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Mexican charged with gruesome killing

An aspiring writer who left a horror scene of body parts in his apartment was arraigned on Thursday on charges of murder and desecrating a corpse after he allegedly cut up and ate part of his girlfriend's body.

He refused to make a formal plea, saying: "I can't get my thoughts together right now."

Looking haunted, nervous and unsmiling, Jose Luis Calva -- better known in tabloids as Mexico City's "cannibal" -- had previously acknowledged to police that he killed his 32-year-old girlfriend, Alejandra Galeana.

Prosecutors say they believe he also killed and dismembered two other girlfriends.

"He killed her because he was high on cocaine," defense attorney Humberto Guerrero Plata said. "He didn't eat her, he just cut her body up."

Calva told police he cooked the flesh in order to feed it to neighborhood dogs, as a way to get rid of the body.

But city coroner Rodolfo Rojo has described how Calva carefully separated and de-boned Galeana's arm, sliced away the skin and fat, fried the flesh and seasoned it with lime juice -- not pains one usually takes with dogs.

Calva, 38, met his girlfriends -- several were single mothers and drug store attendants -- while passing himself off as a playwright, television personality, reporter, novelist, actor and poet.

"He had a super personality. He must have had a super personality, to charm me the way he did," recalled Veronica R., 40, a drugstore employee who said he read poetry to her when they dated in August.

The woman asked that her full last name not be used to protect her family.

Lead homicide prosecutor Gustavo Salas said Calva may have focused on drugstore attendants because he was looking for working women who were poor, uneducated or easily impressed.

He liked to dominate women, according to an acquaintance.

"He would say things like `Who told you you could talk?'" said the man, who requested anonymity.

Sadomasochistic literature and films were found in Calva's apartment, police said.
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