He sold everything he owned, including his treasured sports car, wiped his computer hard drive and bought a one-way ticket to Kassel, near Frankfurt.Īrmin met him off the train, they bought painkillers at a chemist shop and headed back to the house.Īt first Brandes got cold feet and wanted to return to Berlin, Meiwes said. Not butchery, dining! Whoever REALLY wants to do it will need a REAL VICTIM!" The two started swapping increasingly explicit e-mails and on March 9th 2001, Brandes took a day off work, never to return. He wrote: "I offer myself to you and will let you dine from my live body. He even posted a personal ad on the Internet: "Seeking well-built man, 18-30 years old for slaughter." Among the many hoax replies was one that sounded genuine, from Bernd Brandes, a 42-year-old micro-electronics engineer with Siemens in Berlin. His mother dead, he let loose the fantasies he first had in school of eating his fellow classmates. For the next year, he lived alone in the huge 44-room family home, passing his free time reading everything, from his huge collection of Donald Duck comics to biographies of famous serial killers.
He lived with his mother until she died of cancer in 1999 when he was 37 years old. It was Germany's introduction to Armin Meiwes, a 41-year-old computer expert and former soldier from the town of Rotenburg near Frankfurt. The second twist is that the two men filmed everything: Bernd saying on camera that he wanted to be slaughtered and devoured and Armin subsequently carrying out the bloody last request.Ĭhristmas came early for Germany's tabloids last year when, 12 days before the big day, they found their story of the year: "CANNIBAL ATE UP BERLINER!" hollered the front page of Bild, Germany's best-selling tabloid. The first twist is Wednesday's murder trial without a body Armin Meiwes ate Bernd Brandes two years ago and buried the bones in the garden.
Their story has more violent twists and tragicomic turns than a film script - think Psycho meets The Odd Couple - but it is all true. Two years ago they made each other's dreams come true and next Wednesday Meiwes goes on trial for murder. Armin Meiwes dreamed of killing and eating someone, while Bernd Brandes dreamed of being killed and eaten by someone. Once upon a time there were two German men who shared a dream. Next week's murder trial of Armin Meiwes will hear of the grisly and bizarre pact between a cannibal and his apparently willing victim.
0 kommentar(er)
