Man who cooked the severed head of his victim is jailed for less than four years

STEPH COCKROFT

dailymail.co.uk

A German salesman 'sawed, hacked and sliced up' a bank clerk who had suffocated to death in a bizarre sex game gone wrong - before leaving his head 'bobbing in a stewpot'.

Michael Schneider, 45, left 37-year-old Carsten Schmidt's severed head cooking on the stove at his apartment in Berlin, in what police described as a 'horror show'.

After the sordid incident, remains of the victim's body were also found strewn around Schneider's home, wrapped in baking foil and paper.

A police official, who said the men knew one another, said: 'It was a horror show. The body parts had been sawed, hacked and sliced.

'He put them all over the apartment as if saving them up for a rainy day.

'But only the head was cooked, bobbing in a stewpot on top of the cooker.'

During the hearing at the Berlin Regional Court, the court heard how the victim had invited Schneider to his apartment in Marienfelde, south Berlin, for sex in January 2012.

In court, the defence claimed Schmidt asked the defendant to tie him to the bed and cover his mouth and nose with tape.

The victim then died of suffocation, the court was told. It was then that Schneider cut up Schmidt's corpse.

Schmidt, who was openly gay, was due to go on to a party that evening with his friend. When he did not show up, the friend alerted police.

When it became clear Schneider was a suspect, the defendant slashed his wrists with a knife, but was saved by paramedica.