Killers and Chillers

Freezers and refrigerators are tools of the trade for cannibals and murderers. As a matter of fact, according to Wikiality, freezers are the appliance of choice for serial killers everywhere.

What better way is there to keep body parts fresh, tasty and readily available for a late-night snack then to tuck them into a crisper bin in the fridge? The tightly sealed fridge and freezer doors keep a lid on any two-week-old-dead-body funk that could spoil a disgusting and perverse secret.

Actually, these 9 notorious and dangerous killers should have gotten a lock for their fridge or freezer when they used these chilling household appliances to store dismembered body parts right next to the rocky road ice cream.

1. Jeffrey Dahmer

Born: May 21, 1960
Number of Killings: 17
Favorite body parts to keep in the fridge: head and torso

The most infamous antagonist of ice box storage is Jeffrey “Milwaukee Cannibal” Dahmer, who was arrested after a near-victim fled the crime scene. The victim luckily escaped what 17 boys and men hadn’t — police found multiple human torsos and heads in Dahmer’s fridge and a heart in his freezer.

Fortunately, Dahmer is no longer a tax burden as he was beaten to death on November 28, 1994, by a fellow inmate with a bar from a weight machine.

2. Ed Gein

Born: 1906
Number of Killings: 2 or more
Favorite body part to keep in the fridge: internal organs

Ed Gein, the Wisconsin native, whose violent lifestyle inspired the slasher classic The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, lived in a rural town where neighbors described him as “quiet”. Ed owned and operated a small grocery, enjoyed babysitting for neighbors, and obsessed over creating household furniture out of his victims. Ed’s hobbies also included grave-robbing, wearing women’s clothing and flesh and keeping a refrigerator full of human organs.

Gein was found guilty of first degree murder but because he was also found to be legally insane, he spent the rest of his life in a mental hospital where he died in 1984.

3. Özgür Dengiz

Born: 1980
Number of Killings: 3
Favorite body parts to keep in the fridge: flesh from buttocks and thighs

The youngest maniac to send a victim to an icy grave was Özgür Dengiz of Turkey. At 17 years of age, he was jailed for the murder of a friend. After serving three years, he was released on parole and soon after shot Cafer Er, a 55-year-old garbage collector who was “crowding the area”. Dengiz disposed of the corpse at the local dump but only after he had removed portions of the dead man’s body. He took these portions home, shared some with the neighborhood dogs and stored the rest in his family’s kitchen freezer.

Denzig was captured in 2007 and showed no remorse for his crimes. As a matter of fact, he said he would have kept killing if he had not been caught.

4. Armin Meiwes

Born: 1961
Number of Killings: 1
Favorite body part to keep in the fridge: cut up flesh

In 2001, Armin Meiwes (of Germany) took out an online ad looking for a volunteer to be killed and eaten. Burnd Brandes answered the ad and on Christmas day of the same year, was killed and stored in Meiwes’ freezer for the next ten months.

Meiwes was not arrested until the following year, when he put out an advertisement for his next victim. In 2004, Meiwes was sentenced to 8 ½ years in prison for manslaughter but a re-trial found him guilty of murder and his sentence was changed to life in prison.

5. Nikolai Dzhumagaliev

Born: 1952
Number of Killings: unknown, but some sources indicate 50 – 100 victims
Favorite body parts to keep in the fridge: head and intestines

Nikolai “Metal Fang” Dzhumagaliev of Russia is the most likable character on the bad boys roster. He was a social person and invited friends for snacks during one of many get-togethers at his house. His friends turned him in though, when they discovered his “snacks” consisted of a human head and intestinal tract that he kept cooling in the fridge.

In 2007, he was found guilty of seven murders but is believed to be responsible for 50-100 deaths. He has since been released from a mental institution and is a free man living in Eastern Europe.

6. Anthony Hopkins

Born: 1971
Number of Killings: 1
Favorite body part to keep in the freezer: whole corpse

Even more recently, a travelling preacher named Anthony Hopkins (just like the actor who portrayed famous cinematic cannibals Hannibal Lecter and Titus Andronicus) killed his wife and buried her behind their family home in Mobile, Alabama. Sources speculate that his wife, Aretha, came home to find Hopkins sexually abusing their children and her murder took place shortly thereafter. Perhaps dissatisfied with his choice of burial, he exhumed her body and placed it in the family freezer before being caught by the authorities this past August.

7. Paul Dalton

Born: 1970
Number of Killings: 1
Favorite body part to keep in the freezer: chopped up corpse

Paul Dalton was found guilty of manslaughter after unintentionally killing his wife. The unhappy couple had been fighting when Mr. Dalton was “blinded by rage” - a rage that resulted in fatal violence. Realizing what had transpired, he bought a couple of saws and dustsheets before chopping up her body and storing it in their fridge-freezer.

Dalton’s wife’s remains were discovered by his parents after he fled to Japan.

8. Jeremy Hauck

Born: 1988
Number of Killings: 1
Favorite body part to keep in the freezer: whole corpse

Jeremy Hauck was found guilty of shooting his mother and stuffing her body in the freezer of her Bountiful, Utah condominium. Police found her body after family members hadn’t heard from her for several days. The police reported that “she was frozen solid” and it took 3 days for her body to thaw.

In January 2008, Hauck, was found not competent to stand trial.

9. Issei Sagawa

Born: 1949
Number of Killings: 1
Favorite body part to keep in the fridge: cut up flesh

Renée Hartevelt was the girl of Sagawa’s dreams. They were classmates in a university in France and after befriending Hartevelt, Sagawa invited Hartevelt to his apartment where he shot her in the neck with a rifle. After 2 days, Sagawa was seen dumping most of the mutilated body in a park. The rest of Renée Hartevelt was still in Sagawa’s refrigerator when the police came to arrest him.

Sagawa was found legally insane and deported back to Japan, where he was put in a mental institution. However, as a result of mishandled paperwork, Sagawa was able to check himself out of the mental institution after 15 months and has been a free man ever since.