Yearbook photos of Jeffrey Dahmer, one of America's most notorious serial killers, have been released online, and they provide a new insight into the life of a vicious murderer.

A web user announced via the website Reddit on Thursday that his father was a schoolmate of Dahmer, who killed 17 male victims between 1978 and 1991.

But the killing spree that would make Jeffrey Dahmer a family name was years away when his image and handwriting were captured in the Eastview Junior High School Patriots yearbook for the 1974-75 school year.

Not only was the Reddit user's father a classmate of Dahmer's who saved a copy of what has since become a historical document of sorts, but he also was lucky enough to have taken the time to get Jeffrey Dahmer to sign the yearbook.

"To Ted, the most idiotic, foolish person I know but nice kid -- Jeff Dahmer," the inscription says in what looks like blue ballpoint pen ink.

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And to make it even more interesting, the user's father also kept the 1977 high school yearbook of his and Dahmer's junior year. Not only does this book also have a signature from Jeffrey Dahmer on one of its blank pages, it also displays a totally new handwriting style, which "Ted" chalks up to the concept that "Jeff was a heavy druggie and alcoholic by this point." Still a unique insight into a killer we all thought we knew:

"Hello Ted, how are you? Have you partyed much? How's the family? I hope things go well for you and you are not discovered as a commi! You know who, 'Party Hardy' Jeff Dahmer," the signature reads, and it is accompanied by a rudimentary drawing of a smoking pipe.

And the kicker of the series of images is a photo of one Jeffrey Dahmer himself in his junior year, wearing long '70s hair and thick glasses one year before he began the killing spree that made him one of history's most-hated people.

Check the photos out for yourself by visiting this link.

Dahmer has gone down in history as one of the most prolific serial killers in the history of America. Even as early as his school days he would go around his neighborhood looking for dead animals to dissect and once even put a dead dog's head on a stake. These types of behaviors have been associated with murderous tendencies, and Dahmer is a textbook case in that regard.

Dahmer first killed in 1978 at the age of 18. He picked up a hitchhiker named Stephen Hicks and took him to his father's empty home with the intention of sleeping with him. When Hicks refused, Dahmer beat him to death with a dumbbell. He later buried Hicks' body in his backyard.

He was not immediately caught and charged with a crime, and nine years later, in 1987, he struck again, killing Steven Tuomi after meeting him at a bar.

He killed several more people over the next three years and by 1990 he began to kill more prolifically, and one of his most disturbing murders came in May 1991, when he was nearly caught by Milwaukee police before killing 14-year-old Konerak Sinthasomphone and keeping his skull as a souvenir.

He continued to kill, and in summer of 1991, Jeffrey Dahmer was striking at a rate of one murder per week, attracting the attention of neighbors who smelled strong stenches and heard odd noises coming from his apartment throughout this period.

In July 1991, Jeffrey Dahmer slipped up and one of his victims escaped and reported him to police who responded to his apartment only to discover a highly distubring scene. In Dahmer's refrigerator they found a human head, and they found three more heads around his home as well as victims' hands and penises, seven skulls, a human heart and other disturbing items and relics left over from his slayings.

Jeffrey Dahmer became infamous as one of the most deranged lunatics ever to live on human soil, and in 1994 as a fellow inmate killed him in a Wisconsin prison cell.