Miami likes to pride itself as a trendsetting metro, but this is ridiculous.
In the wake of the now infamous "Miami Zombie" face-eating attack, several other stories about mentally disturbed people either eating or doing other horrifically bizarre things to body parts have popped up in the media. Which either means a taste for human flesh really is spreading, or the media just has more of a taste for spreading the stories. More than likely it's the latter.
In any event, we guess it's somewhat comforting to know that Miami really isn't that much stranger than the rest of the world.
Baltimore Brain Eater
First we have a story out of Baltimore about a Morgan State University student killing, dismembering and eating his roommate. 37-year-old Kujoe Bonsafo Agyei-Kodie went missing earlier this week, and his brother found metal tins in the basement that contained a human head and hands. The brother confronted 21-year-old college student Alexander Kinyua, who also stayed in the house. He said they were animal remains, but police determined otherwise. Kinyua latter confessed to killing the man, dismembering him with a knife and then eating his heart and portions of his brain, according to CBS Baltimore. The attack may have actually predated the Miami incident as Agyei-Kodie had gone missing on Friday night.
Canadian Killer Porn Star
This one is actually the craziest, with the most bizarre strands. This guy Luka Magnotta apparently murdered a man with an icepick, uploaded the video of the murder to the Internet, dismembered the man, and then mailed a foot to Canada's Conservative Party and tried to mail a hand to the Liberal Party. Magnotta also had a history of working in both low-budget straight, bisexual and gay pornography, and a weird Internet history that apparently included uploading video of killing kittens (he also might have had sex with the kitten's dead bodies). There's actually more weird odds and ends to this story, but we're about to throw up as it is.
There is however a small Miami connection (because of course there is). He once posted on the MiamiBeach411.com forums claiming to have moved to Miami in 2010. Of course the guy has a weird Internet trail, and a moderator of the forum points out the IP he used to post it was based in Toronto, Canada. So it's entirely possible he never actually lived in Miami.
New Jersey Intestine Flinger
We of course can always expect New Jersey to be competitive in the craziest state race. Police in Hackensack tried to intervene when a man holed up in his room and threatened to kill himself. Once they busted in the man stabbed himself and threw pieces of his skin and intestines at police.
Swedish Lip Eater
Even in idyllic, peaceful Sweden, things got cannibalistic this week. A man suspected his much younger wife of cheating on him, so he flew into a rage, cut off her lips, and then allegedly ate them. The man apparently believes he was merely protecting his honor, and feel no sorrow for the attack.
So What The Hell Is Going On Here? Is It the Sign of the End Times?
Probably not. The media may not have gotten high on bath salts, but the Miami incident probably left them (well, us) hungry for more gore. "Oh, you guys like hearing about the Miami Zombie? Well look what other crazy story we've found." Granted, the Miami incident was bound to hit the news, but it's also important to remember the time and place it occurred gave it extra media oomph.
Thanks to the hubbub and controversy surrounding Miami Beach's Memorial Day Weekend celebration after the police involved shooting that happened last year, the local media was on full alert waiting for something to happen. Nothing really that noteworthy ended up happening on Miami Beach this weekend, so we all just jumped on to this instead. The event also happened a block away from the HQ of a major, well major-ish, newspaper. So close, in fact, that the Miami Herald captured the attack on its security cameras. All that lead to immediate and increased local attention which later translated into national attention.
Stories of people eating other people aren't actually that uncommon. Just earlier this year a Florida man was arrested after killing a man in Connecticut, eating his brain, and telling his cousin it tasted like "women's come." In 2009 a Texas woman ate her newborn baby's brain and toes. Just in April three Brazilian members of a religious sect confessed to killing and eating parts of two women. In 2007 a Czech family killed, skinned and ate their 8-year-old brother and son. After police killed a Slovak man last year they found a fridge full of body parts belonging to two woman that they believe he feasted from. In 2008 a former Mr. Gay UK killed a guy and ate part of his thigh. A German adventurer who went missing in French Polynesia last fall may have also been eaten by his tour guide. We could find more examples from the last 5 years, but we think you've had enough.
This is not to say cannibalism is exactly common, but its not particularly rare either. This is a planet of nearly seven million billion people after all, and some of us are bound to end up going off the deep end up. But taking two cases that coincidentally happened within days of each other and throwing in a couple of other bizarre crimes does not exactly a zombie apocalypse make.
Remember back in late 2010 and early 2011 when the media was full of stories about mass animal deaths? No, you probably don't. Well here's a Wikipedia article on it! Some people were even sure it was a sign of the Apocalypse. Well, actually it turns out that mass animal deaths happen all the time. The media was just for some reason reporting on it a lot more. This is a whole lot more gruesome, but we're probably looking at the same media meme-ification here.
So rest assured, zombie mayhem is not breaking out. Though, we're not sure you can take much comfort in knowing things like this happen with some regularity.
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