ABSTRACT
Few human behaviors induce such contradictory feelings of horror and fascination as cannibalism. The origin of the word 'cannibal' is interesting; it comes from Spanish. Explorers mispronounced the name of the tribe and called them 'Canibs', a word that eventually became 'cannibals'. During the nineteenth century, a kind of narrative appeared about cannibalism that made reference not to exotic people, but to cases of explorers who have to eat human flesh to survive. Disregarding cannibalism that results from famine, criminal acts of cannibalism can be classified in several ways. An exemplary case of the complexities of cannibalism occurred in 2001 when Armin Meiwes, a computer technician in the German city of Rothenburg, contacted 43-year-old Bernd-Juergen Brandes over the internet, with the explicit purpose of eating him. Mexico has a history of cannibalism. The year 2004 could be considered the year of cannibal actions in Mexico. Calva Zepeda had the characteristic profile of a psychopath, with possible psychotic breaks.
