20 Infamous Cannibal Serial Killers Around the World


 

Originally published by Faith in July 2023 and updated by Faith in May 2024

When we hear about serial killers, our minds immediately think about how they are very dangerous and scary people as it is not normal for one to go around killing other people. However, there are other individuals who go the extra mile and commit heinous acts like cannibalism. Cannibal serial killers are those killers who eat the flesh of their victims after killing them. This is quite chilling in that the act is viewed as the ultimate taboo in any culture. Therefore, this article will explore the twenty infamous cannibal serial killers from around the world to give the reader knowledge on this horrifying topic.

1 Jeffrey Dahmer

A mugshot of Jeffrey Dahmer

Dahmer is one of the most notorious serial killers that the United States of America has ever encountered. The story of Dahmer is well known by many people in that there is a television show that narrates the crimes he committed.  Popularly known as the Milwaukee serial killer, Jeffrey Dahmer was a cannibal serial killer and a sex offender who targeted gay men.

Dahmer would lure young men to his apartment by visiting gay bars and when they agreed to come back to his apartment, he would drug them and proceed to sexually assault them before dismembering them. He would then store the body parts of his victims in his fridge and eat them. At the time of his arrest, he had killed seventeen people. Dahmer died while in prison after being killed by one of his prison mates.

2 Robert John Maudsley

Nicknamed Hannibal the Cannibal, Robert John Maudsley was a British serial killer who killed four people. Interestingly, of the four people that he murdered, only one was killed when he was free which means that he killed the other three while behind bars. The three he killed inside bars were paedophiles which created a lot of controversy as it seems that he was delivering justice to the victims of the paedophiles.

3 Jose Luis Calva

A crime scene tape. Yumi Kimura from Yokohama, JAPANCC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Calva was a Mexican serial killer that law enforcement apprehended while he was eating human meat which he had seasoned with lemon. The police officers had gone to his house to inquire about the disappearance of his girlfriend. They searched the house and found the remains of his girlfriend and pieces of human flesh in the fridge as well as the frying pan. He was arraigned in court and sentenced to 84 years in prison but he did not serve his term fully as he committed suicide in his cell.

4 Issei Sagawa

The French killer killed his classmate by shooting her and proceeded to cannibalise her corpse. He then went to get rid of the other remains in the Bois de Boulogne Lake but he was spotted by law enforcement authorities and arrested. When questioned as to why he killed her classmate, he said that he chose her because of her health and beauty. He was put in a mental institution but he later checked out of the facility and lived free ever since which is quite horrifying.

5 Albert Fish

A mugshot of Albert Fish.

Albert Fish is one of the most notorious American serial killers, cannibals and child rapists ever to exist in the United States of America. He was popularly known as the Werewolf of Wysteria as well as the Gray Man because he preyed on young children and committed heinous crimes against them. He is believed to have a victim count of more than 100 people.

 One of his victims was a ten-year-old girl from Manhattan who Fish killed and ate her body parts and went further to write a letter to her family describing in detail what he did to her. The letter allowed law enforcement authorities a trace back to him and he was arrested. He stood trial and he was found guilty and executed in 1963 at the Sing Sing Correctional Facility in New York.

6 Armin Meiwes

The German cannibal was popularly known as the Master Butcher. An interesting fact about this serial killer is that the victim volunteered to be killed and consumed. Armin posted an advert on a website known as the Cannibal Café where he wrote that he was looking for an able-bodied male between 18 and 30 years that he could slaughter and consume. Shockingly, a man known as Bernd Armando Brandes responded to the ad and accepted it. Armin then made a videotape showing him butchering the man and consuming the flesh. He was later arrested and sentenced to life in prison.

7 Peter Bryan

A mugshot of Peter Bryan.

Bryan was a serial killer based in the United Kingdom. He is known for murders that came to light in 2004. He was arrested and jailed after he murdered his former employer’s daughter with a hammer. The jail term did not reform him as he went ahead and attacked a man called Brian Cherry and, in the process, killed him. He did not stop at that as he went ahead and cooked his victim. The police officers arrested him while he was cooking the man. He was apprehended and taken to a psychiatric facility. In there, he attempted to kill another inmate with the intention of eating him.

8 Rudy Eugene

His story is one of the most bizarre ones ever witnessed in that in May 2012, videos surfaced on the internet showing Eugene eating a man’s face. It is speculated that Rudy was under the influence of some drug when he was committing the crime. Eugene is said to have accused Poppo of stealing and proceeded to threaten him that he was going to kill him. Law enforcement came to the scene and shot him to save the victim but by that time, he had already chewed half of Poppo’s face off.

9 Andrei Romanovich Chikatilo

Also known as the Butcher of Rostov, Andre Romanovich was a notorious serial killer that killed 52 people while active as a criminal. He killed his victims because it gave him sexual satisfaction and he was not apprehended early. It was not until 1992 when he was arrested and he confessed to other murders that he had committed and were confirmed by DNA samples found on the victims. Andrei had eaten some of his victim’s private parts.

10 Luka Magnotta

A mugshot of Luka Magnotta.

Technology played a big part in catching this killer in that in 2012, videos of a man being stabbed and consumed surfaced on a website known as Best Gore. It was later established that the man being stabbed was Lin Jun, an international student who studied at Concordia University. Days after the video emerged, packages containing body parts of the victim were delivered to the Conservative Party of Canada. The packages were traced back to Luke Magnotta who had fled to Berlin. He was arrested and arraigned in court where he was sentenced to life imprisonment.

11 Joachim Kroll

Joachim Kroll is one of the most notorious cannibal serial killers to ever exist. The German serial killer who was active around the Ruhr metropolitan area was popularly known as Ruhr Cannibal, Duisburg man-eater and the Ruhr Hunter.  During the time that he was active, the serial killer confessed to fourteen murders but he was convicted of only eight. The serial killer revealed that he enjoyed cannibalising young children and claimed that those were the most satisfying. He was discovered after one of the neighbours asked him if he knew what was clogging the waste pipes and he replied, “Guts”. This was true as the intestines of the four-year-old girl he had murdered and flushed them down were clogging the pipes.

12 Arthur Shawcross

A mugshot of Arthur Shawcross

The American serial killer was popularly known as Genesee River Killer. He was active in Rochester, New York and he started his murder spree in 1972 when he killed a young boy and girl in his hometown of Watertown, New York. He was apprehended and convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 25 years but only served 12 years of his sentence and was released early on parole. He went back to kill 14 more victims in 1988 and 1989 which led to a lot of criticism of the justice system as they led a criminal who did more harm loose. Shawcross was convicted of killing the 10 victims and it is said that he started his cannibalistic acts during the Vietnam War.

13 Otis Toole

American serial killer Otis Toole. Jacksonville Police Department, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The notorious serial killer was convicted of six counts of murder. The serial killer worked with his accomplice Henry Lee Lucas and the two confessed to killing more than a hundred victims. After being apprehended, Lucas revealed that while on his killing spree with Toole, his partner enjoyed drinking the victims’ blood as well as eating their ribs. Toole would barbecue the ribs of his victims and eat them. Lucas recounted that he did not eat with his partner as he did not like the taste of Toole’s barbecue sauce. Toole was found guilty of the murders and sentenced to death but it was later commuted to life imprisonment after he appealed the judgment. He later died of liver cirrhosis when he was 49.

14 Tamara Samsonova

A picture of the Granny Killer. Сергей НиколаевCC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

No one would expect an old lady to be among the most vile and twisted cannibal serial killers. The Russian-born serial killer was arrested in 2015 after being a murder suspect in the death of Valentina Ulanova who was her lifelong friend. Cameras captured her transporting body parts in garbage bags which the police later found to be Ulanova’s body parts which had been decapitated and left in a river.  After her arrest, investigations later revealed that she had killed more than 11 people. There was also a possibility that Tamara was eating the victim’s body parts after she dismembered them.  Her entries in her diary confirmed this fact as she had described the murders in greater detail.

15 Ed Gein

The serial killer was popularly known as The Butcher of Plainfield and was also among the cannibal serial killers. The serial killer was active between 1947 and 1957. During this time, there were 2 confirmed murders, 7 suspected murders and 9 corpses that were retrieved from graves which law enforcement authorities think he might have been responsible for. While conducting investigations police found out that Gein had kept parts of the victim’s body as memorabilia. He even made a mask out of their skin. He was finally arrested in November 1957. His trial did not begin immediately as he was found unfit to stand trial until 1968 when the judge found him fit. He was found guilty but he was not sentenced to prison as he was found insane and admitted to a mental institution. 

16 Tsutomu Miyazaki

A mugshot of Tsutomu.

 Popularly known as the Otaku Murderer or the Human Dracula, the serial killer was a notorious Japanese serial killer who was active between 1988 and 1989.  His isolated upbringing due to his deformed hands is said to have contributed greatly to his depravity, violence and lack of remorse. Miyazaki abducted, killed and mutilated four girls between the ages of four and seven during the time that he was active. He also engaged in necrophilic acts and cannibalism and he did not stop there as he went on to taunt the families of the victims with phone calls and letters. Miyazaki was finally arrested in 1989 after being caught attempting to kidnap another victim where he proceeded to confess his crimes. He was found guilty and sentenced to death in 1997. In 2008, Miyazaki was executed by hanging.

17 Joe Metheny

Joe was an American serial killer who was known for his gruesome acts of murder and cannibalism. He started his killing spree after his wife left him and went with their son in 1994. His first victims were two homeless men that he killed using an axe in Baltimore. He then went on to kill several other victims, most of them women. He would dismember his victims mix their flesh with pork and beef and sell hamburgers on the stand. He was finally arrested in 1996 after a victim escaped and reported him to the police. He was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. Joe died in 2017 while serving his sentence.

18 Alexander Spesivtsev

A picture of the Russian serial killer.

Alexander popularly known as the Siberian Ripper was an infamous Russian serial killer and cannibal who was active between 1991 and 1996. His victims count was quite high in that he confessed to 20 murders after his arrest but he is suspected of killing 82 more victims. However, he was only convicted for five of the murders that he committed. His mother was his accomplice and they would lure children and young women into their apartment and sexually assault them before killing them. When authorities searched their home, they found human remains scattered in the apartment.

19 Richard Chase

Richard Chase.

The American serial killer popularly known as the Vampire of Sacrament was active in the late 1970s. In a span of a month, Chase killed six victims. After murdering the victims, the serial killer would drink their blood and also consume their organs. After his arrest, he claimed that he drank the blood to prevent his heart from shrinking. It was discovered that he was suffering from schizophrenia. He was arrested in 1978 and sentenced to death. He did not stay long in prison as he committed suicide in 1980.

20 Anthony Morley

The former Mr Gay UK is also on the list of cannibal killers after he murdered his lover Damian Ildfield in 2008.  Morley stabbed Damian several times and then proceeded to cut his body into chunks and cook them with herbs and oil. He then attempted to eat it but spat it out. After the incident, Morley walked to the nearest restaurant and confessed to what he had done leading to his arrest. He was convicted of murder and given a life sentence.

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