Cannibal

Table of Contents Title PageCopyright PageDedicationAcknowledgements Chapter 1 – Preparations for DinnerChapter 2 – Armin’s ChildhoodChapter 3 – Armin’s Dominant MotherChapter 4 – Armin’s Life as a Young ManChapter 5 – The Impact of His Mother’s DeathChapter 6 – Looking for a Well-Built Man for SlaughterChapter 7 – The Slaughter RoomChapter 8 – Bernd, the MealChapter 9 – I Hope You’ll Find Me TastyChapter 10 – The Slaughter RoomChapter 11 – You Have My Word and My Permission to Kill MeChapter 12 – To Test the Limits of PainChapter 13 – Back from the StationChapter 14 – The CastrationChapter 15 – Bernd Continues to LiveChapter 16 – The Difficult PartChapter 17 – The Gein ConfigurationChapter 18 – The Biggest Kick in My LifeChapter 19 – I Hope I Won’t Be Lonely AnymoreChapter 20 – Bernd’s Absence Is NoticedChapter 21 – Looking for Another Slaughter BoyChapter 22 – Franky BoastsChapter 23 – Have You Eaten Human Flesh, Mr. Meiwes?Chapter 24 – Listen, I’m in TroubleChapter 25 – The Cannibal of RotenburgChapter 26 – No Signs of Psychiatric IllnessChapter 27 – A Complicated MatterChapter 28 – ManslaughterChapter 29 – AppealsChapter 30 – Maybe It’s Going to Happen AgainTHE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA Penguin Group (Canada), 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario M4V 3B2, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), cnr Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England CANNIBAL A Berkley Book / published by arrangement with the author PRINTING HISTORY Berkley mass-market edition / January 2005 Copyright © 2005 by Lois Jones All rights reserved.No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014. eISBN : 978-1-101-01049-5 BERKLEY® Berkley Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014. BERKLEY is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. The “B” design is a trademark belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.   This book is dedicated to Barnaby and my family for their love, support and belief in me.ACKNOWLEDGMENTSI would like to thank many for their help in creating this book. For their love and support, I thank Barnaby, my parents and Howard and Gayle. A special thanks goes to Clive for his eternal encouragement and daily cheer. I am also grateful to Flavia, Rachel, Lynne and Bartlin for their sound advice. For her careful attention to the manuscript, professionalism and positive words, I thank my editor, Allison McCabe. I am also grateful for the assistance provided by Frank Thonicke, HNA; Channel Four and Stern. All the names in this book are real. The events in this book are real, or as close to real as humanly possible. The story that follows is based on hours of research, interviews and first-person accounts of the participants.1Preparations for DinnerThe sun shone down on the half-timbered farmhouse, nestling in the rolling hills of central Germany. It was a Friday in March 2001, just before Easter.The birds were singing, welcoming in the spring. The picturesque hamlet was otherwise silent, apart from the sound of a tractor trundling through the nearby fields. Occasionally a car drove past the farmhouse and down the lane that led through Wüstefeld, a secluded area of Rotenburg an der Fulda in the German state of Hesse. Visitors were few to this country idyll on the edge of nowhere, and the thirty or so inhabitants liked it that way. Families from the six houses in the settlement knew one another’s business, or so they liked to think.The Brothers Grimm wrote many of their fairy tales in nearby Kassel, populating the thickly forested countryside around the farmhouse with dwarfs, goblins and witches. There is a museum in Kassel celebrating their work. Kassel’s highlights also include the Museum of Death, with its permanent collection of headstones, hearses and death-depicting sculptures.