Joseph Roy Metheny: The Serial Killer

The serial killer I chose to do a report on is Joseph Roy Metheny, also known as “The Cannibal Killer”. He was born on March 2, 1955 and died on August 5, 2017 (Blanco, n.d.). Despite what Joseph has said about his home life, it was pretty normal. He grew up in the North Point Boulevard area of Essex, in Maryland (Wynter, 2017). In an interview, his mother, Jean Metheny, openly spoke about his childhood. She said that when Joe was six, his father got in a car crash and left her a single mother (Wynter, 2017). During trial, Joseph told his attorney that both his parents were dead and he drifted from foster home to foster home. His mother’s statements contradicted this. She said that he a “normal” boy, was smart and had a good childhood. She …show more content…
He asked one of his friends, for assistance. The man, who didn’t want his name released, is the one who notified the police. Shortly after he was arrested, he began confessing about all other killings (James, 1997). In trial, Spicer’s mom testified against Joseph. Joseph got convicted to rape, murder, and cannibalism. He was sentenced to death in 1998, but it got overturned in 2000. He got three consecutive life sentences with no possibility of parole (Gomez, 2014). During trial, Joseph blamed drugs and alcohol on the murders, but later confessed that he saw women as meat instead of people (Gomez, 2014). His attorney says that he is remorseful about the killings and his substance abuse brought about violent personality changes (James, …show more content…
According to Juan Blanco, he explained that he targeted women because of his ex wife. He said that she was a crack addict and left with a man that supported her addiction, taking their son with her. Joseph said that he didn’t care that she left, but she wanted custody of their child. Joseph said that six months after she left, she found out that her current boyfriend was making her sell her body for drugs. He said that they moved to the other side of town, and got busted for drugs. Because of this, social services took his son away from her for neglect and child abuse. Joseph explained that he had no chance in getting custody of his son due to his previous criminal record. He said that he took it upon himself with the hatred he had for those two to hunt them down, for his son. He found out from someone that they had been living under a bridge, getting high with other people who also lived there. Joseph went to the bridge to find his ex wife and her boyfriend. They weren’t there, so he killed the two homeless men that lived there. That same night, he lured a woman who he calls a “crackwhore” down to under the bridge. He got her high and tried to get information about his ex wife. According to him, she acted like she didn’t know anything, so in his words, he “beat the hell out of her and raped her ass and then killed her”. He put her in the bushes and lured another woman down there. He said he did with her as he did