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19. 06. 09. - 17:00

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19. 06. 09. - 17:00

Cannibal killer: Why I Flippered

A cannibal who ate a man alive after meeting him on the Internet is to tell tonight (fri) how he got the taste for humans watching children's favourite TV dolphin Flipper.

Deranged Armin Meiwes - serving life for the grisly killing - used Internet chat rooms to find someone willing to be slaughtered and eaten.

And in a sickening interview to be aired tonight (FRI) on German Pay-TV channel "RTL Crime" he revealed how his cannibalism started as he watched innocent children's favourite Flipper.

Meiwes says he gradually realised that he wanted to eat the dolphin's boy pal, Sandy.

"When I was 10 or 12 years old, I imagined Sandy from ‘Flipper’ as my friend. I wanted to have him in me," he said.

"I think the wish to become a cannibal came up at that age," he added.

In 2001 Meiwes invited troubled Bernd Juergen Brandes to his house in Rotenburg, Germany, and plied him with cough medicine and vodka to dull the pain while he ate him alive.

Meiwes put most of the body in the freezer and ate his way through the rest of Brandes over several weeks. Then when the meat started to run out he began looking for another victim.

"Bernd wanted me to bite him harder. But I wanted to get to know him better and not bite him dead immediately," Meiwes says in the interview.

"He asked me to bite the meat off his bones. I had to bite him in his breast muscle and the palm of his hand," the cannibal said.

"Bernd told me he did not want to be left alone in the deep freeze," he said.

Meiwes reveals his appetite for human flesh started because he was never able to express himself.

"I was always unable to express my feelings. I was incapable of telling people things like ‘I love you’ – I would have been forced to say ‘I want to cut off a chunk of you'," he said.

But he only ever had a taste for men.

"Women? Eating them? Slaughtering them? No, I always only wanted to eat men," he said.

The monster also speaks candidly about the moments after his arrest.

"In my first police interview after being arrested, a police woman asked me: ‘What would you do if someone offers you half a human?’.

"I replied: ‘Being a cannibal, I would probably eat him up.’ She only shook her head and they released me."

"When they searched my house, a female cop asked me, looking in my deep freezer: ‘That’s not pork! I am a housewife, I know what pork looks like."

"I called my sister-in-law when the investigation started, telling her I’ve got problems with the police.

"She asked me (a German proverb): ‘Armin, you haven’t got a corpse in your cellar, have you?’ – I said: ‘No, but in the deep freezer."

Reporter Guenter Stampf said only his religious faith got him through the interview with the cannibal.

"I would not have managed this without the Bible," he said.

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