Mein Teil: How an Internet Cannibal Inspired a Song

When it comes to controversy, Rammstein is no stranger. The German industrial metal band, who is actually more popular in the US than in Germany, has had a wide variety of songs that often cover dark subject matter as well as equally controversial videos to go along with them. From accusations of supporting Germany's dark history of Hitler's regime (they don't, by the way), to just general offense for the amount of nudity and sexual content they sometimes include in their videos, they tend to be an easy target for moral outrage. One of the difficult things about Rammstein is even if you get past the language barrier (assuming you're like me and are not fluent in German), there are times when, even translated, their songs can be interpreted in a number of ways leaving behind more questions than answers. And maybe that's the point, to force you to think, analyze, and draw your own conclusions. A lot of talented artists use this technique and forcing listeners to have to think is, in my opinion, one of the best contributions an artist can give to their audience.

There is, however, one particular song that is far more obvious in its subject matter and has a creepy story to go along with it. This is the true story behind "Mein Teil," which translates in English to, "My Part."

If you haven't heard this song, here's a link to the audio if you'd like to give it a listen first.

The lyrics of the song are through the eyes of a man who is willingly offering his body to a cannibal to be eaten:

"Heute treff' ich einen Herrn- Today I will meet a gentleman,
Der hat mich zum Fressen gern- He likes me so much he could eat me up
Weiche Teile und auch harte- Soft parts and even hard ones
stehen auf der Speisekarte- Are on the menu..."

The song goes on with the willing victim describing the pride he's taking in the act and how happy he is just to be a part of it. There's also a line suggesting that he's being allowed a taste of himself and that he's enjoying it. As messed up as the scenario sounds, the idea wasn't just pulled out of thin air with the intention to shock for the sake of shock. This was actually a true story that did take place in Germany, and it all started with a disturbing ad posted on the internet.

Our story begins in 2001, when an ad was posted to a website called the Cannibal Cafe. The website, now defunct, was dedicated to those with a fetish for cannibalism and its users would either discuss their desire to indulge in eating another human, or share their stories of doing so and what their experiences were like. While there are many sites like this that are completely fake and intended to frighten anyone who happens to stumble upon them, the Cannibal Cafe was not one of those sites. It was all too real. The site has been shut down but is readily available on the Wayback Machine for the morbidly curious.

It goes without saying the warning on this page is warranted.

One of the most surprising aspects of the sites was this was not a community hidden in the deep web. This was a surface web page and easily accessible to anyone who wanted to find it. 

The ad that began it all was posted by a user named "Franky," and was titled, "Search for Young Boys." In broken English and various typos, the ad stated, "If you are between 18 and 30 y/o and have you a normal build body, than come to me, i will butchering and eating your fine flesh. Please mail me your age, High and Wigth, and if you can with a pic." As disturbing as the ad is, probably worse is the fact that several men responded to it, all of them offering up their bodies for Franky to fulfill their own fantasies of being devoured. After screening through several candidates (upwards of 200), Franky found what he was looking for and invited the willing victim into his home.

"Franky," turned out to be a 42-year-old man from Germany named Armin Meiwes, and the man who would ultimately become his meal was a 36-year-old man named Bernd Brandes. Brandes, who was also from Germany, suffered from depression and, upon finding Meiwes' ad, felt he would be the right fit for the job. They exchanged emails for over a month, discussing the arrangements before finally setting a date.

(Left: Armin Meiwes. Right: Bernd Brandes.)

On March 9th of 2001, the pair met up at Meiwes' farmhouse where Brandes was fed sleeping pills and liquid cold medicine. Meiwes then set up a camera to record everything that followed. The act began with Meiwes cutting off Brandes' penis and broiling it. Brandes, who was still conscious, asked if he could try some for himself and Meiwes served him a piece, only for Brandes to complain that the consistency was too chewy to eat. 

After this, Meiwes placed Brandes in a warm bath to bleed out while he read for over three hours and waited. Eventually, Brandes attempted to get up multiple times but collapsed from the amount of blood loss, ultimately leading Meiwes to stab him in the throat. After butchering the body, preparing it, and eating his fill, Meiwes packed away the rest of the meat and stored it away to be consumed later. However, an online friend of his later discovered he was placing new ads for more victims and alerted the authorities. 

Inside of Armin Meiwes' house where the act took place.

By the time he was investigated, Meiwes had already consumed over 44lbs of Brandes' flesh and willingly confessed to what he had done, even stating that Brandes had tasted exactly like pork. Authorities uncovered what remained of the body inside a freezer as well as the video that had recorded the entire act. The video itself has never been made public and likely never will be, though some of the jury, as well as the journalists who had to watch it, reported needing therapy after to cope with what they had seen. Screenshots have allegedly popped up online since then, but their validity is questionable to say the least. 

On January 30th of 2004, Meiwes was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to eight years in prison. However the prosecution appealed the conviction, stating that Brandes was not mentally sound, making him incapable to truly consenting to his killing, and that Meiwes should have been convicted of murder, not manslaughter. Meiwes underwent a retrail, this time receiving a murder conviction, and was sentenced to life in prison.

While criminal psychiatrists stated that Meiwes had a "schizoid personality," they found no signs of actual mental illness. Meiwes has since expressed his deep regret for the killing and claims he hopes to write an autobiography in order to encourage people like him to seek out help before it's too late. Reportedly, since his imprisonment, Meiwes has become a vegetarian.

When the members of Rammstein learned of this case and that there was an actual video taken of the crime, they wrote the song, "Mein Teil," and later hoped they could use footage from the tape to incorporate into their music video. Unsurprisingly, they were denied access which left them to their own devices. Ultimately, it led to them shooting a video in a warehouse where they were instructed to do whatever the director wanted, each not knowing what the other was doing, and having all of it eventually compiled into what became the music video. The end result is an even mixture of confusing and creepy:

Something worth noting about the video, the end scene where the band is being walked like a pack of dogs was likely inspired by a scene from the disturbing movie "Salo: The 120 Days of Sodom," in which the imprisoned victims of the film are forced to crawl naked, on all fours like dogs.

If you're wondering if you should see this movie, the answer is no. No you shouldn't.

Despite not being able to create the music video they would have liked, Rammstein has had live performances of the song that depict the subject matter a little more clearly. And, true to their style, it involves Flake doing something weird and Till having an excuse to use a flamethrower. It's definitely worth watching sheerly for the entertainment value and a way to lighten up this topic in general:

To add an extra layer of crazy to this story, Armin Meiwes attempted to sue the band, claiming they had no right to make a song about his story without his permission. As of writing this, there are no available details on the lawsuit, but given that the song and the music video have never been pulled, it's probably safe to assume it was either dropped or never made it to court.

For those interested, Rammstein has written other songs inspired by true stories that are well worth researching and I may cover another one in a future post. They are far from the only band out there to have done this, but this just happened to be one of my personal favorites.

Sources: 

• Profile: Cannibal Armin Meiwes: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3443803.stm
• German Cannibal Armin Meiwes: https://www.bizarrepedia.com/cannibal-armin-meiwes/
• Armin Meiwes on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armin_Meiwes
• Manslaughter Verdict for Cannibal: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3443293.stm
• Rammstein Sued by German Cannibal: http://www.blabbermouth.net/news/rammstein-sued-by-german-cannibal/
• Mein Teil (from the Rammstein Wiki): https://rammstein.fandom.com/wiki/Mein_Teil

The Body in the Chimney: The Disturbing Case of Joshua Maddux

If you've ever seen the movie Gremlins, you probably remember the random, disturbing scene where, among the chaos of those psychotic puppet monsters destroying everything on Christmas Eve, Billy's friend, Kate, takes a moment to explain why she already hates Christmas. She tells Billy that when she was a child her dad went missing one Christmas Eve and no one could find him for over a week. Then one night she went to light a fire in the fireplace and a bad smell hit her. Her mother called in the fire department, expecting it to be some sort of dead animal who had gotten itself stuck, but instead it ended up being her father, dressed in a Santa suit with a sack full of presents. He had been trying to surprise his wife and daughter by climbing down the chimney like Santa, but instead he wound up slipping and breaking his neck, dying instantly with his body remaining stuck in the chimney.

It's a completely unnerving story that adds a layer of darkness in an already dark comedy, only there's nothing funny about it which is what makes it stand out so much. No matter how poorly thought out you might think her father's plan was, it's still a scary story and a moment a lot of people remember most about the film.

Unfortunately, discovering human bodies trapped in chimneys is not exclusive to the world of cinema, and quite often the aftermath is a horrifying scene left for some unfortunate person to discover later on. Just to name a few examples, in 2010, a woman by the name of Dr. Jacquelyn Kotarac was found decomposing in a chimney after she attempted to slide down it to gain access to her on-again, off-again boyfriend's house. In 2018, a Bolivian man in Argentina attempted to escape police, while being pursued over a robbery, and wound up climbing through a chimney, only to get stuck and forced to wait for police to rescue him. While he was lucky to survive the incident, he was still arrested once he was freed.

Just looking at this makes me feel claustrophobic.

There are more stories like this but today's entry focuses on the case of Joshua Maddux, a missing teen who was ultimately discovered in a chimney.

In May of 2008, Colorado teen, Joshua Maddux, walked away from his home and never came back. Joshua was known to be something of a free spirit, talking often about how he planned to go on an adventure someday and possibly not be heard from again for a while. When he went missing, his father, Mike Maddux, searched diligently, determined to find his son all while holding on to hope that he was still alive and well. Even after he and his wife divorced, Mike remained in the family home, hoping it would mean Joshua still had a home to return to, if he ever did. 

But in 2015, Mike's worst fears were confirmed when the remains of his son were uncovered inside the chimney of an old historic cabin just a quarter of a mile away from the family home. The cabin was in the process of being demolished when an earth mover made the discovery while peeling away a steel fireplace insert within the chimney. Joshua's death was essentially ruled as "accidental by unknown causes," but there some alarming details to the scene that only added to the mystery as to what exactly happened.

The first question was how and why he wound up inside the chimney? Chuck Murphy, who owned the property in which the cabin stood, claimed there was no way Joshua could have climbed inside from the roof. According to him, there was steel rebar webbing installed at the top of the chimney specifically to keep animals from climbing inside. This raised the question of whether or not Joshua was somehow pushed inside the chimney by someone else. On top of that, it was discovered that a large wooden breakfast bar had been torn from the kitchen wall and moved to block the bottom of the chimney.

Another detail that only raised more questions was the manner of which his body was found. Joshua's feet were down and he was in a fetal position. He was wearing only a thermal shirt, naked from the waist down, and the rest of his clothes were uncovered, neatly folded, inside the cabin. However, there were no signs of stab wounds, bullet holes, or even trauma on the remaining hard tissue.

Despite the coroner's report on Joshua's cause of death, there has been reasonable speculation that his death was not accidental and that he was in fact murdered. And in a turn that is not entirely surprising for those familiar with Reddit, a user came forward in 2016, offering a potential theory as to who may have done this.

In an AskReddit thread, asking about what it was like to discover someone you knew was a serial killer, the user "gentamangina" replied with a lengthy comment, detailing how he had not only known Joshua when he was still alive, but he may have also known the killer. In the comment, he describes how they had a mutual acquaintance named Andy (later identified as Andrew Newman), who was already a little off. Joshua had become friends with Andy just before disappearing, and after the disappearance, Andy later went on to be arrested for two different murders in which the victims had been stabbed to death. Despite Andy supposedly bragging about the murders, he was released due to lack of evidence. Once the Reddit user had been made aware of these events, they immediately went to the police with several other people, trying to get them to further investigate Andy as he was likely the cause of Joshua's disappearance and later death. Unfortunately nothing ever became of it, the cabin was later demolished and Joshua's remains were cremated.

While the true cause of Joshua's death may never be uncovered, it remains an unsettling mystery with many who were close to the situation sincerely doubting there was anything accidental about it.

Sources:

• Chimney discovery ends mystery over young man's disappearance, but questions remain: https://www.denverpost.com/2015/10/19/chimney-discovery-ends-mystery-over-young-mans-disappearance-but-questions-remain/
• Joshua Maddox: The Boy in the Chimney: http://www.darkhistories.com/josh-maddux-the-boy-in-the-chimney/
• gentamangina's original Reddit comment: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/3qqy8t/people_who_have_known_murderers_serial_killers/cwhya9w/?st=jh5slp81&sh=3f06743b
• New Mexico Murder Suspect Captured in Texas County: http://crimesceneinvestigations.blogspot.com/2009/06/new-mexico-murder-suspect-captured-in.html

"Hi, Walter...": A YouTube Mystery

When it comes to the bizarre and unnerving, YouTube is no stranger to these situations. Despite the platform's attempts to host more family friendly content to the point of demonetizing channels or videos they feel go against that atmosphere, there is still plenty of creepy content to be found. And when there is no initial explanation for said content, it only makes the discovery more unnerving and can often be  a cause for concern.

In 2009, a channel was created on YouTube simply called, "Hi Walter! It's me Patrick!" which eventually contained only contained one video titled, "Hi Walter! I got a new gf today! In the video, a man (assumedly Patrick though he never states his name on camera) opens by telling someone named Walter that he has found himself a girlfriend. He excitedly talks with a wild-eyed expression about how he met this girl at the mall and that she's very hot and attractive. He then says he wants to show her on camera, even though she's very shy and the camera cuts to what looks like a dark basement with a wooden door that's padlocked shut. The man then steps into view, unlocks the door, and a woman can be seen inside on all fours, sobbing and begging to be let go. The man steps into the room with her and after the door closes behind him, we can hear her screaming before the video abruptly ends. The channel has since been taken down, but the video has of course been re-uploaded and is easy to find on YouTube:




For a long time, the video went relatively unnoticed but began to really go viral around 2016 when the mother of a missing teen saw the footage and became convinced that her daughter was the imprisoned woman shown at the end of the video. Up until this point, those already aware of the video (particularly the Reddit community) had been busy dissecting it, many coming to the conclusion that it was fake. Aside from the cheesy acting from "Patrick," those skeptical of the video pointed out things like the fact that at the beginning of the basement scene, it sounds like the man says something along the lines of, "Action," furthering the suspicion that this was a hoax. But to one viewer, Hope Sprenger, the video looked all too real and potentially offered answers as to what happened to her missing daughter, Kayla Berg.

In 2009, only a few months before the channel's creation, 15-year-old Kayla Berg went missing after being dropped off at her boyfriend's house in Wausau, Wisconsin. In 2016, when the possibility arose that the girl in Patrick's video might be Kayla, the Wisconsin police were alerted and began immediately investigating the video's origin as well as the people behind it. They admitted that there were similarities between the missing girl and the girl in the video, causing valid concern that this was not a hoax after all. However, it all turned out to be a false alarm when Antigo police were able to identify the the creators of the video.

Leading the video and playing the role of Patrick was a man by the name of Michael Maton from Utica, NY. As for the actress, the imprisoned girl was a woman by the name of Lucy Cavo and the producer of the video was a man named Jason Derr. All three of the people behind the video were from Utica, NY and had nothing to do with the missing teen from Wisconsin. According to them, the video wasn't even intended to reference her case. Once this information was established, Antigo police issued a statement, ensuring the public that the video was nothing more than a hoax, but by that point the damage was done. Hope Sprenger was said to be traumatized when she saw the video and believed she was seeing her daughter being held captive by Maton, and this led to the creators issuing an apology for the harm they caused. However, Maton went on to blame the media for misconstruing what was meant to be a short YouTube horror film that had nothing to do with Kayla Berg's disappearance and even called it slander.

As troubling as this situation was, this is not the only time a YouTube creator has led the public to believe they had something to do with a missing person's case. In 2012, a video was uploaded of a middle-aged man laughing sadistically into a camera, winking, and the words "Happy Anniversary" appeared on the screen. The video itself was also titled "Happy Anniversary," and was posted 8 years to the day that a young woman by the name of Maura Murray went missing after crashing her car on Route 112 in Massachusetts. The uploader himself had named the channel "Mr112dirtbag" which references not only Route 112, but also Murray's father's claims that whoever had abducted his daughter was a dirtbag.  However, police investigated the source of the video and it turned out to be yet another cruel hoax.

The internet can be a disturbing place, even if you only remain on the surface web. While most would have enough of a moral compass to know when creepy content takes it too far or at least is in need of some context to prevent a scare, there will always be those who will do harm, whether intentionally or not. The story behind "Hi Walter!" can serve as a cautionary tale of how a lack of context can unfairly cause alarm to those dealing with something as horrible as the abduction of a family member. To this day, the disappearances of Kayla Bern and Maura Murray remain unsolved.


Sources on Maton and Mr112dirtbag:

• https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/hi-walter-i-got-a-new-gf-youtube-kayla-berg-investigation-396802761.html
• https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4286854/Unmasked-internet-hoaxer-Hi-Walter-viral-video.html
• https://imgur.com/gallery/91MAa
• https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2104121/Videos-taunt-family-Maura-Murray-eighth-anniversary-disappearance.html

Katherine Knight

Our upbringing can shape us into the people we are today, often for the better. Katherine Knight, however, is a perfect example of what a horrific childhood can produce.

Conceived during an extramarital affair, Katherine's early years were laden with abuse brought on by multiple members of her family. Her mother was routinely beaten and raped by her partner, and in turn she would give Katherine graphic details of the encounters, as well as telling her how much she hated sex and men. Katherine herself was said to have been sexually abused several times by members of her family until she was 11 years old, and the family members she accused of the abuse have since all confirmed her claims were true.

Though she often had a tendency for violence, Katherine was an otherwise model student, and though she couldn't read or write, she managed to find employment as a cutter in a clothing factory. She later found other work cutting up offal at the local abattoir, where she was quickly promoted to boning and given her own set of butcher knives. She claimed it was her dream job and had a set of knives hung above her bed "in case I ever need them."

Katherine's violent tendencies grew over time, and she soon earned herself a reputation of being willing to attack anyone who upset her. Her first marriage was to an alcoholic coworker named David Stanford Kellett, and on their wedding day, her mother warned him to keep an eye out or her daughter would likely kill him if he made her mad. On their wedding night, Katherine attempted to strangle him, saying she was angry at him for falling asleep after only having intercourse with her three times.

The couple had a child together, but Katherine's violence grew as she often attacked her husband in fits of jealous rage, including an incident where she hit her husband's head so hard with a frying pan, she fractured his skull. Kellett eventually left Katherine for good, unable to cope with the constant abuse any longer. The following night, she was admitted to St. Elmo's hospital after being seen violently tossing her infant's pram from side to side, the baby still inside, but was released on good behavior. Katherine then left the baby on a railway line, took up an ax, and headed into town where she threatened to kill people. The infant was rescued minutes before the next train was due to arrive, and Katherine was admitted into St. Elmo's again, but released the very next day.

Not long after, Katherine attacked a woman, slashing her face with a knife and forcing her to drive towards Queensland to find her husband. The woman managed to escape and by the time the police arrived, Katherine was holding a young boy hostage. She was eventually subdued, then admitted into another psychiatric hospital where she revealed she had intended to kill her husband, his mother, and his mechanic as punishment for fixing the car he left in.

Some months after her release, she became involved with, and even had a child with a man named David Saunders, but this would also prove to be disastrous. Katherine suffered severe jealousy over her partner and even cut the throat of his 2-month-old dingo pup in front of him as a warning of what she would do if he ever cheated on her. The two eventually got a house together, but after a fight that ended in Katherine smashing his face with an iron and stabbing him in the stomach with a pair of scissors, Saunders went into hiding. He came back briefly in an attempt to see their daughter, but Katherine went to the police and had an AVO issued against him.

Another relationship and another child later, Katherine soon became involved with a man named John Price. Price had three children of his own, one of which was living with his ex-wife. He was well aware of Katherine's violent history. Despite that, he let her move in with him and his two children, willing to overlook the occasional violent arguments. When Price refused to marry her, Katherine retaliated by video taping items Price had stolen from work and sent it to his boss, causing him to get fired. Price kicked her out of the house for it, but it did not end there.

Despite their falling out, Price restarted his relationship with Katherine, though he refused to let her move in with him again. Unable to handle the violent relationship, Price's friends abandoned him, no longer wanting to be a part of it. Soon enough the violent fights began again, and after Katherine stabbed him in the chest, Price drove her out again and went out to have a restraining order placed against her. He told he coworkers that day that if he didn't show up for work the next day, it was because Katherine killed him.

The following morning, Price did not show up for work, and his coworker and a neighbor turned up at his house to check on him. When they found blood on his front door, they called the police who broke down the door when they arrived. What they found was something out of a horror movie.

Price's body was on the floor, having been stabbed up to 37 times. He had been skinned, his skin hanging from a meat hook on the architrave of a door to the lounge room. He had been beheaded and parts of him had been cooked up and served on two settings with vegetables on the dining table. Next to each setting was a place card, each with a name for both his children. Thankfully, neither of his children were home at the time of the murder.

Katherine is the first Australian woman to have ever received a life sentence without the chance of parole and is currently still being held at the Silverwater Women's Correctional Centre in New South Wales.