Albert Fish(01 of16)
Open Image ModalThis serial killer and child rapist may have been the inspiration for the fictional Hannibal Lecter. Fish was executed in 1936 in connection with the kidnapping and murder of 10-year-old Grace Budd, after police traced a letter Fish wrote to the girl's parents in which he detailed killing and eating their daughter. Credit: AP
Alferd Packer(02 of16)
Open Image ModalIn November 1873, Pennsylvania-born Alferd Packer went on a gold-hunting expedition with 21 others in modern-day Colorado. He was accused of killing and eating five of his companions after the party became snowbound in the Rockies. Packer pleaded self-defense in his trial, but was eventually convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 40 years in prison. The charges of cannibalism have never been confirmed. (credit:Colorado.gov)
Jeffrey L. Dahmer(03 of16)
Open Image ModalJeffrey Dahmer was convicted in 1992 of 15 different murders, many of which included elements of cannibalism. Dahmer, who frequently raped his victims both dead and alive, reportedly wanted to turn his victims into "zombies," eternally youthful boys who would be sexually submissive to him. Dahmer was finally apprehended after a potential victim in 1991 escaped and contacted authorities. When Dahmer's house was examined, police found several corpses in acid-filled vats, as well as an altar of candles and human skulls. In 1994, he was beaten to death by a fellow inmate at the Columbia Correctional Institution in Wisconsin, where he had been serving fifteen consecutive life sentences. (credit:Eugene Garcia, Getty Images)
Mauerova Family(04 of16)
Open Image ModalKlara Mauerova and her mother, Barbara, were Czech members of the Grail Movement Cult who went on trial in 2008 for tortuing Klara's sons. The atrocities committed by the Mauerova women allegedly included partially skinning her 8-year-old and feeding his flesh to relatives. The women were caught when a neighbor's baby monitor picked up images of the young boy chained in the basement. Klara Mauerova is pictured at left, with blonde hair, and Barbara Skrlova is at left wearing glasses. Klara's children Jakub, 10, is pictured in the foreground in a life jacket and Ondrej is at back with blonde hair. (credit:Europics)
Issei Sagawa(05 of16)
Open Image ModalIn 1981, this Japanese student was in Paris studying English literature when he shot and killed a female student, then consumed her corpse over two days. Sagawa was declared insane and deported. Japanese psychologists pronounced him sane but "evil," but officials found themselves unable to legally hold Sagawa when the French government failed to turn over his paperwork. Sagawa is currently free and living in Japan. (credit:AFP / Getty Images)
Armin Meiews(06 of16)
Open Image ModalThis German was looking for "the ultimate kick" when posted an a cannibal website in 2001, asking for "a well-built 18- to 30-year-old to be slaughtered and then consumed." When he received a serious response, Meiews videotaped himself cutting off the voluntary victim's penis, which the two attempted to eat together. Meiws then killed the man and cannibalized the body, all on tape. (credit:Boris Roessler, AFP / Getty Images)
Antron "Big Lurch" Singleton(07 of16)
Open Image ModalRudy Eugene(08 of16)
Open Image ModalAlexander Kinyua(09 of16)
Open Image ModalSurvivors of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571(10 of16)
Open Image ModalIn October 1972, Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 crashed in the Andes while carrying 45 passengers. More than a quarter of the passengers died on impact, and over the next 2 months, many more gradually died in the South American mountain range due to cold, injury and starvation. By the time the passengers were rescued in December -- known as the "Miracle of the Andes" -- only sixteen passengers remained alive. In order to survive, the remaining passengers had been forced to feed off the corpses of the others for sustenance. (credit:Wikipedia)
Human Empanadas(11 of16)
Open Image ModalIn this television reproduction, Jorge da Silveira (L) and Isabel Pires are presented to the press by police authorities in Garanhuns, Pernanbuco, Brazil on April 13th, 2012. Jorge Beltrao Negromonte, his wife, Isabel Cristina Pires, and his mistress, Bruna Oliveira da Silva, were arrested in Sao Paolo and charged with allegedly killing two women, eating parts of their bodies and using their flesh to make the stuffed pastries known as empanadas for sale. The three allegedly confessed to the crimes and reportedly planned to kill another woman living in the nearby city of Lagoa do Ouro. (credit:AFP / Getty Images)
Donner Party(12 of16)
Open Image ModalIn May 1846, the 87-person Donner party set out from Missouri to California in a pioneering mission. The band took a route that had not been exhaustively traveled, and soon found themselves stuck in the Sierra Nevada mountain range, where they established shelters. An enterprising group of 15 men and women set out on snowshoes to complete the journey, but the cold and rough terrain proved overpowering, and eight died. The remaining seven reportedly ate the flesh of their dead companions. The group that remained in the makeshift shelters also resorted to cannibalism of their dead. In total, 39 Donner Party members died.James F. Reed and his wife, Margret W. Keyes Reed, seen in this file photo taken in the 1850s, were survivors of the tragic Donner Party, who were stranded during a heavy winter in the Sierra Nevadas near Truckee, Calif. The Reed family was one of only two families who survived the ordeal intact. (credit:Utah Historical Society / AP)
Jamestown, Virginia(13 of16)
Open Image ModalThe "Starving Time" of Jamestown, between 1609-1610, was marked by extreme famine largely caused by a harsh winter for the fledgling North American colony in modern-day Virginia. During this period, settlers were forced to succumb to cannibalism, and only 60 of the previous 500 Jamestown settlers survived. Captain James Smith ultimately imposed martial law in the colony to turn things around. (credit:Getty Images)
Tyree Smith(14 of16)
Open Image ModalIn January 2012, 35-year-old Connecticut resident Tyree Smith was arrested after allegedly killing Angel "Tun Tun" Gonzalez with an axe and then eating portions of his body. According to the warrant for his arrest, Smith said that the victim's eye "tasted like an oyster." (credit:Bridgeport Police Department)
William Buehler Seabrook(15 of16)
Open Image ModalAmerican explorer and New York Times reporter William Buehler Seabrook (1884 to 1945) claimed that on his travels to West Africa, a tribe called the Guere offered him the opportunity to taste human meat. Seabrook did not accept at the time, but later had a hospital intern in Paris get him a cut of a healthy but recently deceased person, which he cooked and wrote about eating. He reported that the flavor as being similar to "good, fully developed veal, not young, but not yet beef." (credit:Corbis)
Charles Taylor's Army(16 of16)
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