Posted on 12/20/2002 4:41:14 PM PST by Frobenius
No evidence that accused cannibal had more than one victim
Police continue to dig up gardens at man's estate, say he had sought to meet other men through personal ads
By Michael Gavin
Police say extensive investigations have revealed no indication that a Hesse man alleged to have engaged in cannibalism had any collaborators, or more than one victim.
Investigators, who were removing walls in the man's home on Thursday, dismissed reports suggesting otherwise as “speculation“ by some sensation-seeking news media. Police have dug up much of the home's large garden since frozen body parts from a 42-year-old man, who is believed to have consented to his own murder after having joined in the severing and eating of his own penis, were removed from the suspect's country estate on Dec. 11.
Police have already found some remnants of the body buried outside the home, in the town of Rotenburg, some 30 kilometers (19 miles) southeast of Kassel.
The suspect, 41, was charged with murder last week after confessing to killing and mutilating the other man and then consuming parts of his body, all before a running video camera, police said. The gruesome ritual is believed to have occurred in early 2001, according to police, who changed their earlier estimate that the victim, an engineer from Berlin, had been killed in 2000. Police said they first turned their attention on the suspect, identified only as Armin M., a well-paid and apparently popular computer expert, after he placed an ad on a Web site seeking contact with another man sharing his interest in cannibalism. He also advertised in a gay magazine, police said.
Following the murder charge there was considerable media discussion as to whether the charge will hold up if, as Armin M. insists, his victim consented. But lawyers told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that it is unlawful to seriously injure a person in Germany even at their own request, and that in the case of the Rotenburg killing there would be little prospect of a reduced charge or sentence based on mitigating circumstances, as might be possible in a mercy killing, for example. While individuals can legally consent to be hurt, this exception is permissible only to a limited extent, one lawyer said, pointing out the clause in the German criminal code that injuring a person is unlawful “when the offense, despite the consent given, violates good morals.“ A death inflicted for purposes of cannibalism would certainly be classified in that category, said the lawyer, who asked not to be named.
The case took on an even more bizarre aspect this week when the newspaper Bild reported that as a child Armin M. was a frequent visitor to the neighboring home of the woman described in press reports two decades ago as “Germany's most Dec. 19 (more).
© Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 2002
And there the article ends. Is that a great teaser, or what?
I must admit that I have never been interested enough in these nutjobs to bother reading any long psychological studies of them- and I thought "Silence of the Lambs" was one of the WORST movies I ever saw.)
Too much suspense for me, so I had to go look it up. Any guesses as to what it is? Fill in the blank:
The case took on an even more bizarre aspect this week when the newspaper Bild reported that as a child Armin M. was a frequent visitor to the neighboring home of the woman described in press reports two decades ago as "Germany's most ________________...."
Just in case you get any unsolicited invitations to dinner....
I'm not up to speed on cannibals. Let's start with these five:
Bar-Jonah, homosexual; Dahmer, homosexual; Haarman, homosexual; Gein, victims exclusively women, but I'd guess asexual; Sagawa, heterosexual.
Well, that's a relief! Evidently it is regarded as immoral to kill someone and eat them, but hey, as long as you restrict yourself to severing his genitalia and only munching down on those, it's okey-dokey...
Married with six children. "Lived a life of unparalleled perversity. There was no known perversion which he did not practice and practice frequently."
-- Robert Jay Nash, Bloodletters and Bad Men.
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