The building where Jeffrey Dahmer committed gruesome murders was torn down in 1992, and the lot at 924 N. 25th St. still sits empty today (2024)

There's perhaps no greater symbol that the city of Milwaukee simply wanted to move on from the Jeffrey Dahmer murders, discovered in 1991, than the empty lot at 924 N. 25th St., the former site of the Oxford Apartments where Dahmer drugged, strangled and dismembered many of his victims.

A new Netflix miniseries has put Dahmer back in the public consciousness, for better or worse.

Few remnants of Dahmer's gruesome history are still around. The 49-unit building was razed in 1992, 15 months after human remains were found in apartment 213.

The Oxford Apartments were purchased for $325,000 by the Campus Circle Project, a public/private organization affiliated with Marquette University, and quickly razed. Since then, any efforts to put something in the space have floundered, and it remains a vacant lot surrounded by a fence today.

For years there was talk of turning the site into a play area, a storyline alluded to in the Netflix show, where the dramatized version of Glenda Cleveland pushes for a memorial to Dahmer's victims.

More:Opinion: A memorial to Jeffrey Dahmer's victims is long overdue in Milwaukee

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More:Here is why a memorial for Jeffrey Dahmer's victims is unlikely to happen in Milwaukee

In 1998, the city of Milwaukee bought a number of vacant lots in Marquette's possession — but not that one."We'd be happy to entertain an offer for it," said John Hopkins, then vice president for communication at Marquette. "There has not been any interest in taking this parcel. Given its history, you can understand people's reluctance to become the new owner of it."

Plans by Campus Circle to initially turn the space into a "tot lot" didn't materialize.

"It was back-burnered, and the flame has been extinguished at this point," said Sally Maddick, director of the West End Community Association, in 1998. Her organization workedto improve the area. "I think that would be a terrific site for a tot lot development, but who will step up to the plate for that?""My sense is that the city is not in the parks business and the county parks people are somewhat reluctant to operate a site that small," Hopkins said.For a whiletalk circulated of using the lot as an environmental study space for students at nearby Grand Avenue Middle School, but again, nothing materialized. Before the building was torn down, a Hartford couple pitched a plan to convert it to a museum of criminal artifacts.

Many shared the opinion that a memorial wasn't appropriate, including June Moberly, executive director of the Avenues West Association, in 1998."It was a horrendous, horrendous thing, but keeping a reminder there is not going to help this particular geographical neighborhood to heal either," she said.

The land today is privately owned by Ogden Homes. The owners are prohibited from developing the land as part of its agreement to purchase it for $500, according to the Milwaukee Assessor's Office anda 2012 story in theMarquette Wire.

It wasn't just the apartment that went away.

In 1996, real estate magnate Joseph Zilber and his Milwaukee Civic Pride Fund successfully won the right to many of Dahmer's personal belongings, including items that were in the apartment.

Zilber, appalled that many of the items were going to auction,raised $407,225 to buy the objects and destroyed them at a waste management site.

"No one will ever be able to find them again," said Zilber, who's briefly portrayed in the Netflix series distributing money to the victims' families. Those with claims received $32,500 each.

The Ambrosia Chocolate factory, where Dahmer was employed in the late 1980s before getting fired for missing work, was slowly demolished in 1993 in downtown Milwaukee, with the company relocating to the city's northwest side. For decades, the factory filled downtown with the sweet smell of chocolate.

The old factory occupied space that now belongs to Fiserv Forum, the Milwaukee Bucks' arena that opened in 2018.

JR Radcliffe can be reached at (262) 361-9141 or jradcliffe@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @JRRadcliffe.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Oxford Apartments, site of Dahmer's murders, remains vacant today