Cannibalism - #21: The Inedibles

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

Hair is indigestible, bones are tricky to absorb, many organs require preparation, and several body parts are too toxic for anyone to swallow. But what about the bits which (it is said) are inedible?

2021, Russia, in the car boot of Yegor Komarov ‘The Murino Cannibal’ a headless body was found with its throat ripped out, surrounded by teeth marks. But as the throat contains several tough structures like the pharynx, the larynx and the hyoid bone, not only would swallowing it have risked ripping apart his own throat from within, although the thyroid is seen as a sweetbread, eaten raw and unprepared, he risked thyrotoxicosis, a violent hormone storm to the system which risks heart failure, and death.

And that’s the problem, there’s a lot of myths and misinformation about what can be eaten and can’t.

Teeth. With tooth enamel being the hardest part of a human, many assume that Coca-Cola is a good way to dissolve teeth given enough time, and it is, but so does any drink containing citric acid, worst of which is Pepsi, who some say originated this anti-Coca-Cola myth as a cunning piece of propaganda.

With a pH level of 1.5, stomach acid can dissolve teeth hence why our mouths produce saliva. If swallowed, teeth easily pass through the GI Tract, and although more than 2.5 grams of calcium a day can be toxic, with 32 teeth weighing 1 gram each, a cannibal could safely digest a set of gnashers in 13 days. Or, if they didn’t want to risk having their arsehole bitten from within, just buy a can of Pepsi.

2023, at an 18-acre farm called Fox Hollow in Indiana, investigators found 10,000 fragments of human remains of at least 11 gay men, 8 were positively identified by bone fragments, skulls and their teeth, as from the 80s to 90s, Herbert Baumeister, the Happy Face killer was also said to be the I-70 Strangler.

But that’s what’s so baffling about serial-killers and cannibals, they’re so fixated on sating their sexual needs, power struggles and daddy-issues, when it comes to disposing of bodies, they lack diligence.

Nails, like hair (and the hooves and horns of animals) is also made of keratin and can’t be digested, but salt (known as sodium chloride) strips keratin from hair. Or given that 30% of all people bite their nails, a cannibal could rip out a set – as when moisture dissipates from the body, the cuticle becomes weak – and nibble, as 99% of its DNA will be destroyed by stomach acid. Or they could just burn it and save a CSI from having to identify a body by a bit of fingernail by wading through a cannibal’s nightsoil.

2016, Lonnie Franklin Jr, known as the ‘Grim Sleeper’ of Los Angeles was convicted of murdering 10 prostitutes. As a garbage collector, he shot, strangled and tossed them in dumpsters, with the nails of one victim leading to his arrest. And again, lacking empathy and seeing these women only as a meal, sex or a souvenir, serial killers often get caught as they’re too focussed on feeding their cruel addiction.

Tendons. With roughly 4000 tendons in the body, stretching 300+ metres (as tall as the Eiffel Tower) - with some as long as a leg, others barely visible to the naked eye and buried 1mm to 9mm deep into muscles and organs - many are impossible to remove. But larger tendons like the Achilles, being rich in collagen, 100 grams provides roughly 22 grams of protein and about 70 calories. Sadly, as tendons are tough and chewy, they require slow cooking over 10 hours before they can be sliced and served.

Other bits, which are probably too complicated for a serial-killer’s pea-sized brain or lack of patience is the spine (which is meaty, fatty and contains 2900 calories), but it requires skill to extract, the central nervous system is expansive being 45 miles long and although our blood vessels stretch 60,000 miles, when ‘The Murino Cannibal’ bit into a throat, he winged “I didn’t like the taste of his veins".  

With some parts of the human body inedible, indigestible and in many cases seemingly indestructible, this is why (laziness aside) many serial killers and cannibals use chemicals to dissolve a body. John George Haigh, the acid bath murderer’s issue was patience, as when sulphuric acid is kept boiling it can dissolve flesh in 40 minutes and bones in 9 hours, but being left at room-temperature, sulphuric struggles to dissolve flesh in 52 hours and bones in 28 days. His issue, of many, was he didn’t let it boil.

2012, Germany, in vats of hydrochloric acid, bone fragments and a green fatty gloop was identified as two men who had been murdered three years earlier. An accomplice was sentenced to 30 months for aiding the disposal, but an unnamed Dutch family were acquitted as (although there was no denying that the barrels contained bodies) murder couldn’t be proven, even though the bodies hadn’t dissolved fully as hydrochloric & sulphuric acids struggle to dissolve the hydrogen atoms in fatty tissue.

As Santiago Meza Lopez, ‘The Pozole Maker’ discovered, even having chopped up and stewed his 300+ victims in barrels of boiling lye, although sodium hydroxide is more effective at destroying flesh than hydrochloric and sulphuric acid, the only chemical which can dissolve fat is acetone or gasoline.

Inspired by Breaking Bad, Thomas Gotthard, a priest from Denmark crammed his lover’s body into a 208-litre barrel of 45 litres hydrochloric acid and 6kg of caustic soda. Having partially dissolved her body, then was forced to remove her remains, cut her up further, burn and rebury her, but still her charred remains contained enough DNA to convict him.

Whereas in the TV series itself, Walter White uses hydrofluoric acid, which dissolves skin fast, but – as Stefano Brizzi found out when he tried to dissolve the body of PC Gordon Semple in South London – it takes several days to destroy muscle, bone and sinew, it leaves great globules of fat, and the resulting gas was so noxious, that the neighbours (and ultimately the police) were alerted.  
Other options include nitric acid, which dissolves the fibres hydrochloric can’t, and deoxycholic acid, which can destroy fat cells, and is widely used by plastic surgeons to remove jowls and double chins.

As discussed, even cremulators, the furnaces used in crematoriums have to work at incredibly high temperatures to destroy all parts of a human body, but a company called Bio-Response in Indiana has developed a fast and environmentally friendly machine which can liquify a body in just 4 to 6 hours.

Mimicking a stomach, it constantly washes and churns the corpse in hot pH-neutral water, and instead of acid, it uses hydrogen to dissolve the molecules at a chemical level. What remains are the bones, which go into a cremulator to be pulverised, but everything else ends up as a brown coffee-like water which is safe enough to dispose of down the sink, and the whole process only costs $500 more than a standard cremation.

Join me tomorrow as we explore whether a true cannibal has a disorder, and wannabes don’t.