A cannibal who boldly posed naked next to a skeleton in the dungeon where he killed and ate a man has been found guilty of murder a second time – despite insisting his willing victim committed suicide and sentenced to eight-and-a-half years in prison.
Ex-policeman Detlev Guenzel spent five hours chopping up the body of his victim, 59-year-old conservative CDU politician Wojciech Stempniewicz,  and partially eating it.
Guenzel and Stempniewicz, met the month before on a website where users share slaughter and cannibalism fantasies.
The killer initial confessed to killing Stempniewicz with a knife stab to the throat. Guenzel a former police forensic expert, spent five hours chopping up the politician, burying the remains in the gardens of the bed and breakfast he ran in the mountain town of Hartmannsdorf-Reichenau. He allegedly ate part of the victim whose genitals was never recovered.
During the first trial the court was shown a video Guenzel made a few hours after picking up his victim at the local bus station, showing him in boxer shorts dismembering the naked body of the victim who is suspended from a hook, mouth taped shut, hands bound behind his back.

Victim: Wojciech Stempniewicz, trawled the internet for a year, before meeting up with his eventual killer, in search of someone to fulfill he fantasy of being killed and eaten

The men first met in an Internet chatroom for cannibalism fetishists billed as “the #1 site for exotic meat” and boasting more than 3,000 registered members.This was back in October 2013.
Polish born Stempniewicz, a business consultant living in the northern German city of Hanover, and Guenzel a former policeman, who operated a bed and breakfast in the remote mountain town of Hartmannsdorf-Reichenau, had extensive contact with each other through email, text message and telephone before finally arranging the ‘killing’ date.
Guenzel picked him up at a Dresden bus station on November 4, 2013 and drove him back to his bed and breakfast.

Weird thrills: Guenzel, the convicted German cannibal posed naked holding an axe before chopping up and eating his ‘willing’ victim

A few hours later the deed was done. Guenzel reportedly, slaughtered Stempniewicz, before dismembering the  body suspended from a meat hook, only pausing to check for a heartbeat before carving up his victim.
The victim’s penis and one testicle were never found, but the rest of his dismembered corpse was discovered in flowerbeds in the home’s garden.
Guenzel was tried and convicted in 2015 of murdering Wojciech Stempniewicz. He was sentenced to serve eight-and-a-half years in prison.

Crime Scene: Guenzel killed and ate his victim at his home where he operated a bed and breakfast in the mountains near Dresden

However,  he appealed the verdict, claiming he could not be found guilty of the Polish-born businessman’s murder because he had committed suicide.
The prison term was overturned by the country’s supreme court, the Federal Court of Justice, earlier this year. The re-trial has ended in Dresden with Guenzel having his imprisonment term extended by a month. The prosecution had sought a life sentence.
Guenzel earned the right to a new hearing after justices ruled that the suicide defence was not “adequately probed” during the first trial.
He was found guilty of murder and disturbing the peace of the dead.
Judges ruled that the fact local conservative CDU politician Mr Stempniewicz had wanted to die meant Guenzel deserved some leniency.
However defense had difficulty in proving suicide when the corpse no longer existed and there were no witnesses to attest to the defendant’s account of events.
During re-trial Guenzel told the court: “I am really sorry, I am partially responsible, but I am not a murderer.”

Officers exhume the chopped up remains of Wojciech Stempniewicz in Guenzel’s garden

Guenzel contended that he could not be convicted of murder because the politician he was convicted of killing and eating wanted to die

The original case, centering on lurid appetites for human flesh, captivated the country. The prosecution contended that Stempniewicz, whose handle was ‘LongpigHeszla’ on  websites devoted to torture and bondage, was killed and partially eaten by police forensic specialist Guenzel at his lonely home in mountains near Dresden.
Stempniewicz nursed fantasies of being killed and eaten and trawled the internet for an entire year before he found a willing predator to ACT OUT these perverted sexual fantasies.
The two exchanged messages and phone calls for several months, until they decide that it is time to realize their fantasies: Guenzel wanted to play the butcher, Stempniewicz, preferred the role of victim.
In October 2013 Stempniewicz, the Hanover based businessman, met up with Guenzel, aka, ‘Caligula’ on internet. After establishing a date, Guenzel collected Stempniewicz,from Dresden’s bus station on November 4, 2013 and drove him to the B&B he ran with his domestic same-sex partner in the Erzgebirge Mountains.
Court documents from the first trial state that once inside, the pair head in the basement and decide to relax with a little music , that is when Guenzel strangles the unsuspecting  victim with a rope, before proceeding to slash his throat, collecting his blood in an old paint pot.
Authorities were notified by Stempniewicz’s Russian fiancée, Svetlana,when he did not return from his trip to Dresden.

After chopping him up, Guenzel discarded his victim’s body parts in his garden – butthe penis and one testicle were never found

‘Caligula’ was traced via the computer messages and telephone calls he had with his victim and he was arrested at the police HQ where he worked as a handwriting specialist early in 2014.
Guenzel admitted slicing the corpse up but claims Stempniewicz hanged himself and that he did not consume the flesh of his victim. He was found guilty of murder in April 2015.