A New York man who became known as the ‘Cannibal Cop’ wants to give the public a taste of what’s really going on inside his mind. In the HBO documentary ‘Thought Crimes’ which premiered on Thursday at Tribeca Film Festival, Valle talks about his 2012 arrest and the claims that allegedly plotted to kidnap, torture, and eat his wife and other women online.
For those hungry to learn about Valle and his stomach-churning fantasies, the film will also be shown on HBO in May.
Months before his arrest in late 2012, Gilberto Valle, then a New York police officer, sat at his computer, hiding behind fictional online identities and exchanging messages about murdering and eating women
Months before his arrest in late 2012, Gilberto Valle, then a New York police officer, sat at his computer, hiding behind fictional online identities and exchanging messages about murdering and eating women.
‘When you’re behind a computer screen late at night, no one knows who you are, where you are,’ Valle says in the opening of the documentary.
‘I became part of this cyber-community, where people are exploring deviant thoughts and exploring their fetishes,’ he added.
‘And then you shut the computer off, and that’s it. I go back to being the regular me. But someone might say the anonymous nature could also bring out who you really are. In my worst nightmare, I could never guess that this would have happened.’
Valle insists throughout the film that he never intended to actually hurt anyone. He says he just has dark fantasies.
‘This was something that was private, anonymous, it was a little bit of a skeleton in my closet,’ Valle says, brushing off his dark thoughts.
The New York Daily News reports that the director of the film Erin Lee Carr said that she wanted to portray Valle in as neutral of a light as possible.
‘He wanted me to paint a portrait of him as an American family man and I couldn’t do that,’ Carr said. ‘I could portray him as someone you could try and understand.’
Carr is the daughter of New York Times columnist David Carr who died in February. In the film Valle’s father, Gilberto Valle Sr., says his son was guilty of being an imaginative writer. ‘He created a monster. He’s a good writer,’ he says.
At the end of the film, Valle expressed his desire to meet a woman. ‘I think sometimes I’m craving a little, you know, craving some companionship,’ he says.
He was sentenced to time served in November for illegally accessing a federal database. He was also given a year’s probation on a charge of misusing police resources to search for women as part of his fantasies. Valle was ordered to continue mental health treatment and was banned from contacting women involved in the case.
‘I really want to say I am sorry – it was not a crime but it was wrong,’ Valle said outside court in November. District Judge Paul Gardephe in Manhattan threw out the conviction of Gilberto Valle, 30, after federal public defenders argued that the U.S. Constitution grants people the right to fantasize.
He told one man he met in a fetish chat room: ‘I want her to experience being cooked alive. She’ll be trussed up like a turkey. … She’ll be terrified, screaming and crying.’
In another exchange, Valle suggested a woman he knew would be easy prey because she lived alone.
The chat room discussion centered on cooking the victim, basted in olive oil, over an open fire and using her severed head as a centerpiece for a sit-down meal.
Valle had been facing life in prison but the charges were thrown out in July, with the judge writing that ‘ more likely than not the case that all of Valle’s Internet communications about kidnapping are fantasy role-play’.
The former cop’s defense lawyers said Valle recognized that the substance of his Internet chats was ‘deeply troubling and disturbing’ and now meets weekly with a counselor to discuss it.
They added: ‘Gil does not want his life’s legacy to be the story of the ”Cannibal Cop.”
‘He is only 30 years old and intends to make something more out of his life. Inspired by the team of people who defended his innocence, Gil wants to go to law school.’
Valle, then a patrolman for the NYPD, was arrested in October 2012 after his wife found disturbing pictures on his computer that he had downloaded from the site DarkFetishNet.com.
The FBI found a list of 100 women he said he planned to kill, cook and eat.
They also found a transcript of an online chat in which he said he planned to take his ‘girlfriend’ Kathleen to Pakistan, where he and another man would murder her and cannibalize her body.
Valle maintains that his extensive writings were nothing more than fantasy – never meant to be acted on or carried out.
Valle’s ex-wife, who testified against her husband at trial, was granted a divorce last July.
She took the couple’s young daughter and completely cut off contact with Valle and his family.
I have sympathies for the poor cop.
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