
Courtesy NBCNewYork.com
Cheerful written exchanges between a police officer and women
from his past appeared in a sinister new light when an FBI agent described at
the officer's criminal trial how he talked online about killing and eating the
women.
"I'm dying to taste some girl meat," Agent Corey Walsh
testified Tuesday that NYPD officer Gilberto Valle told one of the online
friends he met who shared an appetite for human flesh.
The testimony came on the second day of testimony in federal
court in Manhattan for the 28-year-old Queens resident charged with conspiring
to kidnap women and illegally accessing a government database to research
potential victims. If convicted, he could face life in prison.
It came a day after his 27-year-old wife told jurors she fled
their home in September with their 1-year-old daughter after discovering that
Valle spent hours a night on extreme sexually violent web sites and one that
catered to those interested in cannibalism and asphyxiation. In Reno, Nev., she
turned over a computer to the FBI that contained hundreds of Valle's emails and
instant messages with what the government has described as co-conspirators.
To prove the plots involved real women and to counter defense
claims that it was all fantasy, the government summoned several women to testify
about their dealings with Valle before prosecutors say he wrote about them as
potential targets and, in two cases, potential meals.
The women included a former high school classmate, two former
college classmates and an 18-year-old woman who attended Valle's high school
alma mater and said she had no contact with him before he described her to one
of his Internet friends as "the most desirable piece of meat I've ever met" and
small enough to fit in his oven.
Kimberly Sauer, of Germantown, Md., went to the University of
Maryland with Valle and had nothing bad to say about her former classmate. On
cross-examination, Sauer told defense attorney Julia Gatto that she never felt
threatened by Valle.
Sauer learned of the case only after she received from Valle's
wife last year in the middle of the night a disturbing Facebook message that
sounded so crazy that she texted him to warn that the account must have been
hacked. Either that "or you're trying to sell me into white slavery," she
recalled joking in the text.
But Walsh said Valle's computer had a file titled "Abducting
and Cooking Kimberly: A Blueprint," which included a photo of Sauer.
Sauer came up frequently as a subject in online chats between
Valle and a man in Great Britain who used Moody Blues as a screen name and
MeatMarketMan as part of his email address, the agent testified. Walsh said
Moody Blues told Valle he had fantasized about cannibalism since he was 6 years
old but did not fulfill the desire until 35 years later.
In one correspondence, Valle suggests a woman named Kimberly —
prosecutors say Sauer — would be easy prey because she lived alone.
"I can knock her out, wait until dark and kidnap her right out
of her house," he wrote, according to prosecutors.
The agent said Moody Blues suggested eating their victim alive
but Valle responded: "I'm not really into raw meat."
Walsh said they also discussed cooking Sauer, basted in olive
oil, over an open fire and using her severed head as a centerpiece for a
sit-down meal.
"I just can't wait to get Kimberly cooking," the agent quoted
Valle as saying.
In a chat, Valle told Moody Blues he was meeting Kimberly for
lunch on Sunday and that she would be "kidnapped in a couple of months."
Moody Blues told him he'd "given thought to your ideas about
cooking her alive."
"Give me some ideas," Valle said.
Moody Blues suggested "cutting her feet off and cooking them
on the BBQ in front of her."
"I suppose that's a possibility," Valle said. "You are the one
with the experience."
Walsh also described communications between Valle and his
co-defendant, Michael Vanhise, of Trenton, N.J. He said the two negotiated the
price to be paid for a Manhattan teacher to be taken to New Jersey in a suitcase
for Vanhise to rape and kill.
The agent said Valle asked Vanhise whether he wanted the woman
clothed or naked and Vanhise said he wanted her clothed.
"Excellent. I'll leave her clothes on. I'll give you the
pleasure of unwrapping your gift," Valle was quoted as saying.
Vanhise, like Valle, has pleaded not guilty. His lawyers also
say he engaged only in Internet fantasy chats.
The government hasn't said what role Moody Blues played in the
investigation.