Good News: People Eat Other People on a Pretty Regular Basis

The Walking Dead - Season 2, Episode 11.
Photo: Gene Page/AMC

In just the past week, a naked man ate a homeless guy’s face in Miami, a New Jersey man threw his intestines at police, a Canadian porn star killed a man and ate parts of his body before mailing other parts to government officials, a Maryland man killed his roommate and ate his heart and brain, and a Staten Island pizza parlor owner nommed a dude’s ear. It seems clear that this sudden burst of zombie activity points inexorably to the beginning of the end for mankind. But we started to wonder this morning — from inside our fortified, WiFi enabled, mountainside bunker — whether the only thing that’s changed is that, in the wake of the headline-grabbing Miami incident, we’ve suddenly started paying a lot more attention to zombie-esque stories than we had in the past. After digging around, we found that while the frequency of cannibal stories over the past week is unusual, this kind of stuff happens fairly regularly. Here is a rundown of what we’ve found from just the past six months.

May 25

"Police in southwest China have detained a man suspected of murdering more than a dozen boys and young men, chopping up their bodies and selling the flesh to unsuspecting consumers, reports said Friday."

May 8

"A Swiss politician has been accused of advertising for cannibals to kill and eat the mother and daughter of a policeman friend going through a 'tricky' divorce."

April 14

"Police have arrested three people for allegedly killing at least two women, eating parts of their bodies and using their flesh to make stuffed pastries known as empanadas that they sold to neighbors in their northeastern Brazil city."

April 7

"A 79-year-old man accused of killing his wife ate some of her flesh and was found sitting in a rocking chair in their Shrewsbury apartment, covered in blood, a prosecutor said Friday."

March 27

"Russian police have arrested a man who admitted killing at least six people before eating their hearts and livers, media said."

March 26

"A Russian man killed a drinking partner after he and his friends ran out of snacks at a vodka party - then sold the leftovers as pork at a market. The 35-year-old admitted stabbing his fellow drinker, 41, to death before slicing flesh off the corpse, which he cooked and ate, police said."

March 24

"Serbian gangsters allegedly beat a traitorous associate to death with a hammer before cooking and eating his remains in Spain, police said."

January 27

"A Florida man has been arrested for allegedly hacking to death a Connecticut man and eating the victim's eye and part of his brain."

January 12

"Police say a man in Indiana accused of stealing a car threatened to hunt down and eat his arresting officers, their families and police dogs."

In a weird way, it’s kind of a relief. The world isn’t ending! People actually eat other people all the time! Of course, the bad news is that people eat other people all the time.

People Eat Other People on a Regular Basis