Where Is Glenda Cleveland Now?
Where Is Glenda Cleveland Now: The audio of a genuine 911 call placed to the Milwaukee police department is played at the conclusion of Episode Two of Netflix’s true crime series “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.”
Glenda Cleveland, who is portrayed by Niecy Nash in the program, is speaking on the phone. Cleveland was a real lady, and the officers on the other end of the line would have been able to apprehend serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer sooner if they had paid attention to her during that 1991 phone call.
Dahmer admitted to killing two more people before his conviction for killing 15 youths and men between 1978 and 1991. He passed away in jail in 1994. After Cleveland’s first 911 call, Dahmer killed five people.
Cleveland did indeed make that call, but “Monster” embellishes on her proximity to Dahmer.
The following information about the actual Cleveland, including what transpired, is provided.
Glenda Cleveland wasn’t actually Jeffrey Dahmer’s next door neighbor. He offered a meat sandwich to another person
In the Netflix series, Glenda and Dahmer are neighbors, although Cleveland really resided in a different building, according to her obituary in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Pamela and Vernell Bass were Dahmer’s genuine next-door neighbors at the Oxford apartments in Milwaukee.
In a 1991 Baltimore Sun article, Pamela reported “stuffing towels under her door” to block the odor coming from Dahmer’s flat (another neighbor, Nanetta Lowery, moved out of the building after a month).
According to Pamela, what was Dahmer’s justification for the smell? According to the L.A. Times, she stated in 1991, “He told me his freezer had gone off and that his meat in there had rotted and he was going to get rid of it.”
Vernall, in a story from the Associated Press, said he was “weird.” Pamela said, “I used to hear him over there, talking to himself, cussing to himself, talking real loud, and I knew he didn’t have anyone over there.”
In the documentary “The Jeffrey Dahmer Files,” Bass said that she once accepted a meat sandwich from Dahmer, with meat of untold origins.
“I have probably eaten someone’s body part,” Bass said.
The building where Dahmer lived and committed murders was torn down in 1992, per the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
But Cleveland did place 911 calls about Konerak Sinthasomphone. Cleveland’s niece recalls the story
Cleveland’s daughter Sandra Smith and her niece Nicole Childress came across a naked, delirious 14-year-old kid in the streets of Milwaukee on May 27, 1991.
Konerak Sinthasomphone, a 14-year-old Laotian immigrant who was that boy, was later murdered by Dahmer. According to the FBI, Dahmer served a year in a work release camp after being convicted of second-degree assault in 1989 for molesting Sinthasomphone’s brother. He was then freed in 1990. He was also given a five-year probationary period.
Childress recounted the experience in detail in her book “Divine Providence: Finding Purpose in the in Between.” Telling Smith to stay with the boy (Sinthasomphone), Childress ran to the pay phone and made the first call to the police, saying she had encountered a young man who was “butt naked” and “(needed) some help.”
From the distance, she saw a man “trying to take the naked boy,” remarking that “it just did not look right to me, feel right to me, or sound right to me at all.” The man she saw was Dahmer.
When the officers came, Childress said she could “tell the officers were against (her).” Dahmer told them she was “crazy.”
“They accepted Dahmer’s casual assurance that the Laotian boy was 19. He was really 14. Assuming they were dealing with a homosexual lovers’ quarrel, they returned the boy to Dahmer’s apartment,” the Chicago Tribune summarized in a 1991 article.
A police officer dispatched the following back to headquarters, according to reports at the time: “Intoxicated Asian, naked male. Was returned to his sober boyfriend.”
After remaining silent and watching the officers “hold pleasant conversation” with Dahmer, Childress wrote that she went to her aunt’s apartment and pleaded for her to call the police again.
“I told her, ‘Something real bad is about to happen to this boy outside. I’ve tried to tell the policemen outside, but they won’t listen to me.”
During Cleveland’s phone call, officers rebuffed Cleveland’s claims, calling it a “boyfriend-boyfriend thing,” and assuring her that this was no boy at all, but a 19-year-old man.
Initially, Childress said her aunt was skeptical of her account, too. “The officers assured my aunt that the naked boy was not a naked boy and that everything was fine. I didn’t hear the conversation but when (my aunt) got off the phone, she said to me, ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about. I sounded like a damn foot listening to you. I should have known better,” Childress wrote.
In fact, after the first 911 call, Cleveland called the police multiple times, including after Sinthasomphone was reported missing.
Two months later, when Dahmer was arrested, Cleveland invited Childress over to her house and broke the news, showing her photos of Dahmer’s victims — including Sinthasomphone. Childress said she carried a sense of guilt.
“Thoughts of Jeffrey Dahmer’s actions were flashing with the pictures of the dead body of the naked boy. What had been done to all those males by that man I saw? I felt that I had got the boy killed,” Childress wrote.
TODAY has reached out to Childress for comment.
Where is Glenda Cleveland now?
Dahmer’s 1991 arrest thrust Cleveland into the spotlight.
She said during a 1991 interview that officers had let down Sinthasomphone by dismissing her calls. “He was let down as low as he could get. And that was to his grave. You can’t get much lower than that.”
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinal obituary recounted that Cleveland was “formally honored” by the county board, and was called a “model citizen” by Mayor John Norquist. She also received awards — including one from the Milwaukee Police Department.
“She became a symbol of good at a time of so much bad in our city. She got involved. She tried to help. She spoke a life-or-death truth and was ignored. Then she handled the crush of media attention with patience and dignity,” the obituary, written by Jim Stingl, read.
Cleveland died in 2011 at the age of 56. She remained in the neighborhood her entire life, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The publication also said that she stayed in touch with the Sinthasomphone family and attended one of the son’s weddings.
Credit :TODAY.com
