Imagine this: you’re homeless, resting beneath a bridge, minding your own business. A naked man approaches and proceeds to beat you unconscious before eating, yes eating, your face. That’s what happened to Ronald Poppo when Rudy Eugene attacked him on May 26, 2012.
Rudy Eugene was born on February 4. 1981 in Miami, Florida. His parents divorced just months after his birth and he never made contact with his father, who died when he was six. He attended church and in high school played on the football team. After graduation he worked odd jobs, such as washing cars for a local automobile dealership, or working at McDonalds.
He married in 2005, and later divorced in 2008 – his wife reported there had been domestic violence in their relationship. They had no children.
From the time he was 16, Eugene had had run-ins with the law. His first arrest was for assault, and from there he continued his violent outbursts. On one occasion he broke a table and smashed things around the house before pushing his mother out of the kitchen. His mother told police that he had said, “I’ll put a gun to your head and kill you.” He resisted arrest.
His final arrest came in 2009.
On the morning of May 26, 2012, Rudy Eugene drove to Miami Beach, Florida. Along the way, his car, a purple Chevrolet Caprice, became disabled. Security footage shows him spending approximately 30-40 minutes with the car before finally abandoning it around noon when he began his trek along the MacArthur Causeway. The Causeway spanned 3 miles.
According to witnesses, he began stripping off his clothing and even disposed of his drivers’ license. At approximately 1:55pm, he encountered 65-year-old Ronald Poppo, a homeless man who had been resting below the elevated Metromover people mover viaduct.
For reasons we will never know, Eugene began to beat Poppo unconscious. He stripped off the man’s pants then began biting at his face. A passing cyclist, Larry Vega, saw what was happening and called the police. Within minutes Jose Ramirez, an officer with the Miami Police Department, arrived on the scene. After doing a double-take, he warned Eugene to desist from attacking.
Eugene growled then resumed biting Poppo. Officer Ramirez had no choice but to take action. He shot Eugene, which seemed to have no effect. He shot him four more times until the attack was halted. The entire event was caught by a security camera on the Miami Herald building.
Footage shows that the attack lasted for 18 minutes before help arrived.
Ronald Poppo was rushed to Jackson Memorial Hospital in critical condition. 75-80% of his face above the beard had been chewed off. He lost both of his eyebrows, his nose, parts of his forehead and cheek. His left eye had been gouged out and his right eye was permanently damaged.
He eventually underwent months of facial reconstruction surgeries, however he was still left permanently disfigured and blind. During his rehabilitation, he gained 50 pounds and had to relearn how to dress, feed himself, shower, and shave. He was granted permission to stay at the medical facility indefinitely.
A fund was set up to help cover the costs of his operations, and has collected more than $100,000 since July 2012.
Trying to understand what happened, police questioned Poppo who told him that the encounter started out friendly. Eugene approached him and after a short while things started to turn. He began complaining that he couldn’t “score” at the beach and “souped up on something.” He started to talk about how they were going to die, then accused Poppo of stealing his Bible.
Without any provocation, he lashed out, attacking Poppo, strangling him with wrestling holds before he “plucked out” both his eyes.
An autopsy conducted on Rudy Eugene revealed no human flesh in his stomach, but it did uncover several undigested pills that have not been identified. Sources speculated that he may have been on the street drug “bath salts,” preliminary toxicology reports only showed the presence of cannabis.
They did not rule out other drugs, believing he could have been on a drug that had not yet been tested for. Additionally, a nationally noted toxicologist, Barry Logan said Eugene’s behavior was consistent with “bath salts” and that toxicologists “are not testing for everything that may be out there.”
Dr. Bruce Goldberger, the director of toxicology at the University of Florida, said, “We are not incompetent… We have the tools, we have the sophistication and know-how. But the field is evolving so rapidly it is hard for us to keep track. It’s almost as if it is a race we can never win.”
Due to the nature of the attack, Rudy Eugene was dubbed the “Miami Zombie” or the “Causeway Cannibal.”
Interested in cannibals? Check out this story about the “Granny Ripper.”
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