Call me old-fashioned, but the idea of chowing down on human flesh just doesn’t do it for me.

It seems three suspected cannibals in rural KwaZulu-Natal Midlands finally reached the same conclusion, with one man having told officers at the Estcourt police station that he was “tired of eating human flesh”.

He then produced “part of a human leg and a hand”, with this below from IOL:

It is understood that investigations led police to a house in nearby Rensburgdrift, where more human remains were found.

The man who had gone to the police station was arrested.

A second suspect was arrested in Estcourt and a third suspect – thought to be a nyanga (medicine man) – was arrested in the Amangwe area.

The three are all in their thirties.

They allegedly killed a woman, cut her up and ate parts of her body.

Police spokesperson Colonel Thembeka Mbhele on Sunday confirmed that the men were arrested on charges relating to murder and cannibalism. She said they would appear in the Estcourt Magistrate’s Court today.

If you’re thinking that there seems to be an obvious connection here between the cannibalism and a muti-related crime you’d be wrong, with the former head of the SAPS specialised Investigative Psychology Section saying these allegations don’t fit this profile:

Here’s Professor Gérard Labuschagne:

“It’s very rare and unusual to get a case where people are actually eating human body parts – animal bites are often mistaken for human bites. But when people are eating human body parts, it’s more likely got to do with a mental health issue.”

Labuschagne said people who ate human body parts were often in the throes of psychotic episodes.

“They are usually experiencing audio and/or visual hallucinations – hearing voices or seeing things that aren’t there – and having bizarre thoughts like ‘I must eat this body part as it will make me powerful’.”

Labuschagne said the suggestion that this was a group crime was strange: “You do sometimes get a group of people, where one is mentally ill – sort of like a cult leader – and his followers have dependency issues. It’s very, very rare though.”

Back in 2001 a man was caught eating human flesh on the Nkonka Reserve on the KZN South Coast, and in 2003 a man was arrested after police discovered a cooking pot full of body parts near his home in Richards Bay.

Sheesh, KZN, can you have a word please?

As it turns out cannibalism itself isn’t actually a crime, although mutilating a corpse and being in possession of human tissue are.

If you read this and were thinking of saying ‘let’s have someone over for dinner’ then congrats, you’re now part of the Dad Joke Club.

[source:iol]