On December 19, 1996, Maryland authorities charged Joe Roy Metheny, then 41, with the murders of three women in three separate incidents. He confessed to killing a male victim, as well. In time, Metheny would claim that he’d killed at least 10 people — as well as confess to even more nauseating crimes.
In August of the previous year, the massively obese Baltimore resident had beaten the rap for killing two homeless men with an ax. He had, however, actually been hanging around homeless camps, preying on prostitutes and other vulnerable women there.
Ultimately, Joe Metheny confessed to an array of transgressions that included eating and grinding up his victims’ body parts, which he would then mix with pork and beef that he served to customers at his roadside open-pit barbecue stand.
So that’s how he got his nickname, “The Cannibal.”
Metheny’s known and connected kills began in 1995, a few months after his drug-addict wife left him and took their six-year-old son. In a rage, he brought an ax to a location under a bridge where he thought her drug dealers would be lurking.
Instead, he found two homeless men and allegedly chopped them to death. Metheny was later acquitted of those murders, but is largely believed to have committed them.
Metheny told police that he killed three more unrelated individuals on that same night. He said he weighed their bodies down with rocks and threw them in a nearby river. Three years later, divers searched the location, but found nothing. The case was dropped due to lack of evidence.
Later in 1995, Metheny said he lured “crack whores” Cathy Ann Magaziner, 45; and Kimberly Spicer, 26; to his trailer near the food stand. He killed, dismembered, and partially ate them, prior to preparing their remains as burger meat.
While on trial Metheny said:
“I cut the meat up and put it in some Tupperware bowls then put it in a freezer. I opened up a little open-pit beef stand. I had real roast beef and pork sandwiches. They were very good. The human body taste was very similar to pork. If you mix it together no one can tell the difference.”
Metheny’s sickening run came to an end in 1996 after he kidnapped Rita Kemper, another prostitute. Kemper survived a severe beating from Metheny in his trailer and managed to escape, whereupon she notified the police.
At his trial, Metheny 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… I just enjoyed it.”
After convening for two hours, the jury convicted Metheny for the murders of Kimberly Spicer, Cathy Magaziner, and Toni Ingrassia, a 28-year-old woman whose body was found elsewhere. Initially, Metheny received the death penalty, but that sentence was changed to life in prison on July 24, 2000.
He remains behind bars.
***UPDATED*** 08/08/2017-CUMBERLAND, MD — Maryland corrections officials are reporting that Joe Metheny was found dead in his cell on Saturday.
He was found unresponsive in his cell at Western Correctional Institution around 3 P.M. His cause of death is still under investigation. He was 62 years old.
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