Germany’s ‘cannibal cop’ awaits verdict in gruesome killing

A verdict is expected Wednesday in the trial of a German former police officer who allegedly killed a willing victim he met on a website for cannibalism fetishists. Detlev Guenzel, 57, stands accused of murder driven by sexual lust and disturbing the peace of the dead although there is no evidence that he ate any part of his victim. A regional court in the eastern city of Dresden was to rule in the macabre case which captured international headlines when it broke in 2013. State attorneys have sought 10 and a half years in prison for the defendant, a trim, soft-spoken father of three adult children who neighbours described as friendly, generous and unfailingly polite.

I don’t claim I’m entirely innocent. It was the biggest mistake of my life. But I am not a murderer.

Accused cannibal murderer, Detlev Guenzel, 57

Guenzel went on trial in August for allegedly killing Stempniewicz, a business consultant, at the defendant’s home, a bed-and-breakfast inn in the mountain town of Hartmannsdorf-Reichenau near the Czech border, in November 2013. He then allegedly cut his body into small pieces and buried them in his garden. In the process, he made a grisly home video of the events that prosecutors say he intended to use as pornography. The men came across each other in October 2013 on a website for slaughter and cannibalism fantasies billed as the “#1 site for exotic meat” and boasting more than 3,000 registered members.

Europe