The court case has finally begun of Alberto Sánchez Gómez, a Madrid waiter who told police he butchered his own mother before sharing her body parts with his dog. In February 2019, police arrived at the house which Gómez shared with his mother after family friends reported that they hadn’t seen her for several days. Gómez opened the door and reportedly told them that he had strangled his mother to death, then allegedly said “Me and the dog have been eating her, bit by bit.”

Officers found the 66-year-old mother’s limbs, wrapped in plastic, spread around various rooms, while other parts were in the fridge and in the oven. Some pieces had been cooked and were still in a pan. Several police officers were reportedly violently sick due to the overwhelming stench and shock of what they were seeing.

The suspect was arrested and has since admitted that he strangled his mother, dismembered her body using a carpenter’s saw and two kitchen knives, and then spent 15 days eating her remains whilst feeding the bits he did not want to his dog. Police found body parts in six large Tupperware containers. The 66-year-old pensioner was chopped into at least 1,000 pieces and her vital organs were missing. It is claimed that her intestines were found mixed with domestic waste inside the flat.

Former friends of the alleged cannibal told of how he had a number of problems after becoming addicted to drugs. According to local media, the court believes that the suspect is suffering from a mental illness, possibly borderline personality disorder, and was at the time consuming hard drugs. The cocktail of drugs and mental illness could have resulted in an outburst that led to him killing his mother. The results of psychiatric tests on the defendant are expected to be presented later in the trial. Friends reported Gómez used to spend his days hanging out on a park bench near his mum’s flat, drinking with local homeless people.

The court heard that Gómez, 26, had frequently been violent towards his mother Maria Soledad Gómez, 66, who had taken out a restraining order against him, yet she would always take him back, telling friends: “What can I do, he is my son”.

Gómez has been charged with murder and the desecration of a corpse, for which he is facing 15 years and five months in prison along with EUR 90,000 compensation to be paid to his brother. Local media have called Gómez the ‘Cannibal of Guindalera’, which is a Madrid barrio dominated by Las Ventas, a 1920s bullring with a striking Moorish-influenced design. Bullfighting is a barbaric spectacle in which each year thousands of bulls are violently killed for the entertainment of the largely inebriated crowd. Here is PETA’s description of the “fight”:

In a typical bullfight, the bull enters the arena and is approached by picadors—men on horses who drive lances into his back and neck muscles. This attack impairs his ability to lift his head and defend himself. The picadors twist and gouge the lances to ensure significant blood loss…

Finally, the matador appears and—after provoking a few exhausted charges from the dying animal—tries to sever the bull’s aorta with his sword. If he misses, succeeding only in further mutilating the animal, he exchanges his sword for a dagger to try to cut the spinal cord. If he blunders this stroke, the bull may be conscious but paralysed when chained by the horns and dragged out of the arena.

If the crowd is happy with the matador, the bull’s ears—and sometimes his tail—are cut off and presented as trophies. A few minutes later, another bull enters the arena, and the sadistic cycle starts again.

The remains of the tortured bull are sold for meat after the event.

Interesting how many cannibalism cases we have already reported this year: the guy who kidnapped a little girl, claiming he wanted to eat her, the woman who chopped off her mother’s head after a fight, the guy in Oklahoma who cut up a neighbour to cook for his family, the “Arkhangelsk Cannibal” who killed and ate three friends, and of course the “Granny Ripper” who killed and ate several people before dying of COVID-19. And, at the time of writing, the year is barely one third through.

Globally, millions of people are reported missing each year, just like Maria Gomez. Many are never found – could some have been eaten? And why are we surprised when what is done to other animals is done to humans, particularly so near a bullring, which specialises in the torment and consumption of sentient animals?

Fun fact: this week, as the court case began, IFL Science reported that “New evidence has shed light on an 800,000-year-old cannibalistic murder” – the skeletal remains of a young female from the species Homo antecessor, perhaps the last common ancestors of Neanderthals and us. Researchers found on her bones teeth marks, butchering marks, and signs of marrow extraction – fairly solid evidence she was chopped up and eaten.

Nice to know how much progress we’ve made in the last 800,000 years.