Inside the Story of Jesse Michael Anderson: The Man Killed By Jeffrey Dahmer’s Killer

An American who was found guilty of murdering his wife, Jesse Michael Anderson was killed in the same prison as the notorious serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. The one who murdered them both was Christopher Scarver, another inmate who had also committed murder. This happened at the Columbia Correctional Institution in 1994.

However, because of the popularity of Dahmer, the story of Jesse Anderson was almost hidden.

The Beginning

Anderson was born in Alton, Illinois, on May 3, 1957. His father passed away from a heart attack when he was a teen and his mother found a new husband. He had several run-ins with the law when he was young, and he even attacked his stepfather once, but he never did anything really serious.

He finished his studies at Alton High School in 1975 and got married to his first wife, Debra Ann Eickert, in 1980 and they split up in 1984. That same year, he earned a Business Administration degree from Elmhurst College. A year after his divorce, Anderson wedded Barbara E. Lynch in Chicago, Illinois on March 30, 1985.

An old picture of Jesse Anderson, his wife, Barbara, and children

The Andersons had dinner and a movie at a TGI Fridays near the Northridge Mall in northwest Milwaukee on April 21, 1992. Jesse then attacked Barbara with a knife, stabbing her five times in the head and face, and inflicted four stab wounds on his chest, but they were not very deep.

A badly wounded and bloody Barbara was discovered by the customers of the T.G.I. Friday behind the restaurant in the parking lot. She was bleeding out from several stab injuries under a pickup truck and was not responsive.

Barbara was found bleeding out under a pickup truck

Anderson was a few feet from her with a knife in his hand and four stabs in his chest. He told a shocking story to the paramedics who arrived at the scene: He said they were attacked by two Black men who did not know them in a botched robbery. Barbara died two days later.

Investigation

A the crime scene on the day of the murder, Anderson gave the police a Los Angeles Clippers basketball hat that he said he had taken from one of the attackers’ heads.

However, a university student informed the police that Anderson had bought the hat from him a few days before when the crime details became public.

Additionally, employees at a military surplus store said that Anderson had purchased the red-handled fishing knife that he used to kill Barbara a few weeks before. The police said that this type of knife was only sold at that store in Milwaukee.

Life Sentence and Death in Prison

The authorities claimed that the man, who was 35 years old and a salesman at the time of the murder, had deliberately killed his wife. It was revealed during the probe that Anderson had contacted his wife’s insurance firm a month before her demise to ask about her policy worth $250,000.

Anderson’s friends had listened to him gripe about his wife more than once. He desired a flawless marriage, and he was dissatisfied with the weight Barbara had gained after her brother’s death. The FBI said that they found a letter in Barbara’s purse that she had written to her husband, pledging to try to slim down.

On August 13, 1992, He received a life sentence with a possibility of parole only after 60 years.

Jesse Anderson in court

While they were inmates at Columbia Correctional Institution, Anderson and serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer were cleaning a restroom at the prison gym with another prisoner, Christopher Scarver, on the morning of November 28, 1994. They were not supervised by anyone.

Scarver said that he felt “revolted” by a newspaper article that described Dahmer’s atrocities against black people. Scarver had been given a life sentence for killing his ex-boss in a robbery that happened in 1990.

Scarver and Dahmer

Scarver started assaulting the two men with a 20-inch metal bar he had taken from the prison weight room when the three prisoners were by themselves. He hit Dahmer in the head and killed him first.

After that, he focused on Anderson and attacked him.

Dahmer died one hour after he was taken to the hospital. Anderson died two days afterward when doctors took him off life support( the same way his wife had passed away two years prior).

Credits: Vocal Media

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