The thought of eating human flesh usually turns people stomachs ‘ unless they simply must do in order to survive. There are urban myths all over the internet about people being deliberately fed the flesh from a human in restaurants. Despite suspicions that this or that food outlet is serving human flesh, very few have actually been verified. Occasionally though, such a story is verified and makes it into the news by virtue of the fact that they are so rare. Here is a list of ten stories where people have eaten physical parts of a human body.

1. I Prefer Pig’s Ears

In 2011, Brendan Higginbotham who now refuses to talk about the incident after the single interview he gave was involved in a fight in Newbridge (in County Kildare) in 2011. He was attacked by a gang at knifepoint then beaten with a hammer and a metal bar ‘ possibly a crowbar. In the ensuing fight part of his right ear was cut off by one of the gang members who then thought it might be a good idea to force the man to consume it.

2. Raw Organic’¦ Beard?

We tend to associate cannibalism with the eating of human flesh, skin, cartilage, fat etc. but Harvey from Kentucky USA got into a fight over a lawnmower with the person his brother worked for ‘ all fairly typical small town issues you would think until the person he was fighting cut off Harvey’s beard, stuffed it into his mouth and forced him to eat it. The other two men had been noticeably drunk and had offered to purchase the lawnmower from Mister Westmoreland when the fight broke out.

3. The Manager Left Me a Tip!

David Scheiding got an unexpected inclusion in his fast food meal from Arby’s, a chain of sandwich restaurants in the USA. The manager of the restaurant had sliced off the tip of his thumb earlier in the day while slicing lettuce. Of course the blood was cleaned up but a frantic search for dismembered appendage was fruitless’¦ that was until the customer bought his lunch in the restaurant and found the digit in his sandwich. Scheiding sued the restaurant for $50,000

4. Residents of Blackpool

In a case that was never confirmed, the tragedy of a missing girl took a bizarre twist. The two men who were eventually charged with her murder owned a kebab shop in the town and one of them ‘joked’ that the 14 year old had been cut up and fed to his customers in his kebabs. The trial was later thrown out and a retrial halted due to the dubious nature of the evidence. Nobody will ever know what happened to Charlene Downes and if she was eaten, the evidence has long since disappeared. The doner kebab is a mainstay of British takeaway food using lamb, a chilli sauce and salad in a pitta bread.

5. Residents of Perm

If the case above is ambiguous, then this case in Russia from November 2010 certainly isn’t. Three homeless men were charged and convicted of killing a man and then selling his chopped up body to a street vendor who then made kebabs from the meat. They also admitted to sampling the flesh of the dead man before selling the rest of the corpse to the vendor. The men were jailed for 18 years each

6. The Grail Movement Cult

The leader of the cult, a Czech woman named Klara Mauerova, was into all sorts of weird things including but not limited to slavery, torture and forced cannibalism. In the most shocking case, she ordered and was involved in the skinning of her own son. What’s worse was that he was alive and he was forced to eat his own eviscerated flesh. Both Klara and her sister were jailed for the crime along with a man who was also part of the cult. The abused boys survived and gave evidence at the trial

7. Lynching in Retribution

1930s Bible Belt was not exactly a utopia for blacks so when Claude Neal was arrested for the murder and rape of a young white woman by the name of Lola Cannady, nobody expected a fair trial for him. In fact, Neal never received a trial at all and he suffered one of the most brutal lynching in the history of the act. Dragged from the jail cell by a baying mob, he was taken to rural Jackson County, Florida and tortured for several hours during which his genitals were cut off and force fed to him.

8. What Goes On In Syria

The ongoing tragedy of the Arab Spring is the civil war still raging in Syria ‘ rumoured to have seen the use of chemical weapons which forced the rest of the world to finally take notice. It is reported though that security services working for the government are engaged in forced cannibalism as a form of torture for the prisoners. This includes making them swallow their own fingernails and drinking their own blood from the floor.

9. The Infamous Joseph Kony

Known for leading the Lord’s Resistance Army in Africa, one woman who wished to be identified only as Laweel, told of her horrendous experiences with the man. He forced her and a number of other women to be sex slaves. They were eventually released back to their communities as a warning not to resist the LRA. However, there was a catch. The women were mutilated ‘ many had their noses cut off, and were forced to eat them.

10. Housemaids and Guests of Elizabeth Bathory

Accused herself of eating the flesh of her victims and bathing in their blood to keep her young and beautiful, many of her former housemaids would later say that she often took young victims from within her house and force them to eat their own flesh before she killed them. This she would order fried on an open fire. In some cases she would also feed the flesh to men she entertained, serving it with mushrooms and other vegetables.

Conclusion

Tales of cannibalism of any form often disturbs us. There are many tales of people resorting to eating human flesh purely to survive and many convicted criminals jailed for murder and the consumption of their victims. Most of us though, live in fear of the accidental consumption of human flesh.