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On 26th May 2012, Rudy Eugene (31) viciously attacked and began to eat and digest the face of homeless man Ronald Poppo (65) by the side of the MacArthur Causeway in Miami, Florida. The incident was caught on The Miami Herald's security camera which witnessed both men, naked and bloody, thrashing around on the floor, until Eugene was shot and killed by the Police. Having survived, Poppo has received facial surgery and counselling. See the video here.
March 2001, Armin Meiwes of Essen* (Germany) posted an online advert requesting a young man for him to kill and eat. Amazingly, Bernd Jürgen Brandes replied, met with Armin, offered himself up, died by being stabbed in the neck and was chopped up and served with garlic and olive oil. In total, Armin ate 20kgs of Brandes' flesh, having frozen the remainder to eat later. In 2004, Armin was convicted of manslaughter but in a 2006 retrial was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. Watch a full documentary here. *Oddly, "Essen" in German means "food" or is also the verb meaning "to eat".
In 2009, chef David Viens murdered his wife (Dawn), slow-cooked her corpse in a 55 gallon drum over four days at his restaurant - The Thyme Contemporary Cafe near Long Beach - he then "...let her cool, I strained it out", ate some of her flesh and then dumped her remains of her corpse in the bin. Watch a full documentary here.
On the evening of 30th July 2008, 22 year old Canadian Tim McLean was asleep on a Greyhound bus near Manitoba, when the man sitting next to him - Vincent Li - an untreated schizophrenic, repeatedly stabbed McLean with a large knife in the neck and chest, beheaded his victim and began to devouring some of McLean's flesh. Now known as Will Baker, Li was found not guilty on the grounds of diminished responsibility, was granted an absolute discharge and currently lives at home, under minor medical supervision. Watch new clip here.
July 2002, three men and one woman, all resident of Zhytomir in west of Kiev (Ukraine) were arrested for killing and cannibalising an eighteen year old girl, having lured her to a forest on the outskirts of town. Black magic book's were found at the couples flat and this murder is believed to be part of a satanic ritual. Read more here.
In February 2004, 39 year old paranoid schizophrenic Peter Bryan walked out of a psychiatric unit in Newham (East London) and visited his friend Brian Cherry. A few hours later, Police were alerted by neighbours to screams coming from the flat, and as they entered the kitchen, they discovered Bryan frying Cherry's brain in a pan with a small knob of butter. Read more about Peter Bryan here.
In July 2013, Police in Salerno (Italy) were alerted by neighbours to a foul odour emanating from the flat of 45 year old Lino Renzi; inside they found him cooking some intestine chunks on the grill, which belonged to his 73 year old mother - Maria Pia Guariglia. She'd been beaten to death, chopped up with a saw and a butcher's knife, and popped into various pots or bagged and placed in the fridge for further meals. Read more.
April 2011, in Darya Khan (in the Punjab Province, Pakistan), two brothers Farman & Arif Ali were arrested for grave-robbing and cannibalism and served two years in prison. Upon release, they were re-arrested just a few months later when Police caught them in their kitchen making a curry out of a human corpse... this time, a two year old child. Although their relatives deny this, there's a BBC interview here.
8th October 2008, the Mexican Police (FPP) attempted to arrest Jose Luis Calva Zepeda for the suspected disappearance of his girlfriend - Alejandra Galeana - but upon entering his home, they found him eating a bowl of human flesh which he'd seasoned with lemon. On further inspection, various parts of Alejandra's dismembered corpse were found in the refrigerator, in a frying pan and some of her bones (gnawed clean) were found in a cereal box. Read more in this Newsweek article.
In May 2009, in Bakersfield (California), PCP "Angel Dust" addict Angelo Mendoza Senior was charged with torture, child cruelty and inflicting an injury to a child having eaten his 4 year old son’s left eye and attempted to eat the other. Upon his arrest, his son - Angelo Mendoza Junior - stated to the Police, “my daddy ate my eyes”. Mendoza Snr was found guilty by reason of insanity and Mendoza Jnr has regained some sight. Read more.
On 13th April 2012, Tokyo-based activist and artist - Mao Sugiyama - cut off his nipples and genitals as part of a stunt to promote gender equality and asexuality, and served his testicles and penis at a public event, which were served with button mushrooms and parsley. 70 people turned up but only 5 people ate his genitals. They'd each paid 100,000 Yen. Read more.
Other incidents of cannibalism include South Korea's Yoo Young-Chul aka The Raincoat Killer, rap artist "Big Lurch", Indian child serial-killer Surinder Koli, Turkish serial-killer Özgür Dengiz, Russian serial killer Alexander Bychkov, and Chinese serial killer Zhang Yongming. As well as a few instances where couples and friends have eaten each others face off, including Florida's Austin Harrouff and South Wales' Matthew Williams.
If you "enjoyed" this blog post, why not take a peek at my other articles: such as serial killers and their diets, favourite drinks, height, IQ, star signs, lunar cycles, dates of birth, reasons for killing, music, nicknames, last meals and whether they're alive or dead... to name but a few.
Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, podcaster, crime historian and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten curious, quirky, unusual and different things to do in London” and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totalling 75 deaths, over just a one mile walk.
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'Cleaning of the Corpses' festival - In Rantepao, on the remote highland island in Sulawesi (Indonesia) death isn’t seen as the end of a life, but the beginning of a long journey in which the relatives honour the dead by keeping the mummified remains of the recently deceased in their homes, for weeks, months and even years after their death. Upon death being established, the corpses are injected with Formalin (a mixture of formaldehyde and water) to ensure that the body doesn’t putrefy, but will slowly mummify over time. During this period of tribute, the dead are routinely washed, fed, dressed and celebrated, with – in some houses – relatives taking it in turn to converse, entertain and share a bedroom with their deceased relative, as it considered disrespectful to leave a dead relative alone before their burial. Read this great article from National Geographic here or better still watch this video.
‘Frozen Dead Guy Day’ - In 1993, Trygve Bauge transported the corpse of his recently deceased grandfather - Bredo Morstoel – to the leafy, snow-covered town of Nederland, Colorado, having previously shipped him all the way from Norway, packed in ice. Unfortunately before his homemade cryogenic facility could be finished, Trygve was deported, leaving Aud (Bredo’s daughter) caring for her frozen father in a shed. The local authorities made plans for a proper “burial” of Bredo – as Section 7-34 of the municipal code prohibits the keeping of "the whole or any part of the person… upon any property", but following local interest in the news reports, an exemption to the code was created, and Bredo’s cryogenic chamber was completed with public donations.
Annually, Frozen Dead Guy Day takes place on the first full weekend in March, including tours of Bredo’s frosty resting place, coffin races, slow-motion parades, polar plunges, dances, and “Frozen Dead Guy” look-a-like contests, screenings of the documentary “Grandpa’s in the Tuff Shed”and even a special “Frozen Dead Guy” ice-cream in his honour, made with blue ice, fruit, crushed Oreo cookies and sour gummy worms. Join the festival here or take the tour.
Post-Mortem Photography - In Victorian England (as well as Iceland, and Syria), following the invention of the daguerreotype (an early form of photography where the image would be processed onto sheets of copper), it became fashionable to commemorate the dead by recreating naturalistically styled portraits, with the recently deceased, depicted as either asleep, sitting or sometime standing alongside the living, in poses which seemed almost lifelike. Although morbid by today’s standards, this practice was seen as high status as well as a last chance to see the deceased in a way they’d prefer to remember them. It proved incredibly popular in the early 1800’s, but with the development of photographic techniques and the life expectancy of children and mothers (owing to the control of measles, diphtheria, scarlet fever and rubella) steadily increasing, it fell out of favour. Examples of post-mortem photography can be seen here on this BBC News article, or there's a slideshow.
Endocannibalism - Also known as the “feast of the dead”, endocannibalism is a death ritual by which the recently deceased are consumed by the living, either as a final act of remembrance, to aid the transference of the deceased’s spirit, knowledge and energy into those who are left behind, or simple, as a meal. Although no longer practiced, evidence of endocannibalism has been found in many indigenous cultures including the Amahuaca Indians (Peru) who drank the crushed bones of their relatives as a form of gruel, and the Wari’ (Western Brazil) who consumed the entire corpse. If you were offered a piece of their dead relative to eat, it would be considered highly offensive to reject it.
Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten quirky & unusual things to do in London” and featuring 18 murderers, 3 serial killers, across 21 locations, totalling 75 deaths, over just a one mile walk.
  Once, London had a train line that was so special you could only reserve a ticket by paying the "ultimate price", you could only ride it if you were dead, and - if you were one of the chosen few - you could only make one trip, in one direction, from Waterloo... to your final resting place. It was called The Necropolis Railway and it was London's very own railway of death. With the ever-expanding city of London's space in short supply, with burial plots being brought at a premium and mortuaries fit to bursting with a backlog of bodies stacking up, following the Cholera outbreak of 1856 (as recounted in my affectionately titled blog - "the man who stopped Soho eating its own poo") as well as smallpox, measles, typhoid and the numerous plague epidemics (in 1343, 1593, 1665-6, 1673 and 1692, to name but a few) which decimated the population by as much as a sixth, London needed somewhere to bury its dead. Surely they could simply have built another Central London cemetery? Unfortunately not. In 1851, the Burials Acts (an Act to Amend the Laws Concerning the Burial of the Dead in the Metropolis) was passed. Previously to accommodate the growing city, new burial plots were created by excavating old graves and scattering the decomposing remains to free up space, the effect of which exacerbated the cholera, plague and typhoid outbreaks. Therefore, under the Burials Act, new graves were prohibited in any built up areas of London. Upon completion of the stylish, spacious but "not exactly local" Brookwood Cemetery in Surrey, Sir Richard Broun and Richard Sprye strived to find a way to make this new site accessible, popular and profitable, whilst also treating the recently deceased with a sense of style, class and occasion but - more importantly- keeping the corpses at a safe distance given the city's current queasiness over the many communicable diseases associated with death. Keen to make the most of the latest innovation in modern engineering - steam trains - The London Necropolis Railway was established, its aim to build a train station, train track and terminus dedicated solely for the transporting of the dearly departed (complete with coffin, flowers and grieving relatives). Two temporary stations were opened at Brookwood; the 'South Station' for Anglican burials and (in a truly "Christian" move) the 'North Station' for all "other religions", with London's main 'Necropolis Station' opening in 13 November 1854, sited in Waterloo. Unfortunately these stations no longer exist, although both the South & North stations were cheerfully used up until the 1940's as refreshment kiosks. in the late 19th century, to cope with demand and following the rapid expansion of Waterloo Station, The Necropolis was resited in an especially designed building on Westminster Bridge Road, complete with waiting rooms, a chapel for funeral services, lifts to raises the coffins up to the platform, and (in the railway arches) a mortuary to store the bodies. Although its popularity waned in the early 20th century (as London and it's populous expanded further beyond the city limits, with new towns springing up and transport to and from the city became quicker, cheaper and easier) an yet during its operation 'The Necropolis Railway' transported over 200,000 Londoner's to their last resting places. But it wasn't until 16th April 1941, when a bombing raid by the German Luftwaffe decimated the Waterloo terminus, that 'The Necropolis Railway' ceased. The last recorded funeral to be carried on 'The Necropolis Railway' was of the Chelsea Pensioner Edward Irish on 11th April 1941, and on the 11th May 1941, the London Necropolis Railway was closed. Although the vast majority of the Necropolis (below/right, as architecturally splendid as it was) is now dead and buried, the only parts of 'The Necropolis' which still exists are the railway arches and its side entrance (seen below/left), situated at 188 Westminster Bridge Road. Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten quirky & unusual things to do in London” and featuring 18 murderers, 3 serial killers, across 21 locations, totalling 75 deaths, over just a one mile walk.
If you love true-crime podcasts, subscribe to the Murder Mile true-crime podcast on iTunes, Soundcloud, Podbean, Pocketcast, Stitcher, Acast, Tune-In, Otto Radio or Libsyn
What are the last words, at the very moment of the execution, of some of the world's most notorious serial killers and murderers? And why is what they've said, so important? Well, most of us will never be given the opportunity to plan, write and rehearse our final words, at best we'll be able to mutter "ouch", "f**k" or "what bus?", so reading the final words of a person whose final moment is fast approaching, gives you a startling insight into their lives, loves, fears and regrets. I've chosen fifty for your absorbing; some are silly, some are sad, some are alluringly profound, but all are the actual final words of a murderer or serial killer.
If you'd like to read up further articles such as unusual last meal requests on Death Row, the most likely day job for a serial killer, most likely name for a mass murderer, or even what is a serial killer's favourite drink, as well as a wealth of others? Click on the links marked in red.
Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten quirky & unusual things to do in London” and featuring 18 murderers, 3 serial killers, across 21 locations, totalling 75 deaths, over just a one mile walk.
If you love true-crime podcasts, subscribe to the Murder Mile true-crime podcast on iTunes, Soundcloud, Podbean, Pocketcast, Stitcher, Acast, Tune-In, Otto Radio or Libsyn
Nutraload - a standard prison meal for veggies
It is said that every condemned person deserves a last meal when they are on Death Row, ready to walk the last mile. But, if your next meal was to be your last, what would you eat? Maybe you'd go all posh and ask for caviar, champagne and a fine cigar? Perhaps you'd push the chef to his/her limits and opt for a odd little din-dins like a deep-fried panda snout? Oddly, when given the choice, most death row inmates don't.
With the vast majority of Death Row inmates coming from impoverished families, they are more likely to ask for comfort food, a simple home-cooked request which brings back fond memories from their childhood, of a time when life was good and memories were fond. They include:
#1 - Aileen Wuornos - prostitute and serial killer of seven men in "self defence", executed in 2001, and her last request was "a simple cup of black coffee". #2 - Allen Lee Davis - robbery and three counts of murder, executed in 1999, ask for "lobster tail, fried potatoes, 1/2lb of shrimp, 6oz fried clams, 1/2 loaf of garlic bread and 1ltr of root beer". #3 - Angel Nieves Diaz - murder, kidnapping and armed robbery, executed in 2006, declined a last meal, was served a standard prison meal, but declined that too. #4 - Gerald Lee Mitchell - robbery, drug-dealing and murder, executed in 2001, his last meal was a bag of Jolly Rancher (hard, fruit-flavoured, boiled sweets). #5 - John Wayne Gacy - serial murderer and killer clown, executed 1994, ordered "12 deep-fried shrimp, a big bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken's original recipe chicken (he used to run a KFC), with French fries and a pound of strawberries". #6 - Karla Faye Tucker - double murder, executed in 1998, asked for "a garden salad with Ranch style dressing, a banana and a peach". #7 - Mark Dean Schwab - kidnapping, sexual assault and murder, executed in 2008, had a plate of "bacon, sausage, fried eggs, hash browns, with buttered toast and chocolate milk". #8 - Ricky Ray Rector - double murder, executed in 1992, asked for "steak, fried chicken, a cherry Kool-Aid and a pecan pie" but he did not eat the pie as he was "saving it for later". #9 - Ronnie Threadgill - murder, executed in 2013, requested "baked chicken, mashed potato, country gravy, vegetables, sweet peas, bread, tea, water and punch". But because Texas abolished Death Row inmates getting a choice of last meal in 2011, he was given the same meal as every other inmates. (Why was this abolished? Find out at the end) #10 - Stephen Anderson - burglary, assault, prison escape and 7 counts of murder, ate "2 grilled cheese sandwiches, 1 pint of cottage cheese, pecan pie, chocolate chip ice cream and radishes" #11 - Ted Bundy - serial-killer, executed in 1989, declined a final meal so was given a standard final meal of medium rare steak, over-easy eggs, hash browns, toast, milk, coffee, juice and a bowl of jelly, none of which he ate. #12 - Teresa Lewis - double murder and conspiracy, executed in 2010, ate "two fried chicken breasts, buttered beans, chocolate cake and a can of Dr Pepper" (because as the slogan says "what's the worst that can happen?") #13 - Timothy McVeigh - "The Oklahoma Bomber", executed in 2001, asked and ate "two tubs of chocolate & mint ice-cream" #14 - Velma Barfield - murder, died in 1984, her last meal was "a bag of Cheez Doodles and a can of Coca-Cola". #15 - Victor Feguer - kidnapping and murder, executed in 1963, as his final meal he asked for "a single olive with the pit still in it". #16 - Gary Heinik - double murder, executed in 1999, his last meal was "two slices of cheese pizza, and two cups of coffee" for himself. #17 - Ronnie Lee Gardner - two counts of murder, executed by firing squad in 2010 (yes, 2010), asked for "a lobster tail, a steak, and an apple pie with vanilla ice cream, to be eaten while watching The Lord of The Rings trilogy". Other, slightly unusual "last meal" requests include:
If you "enjoyed" this blog post, take a peek at other intreguing topics such as; Killer Couples Part 1 & Part 2, Life, Death & Whole Life Sentences, Famous British Serial Killers - Where Are They Now? Serial Killers & Murderers Who Were Never Caught, London's Deadliest & Often Forgotten Disasters, KIllers Born During a Full Moon, Killer's Birthdays / Star Signs, Serial Killers Who Were On TV, Celebrities Who Have Killed, London's Railway of Death, Serial Killers as Kids and the World's Weirdest Death Rituals
Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten quirky & unusual things to do in London” and featuring 12 murderers, 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totalling 75 deaths, over just a one mile walk.
  Switch on your television, pop on the radio, or open any newspaper, and you’ll be confronted with a plethora of horrifying images of war, murder, genocide, death, disease and terrorist atrocities, many of which are abroad, some of which occur in your own country, and a few even happen “just down the road”. Which begs the question – “how safe am I?” Well, safer than you think. According to the Office of National Statistics, the odds on a western citizen being involved in a terrorist attack is 1:20,000,000 (one in twenty million), the odds of being murdered is 1:400,000 (one in four hundred thousand), and the chance you’ll be a serial killer’s next victim is 1:98,000,000 (one in ninety-eight million), with the odds of winning the national lottery being 1:14,000,000 - I know which one I'd prefer. In 2015, in the United Kingdom, roughly 300 people (out of a population of 64 million) were murdered, a figure that year-on-year is steadily falling, with the vast majority of murders not being premeditated, often involving alcohol or drugs, and – if you are a sex-worker - you are forty-two times more likely to be killed than anyone else. So, how safe are you? Well, very safe. With these odds, you might live forever, just as long as you don’t go outside, go to work, take a shower, drink any water, eat any food, or breathe any air… the result of which will kill you. Life is a very dangerous pursuit, by simply being awake we take our lives in our hands. But how dangerous is life? Very… if you’re not careful. What follows is a list of statistics on the most likely ways that the average human being will die (which I hope will dispel any ridiculous notions that, just because the news is full of horrible stories, that we should all “stay in, to stay safe”). The top three are of course: #1 - 1:3 Odds on dying from cancer, diabetes or heart/lung-disease #2 - 1:4 Odds on dying by hereditary illness, communicable disease or bad nutrition #3 - Odds increased by an additional 1:10 of dying by #1 is you smoke tobacco All of which we can do something about, but – more often than not – we choose not to. To be honest there’s a wealth of unremarkable ways (courtesy of the National Safety Council) that the average person dies every year, and almost all of them are entirely preventable:
With, as we’ve seen, the top three odds being 1:28 Stroke, 1:7 Cancer and 1:6 Heart Disease. But that’s not the complete list. Of course there’s Malaria which kills 800,000 people per year, natural phenomenons (tornadoes, tsunamis, volcanoes, etc) which kill 150,000 each year, as well as:
But even that doesn’t cover the really dangerous pursuits in life, including: snowboarding with the odds on dying being 1:2million, skiing 1:1.4m, swimming 1:1m, running 1:1m, bungee-jumping 1:500,000, cycling 1:140,000, sky-diving 1:100,000, scuba-diving 1:34000, boxing 1:2200, hand-gliding 1:560, Grand Prix racing 1:100, and base-jumping 1:60. And neither does it cover some of the real oddities, such as: death by computer game 1:100million, death by nuclear explosion 1:10million, drowning in your own bath 1:685,000, an earthquake 153,587, an accident at work 1:43500, and… having a dinner party, the odds of you dying is 1:100,000 (including alcohol/food poisoning, accident, electrocution and drowning). So, how safe are you, really? As safe as you want to be. But you’ll be no safer, sitting inside your own home, watching the news, and worrying about all the horrible things which could – but probably won’t – kill you. Instead... book a ticket to Murder Mile Walks. Hoorah! Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten quirky & unusual things to do in London” and featuring 18 murderers, 3 serial killers, across 21 locations, totalling 75 deaths, over just a one mile walk.
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AuthorMichael J Buchanan-Dunne is a crime writer, podcaster of Murder Mile UK True Crime and creator of true-crime TV series. 
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