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Joe Roy METHENY
Classification:
Serial killer
Characteristics: Mutilation
Number of victims: 4 - 10 +
Date of murders: 1976 - 1995
Date
of arrest:
December 15, 1996
Date of birth: 1955
Victims profile: Men
and women
Method of murder: Stabbing
with knife
/ Strangulation
Location: Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Status: Sentenced to death on November 13, 1998. Overturned July
24, 2000
On December 19, 1996, Joe Metheny, 41, who authorities say preyed on women with drug or alcohol problems, was
charged with killing three women. Metheny was first arrested for the
slaying of a 26-year-old woman whom authorities said he met at the
Borderline Bar and Restaurant in Arbutus, a Baltimore suburb. The
decomposed body of the woman, Kimberly Spicer, was found under a trailer
less than 10 feet from Metheny's own at the Joseph Stein and Son pallet
company.
Metheny was also charged in the killing of Toni
Ingrassia, a 28-year-old woman whose body was found in 1994 near
Interstate 95, a short distance from the company. She had been stabbed
and strangled. The third charge concerns a decapitated body of an
unidentified woman. Police are also looking for the remains of a fourth
victim, a man, after Metheny allegedly confessed killing him.
Metheny, who is being held without
bail, was acquitted in July in the ax slayings of two homeless men in
August 1995. A Circuit Court jury concluded there was insufficient
evidence to convict Metheny of killing the two men in a makeshift
village called "Tent City" in south Baltimore.
Mayhem.net
Joe Metheny
Joe Roy Metheny reportedly has confessed
to killing 10 women in the Baltimore area, and has been indicted in the
early 1990's murders of Kimberly Spicer, Toni Lynn Ingrassia, and
Catherine Magaziner. Apparently, after spending time with his victims on
what appeared to be casual normal terms, Metheny felt compelled to
strangle the women. He is currently serving life in prison after having
his death penalty sentence in the murder of Magaziner was overturned on
July 24, 2000.
Court voids death verdict
By Joan Jacobson - The Baltimore Sun
July 25. 2000
The Maryland Court of Appeals overturned yesterday
the death sentence of Joseph R. Metheny, a Baltimore man who admitted
killing a prostitute and begged the jury at sentencing to let him die.
The court found insufficient evidence that Metheny
had robbed the woman, an aggravating circumstance that allowed
prosecutors to seek the death penalty.
Metheny confessed to killing Cathy Ann Magaziner in
1994 near the Southwest Baltimore pallet company where he worked. When
he was sentenced by a Baltimore County jury four years later, Metheny's
lawyers said that although the defendant buried Magaziner's clothing and
a purse in a different place than her body, his removal of the items was
not part of the crime.
In yesterday's decision, the appeals court agreed.
Noting the lack of evidence of robbery, the court
sent the case back to Circuit Judge James T. Smith Jr. The court's
action could lead to a life sentence without parole for Metheny.
The appeals court also noted Smith's "personal
reservations about the sentence," which he expressed in a report to the
state's highest court after the jury sentenced Metheny to death.
Metheny was charged with robbery, the judge noted,
only because the body and the clothing were found in different locations.
"Another person who had killed their victim ... but
buried the victim in her clothes would not qualify for the death penalty,"
Smith wrote.
At the time of sentencing, Metheny was serving life
without parole for the murder of Kimberly Spicer in 1996, and 50 years
for an attempted sex offense and the kidnapping of Rita Kemper, also in
1996.
The case was moved from Baltimore - where Metheny
killed Magaziner - to the county, where he pleaded guilty to murder and
robbery.
Metheny used graphic language in begging the jury for
the death penalty, and at one point said: "The words `I'm sorry' will
never come out, for they would be a lie. I am more than willing to give
up my life for what I have done, to have God judge me and send [me] to
hell for eternity."
He later said he killed because "I
just enjoyed it."
The jury deliberated for slightly more than two hours
before sentencing him.
Metheny's lawyer, Margaret Mead, said yesterday that
the appeals court "made the right decision" by acknowledging
insufficient evidence of a robbery, because the purse and clothing were
simply "left" after Metheny killed Magaziner.
She also said Metheny pleaded guilty to the robbery
charge against the advice of his lawyers.
Mead said she had not spoken to Metheny but suspected
he would be happy, even though he told the jury he wanted to die.
"Once the fanfare was over, he realized he really
does want to live," she said.
Joe Metheny
December 19, 1996
After being charged
with stabbing or strangling three women and sexually mutilating some of
their bodies, Metheny confessed to a fourth killing.
Joe Roy Metheny Confession
SKCentral.com
To start out I will tell you about myself at the
present moment, which is locked up. I am 48 years old, I weigh about
450 pounds and it's not all fat. I've been locked up for almost 8
years now, but when one has been sentenced to a couple of life
without parole sentences, time doesn't matter anymore.
I have no problem with being locked up, for no one
put me here but myself. And I deserve to be right where I'm at, cause I
had 12 law-abiding jurors that told me so, in a couple different cases.
Ha! Ha! I was only convicted of two murders and one kidnapping for the
one that got away. I got 50 years for her. The first murder I was
sentenced to life without parole. The second one they gave me the death
penalty. I sat on Maryland’s death row for 3 years, and then they
overturned my sentence and gave me another life without parole and sent
me down here for the rest of my life.
I killed seven people, three men, and four women. Two
men I chopped up with an axe under a bridge in South Baltimore. I was
found not guilty for them cause they couldn't prove I did it. Under that
same bridge I also killed two women and one man who was fishing, who
just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I weighed
their bodies down and put them in that river. I showed the police where
I put them about 3 years later, but they couldn't find them. So they
could not charge me for them.
My murder rampage started out as revenge but ended up
as a passion for the taste of blood and the overwhelming sense of power
one gets for taking the life of another.
My story
It all started back in July of 1994. I was at work, I
was a truck driver. I was working overtime this one night. Then I got
off and went home as I always did. But when I opened the door and turned
on the light, I noticed there was nothing there. My ole lady had taken
everything including my son and left me. Her leaving was not my problem.
But she took my 6-year-old son with her. She was a crack addict and a
worthless piece of shit. I would have paid her to get out of my life.
All she had to do was take my son over to my mothers house and she could
have had everything else and be gone.
I found out about 6 months later she had moved on the
other side of town with some asshole that had her out selling her ass
for drugs. They got busted for drugs and they took my son away from them
for child neglect and child abuse.
I had no chance of going to social services and
trying to get my son back do to my past criminal record. So I took it
upon myself with the hatred I had for these 2 who lost my son, to go
looking for them. I had found out from someone that they was going under
that bridge and getting high with some homeless motherfuckers who lived
under that bridge.
I went under there looking for them. They were not
there, but the two homeless motherfuckers they got high with them were
down there. They were passed out on some old stinking mattress and
that's where they were when I left, except there were dead from being
chopped up.
That same night I lured the first crackwhore down
under that bridge. I got her high and was trying to get information out
of her about my ole ladies whereabouts. She acted like she didn't know,
so I beat the hell out of her and raped her ass then killed her. I put
her in some bushes and went and lured the second bitch down there. I did
the same to her as the last one, but as I was about to throw her in the
bushes with the other one I noticed an old blackman down by the river
fishing looking back up at me. I grabbed a steel pipe that was lying by
and ran down on him and layed his head wide open. So I put the two girls
and him in the river and weighed them down with rocks.
That was a very busy night for me 5 murders within
about 7 hours. I washed up in that river and cleaned up the crime scene
as much as I could, then left. 2 1/2 weeks later I was arrested and
charged with the murders of the 2 men I chopped up. I spent close to 18
months in Baltimore City Jail waiting to go to trial. The trial lasted 1
week and it was thrown out of court cause of lack of evidence.
I was free again. I went back and talked my old boss
into giving my job back to me at the pallet company. There was a little
trailer on the property, so I told my boss to let me stay there and I
could keep an eye on the place. He agreed to this and gave me the keys
to the front gate and main building. The company was on a dead end road
and was very isolated. It was perfect for what I wanted to do.
I lured 2 more crackwhores up there to my trailer. I
killed and butchered their bodies up. I cut the meat up and put it in
some Tupperware bowls then put it in a freezer. I buried the remains in
several shallow graves in a little woods behind the company.
Over the next couple weeks on the weekends I opened
up a little open-pit beef stand. I had real roast beef and pork
sandwiches and why not they were very good. The human body tastes was
very similar to pork. If you mix it together no one can tell the
difference.
Everything was going pretty good until I ran out of
my special meat. So I lured another bitch up to my trailer. I got her in
there and started to rip her clothes off and knocking the hell out of
her. She was screaming, but there was no one around to hear her except
me. And I just kept on laughing at her.
I turned around for a split second, and that was my
mistake, for she ran out the door before I could get to her. There was
an 8-foot chain link fence with barbwire on top of it around the front
of the company. There was a stack of wooden pallets next to the fence
about 10 feet high. That bitch scaled those pallets like a monkey and
jumped the fence, and ran down to the main road where some guy in a
pickup truck picked her up and took her to a nearby gas station where
they called the cops.
Well I knew the cops were on the way, but I didn't
run. I gathered up her clothing, grabbed the keys to the gate, and went
out and opened it. Soon as I step out the gate a cop car pulled up. And
the cop jumped out and pulled his gun on me and told me to get on the
ground. And that is where it all came to an end.
They took me down and booked me. She had told them
that I said I was going to kill her like the rest. Which was true. They
had me sitting in a little room down at homicide drilling me and damn
near kissing my ass. Trying to find out what I had done. They pulled me
out of city jail everyday for 1 month taking me back and forth between
the company and the bridge.
I had they going crazy over at the company digging up
the remains of those 2 bitches there. Cause I had their remains buried
in 7 different holes. The only thing I feel bad about in any of this, is
I didn't get to murder the 2 motherfuckers I was really after. And
that's my ex ole lady and the bastard she got hooked up with.
Well that's my story, horrible but true. So the next
time you're riding down the road and you happen to see an open pit beef
stand, that you've never seen before, make sure you think about this
story before you take a bite of that sandwich. Sometimes you never know
who you may be eating. Ha! Ha!
SEX:
M RACE: W TYPE: T MOTIVE: Sex./Sad.
DATE(S): 1976-95
VENUE: Baltimore, Md.
VICTIMS:
10 confessed
MO:
Admitted mutilation-murders of men and women.
DISPOSITION: Life term on one
count, 1997; condemned on second count, 1998.
Michael Newton - An Encyclopedia
of Modern Serial Killers - Hunting Humans
