veryone loves serial killers, including me. I've even got an articles page about them. However while it helps, it's not necessary that you kill numerous people to make the news. Killing one or two is plenty, if you do it in inventive fashion. News commentary about those types of killings is what you'll find on this article page.

This page is sorted with the most recent entries are added on top, unless there are multiple articles about the same killer, in which case they are grouped and arranged chronologically.

The German Internet Cannibal

December 5, 2003

The German cannibal trial is ongoing, and despite the weirdness of it, I really have nothing to say about it.  The story speaks for itself.  Some guy has a fetish to eat another person, and he ran Internet ads asking for volunteers, and got quite a few of them.  He nearly did it to several other people, before rejecting them or letting them back out, but finally found a special someone who he wanted, and who wanted him as well.

Meiwes filmed the killing and the video tape may be shown to the court. Defense lawyers have said the film shows Meiwes cutting off the victim's penis at the latter's request.

"It was important to him that his member be cut off and that he witness it," Meiwes said. "He screamed terribly and jumped around the table but after a while he said he was surprised it didn't hurt and was very pleased that the wound bled so strongly," he added.

"It gave him pleasure."

After Brandes downed sleeping tablets and whisky, Meiwes cut off Brandes' penis which they planned to eat together, but found that due to its consistency, it was inedible "even when fried."

That's why they grind them up in hotdogs, junior.  Here's some more on the legal issues.

State prosecutor Marcus Koehler claimed Meiwes had always intended to kill and that he took advantage of a mental disorder in the dead man, Bernd Juergen Brandes.

If convicted, he faces life in prison. A verdict is due early next year.

Defence lawyers say Meiwes is guilty at worst of "killing on demand," which is punishable by up to five years in jail.

January 31, 2004

The trial of that German Internet cannibal is over, and he got 8.5 years in prison, on a manslaughter conviction.

A German cannibal was convicted of manslaughter on Friday for killing and eating a man he met through the Internet, avoiding a murder verdict because the victim had asked to die.

The court sentenced computer repair man Armin Meiwes, 42, to eight and a half years in jail, rejecting the prosecution's plea for a murder conviction and life sentence because Meiwes was following the instructions of his 43-year-old victim.

Of course the goriest details relate to the other man's penis.  Just like in real life. I've quoted those before, and you can read the article if you want more. What I hadn't heard previously was how his desire for man-flesh began.

Meiwes, who said in court he had fantasized since puberty about consuming a man to fill the void caused by the sudden departure of his father, had been in touch with hundreds of people on the Internet, where he posted ads seeking fit men for "slaughter."

He built a "slaughter room" complete with butcher's bench and meat hook and a cage in the sprawling half-timbered house in Rotenburg near Kassel left him by his late, domineering mother.

Good thing he wasn't in the US, or he might have gotten the death penalty.  Imagine his final meal request?

February 2, 2004

Some UK tabloid has a juicy article about the German cannibal, and a bunch of photos of the inside of his house that they probably bribed a cop for, including some of the the good parts. Check it out if you enjoy that sort of thing.  The article ends with tales of other near-meals, including several who went so far as to be tied up, wrapped in plastic wrap, labeled, but who then backed out.  All of which makes it harder to tell why the guy was guilty of anything, other than like, illegal body disposal, or perhaps assisted suicide.

The drama that unfolds in the chilling e-mail traffic between cannibal Meiwes and victim Brandes rivals anything Hollywood could concoct—in fact the killer now hopes for a £1million payday as moviemakers vie for his story.

In an early message the cannibal teases by announcing he is making spaghetti carbonara for dinner. Relishing his gory end the victim replies: "You don't have to buy meat again, there will be plenty left."

Then came a terrifyingly matter-of-fact exchange about the fate of any human leftovers.

VICTIM: "What will you do with my brain?"

CANNIBAL: "I'll leave it, I don't want to split your skull."

VICTIM: "Better bury it, preferably in a cemetery; nobody notices skulls there. Or maybe pulverise it?"

CANNIBAL: "We have a nice small cemetery here."

VICTIM: "You could use it as an ashtray."

After viewing these photos, I'm left wondering, is there some requirement that cannibals have rooms in their homes of unparalleled (except by other cannibals) squalor and filth?  I mean yeah, Ed Gein set the tone decades ago, and Buffalo Bill's place in Silence of the Lambs is quite influential, despite the fact that he was fictional, but why must it continue to give cannibal murderers a bad name? Why not fuck, butcher, and consume another man's body in a nice, clean, modern, Ikea-style living space?

Just because you enjoy the succulent, pork-like flavor of human flesh doesn't mean you have to be a slob, now does it?

All site content copyright "Flux" (Eric Bruce), 2002-2007.