NATHANIEL Bar-Jonah displayed six clear signs that he was a gluttonous cannibal serial killer, from sucking on bloody scabs to dishing out “peculiar tasting” meat.
The convicted murderer and child predator would lure young boys and girls into secluded areas to carry out his spate of vile and sadistic fantasies.
Nathaniel Benjamin Levi Bar-Jonah, born in Worcester, Massachusetts, grew up with a reportedly “insatiable appetite”.
The future cannibal was frequently abused by his strict father for being a kleptomaniac – someone who feels an uncontrollable urge to steal things.
He would often steal his sibling’s and other children’s belongings, sparking the far in his father that Bar-Jonah may grow up to be “queer”.
The young boy was just six years old when he developed a sadistic interest in the taste of human flesh.
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He would reportedly pick at his scabs until they bled, then proceed to suck the blood out of the wound.
His teachers at Webster Elementary School would frequently contact his mother, sharing their concerns and worries about Bar-Jonah’s gruesome actions.
When he was incarcerated later on in life, guards reported that the habit followed him into adulthood as he “appeared to be having sex” while sucking on scabs.
But things quickly took a violent turn, as when he reached just seven years old, Bar-Jonah lured a five-year-old girl to his basement while spinning a web of lies about how he could read her future using an Ouija board.
He then tried to strangle the little girl to death until her screams got the attention of Bar-Jonah’s mother who came to her rescue.
Bar-Jonah began falling into the grisly habit of attempting to entice young boys and girls to secluded areas, such as cemeteries with cash incentives.
At just 15 years old, he was receiving psychiatric help due to his disturbing patterns of behaviour.
But the medical help proved to be in vain, as in May 1974, Bar-Jonah abducted and raped 10-year-old Mary Patrone in Woodstock, Connecticut.
He released her, but the taste of the violent crime had stained the future serial killer’s pallet and his long run of horrific assaults began.
Almost a year later, in March 1975, a then 18-year-old Bar-Jonah impersonated a police officer in order to abduct eight-year-old Richard O’Conner while he was walking to school.
He sexually assaulted and throttled the boy, who was later found in Bar-Jonah’s car bloodied, covered in feces and urine, and on the brink of death.
The string of attacks became more twisted as Bar-Jonah grew up, and his creativity in tactics for luring boys increased.
In 1997, he claimed to be an undercover FBI agent and convinced two oblivious boys to enter his unsuspecting vehicle.
Bar-Jonah slipped them away to a secluded area, where he handcuffed and tortured them.
The 170kg beast repeatedly stomped on the chest of one of the boys before leaving him for dead – taking the other young boy away with him.
But the young boy regaining consciousness and flagging down help is what ultimately led to Bar-Jonah’s arrest.
For his most recent crime, the violent assaulter was convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to 28 years at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution.
He was later transferred and sent for observation to the Bridgewater State Hospital after revealing his disturbing sexual fantasies to a prison psychologist.
In 1984, Bar-Jonah won a parole hearing after two psychologists testified that he was no longer a threat to society – he was later released on February 12, 1991.
But during his time at Bridgewater, Bar-Jonah revealed his revolting fantasies to his medical team which included abducting, murdering, and eating children.
His vile actions started again just one month after his hospital release.
On August 9, 1991, Bar-Jonah broke into a car where a seven-year-old boy was sitting alone and sat his 125kg weight on his chest.
He fled the scene but an officer recognised his description after the mother of the young boy called the police – and he was arrested for the attack.
At first, Bar-Jonah claimed that he entered the car to get out of the rain, but later admitted that he intended to kill the boy.
Bar-Jonah was given permission by the Worcester County District Attorney to enter a guilty plea to assault and battery in exchange for a two-year probationary period, along with the promise that he would move to Great Falls, Montana, to live with his mother.
This would not stop the repeat offender, however, as Bar-Jonah would continue to play dress-up as police officers and officials in a bid to lure several children from the streets in order to abuse them.
It wasn’t until one 10-year-old boy, Zachary Xerxes Ramsay, went missing, that Bar-Jonah began to be investigated.
A witness who personally knew Bar-Jonah reported seeing him standing beside a dumpster in the alleyway at 7:15 a.m. while taking out the bins; he was wearing a navy blue “police-like” jacket.
The same witness also reported seeing Ramsay enter the alleyway later and that Bar-Jonah was still standing beside the dumpster.
Detective Bill Bellusci was leading the investigation into Ramsay’s disappearance in 1999 and later arrested Bar-Jonah after catching him impersonating an officer and carrying a concealed weapon outside an elementary school.
When a judge approved a search warrant on Bar-Jonah’s house on December 5, 1999, police unearthed two coats, one dark blue and another with a toy badge in the pocket; a second toy badge; a stun gun; and a baseball cap reading “Security Enforcement”.
During the search, they also found a pulley on the ceiling of Bar-Jonah’s kitchen, two albums with cut-outs of children, a document about knots and bondage, and an article entitled “Autoerotic Asphyxia.”
Two days later, Bellusci was granted a second search warrant for any documents and photographic material.
Detectives found a list of fifty-four boy’s names called “Lake Webster” which were later identified as boys from Bar-Jonah’s youth in Massachusetts, including “Zackery Ramsay,” followed by the word “DIED.”
Dozens of newspaper clippings were also discovered, as well as 3,500 photographs of children and undeveloped film containing sexual images of Bar-Jonah and three unidentified boys.
Cops also found a mysterious pulley on which a rope, cord, or chain could be connected – the pulley was attached to the ceiling in Bar-Jonah’s kitchen.
A former roommate of Bar-Jonah later described finding clothes in his apartment that seemed to match those Ramsay was wearing the day he disappeared, in addition to bloody gloves.
Another roommate claimed that Bar-Jonah sometimes spontaneously brought up the “missing” boy in conversations.
They revealed that the killer had once mentioned Ramsay a few days before he disappeared, and then again when he said that the boy would never be found because he had been “chopped up”, and the parts scattered in different places.
In notebooks that had to undergo decoding by the FBI, Bar-Jonah had described in detail torturing and eating children.
There were also chilling recipes involving children’s body parts.
For nearly a month after Ramsay disappeared, financial records showed that Bar-Jonah had not made any significant grocery store purchases.
During this time, he was hosting cookouts in which he was reported to have served burgers, spaghetti, chili, meat pies, and casseroles to guests.
Several people would allegedly complain that the meat had a “peculiar taste” to it – which Bar-Jonah would blame on his usage of deer meat.
However, Bar-Jonah did not own a rifle or a hunting license, nor had he been deer hunting at any time.
One female guest recalled telling Bar-Jonah that she found the taste of his meat to be repulsive, but he simply stated that he had “hunted, killed, butchered and wrapped the meat” of the deer.
He would later be accused of molesting this woman’s son.
During the timeframe of Ramsay’s disappearance, Bar-Jonah was believed to have been working at a fast-food outlet called Hardee’s in downtown Great Falls, as well as holding a part-time job in a kitchen at Malmstrom Air Force Base.
This led to speculation that Bar-Jonah was using these positions to get rid of evidence of his crimes, by feeding unsuspecting workers human flesh.
In Bar-Jonah”s apartment, detectives also found several recipes using children’s body parts with chilling titles such as “little boy pot pie,” and “french fried kid”.
Phrases such as “lunch is served on the patio with roasted child” and “Barbecue bee sum young guy,” were also spotted in his grisly notes.
In a search at one of Bar-Jonah’s previous residencies in Great Falls, an excavation in his garage revealed 21 fragments of human bones.
They were the remains of an unidentified African-American child, between the ages of eight and 13.
On July 5, 2000, Bar-Jonah was prosecuted for the abduction and molestation of three boys and convicted of kidnapping, aggravated assault, and sexual assault, including charges that he had tortured one of the boys and hung him from the ceiling.
The violent killer was sentenced to 130 years in prison, but he maintained his innocence up until his death on April 13, 2008.
Bar-Jonah was found unresponsive in his prison cell, with his post-mortem displaying significant levels of low-density lipoprotein in his arteries.
Myocardial infarction was the determined cause of Bar-Jonah’s death.
Bar-Jonah is not the only sick cannibal killer to roam the streets of the US after a sick murderer named Sloppy Joe chopped up his victims and sold them as roadside barbecue meat.
Joseph Metheny, the world’s fattest serial killer, admitted to going on crazy killing sprees targeting prostitutes and drug addicts before turning them into “weird but delicious” sandwiches in Baltimore.