A Berlin court on Friday found a former teacher guilty of murdering a man and cutting up his body as part of a cannibal fantasy after meeting him online, sentencing him to life in prison.
Presiding judge Matthias Schertz said that Stefan R. carried out the crime “to realize his cannibalistic fantasies,” describing it as “inhuman.”
In 30 years as a judge, “nothing like this has come across my desk before,” he said.
The defendant, who was also convicted of desecrating a corpse, remained silent and expressionless as the verdict was read out in court.
Prosecutors said that 42-year-old, who has been identified only as Stefan R. in keeping with German privacy rules, made contact with the victim via a dating app before luring him to his home.
Once there, the victim was sedated with drugs before his throat was slit and his genitalia cut off to be eaten, prosecutors said.
The corpse was then cut into pieces and scattered across the northeastern Pankow district of Berlin.
The case first came to light in November 2020, after human bones were found in a park in the neighborhood.
Police identified the remains as those of 43-year-old missing Berliner Stefan T.
Through the victim’s telephone records, investigators were led to Stefan R.’s address, where they found traces of blood, more remains and a set of suspicious work tools.
Stefan R.’s lawyers had said that the victim died of natural causes in his home, and he had cut up and disposed of the body because he was afraid of people finding out about his homosexuality.
However, judge Schertz said this version of events was “unbelievable from start to finish,” noting the “very careful separation of testicles and penis” as evidence of a cannibalistic ritual.
The case is reminiscent of that of Detlev Guenzel, a former German police officer convicted of murdering a willing victim he met on a Web site for cannibalism fetishists and chopping him up in an S&M chamber.
Guenzel, 58, had cut the body into small pieces in a slaughter chamber he built in his cellar before burying them in his garden. There was no evidence that he ate any part of his victim.
In another case that shocked Germany, Armin Meiwes, nicknamed the “cannibal of Rotenburg,” was sentenced to life in prison in 2006 for killing and partially consuming a willing victim.
Far from the violence ravaging Haiti, a market on the border with the Dominican Republic has maintained a welcome degree of normal everyday life. At the Dajabon border gate, a wave of Haitians press forward, eager to shop at the twice-weekly market about 200km from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. They are drawn by the market’s offerings — food, clothing, toys and even used appliances — items not always readily available in Haiti. However, with gang violence bad and growing ever worse in Haiti, the Dominican government has reinforced the usual military presence at the border and placed soldiers on alert. While the market continues to
An image of a dancer balancing on the words “China Before Communism” looms over Parisian commuters catching the morning metro, signaling the annual return of Shen Yun, a controversial spectacle of traditional Chinese dance mixed with vehement criticism of Beijing and conservative rhetoric. The Shen Yun Performing Arts company has slipped the beliefs of a spiritual movement called Falun Gong in between its technicolored visuals and leaping dancers since 2006, with advertising for the show so ubiquitous that it has become an Internet meme. Founded in 1992, Falun Gong claims nearly 100 million followers and has been subject to “persistent persecution” in
ONLINE VITRIOL: While Mo Yan faces a lawsuit, bottled water company Nongfu Spring and Tsinghua University are being attacked amid a rise in nationalist fervor At first glance, a Nobel prize winning author, a bottle of green tea and Beijing’s Tsinghua University have little in common, but in recent weeks they have been dubbed by China’s nationalist netizens as the “three new evils” in the fight to defend the country’s valor in cyberspace. Last month, a patriotic blogger called Wu Wanzheng filed a lawsuit against China’s only Nobel prize-winning author, Mo Yan (莫言), accusing him of discrediting the Communist army and glorifying Japanese soldiers in his fictional works set during the Japanese invasion of China. Wu, who posts online under the pseudonym “Truth-Telling Mao Xinghuo,” is seeking
‘SURPRISES’: The militants claim to have successfully tested a missile capable of reaching Mach 8 and vowed to strike ships heading toward the Cape of Good Hope Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim to have a new, hypersonic missile in their arsenal, Russia’s state media reported on Thursday, potentially raising the stakes in their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways against the backdrop of Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The report by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited an unidentified official, but provided no evidence for the claim. It comes as Moscow maintains an aggressively counter-Western foreign policy amid its grinding war on Ukraine. However, the Houthis have for weeks hinted about “surprises” they plan for the battles at sea to counter the