The Story Of This Maryland Serial Killer Is Truly Disturbing

In the 1990s, Joe Metheny became infamous in the Baltimore area and beyond.

In 1994, his drug-addicted wife left and took their child away as well. Joe became enraged and took his anger out in the most disturbing of ways.

He went searching for his wife and ended up finding two homeless men under a bridge. Joe assumed that the the men did drugs with his spouse, and were partially the reason that she left. He ended up murdering both of them with an axe.

The two murders were only the beginning of a long and gory night. Joe became filled with blood lust and hours later, he lured two prostitutes under the bridge where he murdered them as well. He confessed to killing a fifth person, too. Joe spotted a nearby fisherman who may have been a witness to the crimes. He killed the fisherman and dumped the body, along with the two prostitutes, in the river.

The bodies of the two homeless men were found and Joe spent a mere year and a half in jail before being acquitted. He was now free once more to terrorize the Baltimore area.

Soon, Joe Metheny murdered two more prostitutes but didn't want to risk evidence being found. He decided to chop up their bodies and keep the parts in a freezer.

Joe couldn't keep the body parts in his freezer forever, so he devised a stomach-churning plan. He opened up a roadside barbecue stand where he sold roast beef and pork sandwiches...

You can probably guess the special ingredient in his sandwiches. Here's a direct quote from Joe Metheny:

"The human body taste was very similar to pork. If you mix it together, no one can tell the difference. ...So the next time you’re riding down the road and you happen to see an open pit beef stand that you’ve never seen before, make sure you think about this story before you take a bite of that sandwich..."

Nobody knows how many strangers were served the human-meat sandwiches. What we do know is that Joe eventually ran out of his special meat and sought out another prostitute to murder, and butcher.

He lured a woman named Rita Kemper to his trailer and things didn't go as planned. Rita ended up getting away and reported Joe to the police, thus ending his murderous rampage.

In 1996, Joe was initially sentenced to death but this was eventually overturned. He received life in prison and was found dead in his jail cell in August 2017. It is believed that he actually killed up to 10 people in the Baltimore area.

For more on Joe Metheny and his sickening crimes, visit Murderpedia.