Cannibalism, as repulsive as it is, can be understood in cases where consuming the deceased is an alternative to certain starvation. Those who eat human flesh by choice, however, tend to be the kind of people who will torture and murder to satisfy their curiosity. Be warned that some of the following links are disturbing.
1. Dorangel Vargas
Dorangel Vargas is known as “the Hannibal Lecter of the Andes”. He was confined to a mental hospital in 1995 after the remains of a missing man were found in his home, but Vargas was released two years later. In 1999, police in San Cristobal, Venezuela again found human remains in Vargas’ possession. This time, at least ten skulls and fresh entrails were found. Vargas admitted eating the bodies, but denied murder charges, saying the bodies were given to him. This statement led to conjecture that Vargas was being used to cover up an organ trafficking operation. Vargas was homeless and already known to be mentally unstable. During an interview, Vargas claimed that eating people was like eating pears. Vargas is confined to a mental institution.
2. Kevin Ray Underwood
Kevin Ray Underwood was arrested in April 2006 for the murder of 10-year-old Jamie Bolin in Purcell, Oklahoma. Although there is no evidence that Underwood actually cannibalized the body, police found meat tenderizer and barbecue skewers among the tools used to commit the murder. Underwood confessed to the murder and his plans to eat Bolin’s flesh. His videotaped confession is full of gruesome details.
3. Robert Maudsley
Robert Maudsley committed his first murder in 1974. He sold sexual services to support his drug addiction, and killed one of his clients. Maudsley was sent to a hospital for the criminally insane. In 1977, he and another inmate took a third inmate hostage for nine hours before authorities could break into the cell. The victim, a pedophile, had been tortured and killed. His skull was cracked open and a part of his brain was missing. A spoon in the skull led guards to believe Maudsley had eaten part of his victim. He was convicted of manslaughter and sent to Wakefield prison, where he soon killed two more men before being sent to solitary confinement. In 1983, a special cell was constructed for Maudsley at Wakefield prison, where he is held in solitary confinement behind glass with no human contact. Food is passed to him through a slot. This cell is believed to be the model for Hannibal Lecter’s enclosure in The Silence of the Lambs.
4. Issei Sagawa
Japanese student Issei Sagawa studied at the Sorbonne in Paris and became infatuated with Dutch student Renée Hartevelt in 1981. Instead of courting her, he shot her in the back of the neck. Then Sagawa lived out a fantasy he’d had since childhood as he cut her flesh and ate it raw. He then had sexual intercourse with Hartevelt’s body, cut it into pieces, put some of the flesh in his refrigerator for later, and stuffed the rest into suitcases to dispose of at nearby Bois de Boulogne park, where he was noticed. Police retrieved Hartevelt’s body parts and arrested Sagawa a few days later. Sagawa confessed to the murder. He was held for two years, then committed to a hospital for the criminally insane. While there, he wrote his autobiography In the Fog, which became a best seller in Japan. Sagawa was deported to Japan, where he underwent mental examinations and was found sane. Japanese officials could not prosecute him because France did not send the necessary paperwork. By 1986, he was a free man, and willing to talk about what he did to Renée Hartevelt. Sagawa is the “celebrity cannibal” of Japan. He has written more books, worked a short time as a restaurant critic, granted interviews, painted nudes, and even acted in porn films. In short, he is making a living off his crime.
5. Armin Meiwes
Armin Meiwes posted a personal ad online to solicit a victim for murder and cannibalism in 2001. Bernd Juergen Brandes, who did not know Meiwes, volunteered to be his victim through a German chatroom. The two met and carried out the plan, which is documented in gruesome detail. Meiwes consumed the remains of Brandes over several months. He was reported to police after posting another personal ad. Meiwes was convicted of manslaughter amid questions of whether a murder victim can give consent. He was retried in 2006 and convicted of murder, and sentenced to life in prison.
6. Jeffrey Dahmer
In the summer of 1991, Jeffrey Dahmer was on probation after serving time for fondling a young boy, but his overworked probation officer never visited his Milwaukee apartment. Police were called when a 14-year-old boy tried to escape Dahmer’s clutches, but Dahmer convinced officers that the boy was an adult and the situation was a lover’s quarrel. They left Konerak Sinthasomphone, who did not speak English, in Dahmer’s hands. He was never seen alive again. When another victim, Tracey Edwards ran screaming from Dahmer’s apartment, police investigated and found a house of horrors. In Dahmer’s apartment were body parts belonging to 11 people. Some were found in the refrigerator and freezer, some packed into a barrel of acid, and some were dried and cleaned to be souvenirs. In his confession, Dahmer alluded to cannibalism and sexual acts with the deceased bodies, activities he expanded on in a 1994 interview. Dahmer pleaded insanity but was convicted and sentenced to life terms for each of 15 murders. He later pleaded guilty to another murder in Ohio. In 1994, another prison inmate bludgeoned Dahmer to death with an iron bar.
Researching my extensive list of modern cannibals is psychologically exhausting. This look at cannibalism will continue next week.
Update: see part two of this post, 6 More Cannibal Killers.
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Interesting article. Especially as I was reading the last line of the Vargas section I was biting into a pear. Now I’ll have that in my head for the rest of the day.
posted by nihil on 1-12-2010 at 9:29 am
Unsettling. I was going to watch the first part of Kevin Ray Underwood’s video confession, but the ad that played before the video started was one for “juicy, tender angus beef,” complete with multiple shots of steaks being cooked, served, and sliced. I think I’ll just have a salad, thanks…
posted by Kelsey on 1-12-2010 at 9:39 am
They’re all sick, but the Issei Sagawa makes me the most angry. Kill someone and get famous while living freely?
I would like to know what the girl looked like he obsessed over.
posted by Kelsey on 1-12-2010 at 11:06 am
In a recent course that I was enrolled in my professor told us a story about a man he once worked with at another college years ago. He said that during a dinner party this other professor admitted freely that he consumed human flesh and really enjoyed it. Apparently he was from a tribe in Africa that would consume the flesh of the enemies they killed in battle to absorb their strength. He said he did it a lot as a young man. My professor knew right then and their that this man would be fired. Especially when he was asked if he would do it again and he responded with, “Of course . . .I sometimes crave it.”
This story was followed by a huge amount of debate among the class as to whether this man was evil or just practicing an odd cultural custom. It was very interesting.
posted by Nathan on 1-12-2010 at 12:46 pm
I once once asked in a rhetorical manner “How could you possibly cook and eat another person?”
Being cajun, the answer was obvious -”First make a roux”
The other person must have been an anti-cajun bigot, cause she didn’t seem to appreciate the answer.
posted by eethec on 1-12-2010 at 12:52 pm
eethec, that is worth passing on! You made me laugh out loud, and I didn’t think anything about this post could do that.
posted by Miss Cellania on 1-12-2010 at 1:19 pm
Kelsey, you could follow some of the highlighted links and find out. She was beautiful. But be careful -some of the autopsy photos were published in the French press and they are online. One showed up while I was searching, and I don’t want to see it again.
posted by Miss Cellania on 1-12-2010 at 1:21 pm
Last week I saw a special on Issei Sagawa and cannibalism on television, the channel escapes me. It was fascinating and I hate to say it, but it made him likeable. I even sorta felt bad for the guy when he spoke about how lonely he was. How people on the streets completly ignore him when he tries to be friendly. I can’t blame them though.
He did say some very creepy things throughout the program pertaining to young woman (he prefers Western women). How it is natural for him to want to touch and smell a woman’s skin. He doesn’t understand how not everyone wants to perform the next step, which is to taste it.
He is not a bad artist though. In fact the special ended with a local gallery showing off his work.
posted by KayTee on 1-12-2010 at 1:23 pm
Where’s Ed Gein? This the guy that “inspired” Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and and the Silence of the Lambs. The Ukranian cannibal is also missing. Supposedly he ate people by the dozen.
Kelsey, you can find out what the victim looked like by Googling “Paris cannibal”.
WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!
You are going to get the crime scene photographs and that can give you nightmares for weeks. You will also feel like going to Japan and killing Sagawa. They are the most horrible things that I’ve seen on the web and that’s saying a lot!
posted by JMS on 1-12-2010 at 1:25 pm
Interestingly, there’s only one “clinical” study about the taste of human flesh. Cannibals are not to be trusted in being clear minded in their descriptions. They are either crazy, uncivilized, traumatized by the event (Andes survivors) or charlatans; many explorers have been fooled by natives eating monkey meat and claiming to be cannibals.
However, there’s the case of an an American reporter that became obsessed with finding out what it would be like to eat human flesh. He managed to get a french doctor to give him a chunk of thigh from a dead accident victim. He cooked it and forced himself to eat it (with rice).
Conclusion? Humans do not taste like chicken, they taste like veal.
I don’t remember the web site with all that info.
Disclaimer: If I know this much about cannibalism is because I remember lots of things not just this weird stuff.
posted by JMS on 1-12-2010 at 1:37 pm
See a small picture of Renee Harteveldt in life here. http://www.drkiller.net/the-godfather-of-cannibalism-issei-sagawa.html
posted by Miss Cellania on 1-12-2010 at 1:42 pm
Just after reading this article I went to the lunchtime quiz and here is the first question: “Girl, you look so good, someone ought to put you on a plate and sop you up with a biscuit.”
posted by sw on 1-12-2010 at 2:32 pm
Nathan commented: \…my professor told us a story about a man he once worked with at another college years ago. He said that during a dinner party this other professor admitted freely that he consumed human flesh and really enjoyed it. Apparently he was from a tribe in Africa that would consume the flesh of the enemies they killed in battle to absorb their strength. He said he did it a lot as a young man. … when he was asked if he would do it again and he responded with, `Of course . . .I sometimes crave it’. This story was followed by a (class debate) as to whether this man was evil or just practicing an odd cultural custom.\
Probably, it was a once-common cultural custom in Africa. Where do you think those legends of natives cooking and eating missionaries came from? And yes, from a Christian perspective, this man _was_ evil — that’s why churches felt obligated to send missionaries to Africa in the first place.
But if you accept PETA’s premise that there’s no moral difference between eating a human versus an animal, then why not?
posted by fsilber on 1-12-2010 at 2:37 pm
In reguard to #4, I’ve said it before:
WHATS UP WITH THE JAPANESE??!!
In the 70s and early 80′s I spent a couple of years (on and off) in Japan. Both in a rural area and an urban area. The rural area was near enough to what any rural area in the world would be like (fairly consertive, straight forward, etc.) The urban area was wacked! Too many people living too close to each other, it was like they were constantly reaching mental critical mass and exploding a fad all over the place with the fallout affecting everyone.
posted by 'Da guy on 1-12-2010 at 2:43 pm
Ew I can understand if someone resort to cannibalism to stay alive but to eat human flesh just for pleasure is disgusting.eww
posted by Kari on 1-12-2010 at 4:14 pm
Of COURSE I was eating a pear when I started reading this article. I couldn’t finish it.
posted by Danielle on 1-12-2010 at 5:24 pm
thank you miss cellania, this was really interesting, alebit on a disturbing topic, i look forward to the next installment.
had no idea about Issei, very disturbing how he became this cult \hero\ if you will…and thanks eethec, that made me laugh out loud too!
posted by TravisT on 1-13-2010 at 12:16 am
most meat-eating animals taste bitter, so i would reasonably assume that humans taste like crap. ever think about the fact that all the animals we normally eat are herbivores? a vegetarian on the other hand, may be tasty…lol
posted by mary on 1-13-2010 at 8:08 am
So these are the “Horrifying” Cannibals…what about all the “Delightful” ones?
posted by Jack on 1-13-2010 at 9:08 am
Jack, I am contemplating writing about not-so-horrifying cannibals sometime, such as the Donner Party and others who did not sadistically murder their dinner.
posted by Miss Cellania on 1-13-2010 at 9:16 am
actually i’ve heard dog tastes like veal but sweet.
i also imagine the reason we dont eat carnivores is because of our mainly christian heritage. the Jews and Muslims were not allowed to eat carnivores. Probably because there are more communicable diseases to be passed along to us.
posted by Mehmeh on 1-13-2010 at 9:52 am
Am I the only person excited that this is going to be a series? Bring on more cannibals!
posted by Antonina on 1-13-2010 at 2:45 pm
If you are looking at a follow up list, you must include Moninder Singh Pandher and Surender Kohli from India
In 2006, they sexually assualted, murdered and ate anywhere between 19 and 31 children in Noida- a province in Northern India, near the capital region of New Delhi. The number of bones and skulls outside the house is so many that police are still trying to piece together the bones and ascertain the number of victims.
Pandher is a very wealthy businessman in India, and Kohli was one member of his domestic staff- the caretaker for one of his many houses. Kohli used to tempt children into the house on promise of sweets,or something nice to eat, and then provide these children to Pandher who would sexually assault them. In some cases, he also lured children on the promise of employment, and there also instances of calling call girls to the house for this purpose.
Once Pandher had completed assaulting the victims; Kohli would kill them, cut up the victims into 3 parts and dispose of them by throwing them into 3 different drains surrounding the house.
Despite confessions from Kohli on his and Pandher’s activities, currently only Kohli has been awarded the death sentence and Pandher has been acquitted of involvement in some of the murders, although he still faces trial for 5 killings.
In India, Pandher’s acquittal is known to be largely due to corruption- the police were paid off to dispose of evidence against him, some reports say for a paltry 3,00,000 Indian rupees which is approx 6500 USD.
posted by aditi on 1-15-2010 at 3:06 am
Sorry,I missed mentioning in the previous post that after cutting up the victims, Kohli would also cook and eat some parts of the victims; and has admitted to also cooking and serving the victims to his employer- Pandher.
posted by aditi on 1-15-2010 at 3:08 am
My husband is from Milwaukee, where his mom taught math. She taught the guy who eventually killed Dahmer in prison and said he was a very scary guy who she knew would end up in prison. At least the dude did one good thing in his life.
posted by Kim on 1-19-2010 at 4:50 pm
Is it strange that I found this very interesting… And that I got excited to see the Issei Sagawa crime scene pictures…? I guess it comes with wanting to go into forensics.
posted by Jessy on 1-28-2010 at 4:21 am
honestly,
i dont see why people have a problem with cannibalism
posted by erick on 1-28-2010 at 8:40 am
actually it tastes like pork.
posted by john holliday on 6-25-2010 at 2:21 am