Joe Metheny, The Murderer Who Turned His Victims Into Hamburgers And Then Sold Them To Gullible Customers

Joe Metheny was expected to fight when he was detained by the police in December 1996 on charges of assault. It seemed that the 450-pound, 6'1" lumberjack had a propensity to lose control. They anticipated some opposition, at the absolute least.

They weren't prepared for a thorough and forthright confession, which horrified the authorities with its savagery, especially after Metheny said, "I'm a very sick person."

Metheny told police in his confession how he killed and dismembered homeless people and sex workers with ferocity. But these murders were just meant to stand in for his one true victim—his lover who ran away.

Subsequently, Metheny admitted to his most unsettling offences. He offered the victim's meat to other gullible individuals in addition to consuming part of it himself.

The Never-ending Need for Vengeance

Joe Metheny was a tough guy all his life. His father was an alcoholic who was absent, and his mother had to work additional hours to provide for her six children, thus he had a childhood filled with neglect. They resided close to Baltimore in Essex.

His mother claims that in 1973, at the age of 19, he enlisted in the Army, albeit not much else is known about his early years. After that, they lost contact.

“He only continued to go more and farther away. I believe that drugs were the worst thing that had ever happened to him. This is a really depressing tale.” She said.

After leaving the Army, Metheny worked in truck driving and lumberyards, performing manual labour. Then happened the incident that made him want to get retribution.

Joe Metheny lived in South Baltimore in 1994 with his six-year-old kid and girlfriend. He spent a lot of time on the road while driving a truck. He discovered his girlfriend and their child had left one day when he returned home.

She was addicted to drugs, much like Metheny, and Joe thought she had moved out and was living on the streets with another man. He sprang into fury. He searched for them for days, seeking beneath particular bridges where he knew his wife had formerly purchased and used narcotics.

He thought he recognised his wife, but he discovered two homeless guys beneath the bridge instead. Using an axe he had carried with him, he murdered them both when they showed no signs of knowing where his family was.

Metheny supposedly saw a fisherman nearby who could have witnessed what he had done just after. Metheny murdered him as well, just in case. Some people believe these first three killings crimes of passion, albeit he’d subsequently develop a taste for murder.

Noticing what he had done, Metheny threw the bodies into the river in a hurry, hoping to conceal the evidence.

He did receive some resolution on his son's location, stating, "I discovered approximately half a year later that she had relocated to a different part of the city with a jerk who had her out selling her ass for drugs. After they were busted for drug usage, they removed my son from them on charges of abuse and neglect of a minor.”

Metheny was detained for a year and a half in the county jail as he awaited trial after police apprehended him for the deaths of the two men beneath the bridge. He was cleared of all charges, nevertheless, since detectives were unable to locate their remains after he disposed of them in the neighbouring river.

Human Hamburgers

Joe Metheny was allowed to go as there was no tangible evidence linking him to the crimes. He resumed his first search for his wife and child, but something wasn't the same this time.

Even after he had been in jail for a year and a half while awaiting his trial, Joe Metheny was obviously not slowing down. Metheny killed two prostitutes not long after he was freed because they wouldn't provide him information about his missing girlfriend. But this time, he had a better plan for what to do with their bodies.

Metheny took the dead home rather than throwing them into the river. There, he chopped them to pieces and put the meatiest portions in Tupperware containers. He buried items that wouldn't fit in his freezer in a truck lot that belonged to the pallet business he worked for.

It seems that he was now killing individuals more for amusement than for retaliation.

He combined the flesh of the sex workers with beef and pork over the course of the following several weekends, shaping it into tidy little patties. He set up a tiny barbecue station by the side of the road where he would sell these pork patties.

His clients would all eat pieces of human flesh during this period. They ended up serving as unintentional hiding places for Metheny's victims' corpses.

Metheny would just go out and get another sex worker or a vagrant whenever he wanted more "special meat." Later, he reported to the police that he had not received any complaints about the meat tasting strange. As a matter of fact, nobody appeared to realise that his hamburgers had an additional ingredient.

He said that "the human body tastes very similar to pork." "When combined, nobody can distinguish the difference... Thus, the next time you're driving and you spot an open pit beef stall that you haven't seen before, remember this tale before you grab a piece of that sandwich.”

Death Behind Bars

In 1996, Joe Metheny was apprehended because Rita Kemper, a potential victim, escaped his grasp and went directly to the authorities.

Metheny voluntarily confessed during his interrogation. He described in detail every one of his killings, going so far as to bring up the fisherman's murder from a few years prior. He confessed to killing ten people, and the authorities say there's no reason to think he would have stopped there if they hadn't caught him.

In the end, a jury found him guilty and gave Metheny the death penalty. In 2000, a court, however, reversed this decision and imposed two consecutive life terms instead.

"It is impossible for me to say "I'm sorry," as it would be dishonest." If God were to judge me and condemn me to an eternity in torment for what I have done, I would gladly give up my life.” At his trial, he stated, "I just enjoyed it."

"My regret stems from not being able to take out the two narcissists I truly wanted to kill," he stated. "There's my former lady and the bastard she dated."

At around 3 p.m. in 2017, officers at the Western Correctional Institution in Cumberland discovered Metheny unconscious in his cell. Soon after, they declared him dead, bringing an end to his terrifying journey.

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