Episode 577: Armin Meiwes Part II - The Final Taboo
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Man, nothing has to be.

As disappointing as finding out that you don't even have enough dick for lunch. I know I don't. I know I don't. Nobody does. Well, if you could have, for me, you can have one ball for one lunch and another for dinner. That's different. But that's only if you want to eat the same thing twice. Absolutely. And that's the type of German eggs that I don't want. I don't want your German eggs. I just, it's just weird. What about for Easter? Oh!

I love Germany. What a great day today is going to be. Welcome to the last podcast on the left, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Marcus Sparks. I'm here with Henry Zebrowski. Hungry, hungry Henry Zebrowski. Oh, man. I honestly, I did eat lunch. What did you have? I had my Gert.

I had berries and girt. I had that for breakfast. Yeah, that was my lunch. Not a green smoothie for lunch today, knowing that we were going to have this episode. But I'm excited about today. Yeah. Because today it's time for Dude to be on the menu. Yay, we did it.

We made it. We made it. And of course, making it with us is Ed Larson. For years, I worked at a cheesesteak restaurant. Years. 99 miles to Philly. Do you think one of the saddest things... Do you think this is 99 miles to Frankfurt? Do you have to shave the meat? Like when you do a... It comes pre-shaven, but we kind of half cook it and then put it

with some juice on the side and then freeze it and then unfreeze it. But it doesn't come in a big frozen block that you shave sections off because I wonder how he'd make cheese dick.

Like, how would he make human cheesesteak? I would imagine he'd probably use the back and shave it. Yeah. But, you know, we never went through. I didn't. You know, it was a storefront. You know, we're not shaving legs of cow and shit like that. No, no. They're giving us the meat. It's got a little deli paper in between it. We're flapping on the grill. Yeah. It's a tiny little place in the East Village. And man, I miss that place. I miss that place. R.I.P. But guys, today it's getting romantic. But just remember.

Tone's going to shift. Because last week, you remember, like, again, it does. It gets very romantic, but it gets a little intense. That's why we're going from old school. Hey! We're going from that to... Yeah! I got it! Yeah! Yeah, dude! This is mine!

Yeah! And of course, that is Rammstein. Rammstein. Rammstein. Rammstein with their song About. Well, actually, it's not necessarily about Armin Mivas. It's more about, it's from the perspective of the man Armin Mivas ate. The man who came to dinner and was dinner. Yeah, appropriately named burnt.

Hey, it was medium rare. Well, not the penis. We'll get into it. There we go. You know what's interesting about Rammstein? I didn't realize they're named after the town because I went to Rammstein Air Force Base. I don't know if it's Stein or Steen. Stein. It's Stein. I went to Rammstein Air Force Base when I did USO. Oh, wow. So they're like Germany, Chicago. That's amazing. That's Chicago? Is that their version of Saturday in the Park? Yeah.

Love that song. Love that song. So when we last left Armin Mivas, his fantasies of killing and eating another man were about to come true. Lucky boy. After spending months on various cannibal forums searching for a potential willing victim and coming up empty, Armin had finally found a man who was pathologically obsessed with being annihilated by another human being, culinarily speaking. As is called animus.

Epicurean cannibalism. Did you know that there's a whole world of cannibalism that's called Epicurean cannibalism, which means to eat for the taste? Wow. Oh, yeah. It's not for survival. I guess you should distinct the two. Well, we covered it when we covered the... Alive! We're talking about the rugby team. That's technically anthropophagy, which is they eating for survival. It's called survival cannibalism. But yeah, he just liked it.

I wonder if they think he's like a poser or the best. He actually did become a minor folk hero in his little community. Oh, interesting. Well, the man who was annihilated was named Bernd Brandes. And his desire, because it's more, it's burned instead of burnt. Yeah, it's burned.

And his desire to be consumed and Armin's desire to feast upon flesh matched about as perfectly as one could hope in situations such as this. Yeah, man. It's just kind of incredible. Yeah. You never know when you're going to meet your soulmate. It wasn't a perfect match. We're going to get into it. It wasn't a perfect match. Hey, what's perfect? You know, what's perfect? Is our marriage perfect? No. Are they great? Yes. Yeah. So...

They found it. They found themselves. It's like Jack and Rose. Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of blood. Yeah. So after a period of back and forth on email, Bernd arrived at Armin's local train station with an aggressive attitude towards being killed and eaten as soon as possible, but not necessarily in that order. What if Bernd did show up with just two...

Hamburger buns. Just like, what does this look like? Is it my new hat? As far as how a specimen such as Bernd Brandes came to be, he was born in Berlin in 1958 as the perfectly normal middle class son of two doctors. Now those doctors, they spent a lot of time massaging his body with nice, delicious herbs.

herbs and like a sake in order to sort of like marble them through. We're going to do this the whole time? I'm just saying. You're starting at the very beginning. You're starting with his birth. You're just saying that he was first marinated. Exactly. That's where they start these Kobe beefs. That's where they start them. Straight out the pussy. But when Bernd was five years old, his mother accidentally killed a patient during a procedure. Dropped an anvil on him. Laughter

That anvil therapy is so dangerous. It's only in Europe. Well, soon after, while on vacation, his mother crashed her car into a tree, which killed her instantly. While it was ruled an accident, Baron's father always believed it to be a suicide because she couldn't live with the guilt of a patient's death.

But the stress of Baron's mother's death at such a young age and the subsequent transference of his mother's guilt, this became a pathology in which Baron believed that he had to atone for his mother's failings and her death through his own annihilation and suffering. Or at least that's what's speculated. There really is. Seems to be. I don't know. What a

pretty big connection to mommy issues and cannibalism. And Kemper, he also did weird cannibalistic acts. He had problems with mommy, right? I would say that most, what do you call them, not fetishes, a lot of them are...

associated with mommy it's not just cannibalism because mommy's got the tits but sometimes daddy's got the dicks and if you like the dicks then then daddy might give you the fetishes but remember daddy wasn't around yeah yeah it didn't help him but he yeah a lot of mommies around are really not doing their best yeah yeah especially if you're like yeah like jeffrey dahmer he had issues he had a bad mommy yeah he had a bad mommy well yeah like but a distant mommy

Well, he had a mommy that was incredibly depressive and that affected him in many ways. And his parents had a horrible relationship. And then they just abandoned him when he was about 16. That's when he started killing men. But that's because he sucked.

See, and that's the thing is that the kids suck. So yeah, they were right. Yeah, my parents pretty much abandoned me at 17. I didn't kill anybody. No, except for audiences around this country. Go to eddytoons.com and go and have him come to your local church, your local funeral home. I'll go anywhere.

But what's most interesting about this is that both Bernd and Armin developed their fantasies at around the same age, although Armin seemed to have been born with it, while Bernd's was created by outside forces. But we got a really interesting email at Side Stories this week from a person who actually does have this cannibalism fetish, and they said that...

through speaking with other people who have this same fetish, they're like, you're kind of just born with it. Yeah, it does seem... They just all say like... And they said a lot of people get it though, like when it does get kind of baked in later on, a lot of people get it from Pinocchio. Really? Like when Pinocchio gets swallowed by the whale. What? Some of them say like, yeah, when I watched that when I was a kid, it made me really horny. What? He's getting swallowed by the whale?

of the whale? Yeah, but that's Vore. Then we're in the world of Vore, too, because Vore is something else entirely. Vore is the idea that you are sexually attracted to the idea of being entirely consumed. That's Burned, kind of, in his own way. He does like that, kind of, because his is the opposite swing, right, where Armand's is all about looking at people as food, but Burned looked in the mirror and sees pizza. Yeah. He literally is like, I'm hot. I'm so hot.

I shouldn't exist. And he had no strings to hold him down. Great Pinocchio joke. Fantastic. Do you know he only lies once in a whole fucking movie? It's because he's inherently on his Pinocchio. He learned the lesson early. He's a pure spirit. Nevertheless, while Armin was...

obsessed with consuming his entire life, Baron had a lifelong obsession with being consumed. And it wasn't just like, we'll get into it later. It wasn't just that it made him horny. It was everything. There was a lot of shit going on with Baron, including not being okay with being like having a lot of issues with being gay, having issues with like self love and self hatred and all that. Like Baron was a, he's a fascinating individual, but you know, he's got some problems. It's,

He's got problems. Yeah. He seems oddly self-aware. Oh, he is. He's, I think, one of the most incredibly self-aware people that I've ever read about. Yeah. Very in touch with himself. But just like Armin, Bernd was an average human being to most outside observers. He was the head of his department at Germany's largest engineering firm, and he had a string of unsuccessful relationships with women.

Finally, though, at the age of 40, he accepted that he was gay. By the end of 1999, two years before his fateful meeting with Armin, Bernd was even in a healthy relationship with a man named René. And together they built a happy life in Berlin, even though Bernd chose to keep his sexuality a secret from his co-workers. But what's fascinating about Bernd, and I do find Bernd fascinating,

Absolutely fascinating individual. Yes, we are very sickeningly curious about Bernd. Is that while many people with a pathological need for self-destruction sometimes channel that into addiction or risky behavior, Bernd channeled his need completely into sexual fetishes. It was all...

day. And I get it. I'm horny too. I'm horny as a damn jackrabbit. And I'm not this horny. So him and Renee were just banging and banging and banging and banging and banging? Well, I mean, he engaged in the services of various sex workers. He would go up to three times a day. Three times a day. That's expensive. I mean, well, he was the head of his fucking team. You never know. You never know who's doing what.

And, yeah, do you think he had one of those mouse twitchers to keep some of them know that he was at work while he was, like, going and getting sounded and getting his butthole destroyed? Well, you would go to play out his extreme BDSM urges, in which he would be whipped and his fantasies could be taken to their limits.

Eventually, though, the play acting wasn't enough. His biggest fantasy, the one that came ahead of total annihilation, was castration. But not the old school castration. No. Not like, not the balls. No, I mean, it's the full McGill. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's the guillotine was a mouth. And it was his hope that one day he would watch himself be castrated by another man before that man consumed him completely. Hmm.

Now, at first, Barron tried paying sex workers to bite off his penis. Once even going so far as to offer a man named Victor 10,000 marks to do so. Victor, of course, declined. Yeah. So Barron turned to the internet in the hopes that he could find someone willing to go all the way. Let's say you're in that scenario, right? At this point, you're spanking this guy.

What else are we doing to this guy, right? We're doing a bunch of weird shit, beating the shit out of him. Not weird. BDSM, totally normal. Do you think you... Yes, that's right. But I mean, like, at this point, you're Victor. Yeah. You're tired. You're tired.

He's hard. Now, tell us this bite on your penis. Bite on it. Bite on it. Now, bite on it and bite it, I think, are two different things. Bite through it. But there's no way. That preposition is really important. It does not start with bite my dick off. You know what it starts with? Kiss it. You ever see Corn on the Cob? You ever see American film? Corn on the Cob, American film, American blue jean? Right? And then he goes like, yeah, yeah, me know, I know, me know.

Matrix. Yeah, yeah, Matrix. Yeah, yeah, Matrix. Nibble on the outside. Nibble on the outside. And so it starts to think, ha, ha, ha. He's like, like this? He's like, oh, yeah. A little bit more. Now, you know American. Big man. Big man, big gun. Big buckle. Going over to Texas. Big ant. Right? He's going to bite into it now. Like a hot dog. Like a Frank Fitter. Like they do. You know? And then the guy has to go like, what?

Like, nah, dude, I'll suck the hell out of this. Like, I will suck this dick. That's what I'm here for, bro. I'm here, dude. I'm here, man. I've been probably sucking. Yes, but how many licks does it take to get to the center? Cinder of a what? Cinder of a huh? But yeah, it's got to be really tough. And then, because the guy, like, because 10,000 Deutschmarks is a lot. Yeah, I mean, I would imagine it was a negotiation. 2,000, 4,000, 7,000, 10,000. 10,000, bite it off! Yeah.

I probably said yes at first, and then, you know. Then you realize it's not just saying it. Well, that's the thing. Is it a cop? Yeah. Oh, yeah. The cops go in there. How fucking sick is Tommy trying to cover for you? The guy's already got full BDSM for hours, and then he says, bite your dick off, and he's like, this is the police. I'm going to arrest you.

Jesus Christ. What investigative reporter found Victor? Well, Victor declined. So Baron turned to the internet in the hopes that he could find someone willing to go all the way. This pathological need was so strong that Baron was actually the one who contacted Armin Mivas.

After seeing Armin's post looking for a young, well-built man who wanted to be eaten, Baron replied to see if Armin was truly serious about the offer. The only thing Baron fibbed about was that he told Armin he was 36 when he was actually 43. And we do have a little snippet of their conversation. Sure. Yeah, because it was actually released in Harper's.

Which is fucked. Where he sorts of, they do a lot of play. And first it talks about because he's going as Anthropogus and Bernd is going as Cater 99. Now we know that Anthropogus, he was talking about how he would like to drink. Anthropogus. He would like to taste his own blood. He would poke himself in the needle, taste his own blood. And he said it was delicious. But then it got, it did get more advanced. Cater 99.

I hope you won't wilt, that you can really see it through without a problem. I'm through, Faggus!

To bite into your penis will certainly not be easy. Living flesh is somewhat more resistant than fried. But one thing is certain. Our dream will be fulfilled. But there's not so much in it as there is in mustn't. Yeah. But the penis is principally a spongy material filled with blood. For both our sakes. I hope that's true. Ha ha ha! Ooh!

Hit it, Rob. And so, after he and Armin agreed that Friday, March 9th, 2001 would be the day, Bernd spent the preceding weeks wiping his hard drives of anything that might lead police or his boyfriend, Rene, to Armin. Because a part of their conversations were obviously Armin being like,

What his real issues were, which is I don't want to kill somebody against their will. And Burns is like, great. Love that with you. And then he's like, my main issue truly is that, like, how do I do this without getting in trouble? I'm definitely going to get in trouble. It's why I didn't want to do this in the first place. And essentially, Burns is like, that's why we got to make sure that there ain't nothing left of me, baby. Yeah. Because he wanted to go bones and all. Much like the Timothy Chamolet ding dong movie, which is actually pretty good. It was fine. I liked it.

Well, Berne then wrote a will leaving everything to René as his only clue that he was probably dead and not just missing after he left home on March 9th. Knowing full well that if all went according to plan, if Armin were to truly wipe every vestige of Berne's physical presence off this earth, René would never have any idea what really happened.

And it wasn't just like covering Armin's ass. It was also a part of Baron's wishes, his fantasy that he'd be completely erased from Earth. He wanted to disappear. Marcus, how would you get rid of the bones? How would I get rid of the bones? You know what? I was actually thinking about this. And he talked a little bit about like grinding the bones down. And one thing that I've never figured out, no one has ever really done this. You know a Dremel? Yeah. Why don't you just get a Dremel and just little by little just...

shave all the bones down. It is a lot of time. You gotta wear an N95 for that. Yes, absolutely. It's a lot of fucking, it's a lot of noise. It's a fair amount of noise, but it's not as much time as you'd think. Remember I used to work with bones all the time. I used to shave them up for the Patreon. Not as much time as you'd think. I would do, honestly, what I would do is if I'm already cooking them, I'd boil up as many bones as I could in big

batches. I'd boil them up into kind of honestly sort of a broth to soften them up as much as I possibly could. And then, yeah, I would probably break them into little sections and then slowly but surely grind them up into dust and then you kind of litter them out into the forest.

Well, you got to be careful when you're littering it. You don't want a situation. Who was the guy in Indiana again? Herb Baumeister. Herb Baumeister. He broke them up pretty good, but he still got caught. Honestly, it's probably best to put him out in the city then. Yeah. You take it to Berlin, man. You take it to the local club in Berlin. Those people don't know what they take. These guys fucking, they don't know what they're snorting. You just fucking start selling that shit as fucking yayo. And they ask me like, oh, what kind of cocaine is this? And you're going to be like, oh, it's my brand new, it's called Juergen.

Yeah, you sell it at a vampire club in Berlin. That's huge. Go on a wine river cruise and start dumping them.

Now, after Baron and Armin met at the train station and had their immediate moment of connection... Kiss me on the milky twilight. Just seeing each other that first time, it must have been so romantic. They fell into planning how Baron's slaughter was going to go, step by step, almost from the minute they got into Armin's car.

But while Armin was understandably focused on getting to the cannibalism as soon as possible, Bernd was more interested in the castration aspect and the following action of not only having his penis eaten, but for him to also eat his own penis. Ha ha ha!

All right. Yeah. It's in the contract. That's the job. That's the writer. We know this was the negotiation. The negotiation begins now. Yeah. Because just like Armin needed the person he ate to consent to the act fully, Baron needed someone else to castrate and destroy him to fulfill his fantasy. He must have read the order of negotiation. Yeah.

Doing it himself, it seemed, would be no better than masturbation. It's like how you can't give yourself a massage. No, absolutely not. It's so aggravating because I try and it just doesn't work. It doesn't work at all. No, and it even works less with the cut off disembodied hands of a dead woman. Like it's just not the same. I flop them and I slap them. It doesn't work. Nothing. Just put them on the ground, roll around a bunch. Nothing works. Nothing's not doing it. Okay.

Well, furthermore, Baron seemed to see this entire scenario as a sort of reverse domination, which played with Armand's intense need to eat him. As we'll see, Baron was in charge of every moment leading up to his eventual demise, even goading Armand along when Armand faltered.

In fact, Armin never wanted to participate in any sort of conscious castration or anything that felt as if he was hurting Bernd unnecessarily. After all, Armin wouldn't torture a pig before slaughtering it for meat, and he saw that Bernd's death, in practice at least...

It was the same thing. I feel like we're like at the DNC, like arguing about different forms of leftism. This is what it's like. It's a fighting on the inside. But what does it mean? Who is the more pure cannibal? I'm a good guy. I don't want to do this, buddy. Because this is where it gets. This is why this happens.

case has caught so much interest and why everybody's really like, honestly, there's so many people interested in this because of this very, the center of their relationship is so interesting. They did sort of find the perfect quote unquote, the, the, the give and take because it really like Armin did not want to hurt him. He was really anti the idea of it's what his whole thing was before about how like

I wish I could just get the meat. I just want the meat. And it's hard to just get the meat. It's actually, it's impossible. It's very, very difficult. For such a black and white issue. It's incredibly murky. Yes. This is hot. No, this story is incredibly murky. Like, I mean, it, it even like, it goes into issues of like consent and like, you know, and like euthanasia, euthanasia, like who, who does, like who can do that? You know, it's, it's,

very, very, very fascinating. And how their fantasies match up, kind of, but not really. Because since Baron was in charge of everything from beginning to end, he made a stipulation before they even met that none of this could happen unless Armin agreed to castrate him first before killing him. And Armin...

still used to taking orders, just like from his mother, he agreed. It also was his sexual... That was a part of the game. Of the negotiation and all of the allowances are part of the game. Armin was obsessed with... Remember we talked about last episode, the idea that he has...

wants to be chosen. He wants to be needed. He wants someone to need and want him to do a thing for him. He wants the meat to say, eat me. And they only do it in the Arby's commercials. It doesn't really work like that. Eat me! He's desperate for the thing to go eat me. And the thing is going to eat me. But now Byrne is saying, eat me, but

Four six first. The dick ate him as a go. You know what I mean? So he's like, he has to do it. He's like, all right. Yeah, because it's a different sort of like fetish because like Armin wants to see another man as livestock. He wants to see him as a pig. But also in love with him. Yeah. Wanting it. He wants to want, the pig has to want to die. Now that's not to say that Bernd was a selfish lover.

he had fully complied with Armin's request to fast for the two days prior to their meeting because, as Baron put it, he wanted to be the best meal Armin ever had. This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. Finding work-life balance can be tough, but Squarespace gives you the tools to reach your goals and have time to celebrate.

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Now, on the way home from the train station, Armin and Bernd picked up painkillers and a bottle of schnapps as a part of their plan. After the castration, Bernd would take a cocktail of sleeping pills, cough medicine, and schnapps. Then Armin would stab Bernd's throat to bleed him out.

Awesome. Yeah. Fucking thumbs up, bro. Good plan. After a Baron's body was drained, Armin would butcher the body in such a way where the maximum amount of Baron's body could be consumed, while the inedible parts like the skin, bones, and innards would be destroyed completely. You don't think he'd eat the skin?

No. No, absolutely. Char it up, you know. I've eaten some pork skin. I mean, we've all eaten pork rinds. I mean, they're fantastic. I don't think pork rinds, like, that's such a, that's a very southern thing. I don't think that made it over to Germany. Sidestorieslpotl at gmail.com. Do we believe that human skin is something that can cheat you around? I think so. Yeah. And as we know, the whole thing would be filmed on videotape from beginning to end so Armin could relive the experience whenever he wanted. Yeah. Yeah.

If you're feeling especially wild and wooly today, a couple of extraordinarily graphic stills that are said to be from the video can be found from a quick Google search. Although I can neither confirm nor deny their authenticity. All I know is that I couldn't find an alternative explanation as to where these stills are from if they're not from Armin's video. Nobody's out saying like, oh, that's from this movie or it's from like, you know, it's a...

or it's just a drawing or whatever. They look very, very real. Do we have them? Can I see them? The pictures are in the book.

These are all in the book, too. I was reading a book on it. He's wearing a chef's hat. That's one. Yeah, that's more of a that's more of a funny kind of a character thing there. But the meat laying on its side there and the dude slit in half. Yeah, that's that's that's a dude slit in half. That's a dude slit in half. Oh, my God. See, humans are just meat. That's kind of the worst part. And the head is gone. Yeah, the head is actually in the corner watching him. We'll get there.

Yeah. And then what's that there at the bottom? Is that a leg? That's an arm and a chest. Yeah, that's an arm. You can see his nipple there. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Wow. Yeah. I mean, honestly. You still have no problems with this, but you almost threw up from the chorizo video. The chorizo video is fucking disgusting. I can't believe that you were looking at an actual human corpse. If he was eating it and throwing it up, I would have a problem with that. To know what we're talking about, please go see the latest Marcus Mandate on the latest episode of Last Stream on the Left, which I think is now posted to our YouTube channel. Yep.

Now, it seems like Baron's desires came not only from a sexual urge, but also from a deep well of self-hatred. It's as if the governor... You can take him down, Rob. You can take down the pitches. Please, take him down. Oh, I made him my desktop. I love it. Like I said, his desires also came from a deep well of self-hatred, as if the governor on his Freudian death drive had popped a gasket while also becoming fused with his sex drive. It's

Bad combo. Yeah. Whatever it is, man. For example, when Armin asked Baron why he wanted to do this, I mean, really, why? Baron said that it was because he hated himself, hated his sexuality, and hated his extremely high sex drive. He called himself a worthless piece of meat and bones, adding that he just had

But even though his need to be consumed came from a very negative place, the hours Bernd and Armin shared before Bernd was killed sounds like the nervous beginnings of an intense relationship that has begun online, then suddenly jumps to real life.

It feels like an episode, like, have you ever seen Before the 90 Days? The 90 Day Fiance spinoff? Yes. It's basically a show about online dating where, like, people see, like, you know, they start meeting each other on the internet and then they meet for the first time. It feels a lot like that. Yeah, if you have one of those things where you're calling, you've never met, but you're calling each other, like, pookie bud or doing that, you're being really, really romantic. Hello, my love. Yes, my love. Yes, my love. And then you meet in real life and then you got to meet, like...

Burns fucking co-workers. You know what I mean? That's always like a problem. And you got to meet Armin's mom because Armin's mom doesn't like you. Armin's mom lives in the closet. Yeah. You got too many guinea pigs in the house. Yeah. You got all this dumb shit. Because I guess also when Burns came in the room, one of the first things he did is that he took off all of his clothes and he says, "'Cause I want to admire your dinner."

which is, again, it's very, in a very...

Bad way. Yeah. It's bad, but it seems like he was having a great time. Yeah, it's romantic. Yeah, and then he's just sitting there going, like, just so excited. And that's really kind of the crux of it. Yeah. Is that the entire time, this all happens over the course of, it seems about 14 hours. This is the notebook. Yeah. It really does seem like Baron the entire time is...

loving it. He's in love? Like, he's absolutely, like, this is what he's always wanted. Kiss me. On the other hand, under the making timeline. But you also sometimes get that with people who just finally decide that they're going to, you know, die by suicide. Is it like the days and we, oh, you know, he was so, you know, he seemed to be fine. It's because he's finally made the decision. Man.

just thinking about Renee, like it's already bad enough when your significant other cheats on you. He went and became somebody's dinner. That's worse than going like, imagine if he had went straight. That'd almost be worse.

Once they got back to the house, Armand gave Berend a tour of the farmhouse and made him coffee using the fine china meant only for special occasions that had not been touched since Voltroud's death. I must tell you something, Berend. You will find this most exciting. I haven't used these plates since my blessed mother's funeral.

And you're like, awesome. If you're in his house, if you're in that Tudor house, it's only, nothing is not served on a dead mother's items. After coffee, they retired to the bedroom where they had sex and explored each other's bodies. Lick, lick, give you a little lick. Mmm.

This is salty. This is sweet. You were down here. I kiss your feet. So they were being clean, though, the whole time, and he wasn't allowed to eat anything. But then he gave him a bunch of coffee, and now he's just going to make a fucking shit. Hey, buddy, he's got to stay awake to get his dick cut off. It's a long, honestly, it was a long train trip.

And they're really very distracted. So I imagine he's very tired. This, of course, is when events left 90 Day Fiancé territory and entered into something closer to a chapter from the book Apocalypse Culture. Yeah.

Armin began asking for reassurance again and again that Bernd wanted to be eaten. You can get out of it any time. You want to go? Here's the pot. Do you want it? Does this look delicious to you? Seems oddly responsible. He is very responsible with this from beginning to end. And Bernd, of course, told Armin that he not only wanted to be eaten, he needed to be eaten. Look at these chicken legs. Look at these sausage arms.

They then fell into a conversation not unlike two men who share an off-kilter hobby, bemoaning the fact that cannibalism was illegal while discussing their favorite cannibals. Barron's favorite was Colorado's own Alfred Packer.

America boy! See, America's still inspiring people across the world. Yeah, even old school America. You remember Cannibal the Musical? Yeah, that's what that is. That's Alfred Packer, yeah, yeah. He might be my favorite. Yeah. Yeah.

The sun is full as a baked potato. Horse is a horse. Of course. Of course. Exactly what I mean. When I say it's a Spadonkle day. And this is their biggest Spadonkle day. This is Bird Spadonkle day. He's so excited about today. I'm the happy man. Let's build a snowman. We can make him tall. We can make him not so tall.

I love that fucking movie. The conversation about cannibalism turned romantic quickly. Armin remembered that he looked into Baron's eyes and said, quote, I want to stab you to death, gut you, and carve you up. Then I'll eat you. And before long... From soup to poop.

That's what I make you. Oh, you started as a man, but soon you'll be a little fart. It definitely gives new meaning to the phrase soup to nuts. Yes, it does. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, before long, they decided that it was time to get down to business. Oh, yeah. They made their way to the slaughter room.

Oh, yeah. It's time to get funky. You're so excited. You're incredibly excited about this. You're convinced that this is a romantic getaway. It is. Instead of like...

Like a man is committing suicide and you're like, Jamaica, Jamaica, ooh, I want to take you to Bermuda. This isn't a trip to the fucking Bahamas. Don't you want to eat the man? Whoa, whoa.

I just see all of this. Like all of the haunted or like the weird dumb shit in his mom's house, all singing like anthropomorphize like wigs. Beauty and the Beast. Yeah. You got a little teacup and everything. You're like, whoo.

He's finally found love. The rose will be complete. But he eats every inch of it. I will not be a clock anymore. I can finally go back to being a full-grown pedophile man.

Yeah, and I go back to what I like to do, which is ruining a lot of children instead of me on this stupid plot. Some candlelight? As my buddy, the cantaloupe, he also used to be a pedophile. Yeah.

Well, they made their way to the slaughter room where Armin turned on the video camera. That, by the way, is why we know so much about this story and what transpired between Armin and Bernd. Quite a bit of their interactions that day were taped and not just the nasty part.

In the beginning, Armin and Beren sat in the slaughter room and looked at the shadows the lighting in the room created on the walls. And like two kids staring at clouds, they called out what animals they saw and the forms created by the meat hooks and...

and various other accoutrements that would soon be used to butcher Bernd. Tell me, what does this remind you of, Bernd? Is it a seahorse? No. Guess again. Hookfish. Yes. You're funny. What does this look like, Bernd? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It looks like your face. Yeah, it is.

And so, after just a few hours of getting-to-know-you time and sporadic sexual contact, they decided that it was time to begin the event that both of them had wanted for almost their entire lives. Now, naturally, Baron's castration fantasy had to come first, so he looked Armin in the eyes and told him that he wanted to give him an appetizer for the feast ahead.

In other words, it was finally time for Armin to bite and chew Bernd's penis off his body until nothing remained. Not even a stump. And you know, Armin was definitely nervous. Yeah. Because he didn't want to fuck it up. No, well, he didn't want to do it. No, he had a hard time. I get it. It's hard to rip a penis off with your mouth. And so Armin knelt before Bernd's extraordinarily erect penis and opened his mouth while Bernd shouted on camera,

Bite into it! Please! Just bite it! Hand! But when it came time... Yeah, when it came time for Armin to do what Bernd asked of him, he found that he didn't have the stomach for it, so to speak. I do, sir. You were telling me about the corn nibble. Before, can I start with the little nibble?

He's more of a butcher. Yeah. He just wants the meat. He just wants the meat. It's not like hurting someone else is not in his pathology at all. And frustrated, Berend continued to scream, saying, No! You have to do it! Damn it! You can't stop now! Bite it! I'm biting. I'm biting, Berend. Is this our first fight? Are you yelling at me? Are you yelling at the situation? You know what they say? Couples need to not fight each other.

Fight the problem. At that point, Baron got physically aggressive, grabbing Armin's hair so he could force Armin's head back towards his penis. Now, Armin was able to give him a gentle bite, but even while Baron urged him on, Armin could not bite hard enough to even draw blood. That's when Baron fell into despair and decided, this just isn't going to happen.

He's like, Armand, you're too nice. You're too weak. I should have realized this earlier. I'm going to go. This is like when you've been dating somebody for six or seven years and you think they're like, oh, we're going on this big fancy vacation.

he's gonna ask me to marry me this whole time he's gonna ask me to marry me and each time he like kneels over you oh you think that's gonna be the moment he doesn't do it no yeah and then you're finally in the last dinner and he brings you a little box of jewelry and you open it up and it's a fucking necklace it's not that's a feeling it's just uh you're just never gonna commit you're just never gonna be a real man oh well i'm done i'll just wash your knees my knees are clean

Where shame and disappointment filled both of them, Baron weakly said he just wanted to feel his penis being mutilated. That was it. Is that really too much to ask? No, it's not. No, it's not. Your partner is like, I mean, what you give is what you get back. And for the first time, these two men found that their fantasies were somewhat at odds.

And there seemed to be no way to solve it. Their fantasies were just different. I mean, for Berend, it was all about being destroyed. He hated himself. He hated his sexuality. He wanted himself gone off the face of the earth. Eating was just like a part of it. That was how he could see himself being completely and utterly destroyed. But for Armin, he wanted a pig. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, and this is... He wanted meat. Yeah, he wanted meat. I see Byrne as Willem Dafoe and Armin as Christoph Waltz. Yep.

That's exactly it. That is exactly it. And so after Baron decided that it just wasn't going to work, he asked Armin to give him a ride to the train station so he could buy a ticket back to Berlin. Always the pleaser, Armin turned off the video recorder and drove Baron to the train station in silence. I know you were saying that you don't want to...

listen to anything but would you want to listen to the shins it's just it's a mood and it's the mood i'm in right now what i mean right now i picture i love this song oh i wish they would change the national anthem to the song or they're just sitting there driving in silence and all of a sudden on the radios

And they just start singing along together. But just after Bernd bought his ticket, Armin pled his case and convinced Bernd to give him another chance. Take me in, baby. Yeah, saying that he could absolutely castrate him and eat his penis while he was still conscious if only he'd let him prove it. Ew!

And let him, he did. The compromise they came to was that Baron would take a ton of sleeping pills and cough syrup to make himself pass out. And while he was unconscious, Armin would be able to psych himself up so he could do what Baron asked. And that would have to be good enough for Baron. It'd probably be easier to bite off a flaccid penis than a hard one, too. Well, it's no longer biting. It's cutting now. Yeah!

That's the compromise. Yeah. But once they got back to the house at around 6 p.m. and Bernd washed down 20 sleeping pills with a bottle of cough syrup and half a bottle of schnapps all on an empty stomach. He's lucky he lived. He was still awake. Yeah. Yeah. I think Bernd had a bit of a substance abuse problem. Me think so as well. Yeah. Because Bernd took all of this down and

still got to almost totally enjoy getting his penis cut off. And that was not the game. So Berend ended up getting what he wanted and he was led to the slaughter room and laid down on the bed as Armin prepared for the castration.

Now, Armin knew that he couldn't bring himself to chew the penis off, but he figured he could probably cut it off with a knife. Yeah! So, after grabbing a kitchen knife and a cutting board, Armin... It's good to make sure you protect the table. Yeah, yeah. These are nice tables. Yeah, these are all... Everything's antiques in this one. Armin turned on the video camera as Baron became erect with anticipation.

Something about like a guy tied to a chair. He's not tied. He's just fucking. I know. He's just sitting there just naked in a chair. And then Armin comes out with the chef's hat on and he's got the kitchen knife. And just there's something about a guy like smiling and going, who?

Like, just sitting in a chair like, like, I've never done this. As soon as the camera comes on, he's ready to perform. I've never seen it. He said, I'm ready to fuck. I'm ready to fuck now. But again, Armin was unable to sever it, but not for lack of trying. Armin swung his knife down to chop off Ben's penis, but it bounced off because the knife wasn't sharp enough. The penis is so strong.

And as we know, there's nothing more dangerous than a dull knife. Oh my God. Once it gets in, you got to pull it out. Yep. So after Baron screamed at him to go get a sharper knife, Armin tried again. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. This time, however, Baron got exactly what he wanted.

As Armand swung the knife down successfully again and again on the tough penile tissue, Berend wiggled, screamed, and literally squealed like a pig. So it's hard to cut a cock off. It's not easy. No, it's tough tissue. Is there cartilage in there? Yeah. I do honestly feel like it's a lot about Will. Because Lorena Bobbitt...

did it with scissors. Scissors are actually much easier to do it. I'm just going to get into this really deeply. It's what they're here for. The way he was doing it, and I feel like this might not be an exaggeration, he kind of sort of did it when he covered his eyes. He was just kind of chopping at the dick. Which is so much worse than fucking doing it right. Well, I think you're supposed to honestly pull it taut.

then go at it. Like, you really need to pull it tight and then go at the very, very base. Yeah, but if you're, it's really hard just pulling it out, it's not going to be good. What you're going to have to do is you're going to have to get, like, two fingers and press it down on the cutting board, and then I would say a serrated knife is going to be a lot better than just a regular kitchen knife. Man,

Like a bread knife. He prepared so much, but he didn't sharpen the knife. He did so much work. He put plastic down. He got the video done.

There is like it's called the gaps in the bleed from fantasy to reality. And this is what you're talking about is a thing that's going to come up later on, because right now this is at the very, very peak of a very esoteric idea that they thought would never happen.

And so, yes, up to this point, the sexual game has really just led up to, and in Armin's mind, he, yes, he's been fantasizing about butchering a body, but he's never really thought about the A to Z of how do I get to that point? And so now we're in it. We're in the reality of it. And it's like kind of what Ed Kemper talked about. Ed Kemper said that one of the things that first, first,

change his mind about once he first killed somebody was that he thought that killing somebody was really easy. He thought that you'd stab somebody, they'd fall over, and they'd die. But humans are bags of liquid. So you stab somebody full of a bunch of holes, it actually takes a really long time for you to die. Like, longer than you think. And it's more physically difficult than you think. And so that changed his mind. So now Armin's living it. And so what he gets to do from now on is tell everybody what he's learned along the way. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, finally, Armin managed to sever Bernd's penis completely. And as blood gushed from the open wound, Bernd looked down in ecstasy, having finally realized his dream after all these years. God.

So after Armin wrapped Baron's lower body in bandages, they rushed downstairs together with Baron's severed penis so they could engage in the second half of Baron's ultimate fantasy. And yeah, I do actually, I imagine them both like giddy little boys that are kind of like they're doing something in secret. You know, they're doing like, and Baron's waddling along with his, you know, diaper or fucking bandages. Yeah. And they're just,

having a great time. It's like it has the same feeling as a couple of boys like at a sleepover. Yeah, I feel like mom and dad's gone. You're about to eat too much Pizza Hut and drink too much soda. Oh, yeah. We used to do the pass out game. I'm sure it's similar to that. No, it's just literally the pass out game. Yeah.

Now, Armin cut the penis tissue in half. Oh, did we never give any warnings about this episode? I mean, they knew what was coming. Yeah, I'm just saying. Yeah, whatever. I mean, it's the cannibal of Rottenberg. I don't know what... You didn't expect it to be fucking nasty. I don't know what you're here for. I don't know. You want to give a trigger warning? Hey, just so you know, we may have some alternative imagery in this series. That's it. That's the warning.

Armand cut the penis tissue in half and tossed it. There might be some. There might be some. That's the last moment for a trigger warning. The very last possible. And he tossed each half on its own plate. And you know what I didn't realize? What I didn't really think about from here. Do you think like one guy got the shaft and the other guy got the head? Or do you think he sliced it? No, it's sliced on the middle. Like sliced on the middle. Yeah, that's what I would do. Yeah, that's what I would do too. Yeah.

Is he a good cook? No. Well, I mean, he knows how to follow a recipe. Yeah, but he fucked up this dick. Well, I don't think anyone can really cook dick. That's the whole point. I actually have seen cooked dick. That Japanese artist that cooked his own dick. He did it, but there was enough of that dick to serve which shows that he did it correctly. And I'm pretty certain he braised it.

which is a lot of times, honestly, they talked about this. This is very similar to eating tripe. It has to be cooked in liquid. It has to be cooked slowly, and the cartilage needs to be broken down. If you're eating dick, it has to be in a ragu. Yeah, a ragu. Well, Baron was so excited that he tried gobbling it up raw, but both of them soon discovered that penises are not meant to be eaten, at least when they're prepared in this fashion. You know, Armand felt vindicated. He's like, see, it's not. Take a bite.

Throw it. You keep the whole place your back penis driving. Call me pussy. Oh, tell me, but I'm doing wrong and doing right. All right, now you look at it. No, penises are not meant to be eaten. They're meant to be respected. All right, so you remember that. They're meant to be sucked and fucked. All right.

These are meant to be eaten. They're meant to be Supreme Court judges. Yeah. Come on, guys. Yeah, I got a little Kavanaugh myself. And so Armin tossed it in a hot pan with some oil, garlic, and pepper to make it more palatable.

but that's when he found the tissue wasn't meant to be pan-fried. No. Because the penis halves shriveled in the frying pan and turned black. Like a shrimp. Yep. Both men tried chewing the charred remains of Baron's penis, finally gave up, and threw them away. And really, your training as a chef here really is coming to an end. It really is. But you know, like...

To be honest, if I was them, I wouldn't be disappointed because at least you did. You got to chew on it. You did it. And I feel like more so, like, they have to understand that this really wasn't about eating the penis. This was about the night they got to spend together. Also, what do they think was going to happen with the penis? It's not going to stay hard. It's exactly what I'm saying. I think that there's a fantasy and now they're seeing what's really coming out of it. Yeah, I think, you know, well, I mean, they...

If you look at their conversation, you know, they very much knew all the ins and outs of like what penis tissue was like. But they still kind of thought in a way that he'd go like, I mean, rip it off like a dog and it would blood splurt and it would come out really hard. I know, again, this is different.

and that the penis would sort of stay hard. I actually do think that the issue was that he was hard in the first place. I think that if he was flaccid, it would have actually been easier for them because the sponge would have been inflated and then have all the blood drop out of it. I think flaccid would be harder. Side stories, LPOTL at gmail.com. Think about someone's biceps after they work out. They get inflamed and pumped and they're hard and shit. It seems like so much easier to just rip off your biceps. It's not actually difficult. I actually think

Okay, well, you know, we can maybe... Semantics. Semantics. Yeah, these are semantics. But always wanted to see the bright side, Armin tried cheering Berend up by saying, quote, Maybe we can eat your eggs for breakfast. He did actually tell them that. Eggs meaning... His balls. Yeah, testicles. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So now that the whole castration thing was said and done, Baron's... Trigger warning. Baron sort of settled into his own impending death. Armin drew him a bath in his grimy old bathtub, and Baron lowered himself in, quickly turning the brownish water red with the blood flowing from the gaping wound where his penis used to be.

This, however, did not bother Bernd at all. Almost like a child, he would amuse himself by fiddling with the hole to keep the fatal flow of blood coming. And all the while, he wanted Armin to assure him that he would eat every part of his body. And whatever he didn't eat, he had to promise to grind it up so no traces would be left of Bernd Brandes. Hey, Armin, does it look like without my dick? What?

Is that my borser sad? Does it look like my borser lonely? I'm surprised you didn't go into shock or anything. No. Oh, no, buddy. He wasn't shocked. He wanted this. I think it's because he wanted it, and this is a literal fantasy. He was experiencing sexual pleasure as it went through, according to him. But it didn't sound like it, but he said it was. Yeah. Yeah.

And that's the thing, too, is that it's not just Armin saying that this is what he told me. It's videotaped. Yeah. Oh, they brought the camera into the bathroom? No, it's just the conversations they have. No, they videotaped everything. He videotaped as much as he could. They did the butchering and then he did talk with Burns and then he also did like a little weird little video diary and he had journals. How was it lit?

I guess we saw a picture of it. He had lighting. It looked pretty good. Yeah, yeah. Probably on a tripod. It was bright, yeah. It was definitely on a tripod, yeah. No, he didn't just, you know, put it on the table. Technically, it was easier to light with the VHS cameras. Oh, nice. Now, after about an hour in the bath, Baron passed out and Armin thought that it would finally be his turn to fulfill his fantasy. But

but it would take a while for Baron to finally bleed out. After a few hours in the bathtub, Armin moved Baron to the bed in the slaughter room. There, Baron continued to bleed out while Armin nervously read a Star Trek novel in another room. Do you think that you'd be able to talk with him about Deep Space Nine? LAUGHTER

Are you happy that he's a Trekkie? Because anybody who reads Star Trek novelizations... Well, he's reading Star Trek novelizations. You know what? That's funny. I forget that it's like 2001, so yeah, it could be a Deep Space Nine novelization. I hear some of those are actually pretty good. We should write him a letter. He'd probably enjoy the letter. What do you think of Picard? Dear Orman... Yeah, I don't want to talk about this. Is the Dominion War the best Star Trek novelization?

storyline ever or are you wrong? Yeah, dude. We should find a lesson. We Star Trek a fucking troll. But yeah, bro, what do you think about Dominion War? Is it the best or is it the fucking best? Yeah, he's like, Dominion War can fucking eat a dick. Yeah, I know why that's nice as well, which means I love it.

The founders versus the Borg. Oh, fuck you. The Borg are cooler. Fuck you, Armin. I was reading this crazy version. It was Star Trek and it was absolutely crazy. It's amazing. It's Captain Kirk and Spock. They were in showers together and all they did was like, it was so funny what they did. It was crazy. It was just like, you guys have been crazy and they started like kissing and having sex with each other and I was like, you guys have been

funny. This is the funniest shit. Holy shit, they started fucking and I was like, this is hilarious. Well, after another half hour, Bernd asked to go to the bathroom to urinate and no, I have no idea how that worked.

It's like a fire hydrant. It's like when they kick over a fire hydrant and it just starts going everywhere. Yeah, I mean, maybe he just pointed him. He probably just pointed him towards the bathtub, actually. Yeah, when he was already in it. No, he had been moved to the bed. I don't know. So he had to help him back to the bath. I feel like at this point...

We're just conjecturing. I don't have facts here. But after helping Baron to the bathroom and back, Baron told Armin that he was sure to pass out soon. And when he did, Armin should slash his throat and finally end his life.

Armin agreed, and when Baron finally lost consciousness around 3.30 a.m., Armin changed into the slaughter outfit he'd prepared. Wellington boots, dark blue pajamas, and his mother's bed sheet wrapped around him like an apron, which is certainly a statement, but not one that I can figure out. Yeah, it's layered. You wanted her to be there. Yeah. Yeah, she'd be so proud. Yeah.

I knew you'd be impenetrably weird. That's why I raised you this way. Please supervise. After turning the video camera on, Armin walked up to Bern and kissed him before saying a prayer. He

He then pulled out a seven-inch knife and stabbed Barron's throat several times. It had been nine and a half hours since Barron's penis had been cut off, and it had been less than a day since they'd finally met in person. Babies having babies.

That doesn't make any fucking sense at all. They are two men in their 40s. Wise men say only fools rush in. They're older than us. And they did rush in. That's what I'm saying. After finally killing another human being, Armin was filled with emotions and none of them were good.

First, he was repulsed at himself. Then he despised Baron for consenting and pushing. You make me do this! Yeah. Then he felt anger, furious about how much he had needed to fulfill his fantasy and at how he'd been unable to ignore it. And finally, of course, came guilt.

But after all that passed, he moved on to the next emotion, horny. There we go. About 15 minutes, and I'm back to horny. Very good. I don't know, for a second there. I was worried about myself. I thought that maybe I had lost it. I'd lost that arm and shoulder. For a second, maybe all of this had been finesse. But then I looked down, and I was hard as a dick in love, like, boing. Time.

for daddy's dinner time. He's that quick. Wait a second. Burgers and meatballs and ribs and squash and we've got all sorts of things. And you've got custard and cakes. He's turning the Homer Simpson.

Well, Armin was filled with satisfaction because he believed that Baron's flesh would survive inside him after he'd assimilated it, just like Armin had been imagining ever since he became obsessed with the Sandy Ricks character on Flipper.

I was wondering are you going to work Flipper back into it. We're going to talk Arvin Mivas. You got to mention Flipper every single episode. If Sandy Ricks is still alive and does cons, can someone for the love of fucking Satan bring this up to him? If there is anybody from Flipper still alive.

Is Luke Halpin still alive? Oh, yeah. Yeah, he's still... Oh, wow, he's from Astoria. Oh, my God, dude. We gotta let him fucking know. Luke Halpin has to know that he inspired Armin Mivas. Someone has to tell him. Someone has told him. No way. I think...

that they have kept this from the guy that, oh God, now he's making out with Flipper. Get that disgusting picture out of there. What is this, pornography? What are you talking about? That's fine. It's a boy loves a dolphin. Yeah, it's fine. It's fine. The dolphin, he doesn't know what the dolphin's thinking. Well, you never had pets growing up, so you don't know. I had many pets. I had dogs. Well, you,

You had dogs? You guys killed the hamster. Yeah. We had a dog that lived a long time. I had plenty of pets. You had dogs? Yeah. We had dogs. We had Valentine with the one I grew up with. And then we had Beauty. And then we had Raven. And we had to give Raven back because Raven attacked the family. But then we had Beauty. And then Beauty came with us. But yeah, then we had birds. We had lovebirds that my father got sexed wrong. And then instead of being a female and a male, it was two males. And they pecked each other to death. Yeah.

They literally ate each other. Yeah, that's a bad day at the pet store. They were having a hard time. They tried to make a go at it for a while, but it didn't take. Just show up and was like, I want to return these dead birds. Well, when Armin realized that he was finally going to climax with his biggest fantasy ever, he looked at Baron's corpse and said, quote,

And this is a direct quote. This is on video. I bet you can't wait for me to eat you, can you? Oh, you lucky thing. You lucky, lucky man. This is the best thing ever. It's like the Eros tour. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and actually, well, he said it in German, so it would be

Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha!

I know I didn't get that perfect, but you know, it's not bad. It is so much worse in German. That is so much more like, it feels more, I feel like I'm more in the room when you do the German. Oh, du gluckspills? Yeah, du gluckspills. Du gluck like a gluck like a man.

You lucky, lucky man. Did you watch the video? There is no video. There's only the stills. Do you think they erased? Do you think they just destroyed it? I think they probably did because they made sure. I bet you it's in the crime archives. Yeah, it might be somewhere. There has to be a copy of it probably somewhere in some archive. Like, I bet that we could, if we went and did some form of whatever their version of a FOIA is in Germany, we could probably, I think we could probably get it. If someone could have gotten it by now, they would have gotten it by now.

Well, or it's just difficult to find because it's literally a snuff film, so I don't think that it's available in normal avenues. I think you'd have to go to Tor, you'd have to go to the deep web to get it. Yeah. Well, those stills came from somewhere. Netflix.

After caressing Byrne's body, trying to memorize the features of what was no doubt his soulmate, Armin hung the corpse feet first in the Gein configuration to put the body in a position where it could be emptied of fluid. If you've ever seen the crime scene photos of the body of Bernice Worden, just like that. I've seen a pig thing.

It's the same as an animal getting... Look up Bernice Warden real quick. It's literally Halal style butchering. So what he did is he hangs it up so he slid it through so all the blood can come out into a bucket. Yeah, and then he made a cut in the neck from ear to ear so it could all drain out into buckets upon buckets of blood.

Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. She was hung up like that. Yeah, it's not good. That makes sense. If you go down a little bit, that's it. Oh, that one? Yeah. The same way. Yeah, exact same way. Is this photo available to him?

Yeah, maybe. Yeah, he read all, he was completely obsessed with true crime and he's on the internet. So it was utterly, it was definitely available for him. When they say like the Gein configuration, I think that was, I'm not 100% sure, but I think that was like kind of a term in the cannibal. Like it was like kind of like, well, if you're going to kill someone, you're going to use the Gein configuration. Oh, see, I thought that was something you made up. No, no, that is.

It is unfortunate that the internet did do that. They also, we found out what dulcet girls means. I completely forgot that it's when you take a woman and you spit roast her, you stick a, um, you put her on a rotisserie. It's normally artistic, uh, representations of this. Normally, huh? Normally, yeah. And then you put the spit through her vagina out of her mouth and she's supposed to like it. Yeah. Oh yeah, that's right. Amber was obsessed with it for a bit, right? Yeah. Go figure. Ha ha ha ha!

Once the body stopped bleeding, Armin sliced at the neck muscle and ligament, then twisted the head off where the spinal cord met the skull. Deciding that Berndt would want to, quote, join in on the fun, Armin placed Berndt's head on the butcher table, getting very comfortable with the macabre nature of his task very quickly.

After skinning the corpse, shivering in pleasure as the tissue made a pronounced ripping noise when it was pulled off, Bernd finished his joke from earlier in the kitchen. After tearing Bernd's scrotum away, he addressed Bernd's head and said, quote, I bet you're sorry you won't be able to join me eating these for breakfast, aren't you, Bernd? Ha!

Funny guy! Yeah, you know, sometimes they don't always, you know, it's like when I write a joke before the show and then I try to do it during the show and it falls flat. Again. Again.

again German makes it so much worse it really does yeah I mean I know I'm getting all the intonations wrong you know but no it works such a strict language it is strict people not these guys

from your grave. Hey, listeners. Love this pod and want even more? You can be the first to unlock exclusive bonus content, early access, and ad-free listening to the latest podcasts from your favorite shows. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcast Plus on our Apple Podcast Show page or the SiriusXM app now. Well, next, Armin tied off the anus with twine to prevent...

Just so everyone knows, we just came back from a break. I had to poop. I had to go take a shit and tied off his anus. No, no, no. My anus is still loosey. It's still... It's just empty. Yeah. To prevent it from contaminating the rest of the body. Then let out sighs of pleasure as he began removing Byrne's innards. Can I ask, how would you tie an anus with...

twine. Basically, you cut it and then what you do at the very end... You cut the butt meat off and then tie it? You cut the tube out and then you pull it up and you tie it off. Like a water balloon. Separate it from the end because the sphincter is what connects it to the end of the skin. So you pull out the tube, you cutter a hole around it and you pull it out and you tie it off and then you cut the whole thing in half. Because remember, when you eat something, from your mouth to your butthole is one continuous tube.

Yeah, that's why you can eat a marble and shit it out. It's that easy. Down the tube. Yep, that's what I do. There you go. But just as Armin was really getting into it, he heard something click behind him. The video recorder had run out of tape.

So right in the middle of butchering a human being, Armin had to stop, change, and get showered before driving into Rottenberg to buy another. Dude, how many of us who've worked at various, like I worked at Eckerd's, I've worked at other things, like when you work at a retail store or a late night gas station or a pharmacy...

You've met five of these guys a day. Like, these guys are, it is wild to me to think that he's just, because then he's like, he's just like covered in sweat. And they're being like, I need these tapes. Honestly, I could use some gum. Did you know that you are meeting me on the best day of my life? Do you know how much of a happy boy I am? Do you want to give one dollar to save children with hair lips? I'll give ten.

10! 20! Everybody, it's great! I'm like, screw Christmas Day! Buy the biggest goose! Buy the biggest goose you can find! I love it. Oh, wonderful. A boy named Goose. This is definitely a good advertisement for digital. So after buying the tape and returning home, it was finally time to butcher the meat.

After removing the arms from the shoulder blade, he chopped the hands off and broke apart the elbow joint. It really would be the funniest iCloud commercial. I'm just like, ain't it better in the cloud? Sorry. Yeah, he comes back a bunch of ravens reading his...

He then split the body and removed the backbone, which seems to be the step shown in the supposed stills that leaked. But after chopping off the feet, Armin cut the meat from the torso, pelvis, and legs into fillets, steaks, bacon, and a big rump roast. It wasn't that big. Big enough. I mean, could you eat the entire thing in one sitting? I'm just saying. I saw that meat, dude. I saw that cattle.

He ain't got that badonkadonk. You wouldn't think I would have one, but I got one. We talked about this, yes, but I saw the other man's butt. You saw his butt? Yeah, it's not that big. How did you see his butt? It's in all the fucking horrible pictures of his dismembered body. You only see it from the front? Hmm.

Yeah, and it looks a lot different, you know, when it's all, when it's just on a plate. Yeah, I guess you're right. I'm sorry, guys. You probably had a fine ass. Just take this all back. I'm sorry. I should not be, I'm sorry. But after every bit of edible flesh was removed, all while Armin literally salivated over every cut, he broke his final promise to Berndt.

Instead of disintegrating every inedible bit of Byrne's body, Armand dug a hole in his garden and buried Byrne's skin, bones, and inedible innards.

The head would eventually be buried as well, but for the time being, it was kept in the freezer. He was chilling out. God damn it. That's funny. That's funny. But yeah, he's... Henrytoons.com. Come on. But he, because it takes an extreme heat to burn bones. And I think that's what it was. It's like 3,000 degrees. I don't think he did it to hurt burn. I think that he just, it was very, very difficult for him to do and he realized he had to bury them. Yeah.

After the burial, Armin returned to the slaughter room to cut the hunks of human flesh into reasonable portions. Then he wrapped each piece in butcher paper and neatly labeled them, Rump, Steak, Bacon, or Filet.

But besides just the sheer joy of achieving his lifelong fantasy, Armin said that he was also excited that he'd be saving big on his grocery bill. Oh, yes. That's where my head goes. It's in all of us. It's in all of us. He can't afford not to do it. Because the only thing he'd have to buy for a long time, vegetables and pasta. That's it. Now, while Armin waited a couple of days for the meat to cure properly before he cooked his first human steak, because he had

researched the best way to do this. He fantasized about the meals he would make with Baron's flesh, hamburgers, ribs, meatballs, stir fry, really anything you could do with pork. There's a lot of stuff he can do. Yeah, yeah, Orman. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff, okay? He also experimented with the pieces that didn't really have an animal counterpart, like the hands and feet. Oh yeah, they do, chicken feet.

Hog foot. Yeah, but chicken's way different. Way different. The hog knuckle. Way different. You don't eat hog knuckle like that? You don't fucking cook it up? You're being deliberately obtuse. I don't think so. I'm helping. I think a human foot is way different than a fucking pig hoof. Or a chicken foot, you fucking idiot. Chicken foot. People eat chicken foot. No, I mean, you have to look up recipes. You could look up a monkey meat recipe to see how you could...

cook a hand. Oh, yeah, I bet. But also, did you see that guy that lost his foot? There was a guy that ate the meat off of his foot and stripped the meat from between the whatever that, not the tendrils, what are these called? What are the things in between? Yeah, but that was in 2012. There was a

I forgot. That was pre-cancel culture. I'm sorry. This is all old days. Back when you could do whatever. But the human foot is unique in the animal kingdom. The nearest thing, strangely enough, is the elephant, whose bone structure closely resembles that of a human. But you wouldn't turn a human foot into a side table like you did with an elephant. Nope. Couldn't do that. You could turn it into a paperweight. Cute. Yeah.

I would imagine skinning it and putting it in the slow cooker would be the best way to do it. All of this. I think all human meat would be best braised. There's going to be a lot of bones, though. There's so many bones in the foot. You make a broth out of it. Yeah, but we eat bony fish. We eat fish full of bones. It'd be like goat kind of maybe. Yeah, like goat. I actually thought of it more like a frog's leg. Oh, okay. Yeah.

I'm hungry. I've actually started. We're all like this. It's crazy. It's because we're not. We're monsters and I like meat. But when it came to meat, Armin made the closest comparison he could. He thought it'd be kind of like curing a parma ham. Yeah. So Armin tried drying a hand and foot in the oven. But when they shriveled, he ground them into flour like an actual ogre. Yeah, in the ogre's house. Yeah. And you can do that. You can grind human bones to make your bread. Yeah.

Yeah, there was a famine in the 1500s in which people did that. Whoa! It's not good, yeah. No, it's not good for you, but you can do it. Wow, that's so...

Impressive. Humans are amazing. The other foot he boiled whole, then plated it with ketchup and herbs. Placing the presentation... Mustard! We're in Germany! The guy's a fucking weirdo. He wants the blood. He wants it to look like blood. He's a fucking... He's weird. He's not doing it to eat it. He's placing the presentation. He put it in front of a pot of boiling water because he wanted to make it look like steam was rising from the foot.

This is an artistic effort. He had no desire to eat the foot, but just being able to play with fresh human remains was pleasure enough. I lost all respect for him. Yeah, I know. Yeah, I honestly do feel like now we're just playing with your food. Well, I mean, he's, you know, doing what he can until the meat's cured. Yeah, and he's jerking off a lot. Boil it in beer. That'd be fucking good. Yes. Well, to the point of pleasure, Armin masturbated endlessly about the slaughter room experience, watching the tape over and over again while he did so. All of this was while he was masturbating.

You can pretty much assume that. Well, hopefully he washed his hands. Hey man, it's his own supply. Yeah. But after two days passed, Armin decided that Bernd was finally ready to eat. Now Armin obsessed over the details of how his first meal of human flesh would go. After setting the table with candles, a vase of flowers, and his mother's fine china, Armin briefly considered playing music, but decided against it because he wanted to focus completely on the meal.

Using a recipe he found on one of his cannibal sites, Armin seared the human steak to medium rare, then plated it with porcini mushrooms, Brussels sprouts, and he called it princess potatoes. Oh, okay. I don't know what that is. Tiny little fingerlings, probably. They're probably a very macabre German way of saying fingerling potatoes. Oh, those are my favorite potatoes. Me too. I love them roasted. They're incredible. Yeah, I love them. I love them with chicken. Yeah.

Well, the pairing wine was a South African Merlot. He always had red wine. He loved red wine. Yeah, he was a vampire. Yeah. And just before Armin dug in, he said a prayer. Thank you for the very so sweet. Thank you for the food we eat. Thank you for the birds that sing. Thank you, God, for everything. Amen. So do you think he believed? Thanks for the cup. Yay, God. Do you think he believed in God? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, only God would have provided this bountiful meal for him.

Thank you for this sweet world. Thank you for the food that we eat. Thank you for the birds that sing. Thank you, God, for everything.

And as expected, Armin found the steak to be absolutely delicious. He said that as expected, it tasted like pork, but he was surprised that it tasted somehow, in his words, stronger. Yeah, he said harsher. But Armin was not having this meal alone. For

For company, he brought Baron's head out of the freezer and he talked to it as he ate his meal. I'm going to say for our audience, he was still alone. No, he didn't feed anyone. That's alone. That's actually like more alone than being by yourself. Actually, it really is. And when he was finished, Armin decided that nothing had ever been so delicious. And of course, the more he ate, the more sexual satisfaction he gained. By the time he was done with the meal, he was petrified.

He was panting with sexual tension, on the verge of orgasm just from the act of eating. But after the first meal was said and done, Armin said he felt powerful, as if he'd absorbed all of Berndt's skills, attributes, and character. It's just how he had imagined it being. He felt stronger and more intelligent. He was the recipient of a true religious experience.

But from what his neighbors said, Armin remained the same weird, lonely dork he'd always been throughout the 10 months he ate Ben's flesh. But think about it on his inside. He really is walking around like he is Super Saiyan. Like there's energy flowing out of him and everywhere he goes. That's why there's a little bit of...

Is the brain reacting to human meat in a way that we're not really supposed to eat it? Because a lot of cannibals talk about euphoria that they experience when they eat human meat, but it also kind of sounds like they're on drugs. And a lot of times it leads to other massive issues in your body. We're not supposed to eat it. It's bad for us. You're not supposed to eat dolphin meat either. No, but the key is, which is honestly, he's extremely lucky in the fact that if you are going to eat human meat, it must be cooked properly.

Well done. Like you cannot eat raw or medium rare. But yes, he's very lucky because you can get a thing called Kuru or any one of the other type of prion diseases, which leaves you. It takes about a decade to kill you and it leaves you completely immobile, covering your own shit, laughing yourself into maniacal. So basically you it's rabies plus locked in syndrome.

It's not good. What's the pork one? Trichinosis. I believe that was a play by Big Chicken.

No, it's real. Big chicken came for pork. No, big chicken came for pork. Pork is not as bad for you as we think it is because big chicken set up a bunch of shit because they wanted to sink pork because chicken wanted to be the number one white meat. You don't need to convince me. I'm not your doctor. But I'm telling you this. Technically, pork is not white meat. Pork is red meat. Of course it is. They lied to us. I'm saying that all came from the chicken industry. All of this comes from beef and chicken lying on pork. All right. All right. Fucker Polack. Fuck.

Now, Armin used Ben's meat in every meal, eating strips of bacon with his eggs in the morning, steaks and roasts at night, and worst of all, meatballs at work for lunch. That's the worst. Yeah. Yeah, you don't want to, someone had to smell it. Yeah, someone had to smell it. He sat right next to another guy that fucking serviced ATMs. And then what is

fucking hard as the dickens eating bird meatballs while he's in the fucking lunchroom while everybody's just sitting around him and he's just going i would imagine after a while it just became normal a secret smile like a secret smile yeah what was his job again it uh yeah well he was a computer technician he serviced atms yeah so he was probably next to a guy who was also eating human meatballs and yeah i'm saying the other guy he's just got done killing his daughter you never know

And he also knew a lot about computers. Actually, there was another listener who wrote in that said that Armin Mivas, one of his relatives knew Armin Mivas. He was the guy in Rottenberg, like if your computer broke, you call up Armin, and Armin will come over to your house. He'll stay for way longer than you want him to. Yeah, clicking through and meandering on. Yeah, he'll just sit until you kind of go like, well.

I guess I'm going to let you go. I'm going to let you go. But now this, so this is, let me let you go. Let me let you go is literally the nicest way to say get the fuck out of my house. I'm going to let you go now. That's a very Texas thing. I'm going to let you go now. I'm going to let you go. But this is now really where it turns. Exactly what we were saying. That

Now the fantasy has been completely realized. And he's been eating it to the point, truly what you're saying, it got boring, not boring, but run of the mill. It's now his life. But he also, like...

His fantasy was fulfilled and he kind of just, this all went away in his own mind. Oh, burn just disappeared. But now we're going to see that that now reality is going to come fiercely rushing into Armin's life. Okay. Well, not for another year and a half. But I mean, the idea of like, of it's going to, this is the beginning of what's going to happen. How long was he, did he eat burnt for? 10 months. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

But while Bernd Brandes the meal was making Armin the happiest boy in Rottenburg, Bernd Brandes the man had been missed right away. See, Bernd hadn't told his boyfriend Rene about any sort of trip out of town, business or otherwise, anything that might explain his sudden disappearance on Friday, March 9th, 2001. Finally, Rene called the police on Monday, who were, as usual, not concerned about a missing gay man.

Rene spent the next few days calling the cops, but was consistently told they were sure Bernd would be home soon. Hitting a dead end with the police, Rene called a Berlin newspaper who recognized there might be something to Bernd's disappearance, especially after Rene found the will. That's when he knew something's fucking something's weird here. Yes. I don't know what this is, but some is fucking weird.

Soon after a photo was run in Die Berliner Zeitung, I think it's the Berliner Times, a missing persons report was finally filed.

Meanwhile, Armin was starting to slip when it came to keeping his mouth shut. He's proud! While everyone else still saw him as the same old boring weirdo, he nevertheless developed a strange kind of confidence that almost got him in trouble. This is a common theme among cannibals. So the reason why, because like, you know, every video I was watching was all,

It's the final taboo, according to every British thing. It's the final taboo. The final taboo. Yeah, and so it's like this idea of, on one hand, you have a secret chain. A lot of cannibals, it's different. It's that they...

truly have a sense of superiority as that in some ways, Armin believes that his born pathology meant that he was always a step outside of humanity and evolved. Like he kind of viewed himself as I am. I just understand a pleasure.

that no one else can understand. Very Cenobite-like. Sure. Yes. And that he walks around with this confidence, like with like, you know, a pep in his step, like he just slept with Pete Davidson. But it's like, it's not really, but then we find out, no, it's actually gross.

Armin, of course... That's all business!

You're crazy. I say anything at night. I like saying crazy shit, man. And of course, he told him, forget I said anything. You can. I met big tits on a man. Yeah.

After five months, Armin had gone through two-thirds of what he'd butchered off Baron's body, so he was anxious to make sure he got another man lined up so he wouldn't have to go a day without a meal featuring human flesh. I'm like that with weed. I don't like to run out. I get real mad when I run out. Yeah, I don't like that.

want to run out. I just want to make sure I have it. Even if I'm not smoking, I want to make sure it's there. Yeah, I'm like that with nicotine patches and gum. Yeah. So, he returned to the cannibal chat rooms to search for a new candidate, posting ads very similar to what had caught Berndt.

This time, however, he narrowed the age bracket by five years. No longer up to 30. It's now 25. Because I think he was a little miffed that Byrne had fudged his age. One of those ads read, quote, Well, he also one thing he said is that he does believe the meat was worse because he was older than he thought he was. So he does want him. He wants him tight. Yeah. So here's the ad.

Slaughter boy salt, are you between 18 and 25 years old, healthy and with a normal build? Do you want to end your life, but you want something decent to come out of you? Then come to me. I will slaughter you and worship your body in delicious schnitzel and steaks. Those interested should apply with details of age, height and weight, ideally with a photo.

Frankie, it's the master butcher. Dometzka Meister. Meister. Nice. Now, Armin did get a couple of responses, but none were willing to agree to a meeting. Deciding that a bigger net catches more fish, Armin again raised the age ceiling to 30. It's hard to be single. Yeah, too much to live for at a young age. Yeah. This brought responses from multiple men who came very close to being Armin's next meal plan.

And they definitely would have been killed if Armin was a more aggressively violent person. He was waiting for another burned. He was waiting for somebody else who was just as aggressive about it as because it really was a...

We're not blaming him, but there was a 50-50 edge here. Well, it wasn't even aggressive. It was more they had to submit. And that dude created urgency. He was like, I want it and I want it now. And Armin wanted to feel that pressure because that was giving him sexual drive. And also, he probably figured they were everywhere since first time out was burnt. Yeah, he got one. Well, actually, before that, he had met a couple of guys in hotel rooms. Yeah, and they just went out. Serious. Guys aren't serious. Yeah.

Well, the first guy after Berndt, his name was Stefan. Stefan. Stefan. Yeah, Stefan. He came to the farmhouse where Armin stripped him naked, strapped him to the slaughter bench, and marked his skin with lines to signify different cuts like ham and filet like it was a fucking Looney Tunes short. And again, it's all fun and games until the saws come out. Yeah.

Because, yeah, this sounds like kind of fun. Yeah. But then it finally dawned on Stefan that Armin was for real. Oh, shit. Yeah. He immediately became Steven Urkel. He went back. He changed. He begged to be set free, and Armin did so. And after they shared a frozen pizza, Stefan went home and never talked to Armin again. They didn't cook at her house.

Fucking chug it up. I like it crunchy. Now, do you think that, like, how do you go on with your life? How does Stefan, like, literally, like, go back to work next day and be like, what'd you do last night, Stefan? He's just been like, well, you know, we played a little game of fake operation. Like, what do you do? How do you just, you just say, like...

You know what? Friday was nuts. What do you do later on? You testify at his trial. Yeah, it's a secret until then. The next guy to come out was also a bust, although this one was more interested in the BDSM side of things. Armin locked him in the wooden cage he'd built in the slaughter room. To make him a veal. Yeah, and tossed the guy scraps of meat all while the captive man, again, squealed like a pig. Do you think he fed him? No. No.

No, that's his meat, dude. Yeah, that's his meat. No, he's not going to waste that. No. Eventually, the man asked to be set free, and he also went home. The next day... Goddamn. Guy being in the dog cage. He's just like... You know, he's going... Oh, I'm a piggy. I'm a fucking piggy. And eventually, he's like... I got to call my wife. I'm tired. I got... Oh, wow. I'm finished. Oh, yes. I'm finished. Hey, you know what? Actually, I could get out of here. Listen.

The next two who visited the house were rejected by Armin because one was too fat. Fuck you. Well, that's full of his fantasy of a lean cut of meat. I know, but hey, bro, fucking guess what happens when you throw out whatever bait you got? You get whatever fish gets in the boat. Wish you could have this fucking brisket, Armin. Yeah, man, you wish you could fucking eat my dick. I dare you to try to eat my dick.

And he said the other one was too stupid. And that spoiled the idea. Fair enough. Well, you know, he loved the idea that he's absorbing something positive from the other person. He's absorbing their attributes. And I think he truly believed that if he ate a stupid person, he would himself become stupid. I actually have a weird...

theory about cannibalism that I do think that there is something to the concept of DNA memory and that there is something to the concept of there is something that can get passed if you do eat human meat because Armin Mivas did say that his burnt was much better in English than him and his kid saying that my English improved a massive amount after I ate him was like all the flipper. Yeah.

But you know what? I did notice that his first posting and his second posting, his English is so much better in the second one. The first one's like broken and like you barely understand what he's trying to say. No, he worked it out. Yeah. He's learning. I feel like if you're eating people, you can't be this choosy. Yeah. No, I actually think it's the opposite. If you're not going to get caught, you got to be choosy. Yeah. I mean, that's the thing is that if you're going to do this, it's got to be worth it. Mm-hmm.

Yet another guy was rejected because he wanted Armin to incinerate his genitals with a flamethrower. And while I don't know this for sure, I think it's probable that Armin didn't want to get in the whole rigmarole of another guy who had a castration fantasy. Reminds me of my ex. But also, I honestly think it was about the flamethrower. Yeah, that's really intense for Armin. Yeah, the barn's very flammable. Yeah.

Well, the one who came the closest to going through with the slaughter was a guy named Dirk, who took the fantasy all the way to being strapped to the slaughter table with the knives out. But at the last second, Dirk backed out, and since Armin needed the person to want to be killed, he let Dirk go. Do you think that makes him like his dick go down?

Do you think that they're in this? When the guy starts freaking out. Of course it does. Do you think that he just then doesn't come? Like, they won't just jerk each other off or suck each other off? I think, no, they have frozen pizza and they go home. Wow. It's the same reason you like having sex with a woman who enjoys it. Yeah, I do. Yes. Yes.

Meanwhile, Armin had been bragging on his cannibal forums, again using the name of Frankie, writing that he'd actually eaten a person, unlike all you fucking posers. Fucking goddamn Reddit strikes again. I've actually eaten human flesh. The rest of you are just shammables. In this, I'd imagine Armin figured he was safe because his confessions were mixed in with so much obvious fantasy.

And really, if not for one person, Armin would have been safe. As I said, it took 10 months for Armin to make his way through 44 pounds of meat, human meat. That's it, huh? Yeah, 44 pounds. That's what you get. Well, that's what he got, and that's what he got through. How much did he weigh before he killed him? I don't know, but he seemed to be about my size. Actually, I think he was about 160, if I remember correctly. Oh, okay. Yeah. And no one even came close to connecting Armin to Baron's disappearance.

It wouldn't be until December of 2002, more than a year and a half after Byrne's death, that Die Polizei would come knocking on Armin's door. Not even a mention in 9-11 by these guys. Not even a fucking mention. Didn't knock his boner down a second. He's eating human meat on 9-11. He's sitting watching 9-11, eating Byrne, and just going like, God damn, we might get into a little bit of a ruckus with that. What?

That's goddamn Saddam Hussein. Wow, interessant.

See, the police had been led to Armin through a curious university student who came along one of Frankie's posts and emailed anthrophagist at hotmail.com. The student, however, was soon met with extremely elaborate descriptions of cannibalism that seemed realistic enough where the student deleted his account out of fear. With these emails in his possession, the student informed the federal criminal police of Hesseh,

And quite suddenly, the cannibal forums had an uptick in new users that were all, of course, undercover cops. This is the only time I feel bad for police when they have to do shit like this. They're just like, yeah, eat me, daddy. Yep. Yep. On here. On here. Freshly.

I'm your freshly shocked turkey. I'm ready to be stuffed filled with spices and I'm ready to be consumed. I feel like you would have been such a good cop. Oh, I would have been great for this. Then we'll get the gravy. Big pie on me. Don't you want it? Aren't you ready for it?

Just so, oh yeah, I'd be a slut for this. Well, many cops answered Armin's ad. They're going at him from all angles. Oh yeah, but now he's just been like, okay, now you guys are just lying. And it took them two months to identify Frankie the cannibal as Armin Mivas the computer guy.

After identifying Armin, police arrived at his farmhouse in Wustafeld to ask him a few questions and search the house. Armin, of course, cracked after just 20 minutes. 20 minutes. When the police straight up asked Armin if he'd ever eaten human flesh, Armin said, and this is true. I may have. Following Armin's confession. I'm just...

I may have. I may have. Pops! And that's when you beat him to death with a shovel. Following Armin's confession, police searched the disgusting farmhouse and discovered the remaining packages of Baron's meat in a false bottom in Armin's freezer. And how they knew it was different was that according to the police, there was like one of them was a lady police officer and she was like, I am a housewife and I know what meat is and this is not normal meat. Yeah. Cool.

Cool. They did not, however, find the videotape of Ben's slaughter and butchery. Now, incredibly, the police did not arrest Armin on the spot. Instead, they took his 16 computers, 200 hard drives, and 300 videotapes, all just chock full to the brim with pornography and torture and just like gore and just the worst shit. It's in there somewhere.

They had to see what they could see. They had to watch all of it. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And they also took the frozen meat. Armin, meanwhile, was left alone to panic.

After a while, he called his half-brother, Ingbert, just to talk it through. But it was his sister-in-law, Ingbert's wife, who answered the phone. Since Ingbert wasn't home, Armin decided that the first person he was going to confess to was this poor woman he barely knew. Honestly, that does make sense. Okay, listen. The cops are here. They took all my human meat. No, no, no. I know we barely know each other. I know we only met once at the wedding.

Who is this? I haven't updated my contacts. Now, at first, this woman figured that Armin had been caught with child pornography. Definitely. First of all, let me guess, child porn? As soon as he calls. Oh, the cops who call your hard drives? Tell me more. But when she asked him straight up, did they catch you looking at child pornography? He instead said,

Oh, no, I killed someone. That's a relief. I'd much rather you be a murderer. And then he hung up the phone. As long as it's not a child murderer. Yeah, sure. There you go. I still can. Is that weird? I'd rather you kill them than eat them and fuck them. That's real fucked up. Yeah. Yeah, well, I guess I don't have a preference. I'm going to go ahead and say I don't have to choose. I think that's right. I just do.

Well, realizing that he now immediately needed legal representation, Armin drove into Rotenberg and found the lawyer who'd formerly represented him in his DWI cases. Ha!

It's a whole different procedure. But the thing is, dude wasn't even a criminal. He was a divorce lawyer. I mean, that's who you call. I feel like if there's a divorce lawyer that's going to handle you being a candidate, I just feel like that's who I would call. So this guy did not take it well when Armin told him that he'd killed and eaten someone. God damn it, Armin. I just, you know, I can't get involved in something like this. Once the lawyer recovered from the shock of the confession, he told Armin to turn himself in because everyone here...

Everyone's way out of their depth, Armin. Yeah, I can understand. I'm an expert level case. I'm me. I'm unique. And Armin agreed. After showing up to the police station, Armin gave a full statement admitting to killing and eating a person named Bernd Brandes. And news of his unnatural acts soon spread throughout Rottenburg and eventually the entire world. This was a riot.

Worldwide case. News papers. Everyone knew about Armin Meiners. Billboards. Now, Armin's trial began about a year after he confessed. And as in all German trials involving a death, this is interesting. Their justice system is very different. A panel made up of three judges and two civilians would decide Armin's fate. You know, we just got jury system for basically everything. Yeah. Jury your peers. Germany, different crimes, different...

different panel. Could it be like two guys? Could it be like...

Carrot top? Is it just random? I imagine it could be. I mean, I didn't really look into it. We don't know how this works. Armin's defense, of course, was that he was enacting a kind of euthanasia, killing on demand for a person who desperately wanted to die. Basically, it was the Kevorkian argument, except that while Kevorkian was all about dying with dignity, Brandis was explicitly asking to die without dignity. What if I...

I wonder how many people Kevorkian ate. Oh, God. Now, Armin had been studying the law in jail and found that his earlier assumption that cannibalism was illegal, he found that was wrong.

There was no law specifically against cannibalism in Germany, and Armin spoke about this subject for hours in open court. In fact, Armin spoke more than his lawyer. It's almost like it's what he's always wanted. Yes. As far as witnesses went, Armin's failed second attempts at cannibalism testified about their near misses with Armin, and Armin's half-brother Ingbert also testified. His other half-brother, Wolfgang...

He'd since become a priest, so he didn't want anything to do with this. Listen, I'm already in three other trials. Okay, I cannot be. I am full. I am full, Armin. They call me Wolfgang Sarkis. But besides Armin's own advice.

There was, of course, the videotape of the slaughter and butchery, which had to be viewed by the jury panel, as well as two attorneys, a few expert witnesses and the poor court reporter who had to both watch and type out all of the conversations between Armin and Ben. So this is where in last podcast in left history, we see that the jury's experience two extremes in this life. One is the incredible day on one extreme when a group of people all got to go look at

It's for work at Jodi Arias's butthole and see great pictures of her naked body. And that must have been awesome for them. That's a great day to be a juror. Yeah. This is the exact opposite of the spectrum because you have a bunch of people that obviously have never seen somebody be murdered openly on film before. But never mind the fact that you're watching murder and that's bad enough. That's bad.

But then you have the guy who's getting murdered screaming, I wish I could feel it. I wish I could. And he's going, yes, yeah. And he's like, you're watching a guy unbeable to bite the dick off, a hard dick off a man. It's a long day. Yeah. And it's two videotapes. Yeah, it's a long day. Remember, he had to go to the store and buy a second one. Yeah, the thing where everybody's coming out like, you know, with the handkerchiefs. Yeah.

No fast forwarding, man. It's like 8-track. No, you've got to watch each minute of it. And yeah, because it's hard. That was like, they talk about the, it's traumatizing. They watched a guy beg to be murdered and it's extremely confusing. It'll never be the same. Yeah, and then not only watched him get murdered, but then watched the guy, the other guy. Butcher him like he's a fucking lamb that you got at the store. Yes.

But after watching the tape and interviewing Armin, the expert witnesses came away with pretty much the same opinion. They were all, you know, psychiatrists. One determined that Armin was mentally well and stable, but he needed therapy. You know, yeah, he could use a place to touch. Yeah, he could do a little adjustment. A sexologist named Klaus Beyer, who had a degree in sexual medicine...

He agreed. Is that cum? That's cum. That's cum. That's how I know. Sexual medicine, yeah. It's cum. Yeah, it's cum. Cum. He said that Armin was not technically mentally ill. And so Armin was pronounced fully sane by the jurist panel. Now, by the time the second week of the trial was wrapping up, Armin thought that things were going extremely

well for him. I am crushing this. Everybody's loving me. He was though. As far as a cannibal trial goes. Yeah, this is going as well as it could. It's definitely going better than Dahmer's trial. Armin loved being the center of attention and he was the face of cannibalism and

And he believed that he'd made his case that he was innocent because Bernd had wanted to die. And really, I wonder if it would have made any difference if Bernd had been the one to take the action that ended his own life and was videotaped doing so. I agree. Yeah. But in the end, all that mattered was that Armin was the one who'd stuck the knife in Bernd's throat. And he was convicted of manslaughter on January 30th, 2004.

One of the judges declared that legally this was manslaughter and not murder because, quote, the famous lust for murder, the lustmord, was not a part of Armin's motivation. And he would have killed all the other people, too. Yeah, of course. Well, that was the big argument. He's like, look, I didn't kill all these guys. Yeah. It's fine. Yeah.

In other words, this judge essentially agreed that Armin's cannibalistic desires were an inescapable trait of his personality. It's just me. But he did not kill anyone against their will in order to feed those desires. It's not illegal to be me. Legalize Armin. Well, as such, Armin was sentenced to eight years, six months. But with good behavior, he could have expected to return to his farmhouse in less than five years.

This, however, was not a satisfying conclusion for the German people. Now, Germany does have a double jeopardy law in place in which a person cannot be tried for the same crime twice. But unlike the double jeopardy law in America, which I found out is like the most...

I guess, strict in the entire world. Our double jeopardy. Our double jeopardy. Nobody does double, like with us, it's like you, if you are fucking convicted, you cannot be tried for the same crime twice. Even if it's the weapon. Yeah. Even if the fucking murder weapon shows up the day after the trial shows that you did it. There's nothing they can do. Yeah. Can't do anything. But in Germany, both the defense and the prosecution can appeal against the judgment if they disagree with it.

And so after Armand's sentence was deemed too lenient and a retrial was had in 2006, he got life in prison. It's probably best. Yeah. Because he was just going to cook and eat more people. I don't think he would have. Buddy. Oh, buddy. I don't think he would have found another guy. I actually think that the boost of the trial would have brought the guys to him. Brings all his milkshake, brought all the boys to the yard. Or he'd just move.

He could move. Why, yeah, he's got a beautiful house. Yeah. No, he doesn't. It's disgusting. Now, while this seems a little unfair by American standards. Yeah, that's unfair. Yeah, Marcus. Bear in mind that Armin is perfectly happy in prison. Yes. He enjoys the structure. He enjoys the fame. And he likes that other inmates call him the cannibale. Yeah. This is my boyfriend Salt Lick. Oh!

Fellow inmates find Armin intelligent and even admirable because he regularly takes the time to help inmates with legal matters or in writing letters when they need help. He's like the Bernie Madoff of cannibals. He's a nice guy. As Armin put it, he feels the best and most stable he's ever felt in his life in prison. I'm here. I'm in my lane. Moisturized. Living life. It's like it provided him with the family he'd always yearned for. In other words...

Armin finally got the hug. In prison. Interesting. And he doesn't have to fix ATMs anymore. But not without a sense of humor, Armin once requested for Christmas an eight-inch Bockwurst banger and garlic and white wine, prepared with one of the recipes he'd used to braise Bernd Brandes' flesh. Also not without humor, and this is very funny, you know, the German prison officials did give him the sausage...

but did not prepare it in the way Armin requested. It's very funny, you know. You get a little bit, but not all the way that you're like, you're funny, little man. You funny guy. Today, Armin says he regrets killing and eating Ben Brandes and even wanted to write a biography trying to deter anyone else from doing what he did. Jerk off. That's fucking, he's full of fucking shit. He was going to make it wonderful. Yeah, he was just going to jerk off while writing the fucking book. I think that he is a full-on predator. By his estimation, though,

There are about 800 cannibals in Germany, which seems high. Not for Germany. Armin, however, did not say whether those are active cannibals or merely people with intense cannibalistic fetishes just like him who are all waiting for someone to say yes. You know what they say.

There's a lid for every part. I'm in love with the world. I'm in love with a girl. Oh, yeah. In love forever. What is that song? Say yes. Oh, yes.

Well, what a wonderful story. I've loved every fucking second of this. Thank you, Marcus. Good work, Eddie. Good work, Rob. Sorry for making you look at a bunch of horrible shit. Thank you, Rob. Thank you to our research team, Joel and Shaw, who also had to read a bunch of horrible shit. They did great. But welcome. Thank you, guys. Next week, beginning of a big series. Can't wait. Huge four-part series. It's a history series. This, it's one of the...

I can't fucking wait for this. I've been waiting so long to do this story. And man, like this story, it is so much more than you think it is. Yes. I love this story. I am kind of bowled over about how big this story is. Yeah, it's great. So I can't wait to come back with that story next week. Don't forget to go to our Patreon, patreon.com slash last podcast on the left. You can go and watch all of the video episodes.

Follow us at LP on the left at TikTok on Instagram. Be sure to check us out at twitch.tv slash LPN TV for all the streams we do. And you can also check out our YouTube channel for all the streams where they're posted after the fact. And come see us on tour. Go to lastpodcastontheleft.com to see all the shows. We're coming to Washington, D.C. in July.

July 13th. Can't wait. Warner Theater. Come on with it, you fuckers. Yeah. Going to be coming to New York City and we're going to be doing a show here in LA, but we're also going to be going to London and Reykjavik in October. And of course, we have our big Australian tour coming up here in just a couple of months in August. Can't wait to fucking see it. Yeah.

And then hopefully we get to meet some willing people ready to be eaten so we can try that. Quite possibly. Australia, I bet there's a couple. Oh, I really want to. I think it'd be nice to at least meet some and then we could just all hang out. Actually, when we ate raw kangaroo the last time we were in, it kind of reminded, like I remember thinking like, this might be what it's like to eat human flesh because it was fucking disgusting. Was it ground up? No, it was just fillets. Really? It kind of was like served like sashimi.

No, that's not the way to do it. I'd do it like tartar. It was seared. Yeah. It was seared and then cold. Oh, weird. That doesn't sound good. Someone actually, where do we get good kangaroo? Email us, sidestorieslpotl at gmail.com. Yeah. Name one of the cities that we're going to be in. Yeah, one. I'm sure Adelaide. I was about to say Adelaide's going to be the town for the kangaroo. No, I'm not getting fucking kangaroo from Adelaide after watching him do the Snowtown shit. What the fuck? What's wrong?

with you. They got a bunch of extra meat going around there. Not anymore. I'm just saying that's the place. Alright, bye everybody. Have a good game. I got no one to... Come on, man. Julia Child. Yeah. Julia Child. Hail Julia Child. I'm gonna kill the lobster.

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