Jeff Dahmer Wasn’t on the Lease — But DA Michael McCann Was
Landlord Says: No “Serial Killers,” Just District Attorneys
In the long, weird annals of American justice, few stories are as ridiculous as the one where a District Attorney manages to have the same address as the “serial killer” he’s prosecuting. That’s not a typo. Milwaukee DA Michael McCann, the man who sold the “Dahmer” nightmare to the world, shows up in the tenant records for 808 N. 24th Street, the address where Jeff Dahmer supposedly molested 13-year-old Somsack Sinthasomphone. Jeff, the supposed tenant and sex offender, does not.
So the guy telling the story was there. The guy starring in the story wasn’t.
(For $19.99 a month, you too can stumble across the kind of smoking gun that undoes a state’s entire criminal mythology. But, mugshots.com is free.)
District Attorney Michael McCann wasn’t just Milwaukee’s top cop; he was also tight with Archbishop Rembert Weakland, the gay prelate running an archdiocese so riddled with abuse scandals it eventually had to declare bankruptcy like a failing casino. By 2011, the lawsuits piled so high the Archdiocese of Milwaukee hit the Chapter 11 eject button. And by 2019, the Church itself was so embarrassed it quietly scraped Weakland’s name off its headquarters like a bad Yelp review.
And if all this sounds insane, buckle in. Because the deeper you go into “Dahmer”, the less it resembles a police investigation and the more it looks like a badly-written prestige drama, greenlit by the Archdiocese of Milwaukee and filmed on location in the Twilight Zone.
Meet the Sinthasomphones
The Sinthasomphone family didn’t just parachute into the US from Laos by accident. They were flown in courtesy of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, which …if you’ve read the Catholic scandal ticker for more than five minutes …already sounds like the setup to a grim punchline.
According to the story, Jeff Dahmer supposedly molested Somsack Sinthasomphone in 1988 and then murdered his “brother”, ”Konerak” Sinthasomphone, in 1991.
Once in the US, the Sinthasomphone family got cozy with Father Peter Burns, a Roman Catholic priest whose résumé included, surprise, second-degree sexual assault against a minor. He did less than a year in prison, and even that was on work release. His charges? The exact same ones that would later be pinned on Jeff Dahmer.
For more information about Burns, see Bishop Accountability and this hefty 104-page PDF from the Archdiocese of Milwaukee.
After Jeff Dahmer was arrested in July 1991, the New York Times even played its part, running a misty-eyed profile to help frame the Sinthasomphone family as tragic props in the unfolding drama. Click on the images to read the article:
So when the official record says Jeff Dahmer was arrested in 1988 for molesting 13-year-old Somsack Sinthasomphone at 808 N. 24th Street, remember: that was the DA’s address, the family was hand-delivered to the US by the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, and a priest – and friend of the family – was doing the exact same thing Jeff Dahmer was accused of.
At some point, it stops sounding like history and starts sounding like a script.
The Invisible Perp Act Now Starring Jeff Dahmer, Sort Of
Now let’s look at the 1988 arrest itself. The FBI file says Jeff Dahmer was picked up for Second Degree Sexual Assault and Enticing a Child for Immoral Purposes. Big, ugly charges. Serious stuff.
But here’s the kicker: no mugshot per the FBI.
They had, supposedly, a child sex offender in custody and decided, nah, let’s not take a picture. Wouldn’t want to mess up the photo album, right?
Did they get one in 1986, when Jeff was – according to the official narrative – arrested and charged with lewd and lascivious behavior? No again.
Can’t ID the Guy? No Problem, the DA Will Do It for You
Something else…
Somsack Sinthasomphone was 13. Which means cops couldn’t just pull him into a room and get a statement …legally, a parent or relative had to be there. Somebody had to witness this supposed ID, the little walk back to 808 N. 24th Street – the DA’s address – where it all allegedly happened.
Meanwhile, a guy they told us was Somsack Sinthasomphone’s older brother kept insisting they didn’t even know what Jeff looked like. Imagine a case where the victim’s family can’t identify the guy, but the DA, who lived at the address, swears up and down it’s him.
Pick the Suspect Out of… Thin Air
Here’s Milwaukee police Lt. Scott Schaefer, poker-faced, walking through how 13-year-old Somsack Sinthasomphone supposedly identified Jeff Dahmer. Who’s asking the questions? DA Michael McCann, the same guy whose name shows up on the lease of the crime scene.
– But prior to leaving, I showed SS a number of photographs, including the person who had been identified by the apartment manager, and SS positively identified Jeffrey Dahmer as the person who had taken him to his apartment and taken these photos.
– This is what you refer to in police work as a photo array. Is that correct?
– Yes.
– And you had Mr. Dahmer’s picture on file from an earlier case where he had indecently exposed himself.
– That is correct.
Sounds airtight, right? Except for one minor snag: as you just saw, the mugshot they claim was used never existed. In 1986, when Jeff Dahmer was supposedly arrested and charged – according to the official story – for indecent exposure, Milwaukee police somehow forgot to take a photo.
So what exactly did Somsack “positively identify”? An invisible man? A phantom headshot? Maybe they just held up a blank piece of paper and asked, “This guy look familiar?”
That’s not law enforcement. That’s an improv skit.
And the kicker? That invisible mugshot, the one nobody’s ever seen because it never existed, was treated as if it carried the weight of gospel. The entire public narrative of the “Milwaukee Monster” balanced on a photograph that was never taken.
It’s the kind of thing you’d expect from a bad sitcom: CSI: Imaginary Crimes Unit.
And Then There’s the Konerak Problem
Here’s where the whole thing tips from “sloppy paperwork” into full-on absurdist theater. Take a look at the famous “Konerak” Sinthasomphone, supposedly murdered by Jeff Dahmer in 1991. Now compare him side by side with his brother Somsack.
This is recycling an identity. One year Somsack Sinthasomphone is “molested” by Jeff. Three years later he’s “murdered.” Same photo, different captions.
It’s like watching a bad crime show where the producers assume the audience won’t notice they reused the same extra as both “Dead Body #1” and “Suspicious Neighbor.” Except here, the rerun ended with Jeff Dahmer sentenced to life in a narrative prison and an refugee family turned into props for the Archdiocese’s damage-control department. God bless America.
What’s Left When You Strip Away the Narrative? A Catholic Stage Play Starring Jeff Dahmer
Here’s the punchline.
When you peel back the press conferences, the Times features, the FBI files, and the courtroom theatrics, what’s left isn’t a true-crime saga. It’s a morality play in vestments. A Catholic stage production with Jeff Dahmer as the scapegoat, carrying the sins of the Church into the pit while the real monsters skulk offstage.
It’s theater. Bad theater, with holes so big you can see the ropes and pulleys. But it worked. The public bought tickets, the press applauded, and three decades later the official playbill is still treated like gospel.
But thanks to the wonders of modern genealogy sites, you don’t even need Woodward and Bernstein to dig up the truth anymore. Just a Wi-Fi connection, a debit card, and twenty bucks.
At the end of the day, the only real crime here was how this production was sold as fact. Go read the Evidence and Fake Trial pages. Once you see how flimsy it all is, you won’t just wonder how people believed it, you’ll realize the scariest part is how eagerly they did.