About 1600, there is the record of a boy named Jean
Granier, who had repeatedly killed and devoured several young
children before he was discovered. Rodericus a Castro tells of a
pregnant woman who so strongly desired to eat the shoulder of a
baker that she killed him, salted his body, and devoured it at
intervals.
There is a record of a woman who in July, 1817, was discovered in
cooking an amputated leg of her little child. Gorget in 1827
reported the celebrated case of Leger the vine dresser, who at
the age of twenty-four wandered about a forest for eight days
during an attack of depression. Coming across a girl of twelve,
he violated her, and then mutilated her genitals, and tore out
her heart, eating of it, and drinking the blood. He finally
confessed his crime with calm indifference. After Leger's
execution Esquirol found morbid adhesions between the brain and
the cerebral membranes. Mascha relates a similar instance in a
man of fifty-five who violated and killed a young girl, eating of
her genitals and mammae. At the trial he begged for execution,
saying that the inner impulse that led him to his crime
constantly persecuted him.
A modern example of lust-murder and anthropophagy is that of
Menesclou, who was examined by Brouardel, Motet, and others, and
declared to be mentally sound; he was convicted.
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