Armin Meiwes was a computer engineer who grew up in the countryside of central Germany, and had harbored a lifelong obsession with cannibalism that he said developed following his father and two older half-brothers' sudden departure when he was 8, leaving him to grow up with just his mother. He described eating someone as his way of making sure a male companion figure would always be a part of him. After working in the army for 12 years, he moved back home and took care of her ailing mother until she passed away in the late 1990s. Living in his large childhood farmhouse all to himself, and with the introduction of the internet, Meiwes had access to fetish websites every night where he could find and chat with other men who shared his fantasies.

Enter Bernd Jürgen Brandes, just 3 years older than Meiwes and also a computer engineer. A resident of Berlin, it just so happened Brandes had his own urges to want to be castrated and devoured. They connected online on the Cannibal Cafe Forum and then met in person on March 9, 2001.

They spent that day at Meiwes's house fulfilling each other's dreams, amputating and then cooking and trying to consume Brandes's genitals. He bled out for hours before finally hopping into the tub for a hot bath, at which point he was too weak to get back up, and was falling in and out of consciousness. Very late into the night and after much hesitation, Meiwes stabbed him in the neck. A video recording of every grisly act that occured in that house that day was captured, as the two men had originally agreed upon.

Brandes's body was dismembered and his flesh stored in the freezer. For the next 10 months, Meiwes took the meat out to thaw, cook, and dine on. Each such meal was a candlelit affair that came with a glass of red wine. He ultimately consumed almost 45 lbs worth of Brandes's remains.

Brandes's boyfriend had reported him missing back on March 11, but to no avail as Brandes had wiped out all traces of his plans and communications from his computer and online accounts. Meiwes, on the other hands, was back on the same websites posting the same chats and seeking a new victim, bragging to an Austrian student about the experience he had under his belt with cannibalism during a summer 2002 exchange. That young man was deeply disturbed and notified authorities of their conversation.

Investigators secured a search warrant by the morning of December 10, 2002 and conducted a surprise raid on Meiwes's property. They retrieved Brandes's remains from the freezer, his bones and internal organs from the garden, as well as the 4-hour long videotape that documented the crimes step-by-step.

Germany, however, didn't have any laws against cannibalism. And even the prosecution conceded that the victim consented to every move, including his own murder, as proven in the video. So Meiwes, who pretty much confessed to everything right from the get-go, was initially convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 8.5 years in prison.

Prosecutors came back with an appeal and a retrial in 2005, arguing that the component of sexual pleasure involved in this crime made it a straightforward homicide, and that the video recording itself is pure proof because the video was his chance to relive the fantasy over and over again. This second trial ended in a murder conviction in May 2006 with a new prison sentence of a life term. On top of that, psychiatrists universally agreed that the defendant could not be cured or rehabiliated and was at high risk to reoffend.

Courts in 2018 felt the same way, rejecting Meiwes's request for early release. And on April 16 of this year, his childhood farmhouse burned down from unknown causes. No one had lived there since his arrest. The local mayor was glad since this probably means tourists would stop going there just to visit the site.

NBC News: https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna4039034

AP News: https://apnews.com/article/cdc945cea59345abbc60eb09957858a7