A German man found guilty of killing and possibly eating another man just had his conviction overturned.
Last week, 57-year-old Detlev Guenzel, a retired-cop-turned-B&B-owner and father of three from Germany, was found guilty of murdering and dismembering Polish businessman, Wojciech Stempniewicz, in 2013.
Basically what happened is this: The men first made contact on a website for people with cannibal fantasies. The site bills itself as the “Number 1 site for exotic meat” and has more than 3,000 registered members. They chatted for a while before arranging to meet on November 4, 2013.
During the trial, Guenzel’s lawyers argued that Stempniewicz already had a death wish when he agreed to met with Guenzel. He allegedly wanted to hang himself in the cellar of Guenzel’s B&B, then, as he was gasping for air, he wanted Guenzel to come up and slice his throat with a knife then dismember his body with an electric saw and eat him.
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So that’s what Guenzel did.
After cutting up Stempniewicz’s body into tiny little pieces, he buried them in his garden, recording himself in the process. In the video, which was played during the trial, Guenzel can be seen covered in blood while hacking away at the corpse.
“I never thought I would sink so low,” he can be heard sobbing to himself.
When police arrived at Guenzel’s B&B, he showed them where the pieces of Stempniewicz’s body were buried, but officers were never able to locate victim’s penis, believing it may have been eaten.
Last week, Guenzel was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison after being found guilty of murder and disturbing a corpse. But then yesterday, the German constitutional court unexpectedly quashed that conviction and ordered a retrial after it was discovered that neither Stempniewicz’s corpse nor the rope he allegedly used to hang himself were properly examined.
The chairman of the Constitutional Court Senate, Gunther Sander, said, “The cards have been completely reshuffled.”
Guenzel, the father of three adult children, has been described by friends and neighbors as “affable, warm-hearted and courteous.” His retrial date has yet to be announced.
h/t: The Mirror