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Scary; 15 Infamous Cannibals in History

The gruesome tales of cannibals await as you enter the murky reaches of human history, where the boundaries between horror and truth are hazy. These mysterious entities have always piqued people’s interest since they dared to embrace the unimaginable by partaking in the ultimate taboo: eating the flesh of other people.

The world has experienced the worst reaches of human nature, from timeless stories to horrifying contemporary accounts. As we explore the terrifying tales of 15 notorious cannibals, where the lines between sanity and savagery intersect in a macabre dance of the senses, brace yourself for a thrilling adventure.

1. Sawney Bean – Scotland

Sawney Bean.jpg , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Alexander “Sawney” Bean reputedly commanded a 45-member tribe in Scotland around the 16th century that slaughtered and consumed around 1,000 people in 25 years. A search squad sent by King James VI purportedly hunted out Bean and his clan members, and they were hung for their heinous crimes.

The story appeared in the Newgate Calendar, a criminal directory produced by London’s Newgate Prison. Despite disagreements regarding why the legend was established and a lack of historical proof, the story of “Sawney” Bean has infiltrated local culture and the Edinburgh tourism sector.

2. Albert Fish – United States

Hamilton Howard “Albert” Fish was an American serial murderer, rapist, child molester, and cannibal who killed at least three children between July 1924 and June 1928. Fish was born on May 19, 1870, and died on January 16, 1936. He was also referred to as The Boogey Man, The Brooklyn Vampire, The Moon Maniac, The Gray Man, and The Werewolf of Wysteria.

Throughout his life, Fish was a suspect in at least five homicides. He admitted to stabbing at least two other persons in addition to confessing to three killings that the police were able to link to a previous homicide. Fish once bragged that he “had children in every state” and claimed he had taken the lives of roughly 100 people.

On December 13, 1934, Fish was discovered and placed on trial for the kidnapping and murder of Grace Budd. At the age of 65, he was found guilty and put to death by an electric chair on January 16, 1936.

3. Armin Meiwes – Germany

Armin Meiwes, a German who had worked as a computer repair specialist, gained notoriety after devouring and killing a willing victim in 2001 who he had located online.

Meiwes killed his victim and then devoured a substantial portion of his flesh after the victim and Meiwes attempted to eat the victim’s severed penis together. His arrest took place in December 2002. Meiwes received eight years and six months in jail term after being found guilty of manslaughter in January 2004.

He was found guilty of murder and given a life sentence in a May 2006 retrial. Meiwes is also referred to as the Rotenburg Cannibal or Der Metzgermeister (Master Butcher) as a result of his deeds.

4. Andrei Chikatilo – Russia

Between 1978 and 1990, in the Russian SFSR, the Ukrainian SSR, and the Uzbek SSR, Andrei Romanovich Chikatilo, also known as The Butcher of Rostov, The Rostov Ripper, and The Red Ripper, sexually assaulted, murdered, and dismembered at least fifty-two women and children.

Chikatilo was prosecuted for 53 of the murders for which he had admitted responsibility in April 1992. In spite of the fact that the Supreme Court of Russia declared in 1993 that there wasn’t enough evidence to establish his culpability in nine of these crimes, he was found guilty and given the death penalty for fifty-two of these slayings in October 1992. In February 1994, a bullet killed Chikatilo.

Chikatilo was dubbed the “Rostov Ripper” and the “Butcher of Rostov” because the majority of his murders took place in the Rostov Oblast of the Russian SFSR.

5. Issei Sagawa – Japan

Issei Sagawa, also known as Pang or The Kobe Cannibal, was a Japanese assassin, cannibal, and necrophiliac who is infamous for the 1981 murder of Renée Hartevelt in Â鶹APP. He lived from 26 April 1949 until 24 November 2022.

Sagawa killed Hartevelt, then spent several days dismembering, cannibalizing, and engaging in necrophilia on her body. After two years of pretrial confinement, Sagawa was controversially released unconditionally after being arrested and deported to Japan due to the relevant rules and the manner his case was handled in the French and Japanese courts. Due to Sagawa’s post-release fame in Japan, there was widespread media coverage.

6. Jeffrey Dahmer – United States

Jeffrey Dahmer HS Yearbook.jpg , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer, popularly known as the Milwaukee Cannibal or the Milwaukee Monster, was an American serial murderer and sex offender who killed and dismembered seventeen individuals between 1978 and 1991. He was born on May 21, 1960, and died on November 28, 1994. His later killings frequently entailed cannibalism, necrophilia, and the permanent retention of body parts, usually the entire or a portion of the skeleton.

Dahmer was determined to be legally sane at his trial despite having been given the diagnoses of borderline personality disorder (BPD), schizotypal personality disorder (SPD), and a psychotic condition.

He was sentenced to fifteen terms of life imprisonment on February 17, 1992, after being found guilty of fifteen of the sixteen killings he had committed in Wisconsin. Later, for a second murder committed in Ohio in 1978, Dahmer was given a sixteenth-life sentence.

Christopher Scarver, a fellow prisoner at the Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage, Wisconsin, beat Dahmer to death on November 28, 1994.

Read On 35 Sinister Facts About Jeffrey Dahmer

7.  Pedro Rodrigues Filho – Brazil

Pedrinho Matador, 1991, 2.jpg , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Pedro Rodrigues Filho born on 29 October 1954 and died on 5 March 2023 was a Brazilian serial killer, spree killer, and a vigilante known for pursuing and killing only suspected criminals as a teenager, specifically an entire gang in retaliation for the murder of his pregnant girlfriend.

He was also known as Pedrinho Matador, Killer Lil’ Pedro, Killer Killer Petey, or simply Killer Petey. He served 34 years in jail (roughly 25 weeks for each murder) until being released in 2007. He was officially imprisoned for 71 killings but claimed to have murdered over 100 drug dealers, rapists, and murderers.

Rodrigues was sentenced to eight years in jail in 2011 on accusations of inciting unrest and deprivation of liberty but was freed in 2018 after serving seven years with good conduct.

8. Karl Denke – Germany

Karl Denke.jpg , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

From 1903 until 1924, the German cannibal and serial killer Karl Denke (11 February 1860 – 22 December 1924) slaughtered and devoured hundreds of wanderers and homeless people. He is frequently referred to as The Cannibal of Münsterberg or The Forgotten Cannibal.

For unclear reasons, Karl Denke started killing impoverished and destitute travellers. Ida Launer was his first recorded victim in 1903. He murdered 25-year-old Emma Sander six years later, in 1909 (another slaughterhouse worker, Eduard Trautmann, was convicted of her slaying but was freed in 1926 after the truth came to light).

Rochus Pawlick was his final recorded victim. Denke kept a logbook of his murders as well. He may have also deceived unwary consumers by passing off their victims’ flesh as pickled meat that was billed as pigs.

9. Leonarda Cianciulli – Italy

Leonarda Cianciulli.jpg , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Italian serial murderer Leonarda Cianciulli (18 April 1894 – 15 October 1970) was born. Cianciulli discovered in 1939 that her favourite child and eldest son, Giuseppe, would enlist in the Royal Italian Army in preparation for the Second World War. She was determined to keep him safe at all costs, and she came to the conclusion that this meant making sacrifices for other people.

Known as the Soap-Maker of Correggio, she murdered three middle-aged neighbours in Correggio, Reggio Emilia, in 1939 and 1940, then used caustic soda to make soap and teacakes out of their remains.

Faustina Setti, the first of Cianciulli’s victims, had sought her advice on how to find a partner despite being a lifelong spinster. The second victim was Francesca Soavi. Cianciulli asserted to have secured her employment at a Piacenza girls’ school. The widow Virginia Cacioppo, a former singer rumoured to have performed at La Scala, was Cianciulli’s third and last victim.

10. Richard Chase – United States

American serial murderer, cannibal, and necrophile Richard Trenton Chase (May 23, 1950 – December 26, 1980) murdered six people in Sacramento, California, over the course of a month in 1977 and 1978. Because he consumed the blood and corpses of his victims, he was known as The Vampire of Sacramento.

Chase shot and murdered his first known victim in a drive-by shooting on December 29, 1977. Ambrose Griffin, a 51-year-old father of two and an engineer, was the victim. On January 27, Chase broke into Evelyn Miroth’s house, who was then 38 years old. He came across her buddy Danny Meredith and fired his.22 pistol at him. He then shot Miroth, her son Jason, age six, and her nephew David Ferreira, age 22 months, killing them all, before mutilating Miroth and indulging in necrophilia and cannibalism.

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11. Tsutomu Miyazaki – Japan

Miyazaki Tsutomu Japanese serial murderer committed four murders of young girls in Tokyo and Saitama Prefecture between August 1988 and June 1989 (passed away on June 17, 2008). He abducted the girls, who were between the ages of 4 and 7, murdered them in his car, dismembered them, and sexually assaulted their corpses. He also mocked the victim’s family members and engaged in cannibalism, keeping body bits as mementoes.

In July 1989, Miyazaki was detained in Hachiji after being accosted while photographing a young girl in her underwear. Despite having one or more personality disorders, he was deemed to be sane and aware of the consequences of his conduct. Miyazaki received a death sentence in 1997 and was hanged in 2008.

12. Joachim Kroll  – Germany

Joachim Georg Kroll, a German serial murderer, child molester, necrophile, and cannibal who killed at least eight women and young girls in the Ruhr metropolitan area between 1955 and the time of his capture on July 3, 1976, lived from 17 April 1933 to 1 July 1991.

Despite having confessed to a total of 14, he was found guilty of eight murders and one attempted murder. He was given a life sentence on April 8, 1982.

Read On 5 Reasons Why There Were So Many Serial Killers in the 70s

13. Ratu Udre Udre – Fiji

Ratu Udre Udre. jpg , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Fijian chief Ratu Udre Udre passed away in 1840. Guinness World Records lists him as the “most prolific cannibal”; in the early 19th century, he is said to have eaten “between 872 and 999 people,” while several stories provide varying totals (the majority claim his homicide total is only about 99).

The figure of 872 was calculated using “a row of smallish stones extending about 200 yards” next to Udre Udre’s home. Udre Udre put each stone to represent a victim he had devoured.

The cause of Udre Udre’s death is still unknown, however, it is thought that Fijian government officers shot and murdered him around 1840.

14. Dorangel Vargas – Venezuela

José Dorángel Vargas Gómez, commonly known as “El comegente”  “people eater”), was born on May 14, 1957, in Venezuela. He is a serial murderer and cannibal. He was an outcast who used to stalk bystanders at a park in San Cristobal, Táchira. He confessed to having eaten and killed at least eleven people in the two years before his arrest in 1999 after being captured.

15. Joshua Milton Blahyi – Liberia

Joshua Milton Blahyi, better known by his pen name General Butt Naked, is a Liberian evangelical preacher, author, and former warlord most known for his involvement in the First Liberian Civil War. He was born on September 30, 1971. Before turning to Christianity and taking on the role of a pastor in 1996, Blahyi served as the commander of a unit of troops who fought for the United Liberation Movement of Liberia for Democracy (ULIMO) during the conflict.

Charles Taylor, the rebel commander of the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), overthrew Doe’s government in 1989, starting a civil war. A gang of soldiers known as the Naked Base Commandos, led by Blahyi, engaged in several crimes during the fight, including cannibalism and child sacrifice.

The tales of cannibals serve as a chilling reminder of the complexity of human nature as we draw to a close on this unnerving journey. There may be potential darkness lurking behind civilisation, which might manifest in unthinkable ways. These notorious individuals, whose names resound throughout history, compel us to face the most sinister facets of our own minds.

Cannibalism is a horrifying and perplexing behaviour, but it serves as a reminder of the value of empathy, compassion, and moral restraint in a world where the distinction between savagery and civilization is hazier. May these horrifying stories inspire us to preserve our inner light and embrace the core of our common humanity.

Read On 10 Infamous Cannibal Serial Killers Around the World