Dorángel Vargas: The homeless cannibal known as El comegente ('the people eater')
The Venezuelan serial killer admitted to eating at least eleven men in the two years prior to his 1999 arrest. In 2006 he was alleged to have been involved in the death of two more during a prison riot, and that he "served up their remains to other inmates".
To people wandering through the park in San Cristobel, Dorángel Vargas would have looked like any other homeless person. But to him, they might have looked like dinner.
Now you might have heard the phrase 'beggars can't be choosers', but when it came to Vargas, he would watch people coming and going through the park the same way I eyeball the conveyor belt at Yo Sushi! monitoring for the first glimpse of pumpkin korroke or that weird slimy seaweed salad.
However, he wasn't looking for anything gourmet, just a nice pair of calves.
Between 1997 and 1999 he was responsible for the murder of at least eleven men, some joggers, some drunkards who made the fatal mistake of passing out in the park. He would hunt them down using a spear made from a piece of metal tubing, and finish them off by bludgeoning them with rocks.
READ NOW: How a chimp raised as a human ended up eating someone's face
After he was arrested, he gave an interview about his culinary preferences.
He said: "Sure I eat people. Anyone can eat human flesh, but you have to wash and garnish it well to avoid diseases… I only eat the parts with muscles, particularly thighs and calves which are my favourite.
“I make a very tasty stew with the tongue and I use the eyes to make a nutritious and healthy soup.
“I used to eat the thighs, not the nose ears or hands because they are too hard.
"I buried the heads and feet and throw the other bones into the river. I also stored some meat in containers. The heart and the liver must be spiced up.
"If I saw a drunkard sleeping, I would kill him with my spear, cut his head off and feel happy, I want to go back there and dig a big hole to bury them I don’t feel ashamed of anything.
"They have put me in this jail for nothing."
READ NOW: The 'Black Alien' reveals plans to cut off his own nose
Testicles were off the menu, and he would remove the hands and feet and bury them in the ground.
He refused to eat old people as their meat was "tough and contaminated", he avoided eating fat people as he was concerned about cholesterol, and he would not touch women or children as he considered them to be "too pure".
Vargas added, "human meat is nice, but I eat all kinds of meat, dog, cats, lizards."
Regarded as Venezuela's worst serial killer, he would go on to kill again in 2006 when a prison riot allowed him the opportunity to murder two men.
He reportedly served up their remains to other inmates.
