S.African chokes, dies after eating wife's flesh
18 Jun 2005 10:21:33 GMT

Source: Reuters

JOHANNESBURG, June 18 (Reuters) - A South African man choked to death
minutes after killing his wife and eating part of her face following a
domestic argument, police said on Saturday.

Police stormed into a house in rural KwaZulu-Natal near the border
with Mozambique early on Friday after neighbours reported a
disturbance, Captain Tienkie van Vuuren told Reuters. They found a
30-year-old woman who had been stabbed to death.

"Her husband was sitting naked on top of her," she said. "He had
stabbed her and was eating the flesh from her face. The guy came at
them with a knife. They sprayed him with pepper spray but it didn't
have any effect."

After a struggle, officers handcuffed the man -- who was aged around
33 and had no history of mental illness -- but soon afterwards he
choked, collapsed and died, she said.

The couple's two daughters witnessed both their mother's stabbing and
their father's death and were receiving counselling, as were the
police officers, she said.

"It looks like a domestic dispute between husband and wife," she said.
"We do get a lot of domestic violence cases but not to the extent that
it goes as far as cannibalism."