Hungarian police arrested a 30-year-old Budapest hospital orderly on Wednesday, June 17, after investigators were told he had been stockpiling human body parts both at work and at his apartment. During questioning, he admitted being especially drawn to human body parts and said he had prepared food from them and eaten it in different ways. He is now suspected of unlawful use of human corpses.
Hungarian media and social networks quickly dubbed him the “Hungarian Hannibal,” after Hannibal Lecter, the cannibal serial killer from the film "The Silence of the Lambs." Police said in a Facebook post that they were investigating claims he had made food from stolen bodies.
According to the police statement, the man worked as a hospital orderly. A search of his home turned up skulls, a brain, a full lower leg, a hand and additional bones found inside a suitcase, along with a reconstruction of a human face made from facial skin. Officers also found animal skulls and spines in the apartment. A heart was also discovered in a jar, and police said it was not yet clear whether it came from a person or an animal.
Police said the suspect is “enthusiastic about anatomy and pathology and likes to dissect animals.” Investigators believe he obtained the body parts both through his hospital job and by secretly digging in graves at abandoned cemeteries in Hungary and Slovakia. Authorities seized his personal computer, laptops, tablets, mobile phones and memory cards. All of the body parts will undergo forensic testing, and police said the charges may be expanded once the origin of each item is determined.
