This is the story of Joe Metheny, a serial killer/cannibal from Maryland. “My murder rampage started out as revenge but ended up as a passion for the taste of blood and the overwhelming sense of power one gets for taking the life of another,” said Metheny in his confession.
The details of Joe Metheny’s early years are conflicted. According to his attorneys, he was neglected as a child. His father was an alcoholic who was killed in an auto accident when he was six. His mother neglected him and his five siblings by working double shifts to provide a home.
According to Metheny, his parents often sent him to live with other families in “foster-like” arrangements. He also claimed that his mother was dead, but she wasn’t.
His mother admitted that they were a poor family. She worked numerous jobs including as a waitress, barmaid, and even a food truck driver. According to her, the children lived a normal family life and never went hungry. She also denied her son’s claims that he had been sent to live with other families.
Joe Metheny’s mother described him as a good boy; kind, well mannered, and even an above-average student, “he was smart and had a good childhood. If he was neglected, it was his own fault. It was a pretty good home.”
Metheny joined the United States Army when he turned 19, in 1973. According to him, he served a tour in Vietnam, and that’s where he became addicted to heroin while in an artillery unit. His mother reported that he served in Germany, and she had no recollection of him spending any time in Vietnam.
President Richard Nixon signed the Paris Peace Accords and ordered the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam in 1973. The odds that Metheny spent any time in Vietnam are slim.
According to his mother, Metheny rarely contacted her after he joined the Army. “He just kept drifting further and further away. I think the worst thing that ever happened to him was drugs. It’s a sad, sad story.”
By 1990, Metheny had become an imposing figure. He was a large man weighing 350+ pounds, and standing at 6’1” tall. Ironically, he was known as “Tiny”.
He spent his time in bars and living among the homeless in makeshift camps in South Baltimore. He held a steady job as a forklift driver and squandered away his money on crack cocaine, heroin, and liquor. Those who knew him described him as intelligent, well-spoken, and very well-mannered.
By 1994, Metheny was working as a truck driver. He had a 6-year-old son with his girlfriend, whom he lived with in Baltimore. Being a trucker, he was away from home for long periods of time, so when he returned home one day and found his girlfriend and their son missing, he was furious.
Just as he did, his girlfriend had a drug problem. With her gone, he immediately assumed she had left him for another man, choosing to live on the streets with him.
“I found out about six months later she had moved on the other side of town with some asshole that had her out selling her ass for drugs. They got busted for drugs and they took my son away from them for child neglect and child abuse.”
Enraged, he went searching for her, scouring halfway houses, homeless camps, and then came to a bridge where he knew she used to not only buy, but also do drugs. She was not there, but two homeless men were, Randall Brewer and Randy Picker.
He questioned the men, believing they knew his girlfriend and where she was. They denied knowing anything, but that wasn’t good enough. Metheny had brought an axe with him on his search, and attacked the men in a rage, killing them both.
He tossed their bodies into the river.
Metheny was ultimately arrested for the murders of Brewer and Piker. He sat in the county jail for a year and a half, awaiting trial, however he was later acquitted of all charges. Police and investigators knew about the crime, but they had never been able to locate the bodies..
In 1995 he had secured himself a job working as a forklift driver and even moved into a trailer near his work. One night, he lured 39-year-old Cathy Ann Magaziner back to his trailer where he strangled her. She was buried in a shallow grave on the site where he worked. Six months later he returned to her gravesite, dug her up reportedly had sex with her corpse before removing her head and dropping it in the trash. Her body went undiscovered for two years.
In November 1996, he lured Kimberly Lynn Spicer, a heroin addict and single mother, to his trailer. He proceeded to stab her to death. He dismembered her body and discarded parts of it under some wooden pallets at his work. Shockingly no one noticed.
While on trial Metheny admitted, “I cut the meat up and put it in some Tupperware bowls then put it in a freezer. I opened up a little open-pit beef stand. I had real roast beef and pork sandwiches. They were very good. The human body taste was very similar to pork. If you mix it together no one can tell the difference… so the next time you’re riding down the road and you happen to see an open pit beef stand that you’ve never seen before, make sure you think about this story before you take a bite of that sandwich”
On December 9, 1996, he lured Rita Kemper to his trailer on the premise of sharing drugs. He wanted to have sex with her, but she refused. Though she tried to run away, he chased her down, beat her, and dragged her back. He attempted to rape her and told her he would kill her and bury her in the woods with the other girls, but Rita refused to be a victim. She managed to escape through a window and over an eight-foot-tall chain link fence. She went straight to the police.
According to Rita Kemper, Metheny told her, “I’m going to kill you and bury you in the woods with the other girls.”
With one victim having escaped, he knew he had to fully dispose of the body of Kimberly Spicer. On December 15, 1996, Joe Metheny was arrested and charged with murder.
He wasted no time, confessing to the kidnapping, and several other murders including three other prostitutes along Washington Boulevard in Baltimore. He led police to the shallow grave where he had buried Cathy Ann Magaziner. Metheny was indicted for the murder of 28-year-old Tori Lynn Ingrassia, but the charges were dropped for lack of evidence.
He admitted to throwing bodies into the Patapsco River, and they had never been found.
According to Joe Metheny, he had killed up to 10 people, but there remained speculation as to the truthfulness of his confessions.
In 1997, he was tried and found guilty for the kidnapping and attempted sexual assault of Rita Kemper. He was sentenced to 50 years.
In 1998, he was found guilty for murdering and robbing Cathy Ann Magaziner. When the penalty phase came up, Metheny begged the jury for the death penalty, and at one point said: “The words `I’m sorry’ will never come out, for they would be a lie. I am more than willing to give up my life for what I have done, to have God judge me and send [me] to hell for eternity.”
He was given the death penalty.
Regarding the murder of Kimberly Lynn Spicer, he was found guilty and given a life sentence.
In 2000, the Maryland Court of Appeals overturned his death sentence, citing insufficient evidence that Metheny had robbed the Cathy, an aggravating circumstance that had allowed prosecutors to seek the death penalty.
Joe Metheny was found dead in his prison cell at the Western Correctional Institution in Cumberland, Maryland, on August 5, 2017, at the age of 63.
The following is Joe Metheny’s confession, copied from Murderpedia.org
To start out I will tell you about myself at the present moment, which is locked up. I am 48 years old, I weigh about 450 pounds and it’s not all fat. I’ve been locked up for almost 8 years now, but when one has been sentenced to a couple of life without parole sentences, time doesn’t matter anymore.
I have no problem with being locked up, for no one put me here but myself. And I deserve to be right where I’m at, cause I had 12 law-abiding jurors that told me so, in a couple different cases. Ha! Ha! I was only convicted of two murders and one kidnapping for the one that got away. I got 50 years for her. The first murder I was sentenced to life without parole. The second one they gave me the death penalty. I sat on Maryland’s death row for 3 years, and then they overturned my sentence and gave me another life without parole and sent me down here for the rest of my life.
I killed seven people, three men, and four women. Two men I chopped up with an axe under a bridge in South Baltimore. I was found not guilty for them cause they couldn’t prove I did it. Under that same bridge I also killed two women and one man who was fishing, who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I weighed their bodies down and put them in that river. I showed the police where I put them about 3 years later, but they couldn’t find them. So they could not charge me for them.
My murder rampage started out as revenge but ended up as a passion for the taste of blood and the overwhelming sense of power one gets for taking the life of another.
My story
It all started back in July of 1994. I was at work, I was a truck driver. I was working overtime this one night. Then I got off and went home as I always did. But when I opened the door and turned on the light, I noticed there was nothing there. My ole lady had taken everything including my son and left me. Her leaving was not my problem. But she took my 6-year-old son with her. She was a crack addict and a worthless piece of shit. I would have paid her to get out of my life. All she had to do was take my son over to my mothers house and she could have had everything else and be gone.
I found out about 6 months later she had moved on the other side of town with some asshole that had her out selling her ass for drugs. They got busted for drugs and they took my son away from them for child neglect and child abuse.
I had no chance of going to social services and trying to get my son back do to my past criminal record. So I took it upon myself with the hatred I had for these 2 who lost my son, to go looking for them. I had found out from someone that they was going under that bridge and getting high with some homeless motherfuckers who lived under that bridge.
I went under there looking for them. They were not there, but the two homeless motherfuckers they got high with them were down there. They were passed out on some old stinking mattress and that’s where they were when I left, except there were dead from being chopped up.
That same night I lured the first crackwhore down under that bridge. I got her high and was trying to get information out of her about my ole ladies whereabouts. She acted like she didn’t know, so I beat the hell out of her and raped her ass then killed her. I put her in some bushes and went and lured the second bitch down there. I did the same to her as the last one, but as I was about to throw her in the bushes with the other one I noticed an old blackman down by the river fishing looking back up at me. I grabbed a steel pipe that was lying by and ran down on him and layed his head wide open. So I put the two girls and him in the river and weighed them down with rocks.
That was a very busy night for me 5 murders within about 7 hours. I washed up in that river and cleaned up the crime scene as much as I could, then left. 2 1/2 weeks later I was arrested and charged with the murders of the 2 men I chopped up. I spent close to 18 months in Baltimore City Jail waiting to go to trial. The trial lasted 1 week and it was thrown out of court cause of lack of evidence.
I was free again. I went back and talked my old boss into giving my job back to me at the pallet company. There was a little trailer on the property, so I told my boss to let me stay there and I could keep an eye on the place. He agreed to this and gave me the keys to the front gate and main building. The company was on a dead end road and was very isolated. It was perfect for what I wanted to do.
I lured 2 more crackwhores up there to my trailer. I killed and butchered their bodies up. I cut the meat up and put it in some Tupperware bowls then put it in a freezer. I buried the remains in several shallow graves in a little woods behind the company.
Over the next couple weeks on the weekends I opened up a little open-pit beef stand. I had real roast beef and pork sandwiches and why not they were very good. The human body tastes was very similar to pork. If you mix it together no one can tell the difference.
Everything was going pretty good until I ran out of my special meat. So I lured another bitch up to my trailer. I got her in there and started to rip her clothes off and knocking the hell out of her. She was screaming, but there was no one around to hear her except me. And I just kept on laughing at her.
I turned around for a split second, and that was my mistake, for she ran out the door before I could get to her. There was an 8-foot chain link fence with barbwire on top of it around the front of the company. There was a stack of wooden pallets next to the fence about 10 feet high. That bitch scaled those pallets like a monkey and jumped the fence, and ran down to the main road where some guy in a pickup truck picked her up and took her to a nearby gas station where they called the cops.
Well I knew the cops were on the way, but I didn’t run. I gathered up her clothing, grabbed the keys to the gate, and went out and opened it. Soon as I step out the gate a cop car pulled up. And the cop jumped out and pulled his gun on me and told me to get on the ground. And that is where it all came to an end.
They took me down and booked me. She had told them that I said I was going to kill her like the rest. Which was true. They had me sitting in a little room down at homicide drilling me and damn near kissing my ass. Trying to find out what I had done. They pulled me out of city jail everyday for 1 month taking me back and forth between the company and the bridge.
I had they going crazy over at the company digging up the remains of those 2 bitches there. Cause I had their remains buried in 7 different holes. The only thing I feel bad about in any of this, is I didn’t get to murder the 2 motherfuckers I was really after. And that’s my ex ole lady and the bastard she got hooked up with.
Well that’s my story, horrible but true. So the next time you’re riding down the road and you happen to see an open pit beef stand, that you’ve never seen before, make sure you think about this story before you take a bite of that sandwich. Sometimes you never know who you may be eating. Ha! Ha!
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