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'Cannibal cop' convicted of killing 'willing victim' in retrial

TheLocal.de

December 13, 2016

A former police officer convicted of murdering a willing victim he met on a website for cannibalism fetishists and chopping him up in an S&M chamber was convicted again on Tuesday in a re-trial.

Detlev Günzel, 58, had cut the body into small pieces in a slaughter chamber he built in his cellar, before burying them in his garden. There was no evidence that he ate any part of his victim.

He was last year already given a slightly shorter sentence - eight and a half years - for killing Polish-born Wojciech Stempniewicz in 2013.

But the Federal Court of Justice had overturned the first verdict which it deemed too lenient for a murder conviction.

Following a new trial that began early November, a regional court in the eastern city of Dresden agreed with the initial verdict not to impose the maximum 15-year sentence because the victim had a death wish.

It sentenced Günzel to eight years and seven months. The verdict is subject to appeal.

Günzel, a three-decade veteran of the police force, had met Stempniewicz in October 2013 on a website for slaughter and cannibalism fantasies billed as the "#1 site for exotic meat" and boasting more than 3,000 registered members.

His defence team argued that Stempniewicz had hanged himself in Günzel's custom-designed "S&M studio" before Günzel took a knife, then an electric saw, to the gagged-and-bound man.

Soon after the death, Günzel admitted to detectives that he killed the victim by cutting his throat. But he later retracted his confession.

Investigators had testified in the first trial that they could not definitively determine the cause of death due to the state of the corpse.

Günzel and Stempniewicz had extensive contact online and by telephone before finally arranging the fatal date on November 4th 2013. Their emails bore the title "Schlachtfest", the German word for a country feast after the slaughter of a pig. Günzel called himself "Caligula 31", Stempniewicz logged on as "Heszla-Longpig".

Naked German cannibal killer poses in sandals and socks with an axe in the basement where he murdered and chopped up WILLING victim he'd met online

• Police say Detlev Guenzel killed and then partially ate Wojciech Stempniewicz

• Spent five hours cutting up victim's body at cellar near Dresden, detectives say

• Guenzel had claimed at an earlier 2015 trial that Stempniewicz killed himself

• But he was convicted of killing and has had sentence extended after a retrial

By Allan Hall In Berlin for MailOnline

December 13, 2016

Naked and holding an axe, a German cannibal killer stands in his sandals and socks in the basement where he murdered and chopped up a willing victim he had met online.

Police say Detlev Guenzel killed and then partially ate Polish-born businessman Wojciech Stempniewicz in his cellar in the mountains near Dresden in eastern Germany.

A picture of Detlev, a police forensic specialist, shows him standing next to a skeleton and holding an axe wearing nothing but socks and sandals.

Detectives say he spent five hours cutting up his victim's body in the cellar of the house which was a cheap holiday pension for hikers.

The victim's penis and one testicle were never found, but the rest of the dismembered corpse was discovered in flowerbeds in the garden.

In what has become one of the most gruesome cannibal-murder cases of recent times in Germany ended today with the convicted killer's sentence increased by a month.

Guenzel had claimed at his 2015 trial that Stempniewicz killed himself and therefore he could not be found guilty of his murder.

But he was and received an eight and-a-half year sentence - a term that was overturned by the country's supreme court, the Federal Court of Justice, earlier this year.

Now a fresh trial has ended in Dresden with Guenzel having his imprisonment term extended by a month. The prosecution had sought a life sentence.

Guenzel earned the right to a new hearing after justices ruled that the suicide defence was not 'adequately probed' during the first trial. He was found guilty of murder and disturbing the peace of the dead.

Judges ruled that the fact that local conservative CDU politician Stempniewicz wanted to die meant he deserved some leniency.

During the new hearings he told the court: 'I am really sorry, I am partially responsible, but I am not a murderer.'

The original case, centring as it did on lurid appetites for human flesh, captivated the country.

Stempniewicz - who went under the name of 'LongpigHeszla' on sick websites devoted to torture and bondage - was killed and, believe detectives, partially eaten by police forensic specialist Guenzel at his lonely home in mountains near Dresden.

Stempniewicz nurtured lurid fantasies of being killed and eaten and trawled the internet for an entire year before he found a willing predator.

In one message to a user calling himself 'Butcher755' in November 2012 he asked about a contraption in his house designed to winch-up his body after he had been killed.

'Can you describe a little more the room and your equipment? Did you check the load-bearing capacity of the rods? Will it withstand my weight?' he asked on the Zambian Meat website - the same cyberspace forum where German cannibal Armin Meiwes found his willing prey back in 2001.

In November 2013 Stempniewicz, who ran a trucking logistics business in Hanover, met up with Guenzel on the internet - his killer who went by the name of 'Caligula.'

Guenzel collected Stempniewicz, 59, from Dresden's bus station on November 4 that year and drove him to the cheap B&B he ran with a gay man in the Erzgebirge Mountains.

Once inside, he took him to the cellar and - according to testimony at the first trial - slashed his throat, collecting his blood in an old paint pot.

The fiancee of Stempniewicz, a Russian woman identified only as Svetlana, called police when her lover did not return home again.

'Caligula' was traced via the computer messages and telephone calls he had with his victim and he was arrested at the police HQ where he worked as a handwriting specialist early in 2014.

Guenzel admitted slicing the corpse up but claims Stempniewicz hanged himself and that he did not consume the flesh of his victim. He was found guilty of murder in April 2015.

The case mirrored that of Meiwes, a man who first shone the spotlight on the underbelly of perverted sex in Germany, when he spoke at his trial of killing, dismembering and eating computer technician Bernd Brandes at his remote farmhouse home near Kassel.

Meiwes, now serving life imprisonment, packaged the flesh of his 16 stone victim into neat parcels which he froze and ate portions of over a ten month period. When police finally arrived to arrest him there was less than 40lbs of Brandes remaining.

Court observers said the difficulty for Gunezel's legal team was in proving suicide when the corpse no longer exists and there were no witnesses as to what happened in the pension.

Suspected German cannibal cop being retried

Torontosun.com

Tuesday, November 1, 2016

A former German cop accused of being a cannibalistic killer is being retried for killing a man he met online.

Detlev Gunzel, 58, was sentenced last year to eight years in prison for the macabre murder of businessman Wojciech Stempniewicz, 59.

Court was told that Stempniewicz wanted to be murdered and then eaten “to fulfill his sexual desires.”

But Gunzel’s conviction was tossed last spring over the matter of whether the victim had killed himself.

Cops say Gunzel cut Stempniewicz’s body into small pieces in the abattoir he built in the cellar of his home. He then buried the body parts in his garden.

While the case was tinged with elements of cannibalism there was no evidence Gunzel ate his victim.

Both men were aficionados of a cannibalism website and chat boards.

Gunzel maintained Stempniewicz killed himself via strangulation. He later admitted he cut the man’s throat and then recanted.

The pair met online in October 2013 on the site called the “#1 site for exotic meat.”

One of the more gruesome aspects of the case came when a 50-minute video starring Gunzel was played in court.

He is covered in blood and proclaimed: “I never thought I would sink so low.”

'Cannibal cop' jailed for murdering man he met on fetish website to be retried after conviction overturned

Detlev Guenzel, 57, was found guilty of strangling and dismembering Polish-born businessman Wojciech Stempniewicz in 2013

By Natalie Evans - Mirror.co.uk

April 8, 2016

A police officer jailed for murdering and cutting up a man he met on a cannibal fetish website is facing a fresh trial after his conviction was sensationally overturned.

Detlev Guenzel, 57, was found guilty of strangling and dismembering Polish-born businessman Wojciech Stempniewicz in 2013.

The German met his victim on a perverted website devoted to cannibal fantasies, although police said they found no evidence of actual cannibalism.

Guenzel was sentenced to eight and a half years in jail by a court in Leipzig after he was found guilty of murder and disturbing a corpse.

But just a week after he was jailed, the German constitutional court (Bundesgerichtshofs) has quashed the conviction and ordered a retrial.

Announcing the decision, the chairman of the Constitutional Court Senate, Gunther Sander, said: "The cards have been completely reshuffled."

The retrial was ordered after it emerged that the defence claim that the victim committed suicide was never properly examined, nor was the rope which Stempniewicz was found hung from ever properly examined.

Sander added that it was impossible to predict the outcome of the new trial, which could see a more severe life sentence or a not guilty verdict.

During the original trial, prosecutors could not confirm that Guenzel had actually eaten the victim, but some body parts were never found.

When police arrived at Guenzel's small bed and breakfast, he reportedly showed them where the pieces were buried, but officers say the victim's penis was never found, leading local media to speculate that the man’s privates had been eaten.

Guenzel went on trial in August last year for allegedly killing Stempniewicz at the inn in the town of Hartmannsdorf-Reichenau in the Erz Mountains near the border with the Czech Republic.

He was accused of cutting the body into small pieces and burying them in his garden, making a macabre home video in the process.

The pair met in October 2013 on a website for slaughter and cannibalism fantasies which described itself as the "Number 1 site for exotic meat" with more than 3,000 registered members, according to local media.

Guenzel, who had served as a police officer for 30 years, initially confessed to slitting the victim's throat but later retracted the statement.

The defence argued that Stempniewicz had a death wish and had already hanged himself in Guenzel's cellar "S&M studio" before he allegedly took a knife, then an electric saw, to the gagged-and-bound man.

Investigators have been unable to determine the cause of death definitively because of the poor condition of the corpse.

They were, however, able to ascertain that the pair had extensive contact online and by telephone before finally arranging their date on November 4, 2013.

The video Guenzel made was played during the trial, at one point showing him covered in blood while mutilating the corpse. He can be heard murmuring: "I never thought I would sink so low."

The defendant is reported to have broken down when the footage was shown, telling presiding judge Birgit Wiegand that he had made a mistake but was not a murderer.

The case has echoes of the 2001 murder of Bernd Juergen Brandes by Armin Meiwes in Rotenburg in western Germany.

Meiwes is serving a life sentence after killing and eating parts of his victim, who agreed to his death.

Lawyers representing the family of Stempniewicz had sought a 15-year sentence for Guenzel, the father of three adult children described by neighbours as affable, warm-hearted and courteous.

Although the decision to order a retrial was provisionally a victory for the defence, it could backfire as the constitutional court also ruled that the original sentence for murder was too lenient.

However, the original court decided that because the victim clearly wanted to die, a life sentence was unduly harsh.

Cannibal ex-policeman is jailed for just eight years for killing and cutting up a WILLING victim he met on an internet site in Germany

• Detlef Guenzel sliced Polish-born Wojciech Stempniewicz into small pieces

• Video reportedly shows him strangling victim using a rope tied to a pulley

• Defence argued victim could have stopped strangulation if he wanted to

• Guenzel then buried the body parts in the garden of his bed and breakfast

• Prosecutors sought lower sentence because Stempniewicz wanted to die

By Simon Tomlinson for MailOnline

April 1, 2015

A German former police officer who dismembered a willing victim he met on a website for cannibal fetishists was today sentenced to eight years and six months in prison.

Detlef Guenzel chopped Polish-born Wojciech Stempniewicz into small pieces while listening to pop music before burying them in the garden of his home in Hartmannsdorf-Reichenau in 2013.

'He was found guilty of murder and disturbing the peace of the dead,' said presiding judge Birgit Wiegand at the regional court in the eastern city of Dresden.

State attorneys had sought 10 and a half years in prison for the defendant, a trim, soft-spoken father of three whom neighbours described as friendly, generous and unfailingly polite.

Lawyers representing the family of Stempniewicz, 59, had requested a 15-year sentence, usually the maximum in a murder case.

But prosecutors said they stopped short of this demand because Stempniewicz said he wanted to die.

The defendant sat impassively with arms folded as the verdict was read out.

The men came across each other in October 2013 on a website for slaughter and cannibalism fantasies billed as the '#1 site for exotic meat' and boasting more than 3,000 registered members.

The two kept in contact via email, text message and telephone before finally arranging the fatal date for November 4 that year.

Gunezel picked Stempniewicz up at Dresden's main railway station and drove him back to his house in Hartmannsdorf-Reichenau which he ran as a bed and breakfast with his male partner.

Prosecutors said Gunezel then took his victim to the basement where he strangled him using a rope tied to a pulley before chopping the corpse up into small pieces.

A video reportedly shows Guenzel in his underwear slicing the naked body of his victim into pieces while it hangs from a hook.

Described as 'absolutely horrific' and 'beyond belief' by lawyers, the 50-minute tape features Guenzel dismembering the corpse while pop music plays.

At one point he stops to listen for a heartbeat before continuing.

However the defence team argue that the video shows Stempniewicz had his feet in constant contact with the ground, meaning he could have stopped the strangulation if he had wanted to.

They claimed the video, which was shown to judges behind closed doors, proves the victim hanged himself.

Gunezel then spent a total of four hours cutting the body up with a knife and saw, before burying it in shallow holes the garden.

Officers traced him via computer messages and telephone calls and he was arrested at the police HQ where he worked as a handwriting specialist.

When police arrived at the property he showed them where the pieces were buried, but officers say the victim's penis has never been found.

The case mirrors that of Armin Meiwes, a man found guilty of killing, dismembering and eating computer technician Bernd Brandes at his remote farmhouse home near Kassel.

Meiwes, now serving life imprisonment, packaged the flesh of his 16-stone victim into neat parcels which he froze and ate portions of over a ten month period.

When police finally arrived to arrest him there was less than 40lbs of Brandes remaining.

Germany 'cannibal' trial: Former policeman is sentenced

BBC.com

April 1, 2015

A former German policeman has been convicted of murdering a businessman he met on a website for cannibalism fetishists.

Detlev Guenzel, 56, strangled and dismembered the 59-year-old at a small bed-and-breakfast run by Mr Guenzel in eastern Germany in 2013.

Guenzel was sentenced to eight-and-a-half years in jail.

Prosecutors could not confirm that he had actually eaten the victim, but some body parts were never found.

Lawyers representing the family of the murdered man - 59-year-old Polish-born Wojciech Stempniewicz - sought a 15-year sentence for Guenzel, the father of three adult children described by neighbours as affable, warm hearted and courteous.

Guenzel went on trial in August for killing Stempniewicz at his home, a bed-and-breakfast inn in the town of Hartmannsdorf-Reichenau in the Erz mountains near the border with the Czech Republic.

He was accused of cutting the body into small pieces and burying them in his garden, making a macabre home video in the process.

The pair met in October 2013 on a website for slaughter and cannibalism fantasies which described itself as the "#1 site for exotic meat" with more than 3,000 registered members, correspondents say.

Guenzel, who had served in the police for 30 years, retracted a confession he initially made to detectives soon after Stempniewicz's killing in which he said that he had cut his throat.

The defence argued that Stempniewicz had a death wish and had already hanged himself in Guenzel's cellar "S&M studio" before he took a knife, then an electric saw, to the gagged-and-bound man.

Investigators have been unable to determine the cause of death definitively because of the poor condition of the corpse.

They have, however, been able to ascertain that the pair had extensive contact online and by telephone before finally arranging their date on 4 November 2013.

The video Guenzel made was played during the trial, at one point showing him covered in blood while mutilating the corpse. "I never thought I would sink so low," he can be heard murmuring.

The defendant is reported to have broken down when the footage was shown, telling presiding judge Birgit Wiegand that he had made a mistake but was not a murderer.

The case has echoes of the 2001 murder of Bernd Juergen Brandes by Armin Meiwes in Rotenburg in western Germany.

Meiwes is serving a life sentence after killing and eating parts of his victim, who agreed to his death.

'Cannibal' trial: German policeman in court over killing

BBC.com

August 22, 2014

A German police officer has gone on trial in eastern Germany accused of murdering a businessman whom he met on a website for cannibalism fetishists.

Prosecutors say Detlev Guenzel, 56, strangled and dismembered the 59-year-old last November at a small bed-and-breakfast run by Mr Guenzel in the Erz mountains in eastern Germany.

There is no evidence that Mr Guenzel ate any part of the victim.

His defence lawyer told the Dresden court that the victim died willingly.

The prosecution says Mr Guenzel filmed himself cutting up the body with an electric saw. Police later found body parts buried in the garden of Mr Guenzel's bed-and-breakfast in Reichenau.

"He killed and dismembered him to get sexual stimulation and then later to get sexual stimulation by watching the video he made," AFP news agency quotes chief prosecutor Andreas Feron as saying.

Mr Guenzel could face 15 years in prison if convicted of murder.

Chilling echoes

The dead man lived in Hanover. He had chatted with Mr Guenzel at length on the internet, investigators say.

On the fetishists' website there was an offer to "take the experience beyond fantasy". The victim clicked the tick-box and set himself on the path to his death, it is alleged.

Mr Guenzel has retracted a confession he made when he was arrested.

He smiled for photographers when he entered the court wearing neat grey trousers and a white hooded jacket, AFP reports.

In court, he outlined his life story while not mentioning what happened on the night of the death.

The German news website MDR says the trial will continue on 1 September and a total of 15 days in court are planned for the case, with 20 witnesses invited to give testimony.

The case has echoes of the 2001 murder of Bernd Juergen Brandes by Armin Meiwes in Rotenburg in western Germany.

Meiwes is serving a life sentence after killing and eating parts of his victim, who agreed to his death.

Girlfriend of German 'cannibal' victim says the pair had made wedding plans

She believes Stempniewicz, 59, from Hanover, was kidnapped in Dresden by Detlev Guenzel, who he met on a torture, S&M and cannibalism website

By Allan Hall - Mirror.co.uk

December 3, 2013

The girlfriend of “cannibal” victim Wojciech Stempniewicz has said they made wedding plans weeks before he was killed and parts of him allegedly eaten by a German policeman.

She believes Stempniewicz, 59, from Hanover, was kidnapped in Dresden by Detlev Guenzel, who he met on a torture, S&M and cannibalism website.

But police said he sent a message to Guenzel, 55, saying: “Kill me and eat me up .”

The woman told a German newspaper: “He never had a single fantasy about death.”

Polish­-born Stempniewicz ran a trucking and logistics firm specialising in transporting and storing goods from eastern Europe.

The Warsaw native was educated at Gdansk University and had lived in Germany for 20 years.

Guenzel's garden is now a mass of holes: various body parts were dug up on Thursday, one day after his arrest, and the hunt goes on for more remains.

German policeman arrested in possible 'cannibal' case

BBC.com

November 29, 2013

Police in Dresden say they have arrested a 55-year-old police officer on suspicion of murder after the body of another man was found in the Erz mountains in eastern Germany.

Investigators believe that the two men met via an internet site for cannibalism fetishists.

The suspect denies eating body parts and says he killed the man at his request.

The dead man lived in Hanover and had been reported missing.

Police say that the victim was killed and dismembered, and that his body parts were buried on a piece of land in the mountainous region which belonged to the alleged killer.

The arrested man, identified as Detlef G, works for Saxony's State Office of Criminal Investigation in the forensics department.

German media report that he is an expert in handwriting analysis.

'Fantasies'

Police say that body parts of the victim were missing, and it is possible that cannibalism may have taken place.

Dresden police chief Dieter Kroll told a news conference that the victim "had fantasised about being murdered and eaten since his youth".

The two men met at Dresden's main railway station on 4 November, police and prosecutors said, and shortly after their meeting the 59-year-old businessman was killed with a knife.

The arrested police officer has given a partial confession and led investigators to the body parts.

Communication

After the victim was reported missing by his business partner, investigators found a trail of electronic communication which led them to Detlef G.

The two men are not believed to have met prior to the fatal date.

Mr Kroll said the case shows "how people with the most gruesome fantasies can get together on the internet and live out their perversions in an ever starker form".

Ninety-nine per cent of those involved satisfied their desires by just exchanging information, he added.

The case has echoes of the 2001 murder of Bernd Juergen Brandes by Armin Meiwes in Rotenburg in western Germany.

Meiwes is serving a life sentence after killing and eating parts of his victim, who agreed to his death.

Cannibal cop 'killed and ATE a man he met on "exotic meat" website'

• Suspect known as Detlev G said to be 'obsessed' with cannibalism

• Arrested after body parts found at a property in Dresden

• Detectives trying to determine if body parts are missing or were eaten

• Police said the website they were on said it deals with 'exotic meat'

By Allan Hall for MailOnline and Becky Evans

November 29, 2013

A German police worker has been charged with murdering and chopping up a man he met on a cannibal website who had long fantasised about being killed and eaten.

The suspect, known only as Detlev G, is said to have been 'obsessed' with cannibalism and met the 59-year-old man from Hanover on the fetishist website.

Police say the victim was tortured, killed and dismembered and body parts were found buried in the garden of Detlev's home in the eastern Ore Mountains, near Dresden.

The handwriting and document analysis specialist was arrested on Wednesday at his workplace, the Criminal Technical Institute in the eastern city of Dresden, authorities said.

He told investigators that he fatally stabbed the victim in the throat on November 4, hours after the two met in person for the first time.

The 55-year-old said he then chopped up the body into multiple pieces.

The suspect pointed officers to a number of places around his property, south of Dresden, where he had buried the remains, city police chief Dieter Kroll said at a televised news conference.

The 59-year-old victim, whose name was not released, traveled about 250 miles by bus from Hanover to the meeting.

Police started looking into the case when the victim was reported missing on November 11 by a colleague.

Two days later, witnesses told officers that 'the missing man had fantasised since his youth about being killed and eaten by another person,' Kroll said.

The killing happened about a month after the pair first met in an Internet chatroom, police said.

'The victim had been fantasising about being killed and eaten by someone else since his youth,' Dresden police chief Dieter Kroll told a news conference.

Authorities are now checking whether any body parts are missing or were eaten but the suspect has denied doing so.

The website they used says it deals with 'exotic meat.'

'He said that his victim wanted to be killed and he fulfilled this wish,' Haase said in a telephone interview.

The case has similarities to that of Armin Meiwes, who was jailed in 2002 for meeting, killing and eating a computer programmer from Berlin whose life's ambition was to be eaten.

Investigator Maik Mainda said the victim and the suspected killer maintained 'very intense contact by chat, by mail, by SMS but also by telephone' after first becoming acquainted in early October.

Police are only just beginning their investigation, he said.

'I can't give any conclusive information yet about the actual motivation of the suspect for killing his victim. We are investigating in all directions.'

German media reported that Detlev was previously married but divorced and then started a relationship with a man.

Prosecutors said the suspect did not mention whether he and the victim had any sexual relations before the killing.

The Dresden case 'will show how easily people can come together with the most gruesome fantasies on the Internet and exchange their perversions in increasingly crass manner,' police chief Kroll said.

'In 99 per cent of cases, they get their kick out of the exchange.'

His former wife is also employed by the state criminal investigation office.

In the case of the victim, it seemed his desires mirrored those of Bernd Brandes, the computer programmer who was dismembered and eaten by Meiwes at his home near Kassel in 2001.