German cannibal sentenced to prison
KASSEL, Germany (AP) "” A German who confessed to killing, dismembering and eating another man who allegedly agreed to the arrangement over the Internet was convicted Friday of manslaughter and sentenced to 8 1/2 years in prison.
When his trial opened Dec. 3, Meiwes confessed in detail to killing Bernd Juergen Brandes, 43, in March 2001.
Uwe Zucchi, AP
Armin Meiwes, a 42-year-old computer expert, had no "base motives" in the crime, a state court ruled, sparing him a murder conviction.
Prosecutors had sought a life sentence, calling Meiwes a "human butcher" who acted simply to "satisfy a sexual impulse." They said they would appeal the verdict.
The defense argued that since the victim volunteered to be killed and eaten, the crime should be classified a mercy killing, which carries a five-year maximum penalty.
Before the verdict, Meiwes looked calm, chatting with his attorney and occasionally grinning for cameras allowed inside the courtroom. After the sentence was read, he shook his lawyer's hand and nodded curtly to the photographers.
Explaining the verdict, Presiding Judge Volker Muetze said Meiwes' intention was not evil but "the fulfillment of his fantasy."
His primary motive was "the wish to make another man part of himself," Muetze said. "Meiwes reached this bonding experience through the consumption of the flesh."
When his trial opened Dec. 3 in the central city of Kassel, Meiwes confessed in detail to killing Bernd Juergen Brandes, 43, in March 2001 at Meiwes' home in the town of Rotenburg.
Brandes traveled from Berlin in reply to an Internet advertisement seeking a young man for "slaughter and consumption." Meiwes testified that Brandes wanted to be stabbed to death after drinking a bottle of cold medicine to lose consciousness.
"Bernd came to me of his own free will to end his life," Meiwes said in his closing statement in court Monday. "For him, it was a nice death."
Still, he said he regretted the killing.
"I had my big kick and I don't need to do it again," he said. "I regret it all very much, but I can't undo it."
A grisly video he made of the act was shown to the court during a closed session.
A doctor testified that Brandes died from loss of blood and that the medication, along with a half-bottle of liquor and 20 sleeping pills he took beforehand, could not have lessened his pain.
Several experts have testified that Meiwes was fit to stand trial and was not mentally ill.
Police tracked down and arrested him in December 2002 after a student in Austria alerted them to a message Meiwes had posted on the Internet.
"If I hadn't been so stupid as to keep looking on the Internet, I would have taken my secret to the grave," Meiwes said in his closing statement.
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Jeffrey Dahmer
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer was born in 1960, he moved to Ohio with his family at age six and grew up in Bath, Ohio, which is near Akron. His parents were termed as "middle class." As a boy he was intelligent, but did not live up to his potential. Instead, he would disrupt class in a clownish way rather than pay attention to his school work.
Throughout much of his life, there were a few warning signs that something was terribly wrong with Jeffrey Dahmer.
In 1968, he was sexually molested by a neighbor boy in rural Bath Township. Unreported at the time, the childhood incident may have played a pivitol role in understanding Dahmer's subsequent crimes. At 10, Dahmer was "experimenting" with dead animals, decapitating rodents, bleaching chicken bones with acid, nailing a dog's carcass to a tree and mounting its severed head on a stake.
At 18, Jeffrey witnessed the bitter divorce of his parents and lived with his mother in Bath Township, Ohio. But one day his mother disappeared with Jeff's younger brother, leaving Jeffrey with nothing. Often Dahmer attempted to sedate himself with alcohol to hide the pain and hurt. "He was a gentle person, but when he got drunk it would take four policemen to hold him down," said Shari Dahmer. Just a small insight into the intense rage Dahmer could erupt into.
Had it not been for Tracey Edwards, a young black man who successfully escaped Dahmer's clutches, who knows how many more men could have become victims of Dahmer's.
When Edwards saw the police he was relieved, yet incoherant. The naked man, with a handcuff dangling from his wrist, tried to explain to the officers that a man was trying to kill him. So ended the reign of terror of Jeffrey Dahmer. Though story was only beginning to unfold.
Edwards told police of how Dahmer had leaned over Edwards who had begun to feel the effects of the drugs and whispered to him, "I'm going to cut your heart out". He then loving placed his head on Edwards' chest and continued: "I can hear it beating now. Soon it will be mine". Edwards did not stay to find out if Dahmer was serious, he fought him off and left the apartment.
After Dahmer's capture, the Milwaukee police found three dissolving bodies in blue 55-gallon acid vats in his bedroom filled with rotting torsos. In the freezer he had a heart stashed "to eat later." Skulls stripped of hair and skin, stashed on the shelves and in the fridge. A pail full of hacked off hands. A torso in the kitchen sink ripped open from the neck to groin. A jar containing a pickled penis, a severed penis lying on the sink. Another severed penis in a lobster pot in the fridge. when officers found in Dahmer's apartment a butcher knife and some Polaroid's of men in homosexual activity. Some of the pictures were also of dead men. In many of the pictures, the corpses had been dismembered and mutilated in other ways. As Officer Mueller looked around the room, he realized the pictures had taken place in that very room.
All in all, Dahmer had killed 17 men his first kill was in 1978.
On June 18, 1978 Stephen Hicks had planned to meet friends after a rock concert but was never seen alive again after meeting Dahmer instead.
Dahmer tells police the chain of events. "In the early evening around nine p.m. I was driving down the Cleveland Masculine road, towards the mall area, when I saw a guy 'bout 18 years old near the fire dept. hitch-hiking." Dahmer invited Hicks back to his house for beer. Steven accepted the offer but when it came time for Hicks to leave Dahmer became a different person. "I didn't want him to leave, that's basically it. I just didn't want him to leave, that's why this whole nightmare began."
Dahmer used a barbell to beat the man before strangling him. Dahmer then stripped the corpse down to bone. After pulverising them with a sledgehammer he threw the bones into the bushland behind his Grandmother's home. The rest was buried in a shallow grave under his grandmother's home.
After Dahmer's capture police were led back to his grandmother's house where tests proved that blood and teeth found under the house had belonged to the young man.
For nine years Dahmer was able to control his urges to kill. However once they were again unleashed he would go on to kill sixteen more young men. During Dahmer's killing hiatus he was charged with many offences including assault of a young boy, indecent exposure, disorderly conduct and drunken behaviour. Alcohol was the reason he was discharged from the army.
Soon he began working at a chocolate factory in Milwaukee. Dahmer's homosexuality was difficult for him to understand but he soon found some gay bars around the area, but he kept pretty much to himself. On the rare occasions he would spark up a conversation with fellow drinkers, he would often spike their drinks with drugs, merely for experimental purposes.
Dahmer was unable to control his homicidal nature and began his killings.
On September 15, 1987, Dahmer met Stephen Tuomi at gay bay Club 219. After some chit-chat the two retired to an adjoining hotel for sex. Dahmer recalls little of the events of the evening though he woke the next morning, Tuomi was dead, he had been strangled, and blood was coming from his mouth.
Dahmer panicked, he knew he had to get rid of the body, he went out and bought a large suitcase and shoved Tuomi's dead body into it. Dahmer took it home to his flat in his grandmother's basement, where he dismembered the corpse and put it out for the garbage collectors in plastic bags.
The mystery of Stephen Tuomi's disappearance remained unsolved until Dahmer confessed to his murder in 1991.
In January 1988, Dahmer picked up James E. Doxtator in West Allis. Doxtator is enticed by Jeffrey's offer. Little did he know that same afternoon he would become the third victim of Jeffrey Dahmer.
On 24 March 1988, Jeffrey Dahmer meets Richard Guerrero and takes him back to his grandmother's house. There Guerrero is murdered, raped, photographed and dismembered. His corpse then dissolved in the acid vat.
By September 1988, Jeffrey's odd hours and the stench of his "experiments" had become too much for his grandmother, and Dahmer was asked to move out. On September 25, he found an apartment on Milwaukee's North 25th Street.
On September 26, 1988 Dahmer met 13 year old boy by the name Sinthasomphone, Dahmer lured him to his new apartment and drugged him. The boy escaped and Dahmer was charged with indecent assault and enticing a child for immoral purposes.
In 1989 Jeffrey visit's a gay bar called "La Cage." At closing time outside the bar he is approached by a man called Anthony Sears. Anthony's friend Jeffrey Connor offers to drive the men to Jeffrey's grandmothers house. They are dropped of at the corner of 56th street, in Lincoln, in West Allis. Anthony Sears is never seen again, but his skull, scalp and penis are found in Jeffrey Dahmer's apartment when he is arrested over two years later.
In June 1990, Dahmer is on the prowl once again. Victim number six is Raymond Smith. Dahmer drugged the man and strangles him. He later raped the corpse and dismembered the body A painted skull discovered two years later is that of Smith.
Edward Smith meets Dahmer on 14 June 1990, at a bar called "The Phoenix Bar." The two men start talking and find they have alot in common. The men then adjourn to Dahmer's apartment. Once inside they engage in sexual activity and it's then that Edward is killed. No traces of Edwards body have ever been found.
September 3, 1990 after not killing for three months Dahmer picked up Ernest Miller, a young black man, from outside of a bookstore. Back at Dahmer's apartment the men had sex and sat and had a drink, Miller's was laced with the sedative as usual. Dahmer's urged to kill boiled over into a frenzied attack. Instead of the usual strangulation, Dahmer's slit the man's throat. He wanted to keep the man's skeleton, so Jeffrey cut most of the flesh from the bones, and dissolved the rest in the acid vats before bleaching the skeleton in acid. He had also kept the biceps in the freezer.
In 1991 police responded to a neighbours call who discovered a 14-year-old Asian boy, Konerak Sinthasomphone, bleeding and naked who had escaped from Dahmer. This incident was ignored by police who called it "a homosexual lovers spat". Dahmer met Konerak Sinthasomphone on the twenty seventh of may 1991, he accepted Dahmer's offer of money. He posed for photo's in his underwear and was killed soon after. Parts of his body were keep and used by Dahmer at a later date.
Three weeks later, Jeffrey meets David Thomas he is enticed by Jeffrey's offer and goes back to his apartment. Once there Dahmer kills him and photographs the body in different states of dismemberment. He is identified by his sister by the photographs that were taken.
A month later on June 30 Jeffrey goes to a gay pride parade in Chicago and meets Matt Turner. He invites him to come back with him to Milwaukee. Once there they engage in sex and Turner is strangled after being drugged. His head and internal organs were found in Jeffrey's freezer his headless torso was also in the apartment.
One week later Dahmer meets Jeremiah Weinberger on July 7. They met in a gay bar called "Carol's Gay Bar" from there both men travel back to Milwaukee and start to live together as a couple, until Jeffrey decides to kill him on the fourth day. His head was in Jeffrey's freezer at the time of his arrest and his body was found next to Turners.
At 4p.m. on 18 February 1991, Another victim meets Jeffrey Dahmer is Curtis Straughter. He is murdered with Jeffrey's leather belt. Dahmer keeps the skull, hands and genitals from this victim. He is later identified by dental records.
On April the 7th 1991, Jeffrey Dahmer meets Errol Lindsey outside the same bookstore that he previously met Ernest Miller. He decides to go with Jeffrey to his apartment. Once there he is drugged, raped and dismembered. Jeffrey decides to keep Errol's skin this is found after his arrest. He is identified from dental records.
Tony Huges was the next victim of Jeffrey Dahmer. The men met at a gay club called the "219 Club". Tony was born deaf and dumb, but communicated with Dahmer by writing with him and also lip reading. Back at his apartment he was drugged, strangled and died sometime shortly after. His corpse lay on the ground for three days. Before Jeffrey went to work on him. He was to be identified by dental records.
The smell in the apartment was becoming unbearable, tenants in the other units began to complain.
On July 15, 1991 Oliver Lacy was picked up by Jeffrey Dahmer, the 24 year old was drugged and strangled. Dahmer had anal sex with the man's corpse.
The 19th of July, 1991 saw Dahmer pick up out-of-work Joseph Bradeholt. He willingly posed for photographs for money and joined Dahmer in oral sex in the apartment. But the game had only begun, Dahmer again drugged his victim, before strangling him. Bradeholt was then dismembered, his head joined the other three now occupying the freezer and the rest added to the putrefying vats of acid.
Dahmer's luck now ran out. The final intended victim was Tracy Edwards, through the haze of drugs fed to him in the drink from Dahmer, he was able to escape and alerted the police to the atrocities in Dahmer's apartment
Dahmer's time was up.
A plea of guilty by insanity was rejected by the court and on January 27, 1992 Dahmer was sentenced to fifteen life sentences.
Jeffrey Dahmer was killed in Columbia Correctional Institution, Portage, Wisconsin on November 28, 1994. He had been beaten to death by Christopher Scarver, a convicted killer on antipsychotic medication, Scarver -- who claimed to be Christ because he was a carpenter and his mother's name was Mary -- killed the cannibal along with another inmate, convicted wife killer Jesse Anderson, with a bar from a piece of exercise equipment. It had only been the second time during Dahmer's sentence that he had been able to associate with other inmates. The previous excursion also resulted in Dahmer being seriously injured. He knew he would be killed in jail.
What Dahmer did was sick I guess but he was very easy to talk to and a very bright, pleasant guy.
Long before his last arrest, I stopped him as did almost 120 plus other officers over time had done for a field interview in an area frequented by homosexual men along Jackson Park Drive (5100 block west).
You'd never known what he was really about.
I was on the fringes of the final investigation as were many Milwaukee LEOs.
At the time of his arrest and all the time afterwards until he was off to prison, he was a real gentlemen and easy to get along with in a one on one conversation.
I and Static once told VC1111 about the arrest and the arresting Officers while we were turkey hunting. I thought VC would pee his pants laughing. I can only imagine how horrible it must be for the family member to lose a love one that way but if people knew the entire story, the charactors and how it unfolded they laught their butts off.
I guess that's the way life is at times.
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Now you have to picture a combination of PeeWEE Herman and Wally Cox but with less muscle tone, trying to be intimidating None of this is funny! Message edited by Cougar Mag -- 1/7/2005 1:16:42 AM >/b]