Peter Davidson - Death by Cannibal: Minds with an Appetite for Murder

Jeffrey Dahmer never sent an e-mail. He never tweeted or shared his plans with anyone via the Internet. Neither did the fictional Hannibal Lecter. And neither did Russian cannibal killer Andrei Chikatilo, who killed fifty-three, mostly schoolgirls and young men, during a twelve-year spree of rape, murder, and cannibalism that lasted from 1978 until his capture in 1990. No one had an inkling, not even his wife. Chikatilo, a schoolteacher, seemed like an average Russianeducated, married with two children, and a lifelong member of the Communist Party.

The five men whose stories are told in the first edition of this book, Albert Fentress, Nathan Bar-Jonah, Gary Heidnik, John Weber, and Marc Sappington, didnt communicate their diabolical plans in chat rooms or anywhere else. What they did was driven by their compulsions and came out of their own twisted minds. But todays cannibal killers have websites to guide and validate them. They can swap recipes and techniques in chat rooms, and they can conspire with other like-minded fiends, which is what federal prosecutors said Gil Valle, a young New York City police officer, did.

The Internet is like atomic energyit can blow up the world or light up the world depending on different circumstances, said Fred Berlin, a sexual deviance researcher at Johns Hopkins who works as a forensic analyst for several law enforcement agencies.

Former FBI profiler Mary Ellen OToole agrees. Before the Internet, someone like Dahmer had no way to feed fantasies outside of [his] own imagination. If you are chatting and talking with someone who is on a site like you, and who validates your deviancy, you start to think, maybe Im not so bad.

Without the Internet, Armin Meinwes would never have met Bernd Juergen Brandes. Armin, a computer technician from Rotenburg in Germany, desperately wanted to eat a human being, while Bernd, an electrical engineer from Berlin, desperately wanted to be eaten. In Cannibal, author Lois Jones explores their darkest desires, and she details how and why the two men found each other on the Internet. Both men realized their fantasies in March 2001. Thats when Meinwes murdered Brandes. He chopped him into pieces and placed him inside his freezer, next to a pizza. Over the next few weeks, he defrosted and cooked parts of Brandes in olive oil and garlic, eventually consuming forty-four pounds of his flesh. Meinwes told detectives that he dined by candelight, his dinner table was set with his best silverware and dinnerware, and he drank a fine red wine. Brandess flesh, he said, tasted like pork.

And without the Internet no one would have heard of Gil Valle, a young New York City policeman dubbed the Cannibal Cop. His Internet communications led to his undoing when his newlywed wife read about his chats and e-mails on the computer they shared.

Valle never murdered or kidnapped anyone. He never even attempted an abduction. Nevertheless he was arrested. Lawmen believed they stopped him in the nick of time, while his lawyers claimed he was merely engaged in harmless fantasy. His story made headlines around the world, and has been added to this bookDeath by Cannibal: Criminals with an Appetite for Murderbecause he clearly had an appetite for murder. He was charged with conspiracy to kidnap and accessing a restricted law enforcement database to gather information about potential targets.

In Cannibal Killers: The History of Impossible Murders, author Moira Martingale wrote, Cannibalism runs like a blood-red thread through the tapestry of mankinds history. If she is correct, then I fear we are in for more Dahmers and Chikatilos, thanks to the Internet. And thanks to a popular song by rapper Kesha, a singer songwriter who has sold more than thirty-five million recordings worldwide.

In a song titled Cannibal, she sings these disturbing lyrics:

I eat boys up, breakfast and lunch

Then when Im thirsty, I drink their blood

Carnivore, animal, I am a Cannibal

In the first edition of this book, I recalled attending a conference in Sarasota, Florida, at which the renowned true-crime writer Ann Rule talked about working at a crisis hotline in Seattle, manning the phones in the wee hours of the morning to counsel men and women in distress. She wasnt alone in the office. A handsome young man was with her, offering her comforting words and suggestions to ease the despair of callers, too. They became friends.