Bad to the bone: Man filmed stealing, eating severed leg – drug expert weighs in [Video]

In true Hannibal Lecter style, a Californian man was arrested after he recently tried to make a quick getaway with a severed leg from the scene of a deadly train accident in Wasco.

The 27-year-old Rosendo Tellez shocked bystanders when he was seen taking bites from the severed body part of a pedestrian who was struck by the train at the city’s Amtrak station on 22 March.

Shock and horror: Man bites into leg while on the run

The disturbing video circulating on social media, shows the homeless man holding a leg and eating from it before wiping his face and making his way down a sidewalk.

He can be seen waving casually at cameras while making his escape, swinging the severed leg around as police officials arrive.

Jose Ibarra, a construction worker who was on the scene at the time, spoke to KGET News following the sickening incident.

“Whatever was in his hand, he started biting into it and it turned out to be a person’s leg,” Ibarra said.

The video that we have, shows clearly that he started chewing on the leg and everything.

Take a look at the video here:

WARNING: The following video contains images that some readers disturbing footage that some viewers may find upsetting.

Man arrested for removing evidence from crash scene

The Kern County Sheriff’s Office took Tellez into custody on outstanding warrants, and for removing evidence from an accident scene and mutilating human remains.

KGET News further reported that court records show that Tellez has at least half a dozen prior convictions for misdemeanors mostly for drug- or alcohol-related offences.

In the probable cause statement, according to Bakersfield.com, the homeless man said he removed the leg from the area where the pedestrian was hit by a train because “he thought the leg was his”.

He will appear again in court on 18 April. Details about the victim remain undisclosed.

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Cocktail of street drugs and cannibalism

Following the incident, theories started swirling around on social media about street drugs such as xylazine and fentanyl being the possible cause of the man’s cannibalistic behaviour.

Forensic toxicologist Dr Bruce Goldberger, who worked with police on two horrific cases in Florida that involved disturbed people eating other’s faces, gave his take on the matter in an interview with Daily Mail.

According to him, crystal meth (tik), crack cocaine or even bath salts, would actually be the most likely culprits.

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This because stimulants’ ability to bring on a powerful state of psychosis, or total severance from reality, that other drugs like fentanyl, which is a sedative, cannot. 

However, if fentanyl is combined with other drugs, it can enhance the effects of them, Goldberger said.

Bath salts, a type of stimulant drug that people either snort, smoke, or inject, are now infamous for its links to the two deranged attacks in which people ate others’ faces off.

Goldberger told the publication that in a psychotic state, eating another’s flesh may be seen as necessary for self-defense or survival if the person is convinced they’ll starve otherwise. 

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Mystery of severed hand at homeless shelter

Meanwhile, KGET also reported on a separate incident in which another Californian man arrived with a severed hand at a homeless shelter a few days after a train hit a pedestrian in east Bakersfield. 

“I have never seen or heard of anything like that before,” said Carlos Baldovinos, executive director of The Mission at Kern County. 

However, according to police, Union Pacific investigators accounted for all body parts in the east Bakersfield crash.  

Where the hand came from remains a mystery…