Cannibalism - #14: The Heart

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TRANSCRIPT OF EPISODE: Cannibalism (munching) “could you eat a whole human being? (munching) With the help of a doctor, a scientist and a chef, I set out to see if it’s possible. Cannibalism: part fourteen – the heart”. (burp)

Of all the organs in our body, the heart is the one a cannibal is most likely to devour. But why?

2014, Jeffersonville, Indiana, Joseph Oberhansley (who had recently been released from prison for the shooting of his mother and the murder of his-ex lover) broke into the home of his ex-girlfriend Tammy Jo Blanton; he stabbed her, brutally raped her, and dismembered her body using power tools. Having opened her chest with an electrical saw, he removed her heart, and ate it, having cooked it in a skillet.

As far back as the Ancient Greeks, philosophers like Plato & Aristotle saw the heart as our main organ, a brain which controlled our emotions. And although with a greater knowledge of chemicals, science has relegated it to being little more than a blood pump, we still associate the heart with life and love.

Said to be the size of a fist, its role is to keep oxygen-rich blood pumping through the body. Situated between the lungs and to the left of the sternum, the heart is the first organ to develop with it beating just 35 days after the foetus’ gestation, and when we die, it’s the last organ to fail. So vital is the heart that it requires 570 pounds of force to break enough ribs to endanger the heart, and during autopsies, pathologists require a specialized rib-cutter called a costotome to gain access to the thoracic cavity.

Made up of two atriums, two ventricles and four valves (tricuspid, pulmonary, mitral and aortic), every day the heart beats 115,000 times, it pumps 2000 gallons of blood, it generates enough energy to power an electric car for 21 miles, and across a lifetime, that’s the equivalent to driving to the moon and back.

It’s an incredibly powerful muscle, and the most efficient in the human body, and yet, with its symbolic shape actually being two hearts combined, not one, even to cannibals, it epitomises life and love.

Brazilian serial killer Pedro Rodrigues Filho alias ‘Lil Pedro Killer’ was convicted of 71 murders, but his most horrific he committed in his teens. While in prison, he hacked apart his father with a machete in revenge for killing his mother, smashed open his chest, ripped out his beating heart, and ate it cold.

For a cannibal, the heart symbolises possession, as by digesting it, they dominate the victim. It’s a powerful muscle, and yet it doesn’t make a substantial meal, as weighing just 300 grams in Steve, our average UK male, although high in vitamin B and Iron, as a comparatively thin muscle which looks bigger when it’s filled with blood, at just 650 calories, it could barely sustain a cannibal for breakfast.

When serial-boaster Jeffrey Dahmer claimed he ate a man’s heart, he said ‘it tasted spongy’, but being made of atria, ventricles, valves, arteries and veins, that could have been because it’s a surprisingly difficult organ to eat without a little preparation, as the Pericardial fat and sinew must be trimmed first. And even though a tumour is rare in a heart as when we reach adulthood those cells stop dividing, with a fifth of all deaths due to heart disease, the valves have to be rinsed of that waxy gloop called cholesterol.

In 1970, hippie Stanley Dean Baker shot dead a man, hacked his body into six pieces and supposedly ate his heart. But having not prepared it for cooking, and being high on LSD, he couldn’t recall tugging on its stringy veins, or sucking on the ooze spewing from the valves like a partially melted candle. Nice.

But once prepared, a heart – which is “rich and robust with a deep, meaty taste” owing to the iron in the blood – can either be thinly sliced and flash-fried, as being a tough fibrous meat a heart is best stewed at a low heat (140c) over several hours, or stuffed with sage, stuffing, bacon and roasted.

Only it’s unlikely a cannibal would have the patience to eat a human heart with the delicacy it deserves by serving it as a fine accompaniment to a gourmet dinner, as the eating of a heart is about passion.

South Africa, 2014, in a strange tale of love, Andrew Chimboza stabbed to death his love rival. He said “I sat upon him, stabbed him on the chest, tore out his heart, sliced it and then I ate it”. When asked why, he said “to show him that I am not a moffie”, in short, he wanted to prove he wasn’t gay.

Which is odd as with the eating a heart being symbolic of love, me thinks he doth protest too much.

For some cannibals, like notorious Liberian warlord Joshua Blahyi and Joseph Marzah, head of the President's militia, their soldiers were ordered to commit cannibalism to absorb their enemy’s power.

And yet the same could not be said about Farman & Arif Ali, the graverobbing curry-making cannibals of Pakistan. Dr Fawad Kaiser of the International Association of Forensic Criminologists said “cutting up the meat is sexually exciting and plays a part in elaborating their fantasy… it makes them feel all-powerful… this gives them godly feelings of narcissism. It provides a rush of excitement… and because each cut increases these feelings, it is usual to find fragments of the corpse around. The procedure is thrilling and satisfying. It fills a void for someone who is solitary” and gives them a sense of being loved.

It's tragic, but regardless of where a cannibal lives, with us all mistakenly still believing that the heart is the centre of our emotions, it’s one of the most likely organs to be eaten, especially by a loner.

Join me tomorrow for organ that a cannibal should pop into a nice pie, but wouldn’t… the kidneys.