Dahmer survivor charged in killing

MILWAUKEE

- The man who led Milwaukee police to serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer 20 years ago was charged yesterday in the death of a homeless man who drowned after being thrown off a bridge.

Tracy Edwards - who escaped Dahmer's Milwaukee apartment in July 1991, leading police to Dahmer's crimes - was charged along with Timothy Carr with first-degree recklessly endangered safety in the death of Johnny Jordan, 43.

According to the criminal complaint, a witness saw Edwards, Carr and Jordan arguing on a downtown bridge. The witness says Carr, 44, and Edwards, 52, picked up Jordan and threw him from the bridge, headfirst. After Jordan went in, Carr jumped in from the riverbank while Edwards stayed on the riverbank, the complaint said.

A police officer arrived shortly after and threw a life ring to Jordan and Carr, the complaint said. Carr swam to the life ring, and Jordan went under and was not seen again until the rescue squad arrived and pulled him from the water, the complaint said. If convicted, the men could be sentenced up to 12 1/2 years in prison.

Edwards' address is listed as a Milwaukee homeless shelter. A message left at the shelter was not immediately returned, and a listed phone number could not be found for Carr. Court records did not list attorneys for the men.

Edwards was 32 when he met Dahmer at a downtown Milwaukee mall and went to his apartment. There, they drank and watched a movie before Dahmer threatened Edwards with a knife.

Edwards, a handcuff dangling from his wrist, was able to get away and flag down police patrolling the neighborhood. Police later found body parts of 11 males - four severed heads, preserved genitalia and several torsos in an acid-filled barrel.

Dahmer admitted killing 17 young men and boys, some of whom he mutilated and cannibalized, between 1978 and his 1991 arrest. Dahmer was serving life sentences when he was beaten to death in prison by a fellow inmate in 1994.

Online court records note that Edwards has been convicted of several misdemeanor drug charges and a bail-jumping charge since 1997. He was convicted of felony manufacturing/delivering cocaine in 2009.