English: Twelve modern cannibal killers: ` [15,209]

In comparison to the worldwide murder rate, cases of cannibalism cases are rare, but they stand out because of the horror they instill in society. Researching the  extensive list of modern cannibals is very psychologically exhausting. I found these twelve cannibal stories from all over the world.

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 descriptions are disturbing.

Dahmer,  Jeffrey
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. This cannibal has been extensively covered by me in 3 other articles found on this Blog.

Dzhurmongaliev, Nikolai
Nikolai became known as "the Metal Fang". He worked as a laborer in Alma-Alta in Kazakhstan, which was part of the Soviet Union in 1980, the year a rash of disappearances gripped the town. Dzhurmongaliev was constantly trying to pick up women, many who were never seen again. He threw parties for his friends in which he served generous dishes of meat. Two men who were invited to his home found body parts and alerted authorities. After his arrest, he claimed he had killed many prostitutes, ate their flesh, and also served them cooked to his friends. Authorities linked 47 disappearances to the Metal Fang, and committed him to a mental institution. He escaped during transport in 1989 and was recaptured in 1991.  The soviet authorities kept Dzhurmongaliev's two-year adventure a secret to avoid panic.

"The Metal Fang"
During the heat of the Cold War in 1980, while the U.S. was boycotting the Olympic Games in Moscow, the Soviet region of Kazakhstan experienced a rash of murders that terrorized its inhabitants. A man named Nikolai Dzhumangaliev, who had already spent a year in jail for manslaughter in the late 1970's, began working as a laborer at a nearby site in Alma-Ata. He was considered by all who knew him as a well-spoken, clean-shaven gentleman. He was always neatly dressed, but had one physical flaw that everyone who knew him would look past. He possessed white metal teeth, losing his natural teeth years before. Though not exactly a "loner", he would generally keep to himself, walking around town trying to meet different women wherever he went. His favorite spot in town was near a river bank, where he would meet a young lady and lure her into the dark end of the park nearby. There, he would then rape the woman, finishing off by hacking the body up with a knife and axe he carried at all times. However, he wasn't done yet. He would then proceed to cook up parts of his victims and eat their flesh. The rest he would bag up in a sack and take home with him. Later on, when he was discovered, police realized that Nikolai was also often inclined to throw little get-togethers with friends where he would cook up large amounts of meat to be shared with his guests. These "get-togethers" were always thrown right after one of his murders. He was feeding his unwitting guests parts of his recent kill. What eventually led police to Nikolai were two town drunks who were invited back to his house for some "snacks". When entering the home, the drunks discovered a woman's head along with intestines, in the kitchen, ready for cooking. He was charged with seven murders in all. However, the court decided that he was not responsible for his actions and had him committed to a mental institution in Tashkent. Interestingly enough, when being transported to another institution in 1989, Nikolai escaped from authorities. So not to alarm the public, no announcement was ever made of this, and for two long years the local law enforcement searched and hoped against hope that killings would not start up somewhere else in the Soviet Union. He was captured in August of 1991 in Fergana, Uzbekistan, after being reported by a local woman who claimed that a young man was propositioning her earlier in the day. He remains in a mental institution to this day.

Fish,  Albert
Albert was a house painter with strange sexual appetites in New York City. In 1928, he answered a classified ad placed by the family of 18-year-old Edward Budd, who was looking for a job. Fish was attracted to Edward, but decided his 10-year-old sister Grace would be an easier victim. Fish, who went under the name Frank Howard at the time, offered to take Grace to a birthday party, from which she never returned. Six years later, Fish sent a horrifying letter to the Budd family explaining that he kidnapped the little girl in order to eat her flesh, which he did over a period of nine days. Police traced the stationery used in the letter to the boarding house Fish had recently left, and arrested him when he returned for his mail. Fish confessed to the murder of Grace Budd and also that of 4-year-old Billy Gaffney in 1927. Fish pleaded insanity and relied on his cannibalism and sexual perversions to prove his instability, but a jury found him guilty in 1935. He later confessed to murdering 8-year-old Francis McDonnell in 1924. Fish is also suspected in several other missing child cases. Hamilton Albert Fish was executed by electric chair on January 16, 1936.

Gavrilov,  Sergey
27-year-old Gavrilov of Samara, Russia murdered his mother because she refused to give him money, assuming he would spent it on vodka and gambling. He then took the money and spent it as she thought he would. On returning to his mother's apartment two days later, he was again out of money and soon ran out of food. The body of 55-year-old Lyubov was out on the balcony, frozen, so Gavrilov removed her legs and cooked them to eat over a month's time. Gavrilov was arrested after the body was found (minus the legs) and convicted in 2009. Gavrilov was sentenced to 15 years in prison, but the judge reduced the sentence by nine months because the convict was starving at the time he decided to eat his mother.

Kohli,  Surrender
The village of Nithari, Uttar Pradesh, India experienced a rash of disappearing children between 2004 and 2006, with a total of 38 missing. Prominent businessman Moninder Singh Pandher and his house servant Surrender Kohli were arrested when the skeletal remains of 17 children were found in a large culvert behind Pandher's home. Local residents found the first evidence and contacted the local welfare agency to investigate because they suspected a police cover up. The servant Kohli confessed to murdering six children and one adult after sexually assaulting them, then eating some victim's livers and other body parts. Village residents protested as police took credit for the investigation, claiming their complaints had been ignored until the bodies were found. Under pressure, two police supervisors were suspended and six officers were fired. Both Pandher and Kohli were convicted of one murder and given death sentences in early 2009. In September, 2007, Pandher was acquitted by an appeals court, but may still face charges for other victims. Kohli's conviction was upheld. On September 3rd, 2104 the Allahabad High Court, acquitted Pandher or all charges, and ordered his release from custody, his whereabouts are unknown at this time.

Maudsley, Robert
Robert 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. 

Meiwes, Armin
Armin 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 retired in 2006 and convicted of murder, and sentenced to life in prison.

Miyazaki,  Tsutomu
Tsutomu killed four little girls in Saitama Prefecture, Japan in 1988 and 1989. He also sexually molested their corpses and in at least one case drank blood and ate the hands. The victims were between four and seven years old. Miyazaki also sent taunting letters to the families, going so far as to send ashes and teeth to one victim's parents. He was caught molesting another girl in July of 1989 and arrested. Police found pictures of the victims and body parts in Miyazaki's home. His trial began in 1990, but psychiatric evaluations delayed his sentencing until 1997. Miyazaki's death sentence was appealed until 2006, and he was hanged for his crimes in 2008.

Packer, Alferd "The Colorado Cannibal"
The curious case of Alferd Packer is still being debated to this day. Packer answered the call of the Colorado gold rush in 1873 and set out from Utah with a group of men bound for the Los Pinos Indian Agency in Colorado. A blizzard trapped Packer and five companions and they ran out of supplies. In April of 1874, Packer met up with other travelers that had split from the group before the blizzard. His story changed several times. Packer claimed that his companions were forced by hunger to eat those who had died of exposure, and he was the last survivor. However, Packer had possessions of the deceased men, and when the bodies were found they showed signs of a struggle. Packer then claimed self-defense and later confessed to murder, but escaped before his trial. Captured nine years later, he again confessed and was found guilty of the murder of one man. His death sentence was vacated on a technicality. Packer was tried again in 1886 for the murder of the four others and sentenced to forty years. He was paroled by the governor of Colorado in 1907 and died a free man a few years later.

Sagawa, Issei
In 1981, Issei Sagawa launched into popular imagination for being responsible for what the Japanese known as Pari jinniku jiken – the Paris Human Flesh Incident. As an exchange student in France, he wished to make his life-long dream come true of eating human flesh. In his words: “It was in the first grade of elementary school when I saw the quivering meat on a male classmate’s thighs and I suddenly thought, “Mm, that looks delicious.” As is typical of cannibal killers, he described himself as socially awkward and viewing himself to be physically inadequate. Unlike other cannibal killers, his tone when he speaks of his crime is not rooted in anger or anxieties – it is calm, reassured, and unapologetic. What occurred in Paris began with an obsession with a Dutch classmate, Renée Hartevelt. During a poetry reading session with her at his residence, Issei Sagawa shot Renée Hartevelt and spent the next two days dissecting and eating her parts. Ultimately, as he went to dispose of the body, he was caught and taken into custody. Viewed to be mentally unfit to stand trial, he was deported back to Japan to the Matsuzawa mental hospital in Tokyo. Less than 15 months later, thanks to his influential father, this Japanese cannibal Issei Sagawa was a free man without facing any prosecution.  In the years following his release, Sagawa took pride in his taste for the human flesh. He wrote best-selling books, such as his first text named “In the Fog” which describes his murder in horrifying details the step-by-step process of how he devoured Renée Hartevelt, as well as his recommendation for how to eat human flesh (he went for the buttocks first). He became a painter, with his favorite subject being, unsurprisingly, the buttocks of females. Issei Sagawa became the source of inspiration for songs and films. With disappointingly little scrutiny, he had become a figure viewed to be more comical, rather than disturbed. Indeed, he was also hired to write restaurant reviews for a Japanese magazine. Apologists of Issei Sagawa argue that, although a cannibal killer, he is only a one-timer; a man who was driven not by malice or personal insecurities, but by overwhelming curiosity. The cannibal stories told  popularly use Issei to demonstrate its lighter side, as he himself as starred in soft-core pornographic films which mirror cannibalistic themes. The absurdity of the situation is only matched by its creepiness. Though secondary to the theme of human cannibalism, the reality is that Issei Sagawa got away with murder.

Underwood, Kevin Ray
Kevin 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.

Police: Other children were targeted
Kuykendall said that Underwood said he began fantasizing about eating someone a year ago. The prosecutor added that authorities believe “that while she was ultimately chosen to be the victim of this horrific crime, that other people had been targeted and considered,” including a woman and a 5-year-old boy. A preliminary autopsy report said the girl died from blunt force trauma to the head and asphyxiation. “Regarding a potential motive, this appears to have been part of a plan to kidnap a person, rape them, torture them, kill them, cut off their head, drain the body of blood, rape the corpse, eat the corpse, then dispose of the organs and bones,” the police chief said. Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation agents seized a decorative dagger, a hack saw, duct tape, meat tenderizer, barbecue skewers, a duffel bag, the cutting board, a computer, and a videotape about a serial killer, Tompkins said. Police think Jamie died Wednesday, the day she was last seen at the library in Purcell, about 20 miles south of Oklahoma City. She was reported missing that night. “Jamie was in the apartment below us the whole time,” said Rose Fox, Jamie’s grandmother. “The only reason that he couldn’t move the body and hide it was because somebody was out there the whole time, either on the balcony smoking or standing in front of the apartment.

Behavior aroused suspicion
Authorities said they became suspicious of Underwood when he pulled up to a check point set up near the apartment complex two days after the girl was reported missing. “He was an occupant of a vehicle. He just wasn’t acting right,” said Oklahoma Highway Patrol trooper Kera Philippi. “From there, they talked to him and the FBI took him into questioning.” Underwood was being held Saturday in the McClain County Jail on a complaint of first-degree murder, a jail official said. The district attorney called Jamie’s killing one of the most “heinous and atrocious” crimes he’d seen in his career as a prosecutor. He said he planned to file first-degree murder charges against Underwood on Monday and would seek the death penalty. “This does not appear to be a spur-of-the-moment crime of opportunity but a well-thought-out, premeditated act with months of planning and preparation,” Kuykendall said.

No prior record
Tompkins said Underwood had no apparent criminal record. He also said it wasn’t known whether Underwood had a history of mental illness, but he expects mental competency to be an issue at trial. It was not immediately known whether Underwood had a lawyer. The manager of the apartment complex, Tim Bayer, told The Oklahoman that Underwood liked to stand outside his apartment and watch children play. He said Underwood didn’t have a car of his own and that he kept his apartment clean. Jamie lived upstairs in an apartment with her father, Curtis Bolin, an auto mechanic, her grandmother said. Jamie’s mother, Jenny, is a truck driver in Oklahoma City. The couple separated several years ago, Fox said. The family is distraught, especially the child’s father, who remained under sedation. His whole life revolved around Jamie, Fox said. “He didn’t go out and party. He didn’t drink or smoke. This has probably destroyed him.”


Vargas, Dorange
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. Nikolai Dzhurmongaliev has claimed to have killed between seven to 100 women, and served many of them to his dinner guests. Nikolai used at least 47 of his victims to make ethnic dishes for his neighbors in the Russian republic of Kyrgyzstan. When arrested, Nikolai pointed out that two women could provide enough delicate meat to keep him going for a week. Nikolai started his cannibal-killer career by bribing his way out of an insane asylum. He believed that women and prostitution were the root of all that was wrong in the world. According to Yuri Dubyagin, an officer of the Interior Ministry Colonel, Nikolai seemed "absolutely normal, but at one point got a taste for female meat." He describes Nikolai as having the brains of a "lone wolf" and being a very powerful man. "When we arrested him," said Dubyagin, "he hit me with the force of Jean Claude Van Damme."

Stay tuned for part II

As always, stay safe !!

Bird

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