David acted swiftly. Unlike his father, who decided to face the media storm head-on, David recognized that carrying the Dahmer name was an economic, professional, and personal death sentence. Prior to Jeffrey's 1992 trial, David initiated a comprehensive legal name change.
In the pre-internet landscape of the early 1990s, changing one's identity was fundamentally different than it is today. State records were largely paper-based. Credit reporting bureaus operated under decentralized databases, and search engine archiving was non-existent. David was able to petition for a legal name change, petition courts for sealed filings citing personal safety, and obtain a brand-new Social Security number without a digital breadcrumb trail following him into the commercial registry systems.
He severed ties not just with the press, but with the extended family apparatus. He refused to attend Jeffrey's trial in Milwaukee. He did not visit his brother at Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage, Wisconsin, nor did he claim any personal effects after Jeffrey was killed by fellow inmate Christopher Scarver in November 1994.
