Stefan R — who CNN affiliate ZDF reports is a 42-year-old teacher — was also found guilty of and sentenced for disturbing the peace of the dead, following the killing of a 43-year-old man in the defendant’s apartment in September 2020, the court said.
The court said Stefan R had killed his victim to “obtain sexual gratification” through the act and the intention to consume parts of the corpse afterward.
According to the court’s findings, the two men had arranged to meet up at the defendant’s Berlin apartment after coming into contact on an online dating platform. At the apartment, Stefan R is said to have sedated the victim, killed him and then severed his genitals in order to eat them.
It could not be determined with certainty whether or not the defendant actually carried out this particular intention — but the court said it was “probable.”
CNN affiliate NTV reported that the prosecutor’s office previously said that Stefan R “lured the man into a trap,” had repeatedly raised the topic of cannibalism in conversations with other sexual partners, and “wanted to live out his fantasies.”
The defendant is also said to have dismembered the victim’s body and deposited the parts around Pankow, a borough in the German capital.
According to NTV, the victim’s bones were found weeks after the murder took place.
After questioning a number of witnesses and evaluating the defendant, the court concluded that the defendant had acted out of “cannibalistic motives” — and since Stefan R has been found guilty of a “particularly serious crime,” according to the court, he cannot be released on automatic parole that comes after serving 15 years in Germany.
The verdict is not final and can still be appealed.
This is not the first time Germany has been rocked by a cannibalism case. In 2006, Armin Meiwes was convicted of murdering and eating a man he had met online after posting an advert looking for someone willing to be consumed and eaten. In 2015, a German police officer was convicted of murdering and butchering a man he had met on an online cannibalism forum.
