Glenda Cleveland, who played the role of Jeffrey Dahmer in the Jeffrey Dahmer saga, lived in her apartment on 25th Street until 2009, then moved a couple blocks away before she died. The building that Dahmer lived in was not the same building that she lived in. Jim Stingl wrote this obituary.
If police had only listened to Glenda Cleveland they could have stopped Dahmer two months earlier.
She tried. She asked the police on the phone if they were sure that a naked boy trying to escape from Dahmer was an adult involved in a lovers' spat with him.
We now know that he was about to be Dahmer's next murder victim. The girl and her niece saw the boy running from Dahmer in the alley. Cleveland called police multiple times after they told them about the police's response to the scene.
She was a symbol of good at the time. She joined in. She was trying to help. She said a life-or-death truth and was ignored. She handled the media attention with care and respect.
What's real and what's fiction in Jeffrey Dahmer's show.
The building where Jeffrey Dahmer committed his murders was torn down in 1992.
She told the reporter who showed up at her home that she wanted to get back to normal.
Her privacy went back to normal. The death of Glenda Cleveland didn't receive much notice. She was older than 50. A memorial service will be held in the spring when family and friends can more easily travel here from other places.
It was Milwaukee police officers who entered Cleveland's apartment and found her dead on the floor. She had not been seen for a few days. It was found to be a natural death due to heart disease and high blood pressure. Smith blamed her mother's cigarette habit.
After Dahmer's arrest, you might think Cleveland would have moved away from the area. She said she was not going anywhere.
Her daughter said that she had been living alone in an apartment less than a mile away from 32nd and Wisconsin.
Cleveland described how she called the police, how she finally reached an officer connected with the incident, and how she asked if the man with Dahmer was a child in danger. After seeing Konerak's picture in the newspaper, she called back. They didn't get back to her. She attempted to do it again. The same result was achieved. She tried to call the FBI but couldn't. Konerak was one of five murders that came after Cleveland tried to alert police.
Cleveland was raised on a farm where his parents told the truth and stepped up when needed. She told a reporter that she didn't see any excuse for people not caring for one another.
Thomas Smith remembers watching a TV news report about Cleveland with his co-workers. He said he would tell them that was his sister.
The Reverend Jesse Jackson met with Cleveland after Dahmer's arrest. He said that police chose the word of a murderer over a woman. African-Americans were upset that Dahmer was white and Cleveland was black.
The Common Council and the County Board paid tribute to Cleveland. She was called a model citizen by the mayor. The Milwaukee Police Department gave her an award. Her daughter said that some of the plaques were still on the wall.
Cleveland's data entry job was eliminated several years ago. Smith had nine children. Smith is a nurse on the south side of Milwaukee.
Cleveland was in touch with the Sinthasomphone family and attended one of their weddings.
People on the street still recognize her from her days in the news Smith and her mother didn't discuss their encounter with Dahmer anymore.
Smith doesn't think about it because it should have been different. There are a lot of things that could have been avoided. I don't try to think about that.
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The obituary for Glenda Cleveland, who told police about Dahmer, was published in 2011.
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