Robert Ackermann - The Vienna Cannibal

Unlike most cannibals, Robert Ackermann's motives were not ritualistic, bloodthirsty or sexual in nature. He was simply curious...

As a child, Ackermann seemed fairly normal. In his early adolescence, he began suffering psychological disturbances. He heard voices and developed severe behavioral problems. He left home at age 15 and began using drugs. To support his habit (and himself), he stole and conned people out of their money. Diagnosed with schizoaffective psychosis, he was frequently hospitalized. During his leisure time when he was not in a hospital, he masqueraded as a doctor with the hopes of being able to fulfill his childhood dream and participate in a surgery.

In August 2007, at the age of 19, Ackermann moved to Vienna, Austria. While living there, he stayed at a short-term housing facility for the mentally ill and homeless. He shared a room with a 49-year-old man named Josef Schweiger. The two argued frequently, but none of the social workers at the facility thought much of it.

Ackermann grew increasingly disturbed. Other guests at the facility reported seeing him crawling through the yard with no clothes on and howling at the moon.

On the evening of August 26, 2007, Ackermann and Schweiger argued for the last time when the troubled teenager confronted his roommate about a missing pornography video. Tensions escalated and the fight became physical. The two exchanged blows for some time before Ackermann bludgeoned his roommate with a dumbbell, shattering his skull. After killing his fellow boarder, Ackermann enjoyed his non-human dinner, read for a while and then went to sleep.

When Schweiger did not wake up the next morning, Ackermann believed it was because he was sleeping off a hangover: something that occurred often. The young man checked for a pulse and a heartbeat. When he found neither, he realized that his roommate was dead. Not only was he not upset about this, but he was thrilled to have the opportunity to finally investigate the inside of the human body.

Using a sharp knife, Ackermann made an incision from the man's groin to his throat. He reached into the corpse and explored the viscera. After cutting out the intestines, he removed the brain and placed it on a dish. He spent the next day and a half eating parts of the remains.

Two full days after the argument occurred, Ackermann summoned the hostel's maid to his room and showed her Schweiger's mutilated body. He told her to call the police.

When the police arrived at the scene, Ackermann was covered in blood and had innards on his mouth and face. He acted completely flabbergasted and said to them "look what happened" as if it were some random, inexplicable occurrance. He even suggested to the police that the gruesome attack was perpetrated by the hostel's rodent population.

Ackermann was taken into police custody and soon after, he admitted to killing Schweiger. Not surprisingly, the DNA from the blood on the teenager matched that of the corpse. Ackermann has since been a well-behaved patient and prisoner. On September 4, 2008, a jury decided that he was unfit to stand trial. He is to spend the rest of his life in Goellersdorf, a maximum-security mental hospital in Austria.