the dahmer case

Konerak Sinthasomphone: The Records Don’t Add Up

The official Jeffrey Dahmer narrative includes a victim named “Konerak Sinthasomphone”. But there’s a problem. There are no clear records confirming that identity, and a widely circulated photo appears to be someone else.

This is not a true crime site. It’s an examination of the Dahmer case through publicly available records.

Konerak Sinthasomphone was the 14-year-old Laotian boy who, according to the official narrative, had a hole drilled into his skull and a splash of acid poured in — a kind of DIY mind-control experiment. The story goes that he escaped, half-conscious and bleeding, only to be returned to Jeff Dahmer by the Milwaukee Police. Jeff supposedly killed him after that.  

Have a look at the photo on the left below. That’s Somsack Sinthasomphone, the kid Jeff Dahmer allegedly molested in District Attorney Michael McCann’s apartment in 1988. (That was a felony arrest without any mugshots.) The kid on the right is supposed to be, according to the official story, Konerak Sinthasomphone.

This isn’t the only identity in the Dahmer case that doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. A supposed victim named “Eddie Smith” appears to be someone else entirely and Richard Guerrero died in 1960, before Jeff Dahmer was even born.

→ Read: Who Was Eddie Smith in the Dahmer Case?
→ And: Richard Guerrero died in 1960.
→ And: Is This Man Curtis Straughter?

Fact Check Us: Review the Evidence Yourself
Side-by-side comparison of Somsack Sinthasomphone and the photo used to represent “Konerak” Sinthasomphone, revealing they are the same person.
Somsack Sinthasomphone (left) and "Konerak" Sinthasomphone (right)

Somsack Sinthasomphone went to Milwaukee’s Pulaski High School in 1990:

Somsack Sinthasomphone in his 1990 Pulaski High School yearbook photo

Here he is standing in the back next to the coach (They misspelled the surname):

Black and white high school yearbook portrait of Somsack Sinthasomphone, a young Laotian-American male with short, neatly combed hair, wearing a patterned collared shirt and a calm, neutral expression.

Apart from the Wisconsin Death Index – a database that I’ve dubbed “Schrodinger’s Morgue” – you won’t find a clear, verifiable record for anyone named “Konerak Sinthasomphone” in sources like Ancestry.com. You’ll will find information about Somsack Sinthasomphone, though.

Try it yourself. Search any public records database — background checks, state registries, ancestry archives, take your pick. “Konerak Sinthasomphone” doesn’t appear to exist. (Anyone can create a Find A Grave page.) Not as a person, not as a legal entity, not as anything outside of a media headline. You’ll find plenty of hits for Somsack Sinthasomphone and his family — living and deceased — but “Konerak” is a ghost. We even tried alternate spellings, swapped in M’s and N’s, just in case the fictional paperwork had a typo. Still nothing.

The people they told us were Somsack and Konerak’s parents – Somdy and Sounthone Sinthasomphone – never filed any claim with the Social Security Administration for either “Konerak” or Somsack. They did for their real children, Anoukone and Keisone, though:

Screenshot showing two U.S. Social Security Applications and Claims records for Sounthone Sinthasompho, listing children Anoukone and Keisone Sinthasomphone, but no records for Konerak or Somsack.
Two Social Security Claims entries for Anoukone Sinthasomphone showing consistent birth information but different submission dates and maternal name formats.
Two U.S. Social Security Applications and Claims entries for Keisone Sinthasomphone, showing the same birth date but different submission years and slight variations in the mother’s name spelling.

You can look this information up yourself, and we encourage you to do so. 

The supposed parents of “Konerak” never filed any claim for him with the Social Security Administration. They never filed a claim for anyone named “Somsack” either. Was Somsack not their son?

Another curiosity is the fact that Somsack Sinthasomphone had a guardian ad litem in the Sinthasomphone lawsuit against the City of Milwaukee.

What’s a Guardian ad Litem, and Why Does It Matter Here?

A guardian ad litem is a court-appointed stand-in for a child or incapacitated person who — for one reason or another — can’t be represented by their own parents or legal guardians. Think of it as the legal system’s way of saying, “We’re not sure this kid actually belongs to the people claiming him.” It’s usually reserved for situations involving abuse, neglect, or a giant question mark about the child’s legal identity.

So when the 1992 federal lawsuit against the City of Milwaukee lists Somsack Sinthasomphone as a plaintiff but assigns him a guardian ad litem, even though his supposed parents are right there on the filing, it raises a very simple, very uncomfortable question: Were they really his parents at all? And if not — who was he, and where did he come from?

Something else…

A man named Father Peter Burns was a close friend of the Sinthasomphone family and convicted pedophile whose conviction mirrors the conviction they’ve claimed about Jeff Dahmer: Second Degree Sexual Assault. The Archdiocese of Milwaukee lists Peter Burns among its restricted priests.

Mugshot and arrest record summary for Peter A. Burns, a convicted sex offender from Milwaukee County, Wisconsin.
Peter A.Burns - Mugshots.com
Court document showing the 1992 conviction of Peter A. Burns for multiple counts of second-degree sexual assault.
Peter A Burns, convicted of Second Degree Sexual Assault
Scan of a 1991 New York Times article titled “Family Sought New Life, Only to Find New Pain,” featuring a photo of a family shrine and reporting on the alleged loss of Konerak Sinthasomphone. The article includes commentary from Catholic priest Father Peter Burns and references the family's refugee background.
1991 New York Times Article on the Sinthasomphone Family Featuring Father Peter Burns (1)
A newspaper column from the New York Times detailing the Sinthasomphone family's prior contact with Jeffrey Dahmer, including the alleged molestation of a son in 1988, and commentary from Catholic priest Father Peter Burns.
1991 New York Times Article on the Sinthasomphone Family Featuring Father Peter Burns (2)
Newspaper clipping describing the Sinthasomphone family’s shrine for Konerak, with a quote from Anoukone Sinthasomphone and mention of St. John’s Cathedral as the sponsoring church for their resettlement.
1991 New York Times Article on the Sinthasomphone Family Featuring Father Peter Burns (3)

Was the lawsuit actually for Somsack Sinthasomphone because he was assaulted by Father Peter Burns?

You can read more about Father Peter Burns at Bishop Accountability.

The Archdiocese of Milwaukee was drowning in sexual abuse claims right around the time Jeff Dahmer was arrested.

District Attorney E. Michael McCann was a close friend of Archbishop Rembert Weakland. (Weakland, who was gay, had a string of lovers and used diocesan funds to pay one of them, Paul Marcoux, $450,000 to keep their affair quiet.)

Jeff Dahmer’s attorney, Gerald Boyle was representing these predator priests for the Archdiocese. Note that officers Balcerzak and Gabrish (who supposedly returned Konerak to Jeff Dahmer) were helping Boyle defend the Capuchin priest-predators.

Judge William Gardner – who sentenced Jeff for molesting Somsack Sinthasomphone (See Lionel Dahmer, A Father’s Story (1994), Kindle edition, p. 77.) –  had worked for McCann at one time and said deaf students who were sexually molested by priests were ”making up stories”.

Here’s Jeff Dahmer, on video, calmly describing how he supposedly drilled a hole in “Konerak Sinthasomphone’s” head and poured in acid to make a zombie.

Here’s the part of Jeff’s “confession” where he talks about “Konerak” Sinthasomphone. The document contains someone else’s Social Security Number.

A black-and-white scanned document from Jeff Dahmer’s confession detailing the events surrounding the alleged death of Konerak Sinthasomphone. The text includes statements from Jeff Dahmer, victim identification based on a photograph, and a claim by the father, Sounthone Sinthasomphone. The document also includes forensic comparison by Dr. L.T. Johnson.