One year ago this Sunday, a 31-year-old Miami resident named Rudy Eugene spent some 18 minutes beating, stripping, and chewing the face off of a 65-year-old transient named Ronald Poppo.
It wouldn't be a new year without some media-escalated moral panic over a new and potentially dangerous intoxicant. Except 2012's hazard, a synthetic and cheap legal chemical sold as "bath salts"—varying compositions of mephedrone, methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV), and methylone—did have some fairly harrowing…
Ronald Poppo, the man who was rendered severely disfigured following an encounter with Rudy Eugene, known in the media as the "Miami Zombie" or the "Causeway Cannibal," spoke with Miami homicide detectives last month about his harrowing ordeal.
Toxicology experts and law-enforcement officials have questioned the results of toxicology tests which appear to show that Rudy Eugene, the so-called "Causeway Cannibal," had no other drugs besides marijuana in his system the day he attacked elderly homeless man Ronald Poppo on Miami's MacArthur Causeway.
Which dangerous, trendy nightmare drugs was Rudy "Miami Cannibal" Eugue "tripping balls" on when he tried to eat the face of 65-year-old Ronald Poppo in May? Was it "bath salts" — "the new LSD"? Or "Spice," the "synthetic marijuana"? Or was he on LSD, the "old LSD"? Or was it cocaine psychosis? Or was it all of the…
Though he was nicknamed the "Causeway Cannibal" in the aftermath of last month's disturbing attack, Rudy Eugene's autopsy report revealed that the so-called "Miami Zombie" had not actually swallowed any of Ronald Poppo's flesh prior to being shot and killed by a Miami police officer.
Since news broke last Saturday that a Florida man was caught in the act of tearing into the face of another man with his teeth, people everywhere have been asking the same question: What the Hell happened?
A surveillance camera in the Miami Herald building caught all 18 gruesome minutes of the Miami Zombie attack on the MacArthur Causeway over the weekend. (The footage above has been edited for length; the original can be viewed here.)
The victim of Rudy Eugene's cannibalistic attack has been identified as 65-year-old Ronald Poppo. Poppo, a homeless man with a long criminal record, is still alive in critical condition at Jackson Memorial Hospital. If you're feeling brave, you can take a look at what's left of his face here.
By now we've all seen the awful, awful story about the Florida man who was shot to death by police for refusing to stop chewing on another man's face.
Police in Miami are still baffled by what transpired Saturday afternoon on the MacArthur Causeway's off-ramp to Biscayne Boulevard, where a naked 31-year-old Rudy Eugene was found consuming the face of another naked man.
