The Making of a Cannibal: Exploring Armin Mivus' Childhood | Murder CaseBook | Real Crime

Armin mivus was a sexual sadist who found cannibalism the means by which he could express his sadism of all horrific killings I've come across my verse is there right near the top of all the killers because he actually got someone to sacrifice themselves someone to be slaughtered and eaten when I think of Armin mivus the slaughter The Killing and the whole case is unique and probably will never again be seen by a coroner in December 2003 the trial of Armin mivus sent shockwaves throughout Europe and around the world the 42 year old computer technician was accused of brutally killing and eating another man but was it murder when the victim had apparently been a very willing volunteer vivis had broken the last taboo I'm here in Germany to see how they dealt with the internationally famous Horror Story the cannibal of rottenburg foreign [Music] nobody should die that way I've never seen anything that hurt one of the duties of a pathologist is to determine the cause of death watch on mobile devices or the big screen all for free no subscription required download Billy now I'm Fred dunage and I'm investigating murders that have shocked the world I want to know what motivates someone to kill and to find out how they think they can get away with it to local villagers I'm in my Vis seemed the perfect neighbor but how much do we know about what goes on behind closed doors Armin Mavis was born in 1961 in Essen in West Germany he was the third child of his mother valt Road and the first child of her second husband at the age of three armin's family bought a manor house here in the tiny Hamlet of festivals near to Rottenberg it's a big place 36 rooms and it was bought as a retreat it was in the heart of West Germany and the locals here were to be horrified and confounded when 36 years later they realized what the young boy had done Gisela Frederickson is a journalist on the respected German news magazine de Spiegel she's been following this case very closely tell me about Armin mivas as a child he was the youngest of three sons the two older Sons left the family very quickly so Armin mivas remained the only person for his mother to focus all her attention on especially her bitterness towards men she directed everything at Armin she monopolized the child she called him Minchin Minchin which is a German girl's name he had to do everything he had to do household jobs he had to go shopping he had to take care of her verstevelt is a small village with only 25 inhabitants and there were few children neighbor Manfred stuk remembers Armin Mavis as a young boy Manfred when did you first meet Armin I was just a small boy when I mean and his parents came to vosterfeld Amin's parents had bought a house in vosterfeld and that's how we met because there were no other boys of the same age other than me Armin had a horse a white pony and it was called Polly during the Easter vacation summer vacation here in roosterfeld he would go around with a carriage in the pony and we would drive into the forest together with our mean the pony and the carriage in September 1970 here in worcesterfield Armin mavis's Happy Family Life effectively ended he was playing in the garden with his friend Manfred stuck they heard the front door slam armin's father came out climbed into the family car and drove off Armin ran after him and tried to stop him he failed his father had gone how much did his father leaving home affect him when the father left the family he was deeply shattered the family was broken his entire world had fallen Apart Nothing Was the Same as before and he could not deal with the new situation armin's interest in cannibalism was ignited at the age of 10. Robinson Crusoe awoke his Fascination and as a child he would spend hours watching butchers cutting up and preparing meat leading criminologist Professor David Wilson has been studying my verse and his obsession with breaking the last taboo eating another human being so why and how would these images of cannibalism these dreams of cannibalism start what would actually provoke that just loneliness what seems to have driven the trigger in relation to my versus fantasy of cannibalism was his reading of the book Robinson Crusoe which of course has a crucial scene in which uh Robinson Crusoe is going to save man Friday from cannibals who want to eat man Friday so Robinson Crusoe man Friday become best friends so he wants to he wants to place um some kind of relationship at the heart of his life which is about him and him being valued as opposed to him being abandoned literally he thinks by consuming someone it's a way of keeping them close to him of having them permanently with him in January 1981 nineteen-year-old Mavis left home and joined the West German Army he became part of the 52nd armored infantry battalion in rottenburg just outside of wushdevel he wanted to be a professional Soldier he wanted this to be his career and he spent 12 years in the armed forces he was surrounded by young men who stimulated his mind and Imagination where he felt comfortable and there was normality a normality from the outside that stopped him from pursuing his fantasies any further it also gave him power over other people for the first time and according to mivas it was a way also of controlling his cannibalistic fantasies now during this period when he's in the west German Army as a non-commissioned officer as a volunteer non-commissioned officer he does seem to have developed friendships with women there was one particular woman that he had developed a friendship with but this didn't go anywhere did he ever mention girls Girlfriends I had a girlfriend we went out together When We Were Soldiers in the barracks he asked me if I thought he was gay arm and I said you have to know that for yourself I said I cannot look inside your soul I don't know what you're attracted to and actually I always thought he was amen Mavis had failed in a normal relationship and his career in the Army had turned sour he found solace in alcohol when Christmas he got very drunk he crashes his Mercedes car and of course being drunk and crashing his car leads to him losing his driving license and then once mivas gets his driving license back he crashes his car again having been drink driving Mavis is drunken Behavior destroyed any possibility of a long-term career in the army and in 1993 32 year old Armin mibis left the Army and returned to vosterfield where he looked after his aging mother yeah he completely took care of her and he changed his career he became a computer expert and found employment as a Service employee in a company that maintained the computers of large Banks and similar institutions he did that during the day and in the evening he took care of his mother until she fell asleep Germany was changing the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 reuniting East and West Germany and then in the 1990s something perhaps even more dramatic the commercialization internet and the World Wide Web suddenly I'm in mybus was able to communicate with the rest of the world if you think of yourself as being a fully realized Cannibal by the age of 12. you must think of yourself as being very pathological very unusual very unique suddenly the internet allows him to realize that there might be other people out there who have the same interests as him one of the things for me has always been about how fantasy lives of offenders can emerge out of fantasy into reality how do you make those fantasies that you have become real and what happens once you do so the internet bridged the gap between mybus's Fantasy Life and reality he constructed websites and doctored photographs of young men who could be butchered Mavis was moving closer in fulfilling his desire to be a cannibal a hut I was tear flow he shaped the meat from animals into objects he formed human bodies from marzipan and slashed them open to make it look realistic he manipulated these images on the computer to make it look as if he was working with real dead bodies and he was very successful with this and sent out many of these images over the internet on the 2nd of September 1999 armin's life changed forever he returned home from work to find his mother lying in her bed while tried my visit had a heart attack and was dead Armin had discovered a newfound Freedom he was now able to lead his life by his own rules I'm here in Germany re-examining the case of Armin Mavis and the first crime of cannibalism in Germany by the end of 1999 myvis had discovered a new love for technology with his domineering mother out of the picture he was free to indulge his fantasies on the internet I pursue his obsession with cannibalism it's the bridge between his Fantasy Life to become part of his reality his mother dying allows mivas to take these fantasies to the next level and literally by November 1999 two months after his mother has died there there is no trace of his mother in the house at all he can therefore give free reign to his computer skills to advertise on contact groups to find a suitable victim in the year 2000 38 year old Armin nivas began his search for like-minded cannibals and willing victims on the internet he placed adverts on websites and forums seeking volunteers looking for his Slaughter victim criminal psychologist Dr David Holmes knows just how unusual the case of the cannibal of Rottenberg is why is it considered Taboo in many countries this is sort of a very difficult question um by taboo we mean that societal pressure to stop you doing something clearly you shouldn't breed with your own family due to problems with genetics similarly it's not an evolutionary interest for us to eat each other in a majority of cases often eating other humans will actually produce diseases particularly brains and those diseases presumably are designed to stop us doing it cannibalism is it more common than we think or less common in the case of um situations such as criminal acts such as the case in question it's actually fairly rare however in cases of War where cannibalism is quite high as is rape this is often covered up and it's often not documented even though it does happen so it's actually more common in Conflict situations but in terms of general public criminal acts it's actually very rare Armin my Vis posted adverts looking for a handsome young man between 18 and 25 years old Pleasant and physically appealing but also not too muscular when no one in the specified age group replied he raised the age to 30. and then someone did jorg Bosa contact become this was the first time he had contact real physical contact not only virtual but real and York offered himself to be slaughtered I think it was also a game for York until the moment came in which everything became a serious reality and then he said no and from that moment mivus was not interested in him anymore well it was part of mivas's fantasy that the victim agreed and wanted to go through with it that the victim wanted to be killed so he could eat them jorg Bozer had changed his mind but this didn't stop Mavis looking for another victim a willing volunteer he would take photos of himself holding butcher's knives made papier-mache heads and would Soar Off a mannequin's body parts and hang them from the ceiling mimus wanted to show potential victims what he was capable of the final person to respond to myvis's internet message was burnt Jurgen brandez a 43 year old bisexual engineer on the 14th of February 2001 he contacted mybus volunteering to be eaten they discussed the best ways in which his body could be consumed and what should happen to the remains afterwards Brandis even suggested his skull can be used as an ashtray this burnt Brandis was suffering from a very extreme type of progressive masochism he wanted to cut off his penis to amputate it this idea was his ultimate thrill that he dreamed of he didn't care what happened after but he wanted this male penis he wanted to get rid of it obviously somebody who wants to be killed by another human being is clearly in some way dealing with underlying mental health problems those underlying mental health problems might be structural they might be long term or they might be a response to some temporary crisis in that person's life they may be depressed they may have difficulties at home in their relationships at work so clearly we're not dealing with somebody who is very healthy at that particular moment in time we're dealing with somebody who's vulnerable in one way or another and that's the crucial thing you know these internet forums allow people who are vulnerable to think that there's a solution which is not to go and see a psychologist or a doctor or a psychiatrist but the solution might be to do something which in other circumstances they wouldn't do at all burnt brander's message to arm in Myers was entitled simply dinner in it he wrote I offered to let myself be eaten alive no Slaughter but eating therefore whoever really wants to do it needs a genuine victim on the 9th of March 2001 bent brandes met Armin mivas at Castle station Brandis is going to hide details of their meeting from his partner Reni eznick he's going to say that he's going on a work trip he's also going to remove details from his computer in terms of the email correspondence that's gone on between himself and mivas and he's also going to buy a ticket a one-way ticket from Berlin to Castle where he's going to be picked up by myvers Armin mivis drove his willing volunteer burnt brandes back to his home in Westerville when they arrived myvis went to the kitchen to make them some coffee when it comes back to the sitting room where he had left brandes Brandis is completely stripped naked and says according to mivas I want you to admire your dinner and so again we're getting some indication about their fantasies but we're also getting a sense of underlying that cannibalism is the psychosexual desire of them uh that that they have of one person being totally dominated by another burnt brandes told my verse he would like to be unconscious when he was slaughtered brandes swallowed half a bottle of cold medicine telling my visit when he was sleepy he could castrate him but half an hour later he changed his mind Mavis drove Brandeis back to Castle but the fear of returning home and explaining his actions to his partner Renee yaznik Force Brandis to change his mind again this time it would all be recorded on video he says look if I go back to Berlin there'll be a confrontation it would be better for me if I was completely unconscious then we could go forward with this particular fantasy they bought sleeping pills and a strong cold medicine and they drove back and then the amputation happened they first tried to cut with a kitchen knife and that didn't work very well so then they tried it with a sharper knife the penis was severed then both of them wanted to eat it but they couldn't because it was too chewy so mivas fried the penis but it didn't taste as good as he imagined it would so Brandis is now slowly dying what does mybus do brandes says to mivas according to mivas that he would like to be placed in a bath of warm water so that all the blood would pour out of him because he's getting cold and if he's in a bath of warm water it would be a a way of more quickly ending his life so mivas places Brandis in a bath of warm water and sits next door reading a Star Trek novel whilst he hopes that burned Brandis is going to die after two hours Brandis called out for mivas he got out of the bath and collapsed on the floor unconscious mivus picks him up and takes him to a bedroom and according to miva's brander says if I'm still alive in the morning we will Feast on my genitalia don't dream of calling an ambulance by 5am on the 10th of March 2001 Bert Brandis was dead just 17 hours after arriving at myvis's house Vibes then cut up the rest of his body in the same way he'd seen butchers dismember the carcasses of animals when he was a child foreign however he could head and in the following days he started to eat the rest of the meat because he found the meat was pretty chewy he minced the meat and made meatballs from it he turned it into a real event he videoed the cutting up of the dead body and then he repeatedly watched this tape butchered Brenda's body and placed it in the freezer on the 12th of March 2001 he ate his first meal a fill it with a pepper sauce over the next year life is consumed 45 pounds of brander's Flesh fulfilled his fantasy I'm reinvestigating the case of the cannibal of Rottenberg Armin mivus and the events that led to the death of burned brandes here in versterfield by March 2001 myvis had bought his fantasies to life he become a cannibal 43 year old burned brandes from Berlin had willingly volunteered to be eaten by the 39 year old computer technician within 17 hours of meeting each other Brandis was dead brandes does have a partner Reni yasnag back in Berlin who's trying to find uh burnt branders he hasn't returned from this so-called business trip he's disappeared the police are trying to find him but remember burnt has been incredibly careful about destroying any evidence that might link him to wisterfeld and to Armin mivas so ultimately my verse is going to be caught not because of the steps taken by Randy yes Nick but is going to be caught by the fact that Armin Memphis isn't satisfied with having eaten one victim he wants more the death of brandes had not satisfied Armin libis's obsession with cannibalism by June of that year he was back on the internet looking for more willing volunteers also put pictures on the internet of what he had done because now he was a hero amongst the cannibals he had done it he had killed a human being and eaten them the others only dreamed about doing it they only imagined it he had actually done it and this Triumph he didn't want it to be taken away from him he was the hero often when I've worked with pedophiles their knowledge of computing is far in excess of the knowledge of the criminal justice system's knowledge about Computing and so I get the impression of mivas feeling rather pleased with himself he can advertise for even more victims and has therefore not tried to hide because he doesn't think he's going to be caught on the 8th of July 2002 Reinhold a 23 year old medical student discovered mybus's advert while surfing the internet he was shot and decided to contact mivis to find out more at first mivas must have thought that Reinhold was going to be another willing victim who is in fact reinerhold got mivas to admit enough detail for Reinhold to be particularly concerned that what had taken place was a murder so Reinhold is going to alert the authorities he's going to report a crime having taken place and that's the beginning of Mavis being brought to Justice on the 28th of November 2002 The District Court of Rottenberg issued a warrant for the residents of Armin mivis in vosterveld for suspicion of presentation of violence the police turned up at wisterwald searched myvis's house and Stables took away samples from the freezer samples which would include body parts of Baron branders of course there was also the video of the slaughter itself although the police didn't originally find that particular video in the collection of videos that mivas had in his home they arrest nonetheless uh Armin mivas and interview him and question him despite an extensive search the police found no evidence and the results weren't yet back on the meat from the freezer Armin Mavis was released his neighbor Manfred stuk believes there was a motive behind myvis's next move his confession a woman maybe he wanted more from her than just friendship he wanted to confess the crime take responsibility before pursuing the relationship so he went to a lawyer and said to the lawyer well I did these things what's the best way to get out of this then he went to the court with the lawyer told the judge the same thing and the judge said for now drive back to voice defeld and wait there until the police arrived and then see what happens next never denied that he did it he also said that he knew it wasn't right but it happened because branders demanded it and brandes wanted him to do it brandes wanted to be killed mivus was not interested in the amputation of the penis he only did it to let's put it like this to get Brandis to a point so that he could kill him Mavis was only interested in being able to cut up this person to get his meat and eat it on the 10th of December 2002 Armin mybus was taken to the regional criminal inspectors headquarters in bad hirschfeld there in a five-hour interrogation he gave the police full details of the death of bird Brothers a visit to his house the next morning provided the police with all the evidence they needed Professor Manfred Reese a forensic pathologist discovered the contents of my vs Frieza what tests did you do we received different pieces from the house they were doing excavations on the property they found parts of a skeleton the head for example the disembodied hands and disembodied feet well that was one part then there were 35 bags of frozen meat we unpacked the bags we put everything on the table and tried to figure out if it was a complete body was something missing or not so you built it like a skeleton but how much did you have how much was missing only soft tissue was missing which my visit had eaten the whole skeleton was there so we could definitely say that we had one single person in front of us so how much of brandis's body at myvis consumed said about one-third Brandis weighed about 90 kilograms meaning he consumed about 30 kilograms this could be confirmed with the help of the remaining parts amen myvis was arrested and taken to Castle penitentiary the meat in his freezer had been formally identified and the relatives of burnt branders were informed of his death the video filmed by myvis during the whole process had corroborated his statement to the police is it possible to imagine the pain that burnt Brandis would have been in this penis was cut off his alcohol level was 0.8 to 1.4 milliliters and he consumed only a few drugs he was scarcely narcotized the pain while cutting off a penis is a so-called sense of impending doom the strongest pain that can be inflicted it was seen in the video and also heard when he screamed loudly for a period of two minutes on the 3rd of December 2003 Armin vivers went on trial here at the district court in Castle the cannibal of Rottenberg pleaded guilty to the assisted suicide of burnt Brandis almost two years after his death was questioned in court about what he'd done and he reported it so eloquently and in such a silver-tongued manner he played to the audience to the cameras basically what he did there was narcissistic he used the court as his stage cannibalism is defined as the non-consensual consumption of another human being in Germany as in most countries around the world it is not illegal the courts wanted Mavis for murder berta's German defense attorney gero Von pelthkasim knows without a motive this was a hard task under German law tell me first of all why this mivus case was so complex in German law well the mivus case is a very unique one we had cannibalism cases before that people who have been in a emergency situation and killed someone to survive this case with my this was kind of special because here you had two people with kind of very strange motives for people like us I would say explain to me if you will the difference between murder and manslaughter in German law in German lawyers it's a very um difficult difference so like um murder is uh in the criminal court in section 211 and it says a murder is whoever killed a human being out of murderous lust to satisfy his sexual desires from greed or otherwise based motives by stealth a cruelly or with means dangerous to the public or in order to commit or to cover up another crime and manslaughter is all killing without these uh severe Specialties did he have any defense against these charges absolutely he said no well I am not a murder at all I killed someone on his request which is a own section under the German criminal code or it was assistance to suicide and how did that go down in the court what what what was the reaction when he when he said that it did not follow the prosecutor and it also did not follow Mavis defense so it was some sort in the middle on the 30th of January 2004 I'm in my business was charged with a manslaughter of burnt brandes he was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison Justice had been served but neither Armin mivas nor Germany were pleased with the result myvis saw his actions as killing on request while Germany saw them as murder the cannibal of rottenburg would face Justice once more I'm investigating the world of cannibalism and the German criminal Armin mivus in 2001 Amin maivis broke the last taboo he'd consumed another human being the act of cannibalism on burnt branders had been consensual and in 2004 the German courts had found myvis guilty of manslaughter with no motive they couldn't find him guilty of murder but this was about to change my was appealed because he did not feel that he had done anything wrong we've got to enter his mind at that stage we've got to see his psychology his reasoning and his reasoning was that this man had come forward willingly offered himself as a victim and that he had died in the course of a sex act and that sex act of cutting off his penis had led to him dying so he didn't feel that he had done anything wrong crucially though what was being gradually realized by the German authorities was that this so-called consensual Behavior actually masked darker intense mivas didn't feel those darker intents would have led to a murder charge which is why he wanted to appeal against the first sentence on the 22nd of April 2005 the court of appeals reversed the Judgment made in Castle Armin Mavis had appealed claiming the crime was a killing on request but the German legal system wanted to convict him for murder the retrial began on the 12th of January 2006 in Frankfurt prosecutors questioned the reason behind brandis's death what was mybus's motive had he killed him as a way of satisfying his own sexual needs rather than obliging Brandis in his request you think why this is motive was sexual or or something else for my this it was a sexual issue he wanted to kill and Slaughter somebody he looked for somebody just for this purpose and he'd played it through in his mind he said after the killing he'd watched the video from time to time and masturbated that was his sexual fantasy it was absolutely clear the court brought to light the fact that brandes was unable to make his own decisions on the evening of the 9th of March 2001 due to the amount of alcohol and drugs consumed the pathologist Manfred rise had also discovered whilst watching the video of the slaughter that burnt branders was still breathing before mivas began his Butchery the video proved that Brandis was still alive at the point his throat was cut before he was breathing he moved his head after his throat was cut he bled to death that proves he was still alive at that moment which Mavis has been denying repeatedly during the trial he said that he thought Brandis was dead but why would you stab a dead person in the neck well he realized that brandes was still alive and so he killed him he left this badly injured man who was getting closer and closer to his death in this horrendous house he left him without attempting to help him and then well he killed him stabbing him in the neck twice on the left side of the neck Armin Memphis was not phased by the justice system all the experience of being in court he believed he'd done nothing wrong yeah he presented himself well he was a tall slim man who could easily be taken as a bank employee or a post office employee or an employee of an insurance company for example he was extremely polite friendly he didn't show any sign of regret or concern about having killed a human being no he was convinced that he gave burnt brandes a nice death he was proud of it and for him what he did was absolutely normal Mavis laughed a lot bearing his teeth and all of us saw it and it gave us the creeps we saw those teeth that he had bitten a human being with and that had eaten human flesh on the 9th of May 2006 the court in Frankfurt convicted Armin mivas for the murder of burnt branders his initial sentence of eight years and six months was changed to life in Germany that is a minimum of 15 years in prison life has got life but under European law he believes he will one day before too long get out will he I think Mavis will get out because of German law in relation to life sentences some European jurisdictions take a very different view of what a life sentence means from those of us in England and Wales take a view about what a life sentence will mean for example Anders bearing brevec the Norwegian who killed 77 people the maximum sentence that you can receive in Norway is 21 years so we're going to have to deal with the possibility that Anders bearing Breivik is going to get released I often note that those murderers who will commit a sequence of crimes often the first murder they commit they're not very good at committing them of that because that murder has been their fantasy and then suddenly It's Made Real but they can't quite predict how things are going to go so they develop a killing ability as the number of their victims increases and all one sees in my vs killing of burnt Brandis is myvus learning how to be a master butcher the case of Armin mivas brought Hodder to Germany and the world it provoked questions about the morality of cannibalism when is it illegal and when is it a necessity for survival because the big debate was about cannibalism not constituting an offense in Germany it's not chargeable it's not subject to prosecution cannibalism is one of the last taboos worldwide it's the same as incest and the taboo is but an act of our human development of our human progress of our human culture that is the ongoing debate which unfortunately hasn't concluded there is no law in Germany which forbids cannibalism there is only a law called the violation of grave how much is the internet you feel going to encourage more people like Armin mivas it is very worrying that the internet does provide the communication for these kind of criminal acts as it does for other more positive acts and unfortunately of course when you have an infinite number of possibilities which you nearly have in the intercommunications in the internet you have the potential that we may even not only see more crimes of cannibalism we may see crimes of which we have not even conceived as yet I'm in my Vis will serve his life sentence in Castle Penitentiary receiving therapy he now spends his days working in the laundry and takes part in Social therapy activities such as the church choir and art group how do you feel about Armin now I read about it in the newspapers the things they write about I mean what he's doing in prison and where he is now otherwise I don't get worked up about it if he comes back then he'll be back he wants to move in again down there and renovate the place where he wants to put a trailer outside then he'll live down there again I don't mind at all I don't need to be scared of him I'm not afraid of army I don't have to be afraid but you could make up your own story if you have small children oh the cannibal will come and get you here I think he is human a tragic case he has reached a certain type of Fame because of his psychological disorder but he'll never be able to lead a normal life he'll never be able to have a normal relationship with a partner he will never be able to have a romantic relationship with either a man or a woman it doesn't matter because he will always have this idea in his head I want to eat him or her and that simply is not legal he basically can only satisfy his sexual needs in an illegal way and a person like that actually I think deserves empathy I'm in mavis's consumption that burnt brand is broke the last taboo very few murder cases become truly International but this one was so fascinating horrific and yet repulsive it really caught the Public's imagination it also raises the Intriguing question is it murder or manslaughter when someone volunteers willingly and how do the vague laws on cannibalism help or hinder the victims and the perpetrators

Channel: Real Crime

Views: 98,827

Keywords: Real Crime, True Crime Bookshelf, True Crime Chronicles, chilling crimes, criminal mastermind, criminal minds, criminal minds investigation, criminal motives, criminal profiling, criminal psychology, dark side of humanity, disturbing crimes, dramatized crime stories, extreme violence case study, gruesome murders, infamous criminals, infamous murder cases, raw crime footage analysis, shock value content, true crime library, violent offenders

Id: dPApEg3tEYE

Length: 45min 3sec (2703 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 07 2023