Trial of 'cannibal cop' in New York raises questions of fact or fantasy
Jury to decide if chatting online about fetish to kidnap women and eat them amounts to a crime
The trial of New York's so-called cannibal cop was due to end yesterday, leaving the jury with a lot of gruesome testimony to digest and one troubling question - at what point does fantasy become real?
Gilberto Valle, a 28-year-old police officer, is accused of conspiracy to kidnap women that he then planned to torture to death, cook and eat.
The horrific allegations have riveted New York, and his lawyers and prosecutors were due to make closing arguments ahead of the case being handed over to a jury. If convicted, Valle could be sentenced to life in prison.
What's agreed is that Valle spent endless hours researching cannibalism online and entered chat rooms on extreme fetish websites to discuss his literal hunger for young women.
The suspended officer's computer records show he wanted to know recipes for human flesh, techniques for tying people up, and instructions for using chloroform to knock out a kidnap victim. He also kept extensive files on women he knew, including his now estranged wife, and suggested in his internet chats that they were suitable kidnap victims - and human meals.
"The evidence is overwhelming," the prosecutor said. But conspiracy charges can be a grey area, since they refer to crimes planned, yet not committed.
Earlier this week, a defence lawyer applied unsuccessfully to US District Judge Paul Gardephe for an on-the-spot acquittal, saying, essentially, that nothing had happened - no one was kidnapped, or eaten, or harmed in any way. "This is a very, very troubling case on a number of levels," said defence lawyer Edward Zas.