In 1994, Joe Metheny worked as a truck driver and was on the road for long stints at a time. He was living with his girlfriend and their six-year-old son in South Baltimore. One day, he came home to find his girlfriend gone — and she had taken their child with her.

Joe flew into a rage and went on a hunt for days looking for them — checking halfway houses, the area's 'tent city' and even under Baltimore's Hanover Street Bridge where he knew his wife used to buy and do drugs. He suspected she had left with another man and was determined to find her.

While under the Hanover Street Bridge, he didn't find his wife — but two homeless men whom he believed knew her. They said that they knew where his family was, and Joe was enraged. He killed them both with an ax he’d brought along.

In Joe's own words:

"I had no chance of going to social services and trying to get my son back do to my past criminal record. So I took it upon myself with the hatred I had for these 2 who lost my son, to go looking for them. I had found out from someone that they was going under that bridge and getting high with some homeless motherfuckers who lived under that bridge.

I went under there looking for them. They were not there, but the two homeless motherfuckers they got high with them were down there. They were passed out on some old stinking mattress and that's where they were when I left, except there were dead from being chopped up."

After killing the two homeless men under the bridge, Metheny noticed a fisherman who could have seen what he’d done. Metheny killed him too, just in case this guy got a glimpse of his earlier crimes. It's been said that this is when Joe developed a taste for murder.

Joe would prey on women who were “easy targets” finding drug addicts at bar and luring them back to his trailer. One night he succeeded in getting a 39 year old woman to go home with him after promising her drugs. After having sex with her, he strangled her with an extension cord, beheaded her and put her head in a cardboard box. He buried her body in a shallow grave close to his house.

Metheny lured two night-workers back to his trailer on night. He killed, dismembered, and partially ate them, prior to preparing their remains as burger meat. What didn’t fit in his freezer, he buried in a truck lot owned by the Joseph Stein and Son pallet company he worked for.

In Joe's words:

"I lured 2 more crack whores up there to my trailer. I killed and butchered their bodies up. I cut the meat up and put it in some Tupperware bowls then put it in a freezer. I buried the remains in several shallow graves in a little woods behind the company."

Over the next several weekends, he mixed the sex workers’ flesh with beef and pork, forming it into neat little patties. He would sell these meat patties out of a small barbecue stand he opened on the side of the road.

In Joe's words:

"I set up a small meat stand with an open pit. I used to mix the meat with beef and pork to serve it. They were excellent. The human body had a flavor that was comparable to that of pork. If you combine them, no one can tell them apart."

In Joe's words:

"Everything was going pretty good until I ran out of my special meat. So I lured another bitch up to my trailer. I got her in there and started to rip her clothes off and knocking the hell out of her. She was screaming, but there was no one around to hear her except me. And I just kept on laughing at her...

Keep this story in mind the next time you’re riding nearby and come across an open pit hamburger establishment that you haven’t seen before taking a piece of that meal."