To the family next door, Armin Meiwes seemed the perfect
neighbour. He mowed their lawn, repaired their car and even invited
them round for dinner.
Other residents in the small German town of Rotenburg also believed
there was nothing odd about the 42-year-old computer expert, whose
light burned late into the night inside his creaking mansion.
Yesterday, however, Meiwes appeared in court charged with killing -
and then frying and eating - another man.
In one of the most extraordinary trials in German criminal history,
the self-confessed cannibal admitted that he had met a 43-year-old
Berlin engineer, Bernd Brandes, after advertising on the internet,
and had chopped him up and eaten him.
It was, he said, something he had wanted to do for a long time. "I
always had the fantasy and in the end I fulfilled it," Meiwes told
the court on the first day of his trial for murder in the nearby
city of Kassel.
Yesterday German prosecutors described how Meiwes had fantasised
about killing and devouring someone, including his classmates, from
the age of eight.
The desire grew stronger after the death of his mother in 1999,
prosecutor Marcus Köhler said.
In March 2001 Meiwes advertised on the internet for a "young
well-built man, who wanted to be eaten". Brandes replied.
On the evening of March 9, the two men went up to the bedroom in
Meiwes' rambling timbered farmhouse. Mr Brandes swallowed 20
sleeping tablets and half a bottle of schnapps before
Meiwes cut off Brandes' penis, with his
agreement, and fried it for both of them to
eat...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/dec/04/germany.lukeharding