This list contains information on killers who ate their victims, loosely ranked by fame and notoriety. Believe it or not, many convicted killers have been found to have eaten their victims. Some of the most famous cannibal killers had multiple victims and a few were apprehended after consuming their first victim. Many of the most famous cases of killers who ate their victims involved severe mental illness.
Who is the most famous killer who ate their victims. Jeffrey Dahmer is infamous for eating people. He committed the murder, rape, and dismemberment of 17 young men and boys from 1978 to 1991. He often placed the body parts of his victims in his refrigerator so he could eat them at a later time. Robert Maudsley was sentenced to life in prison for killing a man in 1974. While serving time at Wakefield Prison in Wakefield, England, he stabbed two fellow inmates, one of which he was accused of eating his brain.
Armin Meiwes's killing and cannibalism is one of the strangest because his victim actually agreed to be a part of the event. Meiwes placed an add on a website in 2002. Bernd Jürgen Armando Brandes answered the add and agreed to let Meiwes amputate his penis, which both men attempted to eat.
23 Killers Who Ate Their Victims,
Albert Fish
Albert Fish murdered, raped, and cannibalized many children in the early 1900s. He stated that that he raped at least 100 children and confessed to three murders. "First I stripped her naked. How she did kick - bite and scratch. I choked her to death then cut her in small pieces so I could take my meat to my rooms, cook and eat it," he stated in a letter to the family of his victim 10-year old, Grace Budd.
At trail, Fish was found guilty and sentenced to death. He was executed by the electric chair at Sing Sing Prison on Jan. 16, 1936.
Andrei Chikatilo
Andrei Chikatilo murdered and mutilated over 50 women and children in the Soviet Union from 1978 to 1990. After being arrested in 1990, he confessed to 34 murders, admitting that most of his victims suffered 30 to 50 stab wounds. He was often referred to as a cannibal by the media of the day.
In 1992, Chikatilo was found guilty of 52 murders and five counts of sexual assault, for which he was sentenced to death plus 86 years in prison. He was executed by gunshot on Feb. 14, 1994.
Armin Meiwes
Armin Meiwes's cannibalism is one of the strangest because his victim actually agreed to be a part of the event. Meiwes' placed an add on the website Cannibal Cafe in 2002. Bernd Jürgen Armando Brandes answered the add and agreed to let Meiwes amputate his penis, which both men attempted to eat.
Brandes lost a lot of blood from the initial amputation, but Meiwes eventually finished killed him by stabbing him in the throat. The entire incident was recorded on video tape. Meiwes was arrested when someone notified police that he was discussing the killing online.
Meiwes was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison.
Jeffrey Dahmer
Jeffrey Dahmer committed the murder, rape, and dismemberment of 17 young men and boys from 1978 to 1991. He often placed the body parts of his victims in his refrigerator so he could eat them at a later time. On July 22, 1991, a 32-year-old man named Tracy Edwards escaped from Dahmer's apartment after smelling a foul odor and noticing suspicious items throughout the residence.
Following Edwards' escape, he brought two police officers back to Dahmer's apartment where they found a large knife, photographs of dismembered bodies, and a dismembered head in the refrigerator. Dahmer was arrested and later sentenced to 16 life sentences.
On Nov. 28, 1994, Dahmer was beaten to death by Christopher Scarver, a fellow inmate at the Columbia Correctional Institution.
Joachim Kroll
Joachim Kroll confessed to a total of 14 murders from 1955 to 1976 in Germany. He began killing people following his mother's death in 1955. He often had sex with his victims after killing them and removed pieces of their flesh to be eaten at a later time.
Kroll was arrested on July 3, 1976 after police found the body of a four year old girl, Marion Ketter, in his apartment. He was boiling her hand in a pot at the time. At trial, he was found guilty of eight counts of murder and sentenced to life in prison. He died of a heart attack on July 1, 1991 at the age of 58.
Karl Denke
In 1924, Karl Denke was arrested after he attacked a man in his house with an axe. While at the scene, police found human flesh in jars and a record of 42 people whom Denke murdered and cannibalized. He hanged himself in his jail cell only two days after his initial arrest.
Katherine Knight
Katherine Knight, of Australia, murdered her partner John Price by stabbing him of 30 times in 2000. She then skinned him, decapitated him, and cooked parts of his body with a variety of vegetables, making a meal which she planned to serve to his children. His head was found in a pot of vegetables.
She pleaded guilty, though she took no responsibly and showed no remorse for her crimes, and was sentenced to life in prison in 2001. She is currently serving out her sentence at the Silverwater Women's Correctional Centre in New South Wales.
Leonarda Cianciulli
Leonarda Cianciulli murdered three women in Italy from 1939 to 1940. She later turned her victims' bodies into soap and tea cakes, which she then served to her friends and ate herself. She reportedly killed the women as sacrifices in order to protect her son during World War II.
She confessed to her crimes and was found guilty of murder in 1946. She was sentenced to 30 years in prison and died of cerebral apoplexy in 1970.
Nikolai Dzhumagaliev
Nikolai Dzhumagaliev killed at least seven women in the Soviet Union from 1979 to 1980, cannibalizing all of his victims. He was finally arrested when two men who were invited to his house found a woman's severed head in the kitchen.
Previously declared schizophrenic, Dzhumagaliev was committed to a mental institution. In 1989, he escaped while being transferred to another facility. He was recaptured two years later and is being held at a mental clinic.
Robert Maudsley
Robert Maudsley was sentenced to life in prison for killing a man in 1974. While serving time at Wakefield Prison in Wakefield, England, he stabbed two fellow inmates and was accused of eating the brains of one.
Maudsley is currently being held in solitary confinement in a cell that resembledsHannibal Lector's cell from the film Silence of the Lambs. He remains in this cell 23 hours a day.