They believed he should have been convicted of murder. In April 2005, a German court ordered a retrial after prosecutors appealed his sentence. He believes there are over 100 cannibals in Germany. "They should go for treatment, so it doesn't escalate like it did with me", said Meiwes. Websites dedicated to Meiwes have appeared, with people advertising for willing victims. He added he wanted to write a book of his life story with the aim of deterring anyone who wants to follow his steps. Meiwes has admitted what he did, and expressed regret for his actions. The case attracted considerable media attention and led to a debate over whether Meiwes could be convicted at all, given that Bernd Jürgen Brandes had voluntarily and knowingly participated in the act. On 30 January 2004, Meiwes was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to eight years in prison. Investigators searched his home and found body parts and the videotaped killing. Meiwes was arrested in December 2002, after a college student in Innsbruck phoned the police after seeing new advertisements for victims and details about the killing on the Internet. Arrest, trial, and conviction of manslaughter According to prosecutors, Meiwes committed the act for sexual enjoyment. Meiwes ate the body over the next 10 months, storing body parts in his freezer under pizza boxes and consuming up to 20 kilograms (44 lb) of the flesh. The whole scene was recorded on the two-hour video tape. After stabbing Brandes to death in the throat, he hung the body on a meat hook and tore chunks of flesh from it he even tried to grind the bones to use as flour. Meiwes apparently gave him large quantities of alcohol and pain killers, twenty sleeping pills and a bottle of schnapps, kissed him and finally killed him in a room that he had built in his house for this purpose, the Slaughter Room. Meiwes read a book for three hours, while Brandes lay bleeding in the bath. Īccording to journalists who saw the video (which has not been made public), Brandes may already have been too weakened from blood loss to actually eat any of his penis. He then chopped it up into chunks and fed it to his dog. Meiwes then fried the penis in a pan with salt, pepper, wine and garlic he then fried it with some of Brandes' fat but by then it was too burned to be consumed. Brandes apparently tried to eat some of his own penis raw, but could not because it was too tough and, as he put it, "chewy". This did not work and ultimately, Meiwes used a knife to remove Brandes' penis. Brandes had insisted that Meiwes attempt to bite his penis off.
Īs is known from a videotape the two made when they met on 9 March 2001 in Meiwes's home in the small village of Rotenburg, Meiwes amputated Brandes' penis and the two men attempted to eat the penis together before Brandes was killed. Many other people responded to the advertisement, but backed out Meiwes did not attempt to force them to do anything against their will.
Bernd Jürgen Brandes then answered the advertisement. Meiwes's post stated that he was "looking for a well-built 18 to 30-year-old to be slaughtered and then consumed". Looking for a willing victim, Meiwes posted an advertisement at a website, The Cannibal Cafe, whose disclaimer mentions the distinction between reality and fantasy. 2 Arrest, trial, and conviction of manslaughter.