Overview
- Bernd Brandes, 43, agreed through extensive online exchanges to be killed and eaten, contingent on the severing and consumption of his penis.
- The encounter was recorded on video; Brandes was given sleeping pills before both men ate the severed organ, after which Meiwes fatally stabbed him.
- Meiwes dismembered the body, kept human remains in his freezer alongside groceries, and over roughly ten months ate an estimated 20 kilograms of flesh.
- Investigators relied on the footage and on Meiwes’ statement, “With every bite, my memory of him grew stronger,” to detail the sequence of events.
- With no specific statute criminalizing cannibalism, prosecutors charged murder for sexual gratification and desecration of the dead, a retrial produced a murder conviction, and Meiwes remains imprisoned.