Cannibal Armin Meiwes
In 2001, Armin Meiwes from Germany posted an advert on the cannibalism fetish website ‘The Cannibal Cafe’ looking for “a well-built 18 to 30-year-old to be slaughtered and then consumed.” Many people replied to the advert but all of them got cold-feet apart from Bernd Jürgen Armando Brande. Throughout his childhood, Meiwes fantasized that if he were to eat someone, they would be with him forever so he would never be lonely again.
The video tape Meiwes made of himself dismembering Brande is stomach-churning to say the least. Meiwes amputated the victim’s penis and they both attempted to eat but it was “too chewy”. Brande then took twenty sleeping pills to kill himself but this was not a success and he slowly bled out from the amputation. Meiwes murdered Brande by slicing his throat and consumed the remains over a period of 10 months. He was sentenced to life imprisonment after stating to a psychiatrist that his fantasies of devouring people had not subsided
Armin Meiwes (born December 1, 1961) is a German man who achieved international notoriety for killing and eating a voluntary victim that he had found via the Internet. After Meiwes and the victim jointly attempted to eat the victim's severed penis, Meiwes killed his victim and proceeded to eat a large amount of his flesh.
Because of his deeds, Meiwes is also known as the "Rotenburg Cannibal" or "Der Metzgermeister" (The Master Butcher). Since entering prison, Meiwes has become a vegetarian and has joined a prisoners' group favoring Green Party politics.
Killing and cannibalism
Looking for a willing victim, Meiwes posted an advertisement at a website, The Cannibal Cafe, whose disclaimer mentions the distinction between reality and fantasy. Meiwes's post stated that he was "looking for a well-built 18 to 30-year-old to be slaughtered and then consumed".
Bernd Jürgen Brandes answered the advertisement. Many other people responded to the advertisement, but many backed out and none were forced to do anything they didn't want to do by Meiwes. Meiwes is openly bisexual, as was Brandes.
As is known from a videotape the two made when they met on March 9, 2001 in Meiwes' home in the small village of Rotenburg, Meiwes amputated Brandes' penis and the two men attempted to eat the penis together before Brandes was killed. Brandes had insisted that Meiwes attempt to bite his penis off. This did not work, though Meiwes was able to burst both of Brandes' testicles by biting them. Ultimately, Meiwes used a knife to remove Brandes' penis. Brandes apparently tried to eat some of his own penis raw, but could not because it was too tough and, as he put it, "chewy". Meiwes then sautéed the penis in a pan with salt, pepper, and garlic, but by then it was too burned to be consumed. He then chopped it up into chunks and fed it to his dog.
According to journalists who saw the video (which has not been made public), Brandes may already have been too weakened from blood loss to actually eat any of his penis. Meiwes read a Star Trek book for three hours whilst his voluntary victim was bleeding to death in the bath. Meiwes apparently gave him large quantities of alcohol and pain killers, 30 sleeping pills and a bottle of schnapps, finally, he kissed him once and killed him in a room that he had built in his house for this purpose, The Slaughter Room.
After stabbing Brandes to death in the throat, he hung the body on a meathook and tore hunks of flesh from it; he even tried to grind the bones to use as flour. The whole scene was recorded on the two-hour video tape. Meiwes ate the body over the next 10 months, storing body parts in his freezer under pizza boxes and consuming up to 20 kg of the flesh.
Arrest, trial, and conviction of manslaughter
Meiwes was arrested in December 2002, after a college student in Innsbruck phoned the police after seeing new advertisements for victims and details about the killing on the Internet. Investigators searched his home and found body parts and the videotaped killing.
On January 30, 2004, Meiwes was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to eight and a half years in prison. The case attracted considerable media attention and led to a debate over whether Meiwes could be convicted at all, given that Bernd Jürgen Brandes had voluntarily and knowingly participated in the act; there were also complications as cannibalism itself was not illegal in Germany at the time.
Meiwes has admitted what he has done, and expressed regret for his actions. He added he wanted to write a book of his life story with the aim of deterring anyone who wants to follow his steps. Websites dedicated to Meiwes have appeared, with people advertising for willing victims. "They should go for treatment, so it doesn't escalate like it did with me," said Meiwes. He believes there are about 800 "cannibals" in Germany.
Retrial and murder conviction
In April 2005, a German court ordered a retrial after prosecutors appealed his sentence. They believed he should have been convicted of murder, not manslaughter, and given a life sentence. Among the questions courts answered is whether Brandes agreed to his killing, and whether he was legally capable of doing so at the moment of killing, taking into account his apparent mental problems as well as his significant intake of alcohol and other drugs.
Other aspects of the retrial determined whether Meiwes killed to satiate his own desires (in particular sexual desires), and not because he was asked to, which Meiwes has repeatedly rejected during testimony. At his retrial a psychologist stated that Meiwes could reoffend and still "had fantasies about devouring the flesh of young people." On May 10th 2006, a court in Frankfurt convicted Meiwes of murder and sentenced him to life imprisonment.
Consultant in criminal cases
According to a report by the Bild-Zeitung from October 2007, Meiwes was reportedly helpful in the analysis of two suspected cannibal murders from 1998 and 2000, in which two young boys were found horribly mutilated, possibly by the same murderer, fulfilling much the same role as the fictional cannibal murderer Hannibal Lecter.
Biography
Armin Meiwes has become known as the real-life Hannibal Lecter after it was revealed that he had killed and eaten Bernd-Jürgen Brandes, who had volunteered himself as victim after answering a message on a cannibalism website. Meiwes cut off Brandes' penis and the two ate it together before Brandes slowly bled to death. He was eventually killed by Meiwes, who dismembered him and ate parts of his flesh over the following ten months.
Born in the German town of Kassel, computer technician Meiwes led a very lonely childhood. His father was a stern man who was largely disinterested in his son. When the marriage broke up, when Meiwes was only eight, he abandoned the family, never to contact them again. He later told the court during the murder trial that Meiwes had been a well-behaved little boy but had been obsessed with the story of Hansel and Gretel, in particular the chapter about fattening up Hansel to cook and eat him.
When Meiwes' father left, it fell to his mother to become the dominant parent, who would often admonish him in public and insisted in accompanying him everywhere. Meiwes, lacking a father figure, created an imaginary brother called Franky through whom he vented his first cannibalistic thoughts, as Franky would 'listen' to Meiwes, something his mother never did.
At age 12 Meiwes began to fantasise about eating his friends so that they would become part of him and stay with him forever, a desperate solution for a very lonely and misunderstood only child.
In 1999 Meiwes' mother died and left him the family's large mansion house in Amstetten. Totally alone for the first time in his life, without the demands of his controlling mother, he reportedly constructed a shrine to her in the house, complete with a plastic mannequin that he would lay on a pillow each night.
After his mother's death he also developed an interest in internet pornography, particularly that featuring torture and pain, and through these internet sites Meiwes found his way into his first chat rooms about cannibalism.
The Crimes
In 2000 Meiwes posted a message saying, “I am looking for a young, well-built man aged 18 to 30 to slaughter”. Several men responded, one of which was a man called Borg Jose who was about to become Meiwes' first victim. While laid out on his table preparing to be butchered, Jose complained of feeling ill and asked to be released, which Meiwes obliged.
The final man to reply to Meiwes' internet message was Bernd-Jürgen Brandes. Brandes was a 43-year-old bisexual engineer, who wrote to Meiwes on 14 February 2001 saying that he would agree to be eaten. They exchanged various lurid emails, discussing the best way in which he should be eaten and his body used afterwards. Brandes even suggested his skull could be used as an ashtray.
On 9 March 2001, Brandes went to Meiwes' home in Amstetten and after having sex, Brandes swallowed numerous sleeping pills, a bottle of Vicks cough medicine and some schnapps before Meiwes amputated his penis for the pair to eat together. Brandes tried to eat a piece of the penis raw but it was apparently too “chewy” and so Meiwes proceeded to fry it with a little garlic and pepper but burned it, meaning that neither of them was able to consume the dismembered part.
Losing large amounts of blood from the injury, Brandes lay bleeding to death in the bath over the next three hours, while Meiwes read a Star Trek book. Ten hours later, Brandes was still alive, so Meiwes stabbed him several times in the neck to put an end to his pain, and his life. Meiwes woud later explain: “My friend enjoyed dying, death. I only waited horrified for the end after doing the deed. It took so terribly long.”
Then the cannibalism began. Meiwes hung Brandes' lifeless body on a meat-hook and proceeded to cut the flesh into sizeable chunks and grind the bones into flour. He dismembered the entire body so that he could store the parts in his freezer, which he proceeded to eat over the following 10 months.
The entire process of Brandes' penis amputation and subsequent death had been recorded on videotape by the pair and would later be used as evidence against Meiwes.
The Arrest
By November 2002 Meiwes had nearly finished his supply of Brandes' frozen flesh and posted another message for a victim on the internet. It was seen by an Austrian student who reported it to local authorities. On 11 December 2002 police raided Meiwes house and found 15lbs of Brandes' flesh under pizza boxes in his freezer, as well as the video of the killing.
Meiwes reportedly admitted to what he had done almost straight after his arrest in December 2002. It took police seven months to put together a case, after going through Meiwes' computer to trace evidence of his correspondence over the previous few years. They found thousands of images of torture and pornography and on 17 July 2003 he was charged with murder.
The Trial
On 30 January 2004, Meiwes was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to eight and a half years in prison.
The case attracted considerable media attention and started a debate over whether Meiwes could be convicted at all, due to the fact that Brandes had voluntarily taken part in the cannibalism and had entered Meiwes' house fully aware of his intentions. It also proved problematic for German lawyers who discovered that cannibalism is in fact legal in Germany and subsequently charged Meiwes with murder for the purposes of sexual pleasure and with 'disturbing the peace of the dead'.
At the trial, 19 minutes of the video showing key moments of the crime was shown to the court, after reporters and the public were removed.
Only a year later, in April 2005, a German court ordered that there should be a retrial, after prosecutors appealed Meiwes' sentence as being too lenient. Their argument was that he should have been convicted of murder, not manslaughter, and been given a life sentence.
The retrial began on 12 January 2006, where prosecutors questioned the actual reasoning for Brandes’ killing as being a way to satisfy Meiwes' own sexual desires, rather than obliging Brandes his request. They also brought to light the fact that Brandes was not capable of making any decisions on the evening of 9 March, as he had consumed significant amounts of alcohol and drugs to numb the pain of his penis amputation.
On 10 May 2006, a court in Frankfurt convicted Meiwes of murder and changed his initial eight and a half year sentence to life imprisonment.
The Aftermath
According to a report in October 2007, by German newspaper Bild-Zeitung, Meiwes was helping investigators in the analysis of two suspected cannibal murders from 1998 and 2000, in which two young boys were found horribly mutilated, possibly by the same murderer.
Upon entering prison Meiwes became a vegetarian, worked in the prison library and joined a prisoners' group which stands for Green Party politics.
Meiwes has also rejected substantial offers from film companies and publishers to bring his story to the big screen and has instead assigned the global rights to his story to Stampf’s Hamburg-based company, Stampfwerk, for no charge, on the condition it gives an accurate account of his case.
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