looked for a particular physique he found attractive and, by chance, stumbled upon a shirtless Hicks. Dahmer’s defense attorney remembers him saying, “This was the fantasy I had. Now I’m able to enact it.” How did Dahmer lure Hicks back to his family’s empty home?
While on the side of the road, Dahmer enticed him to hang out with the promise of beer and marijuana. Conversations With a Killer: The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes explains that Hicks was not gay or showed any sexual interest in Dahmer. At some point in the night, Hicks says he needs to go home. Dahmer becomes upset and knocks him unconscious with a barbell. In the tapes, Dahmer explains he wanted to stay with Hicks longer. He ultimately strangles him with the barbell and takes the body to the crawl space.
To Dahmer’s recollection in Conversations With a Killer: The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes, he dismembered the body and used them for sexual gratification.
Was Steven Mark Hicks’s body ever found after Jeffrey Dahmer’s arrest?
Having some experience with taxidermy and working in dismembering animal parts, Dahmer knew how to dispose of a human body. Regarding Steven Hicks, Dahmer’s tactics differ considerably from his later victims. Wanting to dispose of the body, he put the remains in trash bags and drove off to a ravine. Along the way, he was stopped by police for crossing the median line. The officer saw the bags but believed Dahmer’s story and sent him on his way.
Spooked, Dahmer returned home and stuffed Hicks’s remains in a galvanized pipe. Afterward, Dahmer’s father moved back due to his son’s drinking and sent him to the military. Three years later, Dahmer returns home, and Hicks’s remains are still there. Unsatisfied with how he left the remains, Dahmer dug them up to strip the flesh from the bones using acid.
As Hicks was his first victim, he did not keep the skull or bones like his later victims. Instead, Dahmer dried the bones and pulverized them before disposing them near his home. Because of Dahmer’s actions, Hicks’s remains were never recovered. Authorities were only allowed to charge Dahmer with Hicks’s murder after his confession.
Conversations With a Killer: The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes is available on Netflix.
