On the night of May 24th, 1991, Jeffrey Dahmer encountered 31 year-old Tony Hughes outside Milwaukee’s Club 219.
Though deaf and mute, the literate lipreading Tony never let his disability stop him from living life to the full. He loved to dance – coordinating his movement with the vibrations from the beat and base – and his good-nature was infectious. “Whenever you were in his presence you wanted to have fun because he was having fun,” a friend recalled.
Tony and Dahmer were apparently not strangers to one another. They were noted to have gone home together before and the Hughes family claimed Dahmer had once attended a New Years Eve party hosted by Tony’s sister. Regardless of the specifics or accuracy of such claims, however, Tony’s trust proved misplaced.
Thinking he was about to earn $50 to model for some photos, Tony ended up drugged in Dahmer’s apartment. A hole was bored into his skull with a power drill while he slept and his brain was basted with muriatic acid as Dahmer attempted to keep Tony with him as a compliant zombified partner. Unsurprisingly, the lobotomy didn’t work and Tony was left to die on Dahmer’s bedroom floor – his body unnoticed when, three days later, police officers returned another drugged victim to the apartment believing they were resolving a domestic dispute.
The news of Tony’s death was devastating to his beloved mother, Shirley. “It literally tore her to pieces,” said Pastor Durian Hughes [no relation]. “I have never seen someone so emotionally and spiritually wounded.” Though Ms. Hughes would become a beacon of support to other grieving families – and would later state that she felt sorry for Dahmer and did not hate him – her grief was palpable during the impact statement she delivered after he was found sane on 15 counts of homicide.
Addressing Dahmer through the imagined words of her son, Ms. Hughes chose to read a poem written by one of Tony’s good friends.
This poem is published in its entirety below in honour of not only Tony himself, but the many people who fell victim to Jeffrey Dahmer through loss of life or loved one.
NOTE: ‘Two fingers and one thumb’ means ‘I love you’ in sign language 🤟
Why am I a victim
In your cruel and ruthful world?
Although I can’t communicate with the loud voice,
Listen to me anyway.
Try to have mercy on my moans.
Look at the tears rolling down my face.
See that each one is a cry for help
And realise my signs
Are showing you that I want to live.
Tell me:
Just what is it that I’ve done to you
To make you such a monster,
To make you such a maniac,
To make you such a devil.
My God,
Who are you?
What are you?
You have never shown me
This side of you.
I put my trust in you.
I thought you were my friend
Until the end,
Yet I didn’t know you
As well as I thought.
I never felt the end
Would be this way.
Is there anyone that can help me?
Mom –
Dad –
Sister –
Brother –
Someone –
Please help me.
What’s happening to me?
Everything seems to be
Slowing
Down.
I’m confused.
I’m drowsy.
My coordination
Has been
Contaminated.
My friend,
What is it that you’ve given me?
What is it that you’re doing to me?
I’m helpless.
Is that a thrill to you,
To know that I can’t fight you back?
And that the hardest struggle
In my life
Is fighting to keep my eyes open
With the hope of seeing
The dawn of a new day.
Yet you have total control
Over me.
My life
Is in the hands of once a friend,
But now a total stranger,
Who has become
My worst nightmare.
But one day, I know you’ll get caught.
You think you’re smooth at what you’re doing.
Remember:
Whatever’s done in the dark
It will come to the light.
And the whole world will know
Just how ugly a person
You really are.
Mom, I’m gone.
My hope,
My breath,
My want to live,
Have been taken away from me
Unwillingly and emotionally.
I know that there’s a dragon
Piercing your heart
Day and night
Because of this,
But yet I’m not far away.
When you get cold,
I wrap my arms around you
To warm you.
If you get sad,
I’ll softly grab your heart
And cheer you up.
If you smile,
I’ll smile right along
With you.
And when you’re happy,
I’ll know it
Because you’re thinking
Two fingers and one thumb.
When you cry,
Take one teardrop
And place it outside your window ledge.
And when I pass by
I’ll exchange it
For one of mine.
Two fingers and one thumb,
Mom.
🌻🌻🌻
Tony Anthony Hughes
1959 – 1991
Rest in Peace
🌻🌻🌻
Sources:
- Shirley Hughes’ impact statement from the trial of Wisconsin v. Dahmer
- Conversations with a Killer: The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes
- Leader Telegram, The Sheboygan Press
- Jeffrey Dahmer by Joel Norris (1992)