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."
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