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JOPPATOWNE, Maryland: The student suspected of killing and eating parts of a man staying at his home ranted months ago about “mass human sacrifices” on Facebook, one of several details that emerged on Friday in the second gruesome case of alleged cannibalism in the US in a week.
Authorities say Alexander Kinyua, 21, admitted using a knife to kill and carve up Kujoe Bonsafo Agyei-Kodie, 37, before eating his heart and parts of his brain. The older man had been staying with the Kinyua family for about six weeks at their townhouse in the Baltimore suburb of Joppatowne.
The remains have been positively identified as those of Agyei-Kodie and a relative in the US has been notified, according to sheriff’s office spokeswoman Monica Worrell. No charges had been filed against anyone else, she said.
Both the victim and his alleged killer had attended nearby Morgan State University, a historically black university in Baltimore. Kinyua had just finished his third year, and Agyei-Kodie was a graduate student who last attended classes in 2008. Both men were also originally from Africa; Kinyua, a US citizen, moved from Kenya as a child and Agyei-Kodie was from Ghana.
Investigators haven’t given a possible motive in the slaying. In a separate case on May 19, police said Kinyua beat a man with a baseball bat on campus, fracturing his skull and making him lose sight in one eye. Kinyua was freed on $220 000 (R1.9 million) bail in that case. He is now being held without bail on a murder charge.
Kinyua, an electrical engineering student, had a very good grade point average and had enough credits to go into fourth year in September, according to university spokesman Clinton Coleman. He could not comment on the May incident. No student or faculty had approached the school with concerns about Kinyua, he said.
In February, Kinyua posted a question on Facebook, asking fellow students at historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) if they were “strong enough to endure ritual HBCU mass human sacrifices around the country and still be able to function as human beings?”
He referred to the shootings at Virginia Tech and “other past university killings around the country” and warned “ethnic cleansing is the policy, strategy and tactics that will affect you, directly or indirectly in the coming months”. A Twitter account linked to him also had nonsensical and repetitive Tweets that ended in February.
James Holt, who had been a friend of the victim for about 10 years, said Agyei-Kodie had met Antony Kinyua, the father of his alleged killer and a physics lecturer at Morgan State, while pursuing a doctoral degree. The Kinyuas took in Agyei-Kodie when he hadn’t worked for three years and was trying to re-establish his life.
A woman who answered the door at the family’s home on Friday said the family would not be commenting. – Sapa-AP
The Guardian 