Jeremiah Weinberger and Violent BDSM Pornographer, Steven Toushin

Alleged victim Jeremiah Weinberger kept some interesting company.

This is a photo of alleged victim Jeremiah Weinberger.

Alleged Jeff Dahmer victim, Jeremiah Weinberger

Here’s the official narrative about him from Jeff Dahmer’s confession:

What Jeff Dahmer said in his confession about Jeremiah Weinberger

So what do we know about Jeremiah Weinberger?

We know he worked for The Bijou Theater, a gay sex club and theater in Chicago that opened in 1970 and closed in 2015. The owner of the Bijou was a BDSM pornographer named Steve Toushin. Toushin was also a producer and distributor of gay pornographic and violent BDSM films produced by Bijou Video.

Here’s an excerpt from Wikipedia about Steve Toushin:

He has been a defendant in the United States justice system continuously from 1969 until the present; he has defended himself and his companies in twenty-one obscenity cases, including two federal obscenity trials, and has suffered thirty-five personal arrests and over 200 busts to his businesses.

Overall his businesses have included theaters, sex clubs, gay bathhouses, massage parlors (prostitution), and adult bookstores in Chicago, San Francisco, Indianapolis, and East Chicago.

Toushin's second federal obscenity suit began in July 1988 when grand juries in Tennessee and Utah indicted him for the distribution of Erotic Hands, The Final Chapter of Mistress Ann, You Said a Mouthful, and Please Sir, films that depict extremely brutal and degrading S/M scenes. Toushin defended himself from federal obscenity charges by arguing that his films were “predominately [sic] violent” and did not appeal to a prurient, sick, shameful, morbid or unhealthy interest in sex. He also argued that the material had scientific value as the films offer insight into violent psychological dispositions or an unhealthy interest in violence.

At the end of 1988, he lost his first major trial and was imprisoned, where he remained throughout the indecency trial in 1989 and until he was released in the spring of 1990.

Jeremiah Weinberger was working for Toushin during these events. Here's an article Toushin wrote about Jeremiah and Jeff Dahmer in 2011.

Alleged victim Jeremiah Weinberger worked for BDSM pornographer, Steve Toushin

We have another key player in this story - Teddy Jones, who was the best friend of Jeremiah Weinberger and also worked at The Bijou. According to Toushin, Teddy, a pornographer named Robert Prion, and another Toushin employee named Richard Voss claimed they saw Jeremiah with Jeff Dahmer in Carol’s bar. From Toushin’s article:

At this time, Jeremiah lived with his father, and his father knew that Jeremiah was homosexual and wont to stay away from home for a night or two, but he always telephoned to let him know where he was...At weekends he would go to Chicago gay taverns such as Carol’s, Roscoe’s, Sidetracks, to meet friends and socialise, but during the week, he regularly stayed at home.

In his article, Steve Toushin writes that Jeremiah's father reported him missing on Wednesday, July 10, 1991:

That’s not true.

Jeremiah Weinberger was reported missing by his father on Saturday, July 6, 1991. (They made a mistake and typed “1971.”) You can find this information in the FBI Vault (part 6 of 19).

If his father reported him missing on July 6, it means that Jeremiah must have spent several nights away from home during the week of July 1(Monday) to July 5(Friday). Remember, Jeff Dahmer said in his confession that he saw Jeremiah Weinberger in Carol’s bar on either Saturday, July 5th, or Sunday, July 6th. He said it was after July 4th.

If the official version of this “serial killer” story was true, Jeremiah Weinberg’s father would have no reason to report him missing because it was the weekend, and his father knew that Jeremiah sometimes disappeared for a couple of days, and his friend knew that he went to Milwaukee.

It is also interesting that Toushin hired an attorney for Teddy Jones:

Teddy and I discussed how he would cooperate with the police in all matters, and I would handle the press, if necessary. I also got him an attorney.

The article also contains this bizarre letter that Jeremiah Weinberger allegedly wrote to Steve Toushin while Toushin was in prison. Toushin magically found it many years later. Here is a short excerpt

And with all the mistakes I’ve made at the Bijou (3 years worth!), the government should know the person owing anyone would be me.

And he signed the letter Jeremy “Ms. Mistake”

From this, it can be assumed that Jeremiah Weinberger was somehow involved in the charges brought against Toushin, charges that caused Toushin to spend about 2 years in prison. Was Toushin angry at him for this? Did he feel that Jeremiah owed him something?

If we look at Jeremiah Weinberger's case, what do we see?

A young, handsome gay guy who was looking for a job and saving money for college. He starts working for a company that produces and sells gay porn (including violent BDSM). He sends out materials, films, and catalogs. One day, he makes a mistake that leads to the arrest and subsequent conviction of his boss. A year after his boss gets out of prison, Jeremiah Weinberger disappears. The only witnesses who saw him with this mysterious stranger are two employees who work for Steven Toushin and another pornographer.

So, which is more likely? That Jeremiah Weinberger was accidentally (or maybe, “accidentally”) killed during a BDSM session (Toushin says that Jeremiah was a submissive) or that he agreed to go to another city with a stranger he had just met despite the fact that he had never done this before. A stranger who then drugged him, drilled holes in his head, kept his body in a bath with bleach before dismembering and stuffing it into a barrel.