Cannibalism (or anthropophagy) is the eating of human flesh by humans. If in ancient times the main cause of cannibalism was hunger, then today it is a terrible mental disorder. According to psychiatrists, no one is safe from meeting with a cannibal.
A seemingly ordinary married couple has been eating people for 20 years - this shocking news came from the Krasnodar Territory.
As police officers, the husband and wife kidnapped people, put them to sleep with ether and corvalol, then killed them and ate them piece by piece. What they didn’t eat was turned into canned food.
Unleash cruelty married couple succeeded only after the husband lost his phone on the street - numerous photographs of disfigured corpses were found there. And at home, the cannibals kept recipes for cooking human meat and the very canned food into which the killed people turned.
Presumably, on the account of the family of cannibals 30 victims. Law enforcement officers have already been able to prove the involvement of cannibals in the deaths of seven people. A separate article for cannibalism in Russian legislation no, but probably the crimes of the Krasnodar cannibals fit under the articles "Murder" and "Desecration of the bodies of the dead."
If all 30 episodes are proven, then the crimes will be qualified as murders with aggravating circumstances: preliminary conspiracy, premeditated murder, murder with special cruelty and, possibly, something else, explains lawyer Konstantin Trapaidze. - These people will be assigned a psychiatric examination. If she shows that they are sane, then the prosecutor's office will unambiguously request the highest penalty for them - life imprisonment. If the examination recognizes them as insane, then they will face lifelong compulsory treatment in a psychiatric hospital.
Now this story is being worked on in Investigative Committee. Life found out whether it was possible to pre-calculate the cannibals hiding under the guise of a happy married couple.
Charming cannibal
Cannibalism is different. It can be a way of survival (rescue from hunger) or a ritual (sacrifice). All of this was widespread in ancient world and in the Middle Ages. Nowadays, cannibalism is most often a form of mental disorder.
In 2016, scientists from the Altai state university released a study on cannibals (available to Life). The work says that most cannibals had a difficult childhood, they were subjected to psychological, physical or sexual abuse. Often the cause of cannibalism is a mental illness, most often schizophrenia.
Schizophrenic cannibals are very aggressive. " The suffering that the cannibal endured in childhood allows him to inflict suffering on other people; trying to assert himself, he begins to kill and dismember people, eat human flesh," the authors of the study write.
As an example, scientists cite the story of one of the cannibals, already revealed in modern Russia, - Igor Kuzikov. It " typical representative homo anthropofagus - "man-eating man".
Kuzikov was born into a dysfunctional family in 1961, suffered from schizophrenia, mental retardation, and, in addition, alcoholism. Despite outward harmlessness, he was prone to aggression from his youth. He was treated, but in the early 1990s, psychiatry was falling apart.
As a result, Kuzikov did not receive treatment in the hospital and did not take medication on his own either. The offender got acquainted on the street with homeless people and tramps, brought them to his one-room apartment killed and ate. The facts of the murder by Kuzikov in 1994–1995 were proved at the trial. at least three people. Recorded in the case file horrific details- the body of the last of the killed Kuzikov dismembered and cooked jelly out of it.
There is a more perverted "direction" of cannibalism - these are cannibals who want to eat their victim because of sexual fantasies. Cannibal is tormented by a painful passion and desire to possess another. Cannibals claim that by eating their prey, they make it a part of themselves, thereby keeping it for themselves. As stated in the study, the most a prime example sexual cannibalism were the crimes of the most famous Russian maniac Andrey Chikatilo.
Chikatilo's cannibalism had a purely sexual meaning and was generated by his miserable and unsuccessful attempts to acquire biological male status at least on a psychological level. On account of Andrei Chikatilo about 65 murders, 36 of them with the use of cannibal tendencies. Chikatilo admitted that he gutted his victims in order to get some kind of sexual pleasure. He did this not out of revenge or hatred, it brought him peace of mind, the study says.
The study lists some signs of cannibalism:
- Below average IQ is 65–80.
- Cannot have a university education.
- Non-standard sexual hobbies (perversion, fetishism).
- Aggressive within his family, in society behaves with restraint.
- closed.
- Outwardly, the cannibal may look like a happy family man.
- Can seduce the victim, play with her, easily gains confidence.
- The cannibal has a predetermined image of the victim (age restrictions, gender, etc.).
- He returns to the scene of the crime to monitor the work of the police.
According to forensic psychiatrist Mikhail Vinogradov, it is impossible to calculate a cannibal from such a list of signs, as well as from any others.
- Recognizing a cannibal from the outside is extremely difficult. It will not be possible to single out obvious signs - we have many patients with schizophrenia or other mental disorders, but this does not mean that they are all cannibals, - the expert noted.
The psychiatrist gave an example from his practice: Soviet time the police caught a man who was feeding human flesh to his neighbors in a communal apartment. He killed people, brought home meat and gave part of the prey to his neighbors. He said that he works as a butcher in the market and these are leftovers that can be eaten. Most he ate himself. Outwardly, he was a very sympathetic, kind, a little reserved person. The neighbors were horrified when the crimes were revealed - the cannibal was caught red-handed during the murder of one of his victims. In the end, he was shot.
As you can see, by outward signs recognize the killer cruel man It was extremely difficult,” Vinogradov added.
According to the psychiatrist, cannibalism is not curable.
It is impossible to cure a cannibal - he will never voluntarily seek help, because he does not believe that he is doing something wrong. The patient's condition can be maintained with sedatives, keeping in isolation, but it will not be possible to get rid of the craving for cannibalism, if it has already arisen. If such people are released after serving their sentence, they will continue their atrocities, he explained.
Cannibal subculture
In Soviet times, they tried not to cover stories about cannibals so as not to sow panic, said Mikhail Vinogradov. Now all these shocking stories are easily leaked to the media. Abroad, someone is even trying to make money on it.
For example, in 2010, the media wrote about the opening of a "restaurant for cannibals" in Berlin.According to the owners, the food will be supplied by volunteers willing to donate their organs.
There are those who are not averse to turning into a cannibal for a while for the sake of the show. In 2016, British TV presenter Greg Foot intended to live try human meat (your own). He turned to doctors, who cut off a piece of muscle from him. The idea failed - according to British law, it is forbidden to eat human flesh.
In our country, there are cases when cannibalism was associated with the hobby of one or another youth subculture. In 2009, in St. Petersburg, two young men killed and ate their 16-year-old girlfriend. When the crime was solved, information was leaked to the media that the killers identified themselves as "goths" and "emo". This caused a real explosion in the press and the Internet - people were sure that all "goths" and "emo" devour human flesh, they need to be isolated from society and treated.
A later investigation proved that the cruelty of the killers had nothing to do with these subcultures. It is not known how many "emo" and "goth" have suffered from the resulting bullying.
On the one hand, it is good that the media began to cover this topic. Cannibalism is very dangerous, people must be protected. But you have to be more careful with this topic - it can cause people's unhealthy interest in this topic and provoke new crimes, - Mikhail Vinogradov said.
Indonesia
Perhaps the most cannibalistically dangerous place on Earth is the jungle of the Indonesian part of the island. New Guinea(Irian Jaya) and the island of Kalimantan (Borneo). The jungle of the latter is inhabited by 7-8 million Dayaks, famous skull hunters and cannibals. Their most delicious parts of the body are the head (tongue, cheeks, skin from the chin, the brain extracted through the nasal cavity or ear hole), meat from the thighs and calves, heart, palms. The initiators of the crowded campaigns for skulls among the Dayaks are women.
At the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries, the Indonesian government tried to organize the colonization of the interior of the island by civilized immigrants from Java and Madura. The unfortunate peasant settlers and the soldiers guarding them were massacred and eaten. This is the last significant outbreak of cannibalism in Borneo.
The initiators of campaigns for skulls among the Dayaks are women
Great contribution to the elimination of cannibalism on the islands South-East Asia brought in by Sukarno, "the father of Indonesian independence", and the military dictator Suharto. But they also failed to greatly improve the situation in Irian Jaya (western part of New Guinea). The Papuan ethnic groups living there (dugum-dani, kapauku, marind-anim, asmat and others), according to the missionaries, are not averse to eating people and are distinguished by unprecedented cruelty. They especially like liver with herbs. However, penises, noses, tongues, meat from the thighs will also come off.
But this is all on the western part of the island. What about in the east? AT independent state Papua New Guinea cases of cannibalism are much less than in Irian Jaya. Cannibals in this region can still be found on the islands of New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands. If you are tired of taking risks, then safe places are Australia and New Zealand(even though there is Cannibal Bay). There is cannibalism outlived to late XIX century.
Africa
Cases of cannibalism in Africa are associated mainly with the activities of organizations such as "Leopards" and "Alligators". Until the 80s, human remains were found in the vicinity of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Côte d'Ivoire. Leopards are usually dressed in leopard skins and armed with their fangs. Both Leopards and Alligators believe that eating people makes them faster and stronger.
"Leopards" believe that human flesh makes them stronger and faster
Movements are still common in Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Benin, Togo, South Africa, local tribes sometimes practice eating human flesh for ritual purposes. The Mau Mau movement in Kenya (1950-60s) stands apart, covering its sectarian, frankly cannibalistic essence with ultranationalist, anti-European political slogans.
India
The history of human sacrifice is very long in India. What is most curious, the culture of religious sacrifice reached its heyday under the British Raj. At the same time, eating victims was common only in the northeast and south of India. Until the beginning of the 20th century, residents of the northeastern state of Assam made annual sacrifices to the mother goddess Kali: the boiled lungs of the victims were eaten by yogis, and the aristocracy was content with rice boiled in human blood. Ritual cannibalism in honor of the god of the Earth, Tari Pennu, was developed among the Gonds, a large South Indian people.
Aghori do not disdain corpses from the Ganges
Even in the south of India, there is still a sect of Aghori, spun off from Virashivism. Several thousand people for ritual purposes eat the decomposed corpses of people from the Ganges, as well as the corpses of domestic animals, the remains of burnt corpses. Do not disdain and alive - some specifically want to be eaten.
At the end of such a “positive” article, one has only to quote Andrei Malakhov: “Take care of yourself and your loved ones.” And choose carefully where you are going to travel.
Cannibalism, as a way to satisfy hunger, is in modern society something alien and illegal. Those who are presented in this collection deliberately killed people in order to satisfy their irresistible desire to eat human flesh.
1. Dorangel Vargas
Known as "Hannibal Lecter of the Andes". He was committed to a psychiatric hospital in 1995 after the remains of a missing person were found in his home. But Vargas was released two years later. In 1999, the San Cristobal, Venezuelan police again found human remains in Vargas' possession. This time, at least ten skulls, as well as human entrails, were found in Vargas' possession. Vargas admitted to eating human organs, but denied the murder charges, saying the bodies were handed over to him. already dead. This claim has led to the hypothesis that Vargas used the cover of illegal organ sales. Vargas said that he ate human organs like pears and saw nothing wrong with eating human flesh. As a result, Dorangel was placed in a psychiatric clinic for life.
2. Kevin Ray Underwood
He was arrested in April 2006 for the murder of 10-year-old Jamie Bolin in Purcell, Oklahoma. There is no evidence that he killed Jamie, but the police found Jamie's frozen meat in his house, traces of human flesh on skewers from a recent barbecue, and a video where he captured the entire process of dismembering Jamie and eating her. Underwood confessed to the murder and to eating Bolin's meat.
3. Robert Maudsley
Robert Maudsley committed his first murder in 1974. He sold himself, yes he was a prostitute, and the money went to support his drug addiction. And in 1974, he killed one of his clients. Maudsley was sent to a hospital for the criminally insane. In 1977, he and another hospital inmate took another patient hostage and held him for nine hours before the authorities could enter the cell.
When the door was opened, they saw the victim dead. Maudsley's victim was a pedophile, he was tortured and killed. His skull was opened and it was clearly visible that part of his brain was missing. From the bloody spoon that was in the skull, the guards believed Maudsley, who said he had eaten part of the victim's brain. He was found guilty of first-degree murder and sent to Wakefield Prison, where he soon killed two more men before being placed in solitary confinement.
In 1983, a special cell was built for Maudsley in Wakefield Prison, where he was kept under supervision. Contact with people was forbidden to him. He never saw people again. Power was transmitted to him through the gap.
This camera is considered the model for Hannibal Lecter's camera in The Silence of the Lambs.
4. Issey Sagawa
Japanese student Issei Sagawa studied at the Sorbonne in Paris and fell in love with a Dutch student in 1981. Instead of courting her, he shot her in the back of the head. Sagawa lived a childhood fantasy that he fulfilled. He killed his beloved, cut open her flesh and ate her raw.
Then he had sexual intercourse with the remains of the body and cut it into pieces. He put a few pieces in the refrigerator, and packed the pieces he did not need in a suitcase and took him to the forest. The remains were found two days later.
The police figured out Sagawa a week later. He was arrested, imprisoned, but two years later he was placed in a psychiatric clinic, where he wrote his memoirs. The memoir became a bestseller in Japan.
Sagawa was deported to Japan, where he underwent a mental examination and was declared sane. Japanese justice had no claims against him, because France did not send Required documents.
By 1986, he became a free man. Sagawa is known as the "celebrity cannibal" from Japan. He wrote many books, worked for a while as a restaurant critic, gave interviews and even acted in porn films.
In short, his crime opened doors for him that he could never open.
5. Armin Meiwes
Armin Meiwes in 2001 posted personal ads on the Internet to find himself a victim for an act of cannibalism, and he wrote openly and did not hesitate to do so. Bernd Jürgen Brandes, who didn't know Meiwes, volunteered to be his victim by chatting with him in a German chat. The two met and made Meiwes' plan a reality. Meiwes consumed Brandes' remains for several months. He confessed to the crime himself. Meiwes was found guilty of manslaughter because the victim gave voluntary consent. He was reconvicted in 2006 and was sentenced to life imprisonment.
6. Jeffrey Dahmer
In the summer of 1991, Jeffrey Dahmer was on probationary period after serving a sentence for sexual harassment of boys. One day, the police were called to Jeffrey's house when a 14-year-old boy ran screaming out of Dahmer's house, but Dahmer managed to convince the officers that everything was in order. They left the teenager in Dahmer's arms. He was never seen alive again. When in again the police were called to his house due to the fact that 14-year-old Tracey Edwards ran out of the house screaming for help, the police decided to investigate. There was real horror in Dahmer's apartment.
Body parts belonging to 11 different personalities. Some of them were found in the refrigerator and freezer, some were placed in a barrel of acid, and some of them were dried and hung as souvenirs throughout the house.
Dahmer confessed to the murders, cannibalism and sexual intercourse with the organs of the people he killed. He was sentenced to 15 life sentences, a life sentence for each murder. He later pleaded guilty to the murder of a friend in Ohio.
In 1994, another inmate of the prison, in which Dahmer was serving a life sentence, after learning about the crimes, beat him to death with an iron rod.
7. Nikolai Dzhurmongaliev
Nikolay Dzhurmongaliev worked as a laborer in Alma-Ata in Kazakhstan in 1980. This year in Alma-Ata, people were worried about one problem, about 50 girls disappeared in the city during the year.
Nikolai met girls, killed them and cooked them meat dishes with which he fed his friends. One day, friends noticed parts in the apartment human body and called the police. After his arrest, he stated that he killed many prostitutes, and after the murder, he ate their meat, and also prepared meat dishes from them for his friends. In total, he is credited with 47 murders. He was admitted to a psychiatric hospital, but escaped while being transported in 1989 and was only brought back in 1991. Soviet authorities For two years they kept information about Dzhurmongaliev's escape secret. afraid of panic among the population.
8 Nithari Cannibals
In the village of Nithari, India, 38 children went missing between 2004 and 2006. The killer turned out to be a servant of a well-known local businessman named Kohli and the businessman himself. It was in the house of the servants that 17 remains of the bodies of children were found in a settling pit. Kohli's servant confessed to killing six children and one adult, and to sexual harassment to them, he also admitted that, together with a businessman, they killed, raped and ate the organs of children.
Later, the businessman's guilt was proven. He also killed, raped, and also ate the organs of children. It was also revealed that thanks to the connections and money of the businessman, the police turned a blind eye to the disappearance of children. The Indian Ministry of Security arrested and prosecuted the police officials who covered up this horror. Both were sentenced to death, but the businessman managed to get an amnesty, but charges were immediately brought against him in other cases of murder and cannibalism against children.
9. Alfred Packer
Packer set out from Utah in 1873 with a group of men in search of gold. A snowstorm halted their advance and the five men and Packer were forced to wait out the storm. But only Packer "survived" the blizzard, and in April 1874 he met with other travelers who had separated from the group before the blizzard. His story has changed several times. Packer claimed that his companions were forced by starvation to eat those who died of cold, and he was the last survivor.
However, Packer embezzled the property of one deceased man, which aroused the suspicion of the gold miners, and when the bodies were found, signs of a struggle were clearly visible. After Packer began to claim that it was self-defense and confessed to the murder, but fled before the trial.
Only ten years later he was caught and found guilty of killing only one person. He was released because he pleaded guilty, but later, in 1886, he was sentenced to 40 years for the murder of the others. He was freed by the Governor of Colorado in 1907 and died a free man a few years later.
10. Sergey Gavrilov
Sergei Gavrilov, 27, from Samara, killed his mother because she refused to give him money, assuming he would spend it on vodka and gambling. After the murder, he took the money and spent it as his mother expected. Upon returning to his mother's apartment two days later, he decided to eat, but there was nothing at home. He sawed off his mother's legs, boiled them and ate them. He carried the remains to the balcony. It was winter and the body quickly froze. Later, he would come and cut off pieces of the mother to cook them. When his crime was revealed, he was given 15 years.
11. Tsutomu Miyazaki
Tsutomu Miyazaki killed four girls in Saitama Prefecture, Japan in 1988 and 1989. He also sexually molested them after the murder, and on at least one occasion drank blood and ate their hands. The victims were between the ages of four and seven. Miyazaki also sent mocking letters to families, and put his teeth in an envelope and spit the victims. He was caught molesting another girl in July 1989. Police found photographs of the victims and body parts at Miyazaki's home. His trial began in 1990, but psychiatric examinations delayed sentencing until 1997!!! Miyazaki's death sentence was appealed in 2006, but it stood and Tsutomu was hanged for his crimes in 2008.
12. Albert Fish
Albert Fish lived in New York and worked as a house painter, and at the same time had strange sexual appetites. In 1928, he answered an ad placed by 18-year-old Edward Budd who was looking for work. Fish met Edward, but decided that his 10-year-old sister Grace would be the best victim for him. Albert invited Grace to his Thanksgiving party. Nobody else saw her. Six years later, Albert sent a letter to the Budd family, explaining that he was the one who kidnapped the girl to eat her, and detailed how he did it for ten days.
The police traced the letter to the sender and arrested him. Fish confessed to the murder of Grace Budd as well as the murder of 4-year-old Billy Gaffney in 1927. At the trial, he tried to show himself mentally deranged in order to avoid death penalty. But he did not succeed ... He later confessed to the murder of 8-year-old Frances McDonell in 1924. He was also suspected in a number of other cases of missing children, but the investigation did not receive any evidence of confessions.
Alena Shapovalova
In Krasnodar, asphalt pavers found a phone that contained photos of a man posing with the remains of a woman. The cell phone was handed over to the police.
The operatives identified the owner of the phone and his wife, and, having swooped into their apartment, they gasped. In the apartment of the suspects, the police found seven bags with body parts of people. The remains of people lay in the refrigerator.
Suspected of cannibalism. Photo: Mash
As it turned out, since 1999 they have been kidnapping, killing and eating their victims. The husband and wife admitted that they were involved in the massacre of 30 citizens. The series of murders may go down in history as one of the bloodiest examples of cannibalism. What other maniacs are remembered for their cruelty so much that the mere mention of them still gives me goosebumps.
Andrey Chikatilo
Collage © L!FE. Photo: © RIA Novosti / Vladimir Vyatkin © flickr / Dennis Skley
The Russian maniac, whose name has become a household name, received sexual satisfaction from eating parts of the bodies of his victims. The discovered people who fell into the hands of a maniac often found bitten off noses or tongues, as well as nipples.
Sexual perversions (sadism, pedophilia) were committed with particular cruelty, with manifestations of vampirism, cannibalism and necrophilia, wrote psychiatrist Dmitry Veltishchev about Chikatilo.
So, for example, it happened with 17-year-old prostitute Larisa Tkachenko, who was killed in 1981. Her body was found on the left bank of the Don, 50 meters from the highway next to the cafe. The girl's nipples were bitten off.
Alexander Spesivtsev - forced "new" victims to eat the bodies of previous ones
Dennis Skley
The victims of Alexander Spesivtsev were 19 women and children from among the inhabitants of Novokuznetsk in the period from February to September 1996. AT total he is suspected of 80 murders.
The first crime occurred when Alexander began dating 17-year-old Evgenia, and when she decided to part with him, he locked her in an apartment for a month and tortured her all this time. Evgenia died of sepsis. The man was sent to a psychiatric clinic, from where he left after three years.
Already after being discharged, at least 15 girls and women aged 11 to 40 died in the Spesivtsevs' apartment from February to September 1996. According to the court, some of the victims were brought to the maniac by their mother. This happened, in particular, with the last three girls.
Spesivtsev killed first one girl, then the second. The last girl who was alive, he forced to dismember the bodies and eat soup from the meat of his own girlfriend and ate it himself.
The Spesivtsev family was caught by chance. During a planned round, a team of plumbers knocked on the cannibal's apartment. Since he did not open, the door was forced open and the bodies were found. According to information for 2015, Alexander Spesivtsev continues treatment at the Volgograd Psychiatric Hospital.
Alexey Sukletin
Collage © L!FE. Photo: © wikipedia.org © flickr/Dennis Skley
A cannibal from Tatarstan killed and ate, along with his accomplices Madina Shakirova and Anatoly Nikitin, at least seven girls and women in 1986.
Lydia Fedorova was wanted for three months until he turned to the Vasilyevsky police department of the Zelenodolsk district local Gennady Uglov. The man said that in search of work he tried to get a job as a security guard in the Kaenlyk gardening partnership. Alexey Sukletin became his partner, who said that he was looking for a partner in the construction of a garden house.
The men worked hard and liked to drink in the evening. According to Uglov, his new friend with his cohabitant Madina Shakirova and friend Anatoly Nikitin liked to treat guests with shish kebab or meatballs. During the next feast, Sukletin confessed to a friend that he had killed his girlfriend, and then dismembered her and put her in the refrigerator.
The man realized what kind of meatballs they were. He also told where the drinking companion buried the other bodies. Later, the investigative team found them there - in the corner of the site, near a barrel of water.
During interrogations, Sukletin thoroughly described all his atrocities. He told what the victims told him before their death, how they screamed, how blood flowed. The smallest victim was only 11 years old. The girl was raped and killed.
The trial in the cannibal case lasted about a month. As a result, Nikitin and Shakirova were each sentenced to 15 years in a strict regime colony (they were released in 2001). Sukletin was sentenced to death, on July 29, 1987, the sentence was carried out.
Cook from Murmansk
Dennis Skley
In the Murmansk region, 21-year-old chef Ivan Lebedev has long wanted to taste human meat. He met his future victim, 32-year-old history teacher Roman Ermakov, in social network. During a date (at least, Roman, who is a representative of sexual minorities, thought so), Ivan cut his victim's throat.
As the investigation established, after that the teacher was eaten. Experts have found young man paranoid form of schizophrenia, which has been developing since childhood. As it became known to law enforcement officers, the cannibal filmed his atrocities on camera: he made videos of how he cooks cutlets and sausage, and then uploaded the video to the Web. 
Gang of cannibals - dumplings from prostitutes
Collage © L!FE. Photo: © flickr/Agathe LM
In Alma-Ata in 1998, prostitutes began to disappear. There were rumors about the Kazakh Jack the Ripper, and in January 1999, the dismembered remains of one of the girls, who was listed as missing, were found in dumpsters. After that, parts of the bodies began to be found in different parts of the city.
Law enforcers found that the remains contained traces of alcohol and drugs. After some time, prostitutes began to admit that they were taken from the streets, brought to apartments, they drank coffee, and then ... woke up only in the morning in their apartment. Soon after such trips, "colleagues" disappeared.
Law enforcement officers established that Sergei Kopay, Evgeny Turochkin and Mikhail Vershinin were taking away the prostitutes. Soon a gang of cannibals began to be called "Dig and his team."
Having dismembered her together with her brother, we threw away the body parts, leaving a small amount of meat, which was ground into minced meat. Then Kopay suggested that I try meat for food, I agreed. And in the future, I used it several times,” Vershinin said during one of the interrogations.
They marinated their victims, fried their meat for barbecue and made dumplings. Later, the examination recognized all three as sane, but, as stated, they are prone to alcoholism.
Alena Shapovalova
Cannibalism is one of the greatest taboos in human civilization. But there are people who have tasted human flesh and shared their thoughts on cannibalism. Here are 10 real stories.
10. In 1972, Arthur Shawcross killed a boy and a girl in Watertown, New York. He went to jail for crimes, but he was released after serving only 15 years. Moved to Rochester, New York in 1988 where he soon began killing prostitutes, 11 lives before being caught. After he returned to prison, Shawcross bragged about some of the heinous things he did to his victims, including a number of cases of cannibalism.
He claimed to have eaten human flesh for the first time while serving in Vietnam, where he allegedly killed two women in the jungle, and ate them. However, there is no evidence that he actually did so. He also claimed to have eaten the genitals of four prostitutes and the heart of a 10-year-old boy whom he had killed. The bodies were too mutilated to be sure. Shawcross claimed that human flesh tasted like pork, like ham, bacon, or a juicy pork chop.
9. Long story Peter Bryan started when the store owners fired him for stealing. In response, Brian killed their 20-year-old daughter with a hammer before attempting suicide by jumping from a balcony. As a mental patient, he was admitted to a psychiatric hospital in 1993. Nine years later, he was released and moved to another hospital, where he eventually received permission to leave without supervision.
That same night, he left the hospital, went to the apartment of 43-year-old Brian Cherry, and severely beat him to death with a hammer. Then, using a saw and a series of knives, Brian was amputated right leg Cherry. When the police arrived, they found the brains in a frying pan on the stove. Brian said that he cooked the brain in margarine, and that he tried it: "the dish is really good."
He added that he also tasted meat from Cherry's leg and arm, which he described as tasting just like chicken. After his arrest, Brian was taken back to the psychiatric hospital, where he killed another inmate in 2004. Brian said he wanted to eat it, but there wasn't enough time to cook the meat.
8. In 2010, 21-year-old Norwegian art student Alexander Selvik Wengshoel underwent hip replacement surgery due to a birth defect that left him dependent on crutches and wheelchair. Wengshoel convinced his doctor to let him take the removed thigh bones home. Wengshoel has stated that he wants to use bones in his art.
When he returned home from the operation, Wengshoel began to boil his thighs and scrape off some chunks of flesh. Realizing that this was a unique opportunity, he decided to try the piece of flesh, describing it as "very pleasant". After that, he decided to make food from the flesh left on the bone. There was only a handful of meat on the left, so the dish turned out to be just an appetizer, with baked potatoes and a glass of wine. According to Wengshoel, "It was the scent of wild sheep if you take a sheep that eats mushrooms in the mountains"
7. Tobias Schneebaum, American artist who won the Fulbright to study art in Peru. Hitchhiking all the way from New York in 1955. Along the way, he heard about the Arakmbut tribe, who lived in the jungle and hunted with bows and arrows.
Deciding that it was interesting, he went without a compass to find them. Although the Arakmbut had a brutal reputation, they welcomed the Schneebaum. He was delighted, and found the tribe very agreeable. Here homosexuality was accepted, for which he was persecuted in New York. He soon decided to stay with them for the rest of his life. Everything changed after he was invited to hunt.
Instead, Arakmbut attacked another village and killed six people. After the massacre, they roasted human organs while dancing around the fire. Schneebaum was horrified, but eventually joined the dance. When Arakmbut started handing out pieces human meat, Schneebaum ate. After the incident, he reconsidered staying with the tribe and ended up leaving the Peruvian jungle. Schneebaum's memoirs have become cult.
He tended to brush off questions about the taste of human flesh, explaining that he was too busy at the time to remember the taste and didn't want people to think of him as a cannibal. However, he once commented that it tasted a bit like pork.
6. Omaima Nelson was born in Egypt and moved to the United States to become a model. In 1991, she met 56-year-old William Nelson, whom she married two months later. The union was not happy, Omaima accused her husband of beating and rape. Just three weeks after the wedding, she killed him. In an attempt to destroy the evidence, she dismembered his body, roasted his hands and boiled his head. The murder is really strange: Omaima removed her husband's ribs, covered them with barbecue sauce "cooked like in a restaurant," according to a psychiatrist. Omaima told him, "It's so cute, it's so delicious." The police were alerted to Omaima's crime after the stupidity of asking a friend to help her dispose of the body. She was ultimately convicted of the murder and sentenced to life in prison. She later said she didn't eat her husband when she found out that parole was not normally given to cannibals.
5. Notorious Milwaukee cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer killed 17 young people between 1978 and 1991 Dahmer never spoke openly about his cannibalism, but when he was arrested, he discussed it with the FBI. He said he cut off pieces of the bodies, usually from the hamstrings, and ate some of the organs.
He took muscles or organs and cut them into tiny pieces, which he then cooked in a frying pan on the stove. Dahmer said about the taste that it was like a filet mignon, the end of the beef tenderloin is considered the most tender cut of beef. Dahmer was sentenced to life in prison in February 1992 and was killed by a fellow inmate two years later.
4. William Seabrook was a New York Times correspondent but is better known for truly bizarre travel books. One of his most famous books, published in 1931, about a trip to West Africa where he encountered a tribe, the Guere, who ritually consume flesh from recently deceased tribesmen.
Curiously, human meat tasted like Seabrook decided to try it for himself. There are two different stories about how Seabrook ate human flesh. One story is about how Seabrook committed cannibalism on his return to France, where he convinced a hospital intern to give him some of the flesh from a fresh corpse.
Regardless of how he got the meat, Seabrook was probably a genuine cannibal and described the taste of human flesh as veal, not young, but not yet beef. “It was very definite. I don't think anyone with normal sensitivity could tell it apart from veal."
3. In April 2012, Brazilian Jorge Beltrão Negromonte da Silveira, his wife, Isabel Cristina Pires, and his mistress, Bruna Cristina Oliveira da Silva, were arrested in connection with the murder of a homeless woman. After being taken into custody, they quickly confessed to the murders.
The trio butchered the bodies and sold the meat. Silveira compared human meat to beef, in taste and texture. Since it was meat like beef, the Silveira had three different recipes for cooking human flesh. The first was carne guisada, a Mexican stew that is simmered.
Another variant was cassava based on the Brazilian dish macaxeira. But most loud scandal became empadas, traditional Brazilian meat pies, which they often sold to unsuspecting neighbors. Da Silveira was given 23 years in prison, his wife and mistress were given 20 years each. Da Silveira says that it is good that he is in prison, otherwise he would certainly kill again and again.
2. One of the most famous cannibals in recent history is a resident of Japan, Issey Sagawa. Sagawa was studying in Paris when he met 25-year-old Dutch student Renée Hartevelt. On June 11, 1981, Hartevelt was visiting Sagawa at his apartment when he shot her in the back.
After she died, Sagawa ate parts of her body for two days. In his memoirs, Sagawa said that he ate red meat from her buttocks. He said it was tasteless and odorless, but the piece melted on his tongue like raw tuna sashimi. Next, he cooked the meat from her thigh in a frying pan, describing it as decent but tasteless, until he added mustard and salt.
He also ate Hartevelt baked breast pieces, but they were too fatty. His favorite was thigh meat, which he described as "wonderful". Sagawa was arrested three days later, witnesses saw him dispose of body parts. He was declared insane and placed in a house.
In 1985, he was deported back to Japan, where he was found to be of sound mind. However, the French authorities refused to release the evidence required for the criminal process. Because the Japanese authorities declared him sane and could not put him in jail as a criminal, Sagawa became a free man. He wrote a book and became a celebrity in Japan.
1. German cannibal Armin Meiwes posted an ad on the Internet announcing that he was looking for "a well-built 18-30-year-old man to be slaughtered for later consumption"
The ad received over 200 responses. After meeting a young man who refused, he found 41-year-old Bernd Jürgen Brandes, who agreed to be eaten. On March 9, 2001, they met and had sex until Meiwes cut off Brandes' penis so they could eat it.
First, they tried to consume it raw, but found it too rubbery. Meiwes then tried to cook it with garlic and oil, but ended up being burned. After 10 hours of waiting, Brandeis bled to death, Meiwes killed him, hung his body on a meat hook, and began carving the meat from him.
Over the next 10 months, he ate about 18 kilograms (40 pounds) of a person, in the form of steak and minced meat, passed through a meat grinder. In later interviews, Meiwes said that he cooked the steaks with salt, pepper, nutmeg, and garlic. Garnish with Brussels sprouts with green pepper sauce. He preferred to drink a glass of South African red wine. And what does Meiwes think of meat?
He said it was a little tough. Apparently it tastes like pork, but with a stronger, slightly bitter taste. Meiwes insisted that Brandeis' death was an assisted suicide rather than a murder. He was originally sentenced to eight and a half years in prison for the murder, but after a retrial, was sentenced to life in prison. Now he is a vegetarian.
Article by Robert Grimminck is a Canadian freelance writer.
