Jerome Dennis (serial killer)

Dennis was born on December 14, 1966, the seventh in a family of nine children, and raised in the Columbus Homes in Newark.[3] Raised primarily by his mother, Dennis grew up in the grasps of law enforcement, starting at age 11, but was never charged with any crime because of his young age. He dropped out of school in the seventh grade, afterwards he began escalating his crimes from minor theft to rape. On November 6, 1981, Jerome, 14, along with his brother William, committed a rape in downtown Newark. After the attack both brothers traveled to Military Park and stopped at a payphone to report the attack, along with giving up their identity and were subsequently arrested by authorities, by which time the phone call had lasted almost an hour.[3] After their initial arrest, Jerome and William confessed to having committed another two rapes the month before in October. The boys were charged as adults and stood trial together, in which their father testified on part of the prosecution. Jerome, then 14, was convicted in December 1981 for rape, false imprisonment and armed robbery, and was sentenced to 30 years in prison, with the minimum release possibility being after 10 years.[4] While in prison, he took up baking, and was hired at Pleasantdale Bakery in West Orange, New Jersey as a porter. In early October 1991, Jerome, who had served 10 years of his 30-year prison sentence, was granted early release, and on November 19, he was paroled.[1] Soon after he moved into a home in East Orange, where he resided there for the next five months.

By April 11, 1992, Jerome was among the suspects for the murders of Jamillah Jones, Elizabeth Clenor and Stephanie Alston, whose bodies were found the previous day on April 10, within blocks from one another, but were determined to have been killed days apart. A popular theory was that the perpetrator was an unidentified serial killer, that up to that point was active between August 1991 and April 1992. During which time the bodies of seven women were found in rural areas around New Jersey city's of Newark and East Orange, and two other women reported to have been assaulted at knife point by a man in the areas.[5] All of the victims were Black and ranged in age of 16 and 41. The first of these was a woman whose body was found in an abandoned building in August. Next was a woman who was attacked on December 12, but she was not seriously injured and survived.[1] Two days later, the body of 41-year-old Robyn Carter was found on the outskirts of Newark, raped and strangled. Two months later in February another woman was attacked, but survived.[1] In April 1992 the East Orange Police Department formed a task force with input from surrounding law enforcement agencies to investigate the cases. Jerome became a suspect in the murders, despite him being in prison at the start of the murders in August. After some time, Jerome's blood, hair and saliva samples were sent in for examination by investigators involved in the taskforce.[3] Next, Detectives put up a photo line-up and showed it to the two surviving victims, both identified Jerome with little question. He was arrested on the 12 of April 1992 two days after the bodies of the three women were found, holding him at $2 million bail.[2]

Jerome was ruled out as a suspect in the August homicide because he was still in prison awaiting a parole hearing. On February 27, 1993, he pleaded guilty to five counts of murder and two counts of assault, receiving a life sentence without the possibility of parole for 60 years.[6] Dennis will become eligible for parole on April 10, 2052, when he is 85 years old.[7]

• List of serial killers in the United States

• Arrest Record