JOE METHANY

The Life and Crimes of Baltimore’s Cannibal Killer

To the people who passed him on the streets of Baltimore, Joe Metheny looked like a mountain of a man.At six‑foot‑one and more than 400 pounds, he was hard to miss. Yet for most of his life, no one noticed him.Behind that size was a story of neglect, addiction, rage – and crimes so grotesque that even seasoned detectives struggled to believe what they uncovered.

A Childhood in Neglect

Joseph Roy Metheny was born on March 2, 1955, in Essex, Maryland.From the very beginning, life dealt him a cruel hand.His father, an alcoholic, was killed in a car crash when Joe was six years old. His mother, left to raise six children, often worked multiple jobs just to keep the family afloat.Joe would later claim that he was abandoned, left to fend for himself, and sent to live in foster homes. His mother disputed this, saying he grew up under her roof – but even she admitted there was little affection in the house. By his teenage years, Joe had dropped out of school and was living on the streets. His world became one of drugs, alcohol, and petty crime.

The Marine Who Never Came Home

In the early 1970s, Metheny enlisted in the U.S. Army.
He told friends he served in Vietnam, but official records showed otherwise: he was stationed in Germany during the final years of the war. Wherever he was posted, he came home with a heroin addiction. And when he returned to Baltimore, he found himself drawn to the city’s underbelly – the homeless encampments beneath bridges, the drug dens, and the rough bars on the waterfront.

A Life on the Margins

For years, Metheny drifted. He worked odd jobs as a truck driver and forklift operator. He lived in makeshift camps with addicts and sex workers. And slowly, a hatred began to build inside him. He claimed his rage began when his girlfriend left him, taking their young son with her. He searched for them, convinced she had gone to live in one of the homeless camps. When he couldn’t find her, his anger turned outward – toward anyone he thought represented the life that had betrayed him.

1994 – The Murders Begin

In 1994, that anger erupted. Metheny lured two homeless men to his camp under a bridge. Believing they had information about his missing girlfriend, he attacked them with an axe. Both men were killed.He dumped their bodies in a nearby river.From that day forward, Metheny’s violence spiralled.

The Double Life

By day, Metheny held down steady work. His size and strength made him useful in warehouses and truck yards.By night, he prowled the city – especially the vulnerable communities living under bridges and in tent cities.Sex workers and drug addicts began to disappear.

A Killer’s Confession

Metheny’s crimes might never have come to light if it weren’t for a single survivor.In 1996, he abducted a woman named Rita Kemper and dragged her back to his trailer. There, he attacked her and attempted to rape her. She managed to escape and flagged down a passing truck.When police arrested Metheny, he stunned them with a confession.

What Joe Metheny Told Police

Sitting in an interrogation room, Metheny calmly admitted to killing at least ten people. He described how he lured his victims – often sex workers or homeless addicts – to his trailer with promises of drugs or shelter. He would then attack them, kill them, and dispose of their bodies.

And then, with a chilling lack of remorse, he claimed something even more shocking. Metheny told investigators that he had butchered the bodies, ground the meat, and mixed it with pork. He cooked it, he said, and sold it as burgers from a roadside barbecue stand.“I cut the meat up,” he said. “I mixed it with pork, and I sold it to people. If you ate one of my burgers, you ate human.”

Myth or Reality?

Whether Metheny’s cannibalistic claims were true has never been fully proven.Police never found human remains at the barbecue stand. Some investigators believe it was a story he told to shock them, a final cruel joke to horrify the public.Others think he was telling the truth – and that his crimes were even more monstrous than the courts could ever prove.

Conviction and Life in Prison

In 1998, Metheny was convicted of the murders of two women, Catherine Magaziner and Toni Lynn Ingrassia, and sentenced to death.On appeal, his sentence was reduced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.Behind bars, Metheny remained unapologetic. He admitted to killing because he enjoyed it.“I got a very nasty streak,” he once told the court. “As I stand here right now, I’m ready to pass out and I feel light-headed because I know I killed.”

Death Behind Bars

On August 5, 2017, prison guards found Joe Metheny dead in his cell at the Western Correctional Institution in Cumberland, Maryland.He was 62 years old.No one mourned him.

The Legacy of Joe Metheny

To this day, Joe Metheny’s crimes stand out not just for their brutality, but for the macabre story he told in that police interview.How many people he really killed remains uncertain.But in the end, Joe Metheny’s story is a chilling reminder that some monsters don’t hide in the shadows. They live in plain sight – in homeless camps, at barbecue stands, and behind the wheel of a truck – until the mask finally slips.