Detectives investigating the sensational trial of the self-confessed German cannibal Armin Meiwes revealed on Monday that two other people in Europe may have been eaten.
New evidence in the trial of Meiwes, 42, accused of killing and eating a man he met on the Internet, shed light on a global network that links maneaters from Austria to America, the police told the court.
Meiwes looked relaxed and confident as he listened to the gruesome evidence.
Inspector Isolde Stock said that Meiwes' e-mail correspondence with members of "cannibal forums" would fill two lorries if it were printed out.
"We downloaded over 3,000 pictures of gay and heterosexual sex, torture scenes and violence from Meiwes' computer and two PCs," she said.
"There were also lots of pictures of naked men he had contact with, although many of these seem to have been erased."
Meiwes was arrested after killing and eating Bernd-Jurgen Brandes in 2001, who the defence claim went willingly to his death.
The two men met on the Internet after Meiwes advertised for a "young well-built man who wants to be eaten."
Two naked pictures of Brandes taken from Meiwes' computer have been submitted as evidence against him.
Meiwes estimates that there are at least 800 active participants in cannibal forums, and says he was in contact with at least 400 of them.
Experts say the real number is probably much higher.
"There are several hundred people with cannibalistic tendencies in Germany alone, and many thousands around the world," said Rudolf Egg, a criminologist in the German central criminal service.
Only a tiny proportion of those entering cannibal chat-rooms were willing to follow through and meet in real life. Meiwes met only four men.
The police said that Meiwes' willing cooperation had helped shed light on the murky world of online cannibals, and his case was not an isolated one.
It was revealed yesterday that Meiwes had been questioned as part of the investigation of two more deaths, in Frankfurt, Germany, and in Austria. He has not been charged with these murders.
Meiwes was in regular contact with people in Switzerland, Austria and America, including Dirk Moeller, a British-based hotel worker who travelled to Germany to meet him and spent an evening at his house in Rotenburg playing sexually charged role games, but left unharmed.
The judge read out selections of Meiwes' e-mail conversations with Jorg, another correspondent, describing their sexual and cannibalistic fantasies.
"Did you kill any young men over the holidays?" Jorg asked in January last year.
"It was the only thing I didn't do over the holidays. Do you think I have slipped out, that I want to kill a young man and eat him?" Meiwes replied.
"No, there is nothing sexier than to be killed like a pig," replied Jorg.
To satisfy another correspondent, whose fantasy was to be killed and eaten by a woman, Meiwes set up a new e-mail account and pretended to be a woman.
Even couples were attracted to the cannibal forum. Meiwes and Brandes discussed the pros and cons of eating female flesh compared with male, after a couple using the alias Hansel & Gretel began writing to Meiwes.
They also joked that cannibalism would be a solution to overpopulation problems in south-east Asia and China
Egg told the court: "Cannibalism has always been around, but the Internet reinforces the phenomenon. You can be in contact with the whole world and do this anonymously. Many people have these fantasies, but few act on them."
For serious cannibals, this can be frustrating.
"There are a lot of people out there who are interested," Meiwes told Brandes mournfully in an e-mail. "But only a few really mean it."
Packed crowds in India celebrating their cricket team’s victory ended in a deadly stampede on Wednesday, with 11 mainly young fans crushed to death, the local state’s chief minister said. Joyous cricket fans had come out to celebrate and welcome home their heroes, Royal Challengers Bengaluru, after they beat Punjab Kings in a roller-coaster Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket final on Tuesday night. However, the euphoria of the vast crowds in the southern tech city of Bengaluru ended in disaster, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra calling it “absolutely heartrending.” Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said most of the deceased are young, with 11 dead
By 2027, Denmark would relocate its foreign convicts to a prison in Kosovo under a 200-million-euro (US$228.6 million) agreement that has raised concerns among non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and residents, but which could serve as a model for the rest of the EU. The agreement, reached in 2022 and ratified by Kosovar lawmakers last year, provides for the reception of up to 300 foreign prisoners sentenced in Denmark. They must not have been convicted of terrorism or war crimes, or have a mental condition or terminal disease. Once their sentence is completed in Kosovan, they would be deported to their home country. In
DENIAL: Musk said that the ‘New York Times was lying their ass off,’ after it reported he used so much drugs that he developed bladder problems Elon Musk on Saturday denied a report that he used ketamine and other drugs extensively last year on the US presidential campaign trail. The New York Times on Friday reported that the billionaire adviser to US President Donald Trump used so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that he developed bladder problems. The newspaper said the world’s richest person also took ecstasy and mushrooms, and traveled with a pill box last year, adding that it was not known whether Musk also took drugs while heading the so-called US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after Trump took power in January. In a
LOST CONTACT: The mission carried payloads from Japan, the US and Taiwan’s National Central University, including a deep space radiation probe, ispace said Japanese company ispace said its uncrewed moon lander likely crashed onto the moon’s surface during its lunar touchdown attempt yesterday, marking another failure two years after its unsuccessful inaugural mission. Tokyo-based ispace had hoped to join US firms Intuitive Machines and Firefly Aerospace as companies that have accomplished commercial landings amid a global race for the moon, which includes state-run missions from China and India. A successful mission would have made ispace the first company outside the US to achieve a moon landing. Resilience, ispace’s second lunar lander, could not decelerate fast enough as it approached the moon, and the company has