Joe Metheny, a serial killer who made his victims into burgers – he chopped them up, mixed them with pork, and served them as burgers to unwitting customers from his roadside barbecue stand in Maryland.
Joe Metheny started out looking for his runaway wife and son, but ended up on a revenge-driven killing spree and turning his victims into cheeseburgers.
When the police arrested Joe Metheny in December of 1996, they expected him to put up a fight. The man was a 500-pound lumber factory worker with a tendency to fly off the handle. At the very least, they expected resistance. What they didn’t expect was a detailed and upfront confession, the brutality of which was preceded by Metheny’s own warning: “I’m a very sick person.”
Joe Metheny’s Confession
To start out I will tell you about myself at the present moment, which is locked up. I am 48 years old, I weigh about 450 pounds and it’s not all fat. I’ve been locked up for almost 8 years now, but when one has been sentenced to a couple of life without parole sentences, time doesn’t matter anymore.
I have no problem with being locked up, for no one put me here but myself. And I deserve to be right where I’m at, cause I had 12 law-abiding jurors that told me so, in a couple different cases. Ha! Ha! I was only convicted of two murders and one kidnapping for the one that got away. I got 50 years for her. The first murder I was sentenced to life without parole. The second one they gave me the death penalty. I sat on Maryland’s death row for 3 years, and then they overturned my sentence and gave me another life without parole and sent me down here for the rest of my life.
I killed seven people, three men, and four women. Two men I chopped up with an axe under a bridge in South Baltimore. I was found not guilty for them cause they couldn’t prove I did it. Under that same bridge I also killed two women and one man who was fishing, who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I weighed their bodies down and put them in that river. I showed the police where I put them about 3 years later, but they couldn’t find them. So they could not charge me for them.
My murder rampage started out as revenge but ended up as a passion for the taste of blood and the overwhelming sense of power one gets for taking the life of another.
My story
It all started back in July of 1994. I was at work, I was a truck driver. I was working overtime this one night. Then I got off and went home as I always did. But when I opened the door and turned on the light, I noticed there was nothing there. My ole lady had taken everything including my son and left me. Her leaving was not my problem. But she took my 6-year-old son with her. She was a crack addict and a worthless piece of shit. I would have paid her to get out of my life. All she had to do was take my son over to my mothers house and she could have had everything else and be gone.
I found out about 6 months later she had moved on the other side of town with some asshole that had her out selling her ass for drugs. They got busted for drugs and they took my son away from them for child neglect and child abuse.
I had no chance of going to social services and trying to get my son back do to my past criminal record. So I took it upon myself with the hatred I had for these 2 who lost my son, to go looking for them. I had found out from someone that they was going under that bridge and getting high with some homeless motherfuckers who lived under that bridge.
I went under there looking for them. They were not there, but the two homeless motherfuckers they got high with them were down there. They were passed out on some old stinking mattress and that’s where they were when I left, except there were dead from being chopped up.
That same night I lured the first crackwhore down under that bridge. I got her high and was trying to get information out of her about my ole ladies whereabouts. She acted like she didn’t know, so I beat the hell out of her and raped her ass then killed her. I put her in some bushes and went and lured the second bitch down there. I did the same to her as the last one, but as I was about to throw her in the bushes with the other one I noticed an old blackman down by the river fishing looking back up at me. I grabbed a steel pipe that was lying by and ran down on him and layed his head wide open. So I put the two girls and him in the river and weighed them down with rocks.
That was a very busy night for me 5 murders within about 7 hours. I washed up in that river and cleaned up the crime scene as much as I could, then left. 2 1/2 weeks later I was arrested and charged with the murders of the 2 men I chopped up. I spent close to 18 months in Baltimore City Jail waiting to go to trial. The trial lasted 1 week and it was thrown out of court cause of lack of evidence.
I was free again. I went back and talked my old boss into giving my job back to me at the pallet company. There was a little trailer on the property, so I told my boss to let me stay there and I could keep an eye on the place. He agreed to this and gave me the keys to the front gate and main building. The company was on a dead end road and was very isolated. It was perfect for what I wanted to do.
I lured 2 more crackwhores up there to my trailer. I killed and butchered their bodies up. I cut the meat up and put it in some Tupperware bowls then put it in a freezer. I buried the remains in several shallow graves in a little woods behind the company.
Over the next couple weeks on the weekends I opened up a little open-pit beef stand. I had real roast beef and pork sandwiches and why not they were very good. The human body tastes was very similar to pork. If you mix it together no one can tell the difference.
Everything was going pretty good until I ran out of my special meat. So I lured another bitch up to my trailer. I got her in there and started to rip her clothes off and knocking the hell out of her. She was screaming, but there was no one around to hear her except me. And I just kept on laughing at her.
I turned around for a split second, and that was my mistake, for she ran out the door before I could get to her. There was an 8-foot chain link fence with barbwire on top of it around the front of the company. There was a stack of wooden pallets next to the fence about 10 feet high. That bitch scaled those pallets like a monkey and jumped the fence, and ran down to the main road where some guy in a pickup truck picked her up and took her to a nearby gas station where they called the cops.
Well I knew the cops were on the way, but I didn’t run. I gathered up her clothing, grabbed the keys to the gate, and went out and opened it. Soon as I step out the gate a cop car pulled up. And the cop jumped out and pulled his gun on me and told me to get on the ground. And that is where it all came to an end.
They took me down and booked me. She had told them that I said I was going to kill her like the rest. Which was true. They had me sitting in a little room down at homicide drilling me and damn near kissing my ass. Trying to find out what I had done. They pulled me out of city jail everyday for 1 month taking me back and forth between the company and the bridge.
I had they going crazy over at the company digging up the remains of those 2 bitches there. Cause I had their remains buried in 7 different holes. The only thing I feel bad about in any of this, is I didn’t get to murder the 2 motherfuckers I was really after. And that’s my ex ole lady and the bastard she got hooked up with.
Well that’s my story, horrible but true. 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. Sometimes you never know who you may be eating. Ha! Ha!
Theodore Lee is the editor of Caveman Circus. He strives for self-improvement in all areas of his life, except his candy consumption, where he remains a champion gummy worm enthusiast. When not writing about mindfulness or living in integrity, you can find him hiding giant bags of sour patch kids under the bed.