No Fava Beans or Chianti
This story. Man, this story.
Living in Venezuela during its darkest times means managing your peace of mind like a scarce resource. Anything can take it away, and it’s hard to get it back, the spiral of depression always lurks. If that’s the state you’re in, you might want to stop reading.
It takes a lot to stand out from the crowd these days, but this story. Man, this story. Anggy Polanco from Reuters reports an outbreak of cannibalism among prisoners in a police jail in San Cristobal:
Venezuelan authorities are investigating gruesome accusations that two men were murdered, mutilated by a confessed cannibal then fed to fellow prisoners in a riot at a police detention center.
Families of the two victims, Anthony Correa and Juan Carlos Herrera, said they died earlier in October toward the end of a month-long disturbance and siege at the overcrowded jail in the western city San Cristobal.
“They stabbed my son, hung him to bleed him, then called this man to cut him up. They did the same with the other young man,” Herrera’s father, also called Juan Carlos, told reporters, saying other prisoners had described it to him.
That “confessed cannibal” is Dorangel Vargas, el comegente, a famous serial killer from the 90’s people have more or less forgotten. If you have the stomach to really dive into that case, Sinar Alvarado is the way to go. He published the book “Retrato de un caníbal”, and he is probably the person who knows more about that case. He also published this text (in Spanish) on the recent events.
Apparently the cannibalizing wasn’t out of hunger, but instead a prison riot gone extra-wrong. The prisoners took the facility, and demanded a ransom from the relatives of other prisoners. The father of one of the victims was offering his car, but it didn’t have tires, so it wasn’t enough.
When they started torturing their prisoners to push for more money, they killed two, and made the others eat the human flesh, the ones who refused to eat it got their fingers cut. They used the help of el comegente to prepare the food.
For me this is already too much. I can’t believe what I’m reading. I live in a country where people eat each other, with rice. This took a toll on my “happiness reserves”, but I forced myself to read it and share it, because I cannot ignore those victims just because it is too painful for me to even think about.
Just imagine hearing this from a public prosecutor: “Your son was one of those they killed and ate”.
Too much. This is it. This is el llegadero. Where do you go from here?
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