Mexican police have arrested a suspected cannibal after finding the severed limbs of his fiancée in the fridge and a pot of meat boiling on the stove, prosecutors said on Friday.
The remains of a meat dish were also found on a plate on the dining table in the Mexico City apartment of Jose Luis Calva Zepeda (40), who says he is a writer, poet and playwright.
There were reports that an unfinished book, titled Cannibal Instincts, was found in his apartment, while prosecutors confirmed that a photograph of the British actor Anthony Hopkins, who played the cannibal Hannibal Lecter in the film The Silence of the Lambs, was hanging on the dining room wall.
Police ”found meat in a pot on the gas stove and the remains of some meat on a plate in the dining room”, prosecutor Marcos Hernandez said.
Police are still not saying if Calva Zepeda was indeed practising cannibalism, preferring to wait for the results of forensic tests. But the Mexican press have already dubbed him the ”poet cannibal”.
A right leg thought to belong to Calva Zepeda’s fiancée Alejandra Galeana (30) was found in the fridge along with a right arm, while bones dumped in an empty cereal box were found in the trash can. The rest of the body was placed in a cupboard in the apartment.
Calva Zepeda is also ”being linked for the moment to two other homicides”, added Hernandez.
The mutilated corpses of two other women were discovered in 2004 and April 2007, and may well have been killed by Calva Zepeda, prosecutors said.
The first was found in central Mexico, and her mother confirmed that her 31-year-old daughter had dated the man for two months. The other was an unidentified prostitute also found in central Mexico.
The two identified women looked very similar, and both were single mothers working in a pharmacy, authorities said.
Calva Zepeda tried to escape from police by jumping from the balcony of his apartment and was on Friday recovering in hospital.
He will be placed in temporary detention for 30 days while experts analyse the meat on the stove and on the plate to see if it is of human origin, and if indeed the suspect consumed any. — Sapa-AFP