Refugee Family’s Two Encounters With Dahmer End in Sorrow With PM-Body Parts, Bjt

MILWAUKEE (AP) _ A Laotian family that sought peace in this country encountered grief in its two encounters with suspected mass-murderer Jeffrey L. Dahmer.

Three years ago, Dahmer molested a teen-age son. This week, the mutilated body of another son was found among the 11 dismembered bodies in Dahmer’s apartment.

The family learned Thursday that 14-year-old Konerak Sinthasomphone was among the victims discovered Monday.

″We thought it likely that he was in there. The whole thing is crazy. It is terrible. ... I don’t know what to say,″ Anoukone Sinthasomphone, the boys’ 25-year-old brother, said in a brief interview Friday.

He said the family was shown a photo of the boy that police said was found at the apartment. It showed the boy handcuffed above his head and wearing underwear, he said.

Konerak Sinthasomphone had been missing since the afternoon of May 26, when he went to meet friends in a park.

″It is like you are running and you think you escape but you are coming to a dangerous world in this place,″ said Shoua Xiong, executive director of the Lao Family Community Inc. Milwaukee is home to about 7,000 Laotians.

″Obviously anyone who has gone through such a tragedy as this would wonder if they’ve chosen the right path for their lives,″ the Rev. Peter Burns, a Roman Catholic priest and family friend, said at a news conference at the family’s home Friday.

Burns said the family of 10 left Laos ″to come to a country where there would be freedom and where there would be peace. It was a tortuous journey as I have been told.″

Now, ″The family is filled with a lot of different emotion. Anger is certainly one of them,″ Burns said. ″They hope and pray no one else will ever have to endure such a tragedy again.″ Burns said the Sinthasomphones were particularly distressed by a report that two women saw a bleeding, naked Asian boy believed to be Konerak running down a street near Dahmer’s apartment in late May.

Police said they were investigating the women’s claims that officers let the boy and Dahmer go and told them the incident was no more than a homosexual spat.

Police Chief Philip Arreola said he suspended three officers without pay pending an internal investigation.

Nicole Childress, 18, said Dahmer wrestled the boy away from her after she called police. The boy was naked, appeared to be drinking and was bleeding from his buttocks, Childress said.

″We tried to give the policemen our names, but he just told us to butt out,″ said the other woman, Sandra Smith, 18. ″I couldn’t understand why he didn’t want our names. I said, ’What are you going to do about this? This is a boy.‴

Dahmer, 31, has confessed to killing and dismembering the people in his apartment, court records said.

Dahmer was convicted in 1989 of second-degree sexual assault of Konerak’s brother, then 13. He was freed after spending 10 months in jail and placed on five years’ probation.