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Miami-Dade Police Dept. / AP
This photo from the Miami-Dade Police Department shows Rudy Eugene, 31, who was shot and killed by police.
The girlfriend of the face-eating attacker who mauled off most of another man’s face said her boyfriend was either unknowingly drugged or placed under a voodoo curse.
She told the Miami Herald the attacker, identified as 31-year-old Rudy Eugene, was “sweet and well-mannered.” The girlfriend, who asked that her name not be disclosed, said she was shocked to hear her boyfriend was the man everyone was calling the “Miami Zombie.”
“Something happened out of the ordinary that day. I don’t want him to be labeled the Miami Zombie,” she told the Herald. “He was a person. I don’t want him to go down like that.”
Read the original story at NBCMiami.com
Eugene was fatally shot by an officer as he chewed off more than 80 percent of a homeless man’s face. The victim, identified as 65-year-old Ronald Poppo, remains in critical condition at Jackson Memorial Hospital.
The Jackson Memorial Foundation said Thursday that it has set up a fund to help Poppo through its website, www.jmf.org.
Surveillance videos captured by security cameras at the Miami Herald building show Eugene walking on a pedestrian bridge near MacArthur Causeway Saturday and encountering his victim.
Handout / Reuters
Ronald Poppo, who was savagely mauled by another man, is seen in a photo released by the Miami-Dade Police Department.
In the nearly 20-minute attack, Eugene dragged Poppo along the sidewalk and ripped his clothes off, the video showed.
Authorities said when the officer, identified as Jose Rivera, arrived, he was forced to open fire and kill Eugene when he continued to savagely attack Poppo’s face. Officials said Eugene growled at the officer and kept eating at the man’s face.
Eugene’s girlfriend said she was hysterical when she heard it was her boyfriend who had attacked the man on MacArthur Causeway.
“I thought to myself, ‘Oh my God, that’s crazy,’ she told the Herald. “I didn’t know that it was Rudy.”
She said Eugene was never violent around her and though he smoked marijuana, didn’t use stronger drugs, the newspaper said.
Records showed Eugene was arrested for a variety of charges between 2004 and 2008, including battery and trespassing. He also served time for selling and possessing marijuana.
The girlfriend said the day he died Eugene kissed her goodbye, told her "I love you" and left early in the morning with his Bible in his hand.
She said Eugene, who worked at a car wash, would always read the Bible to her and carried it with him everywhere.
Eugene's brother told NBC 6 Wednesday that he was also a little shocked when he heard about what happened.
“Pretty uncharacteristic of him. It was real weird – kind of mixed emotions, I think,” said the brother, who only gave his first name, Thompson. “Through the whole thing I was mostly thinking about my mom.”
Eugene's girlfriend said though she’s never believed in voodoo, she does now.
“I don’t know how else to explain this,” she told the Herald.
The Jackson Memorial Foundation said those interested in contributing to Poppo's fund should click the "Take Action Now" tab on its site, then click donations, select "others" under contribution details, and type in Ronald Poppo.
Checks made out to Jackson Memorial Foundation can also be mailed to Jackson Memorial Foundation, Park Plaza East, Suite G, 901 NW 17th Street, Miami, FL 33136.
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Leave a Comment:
I think this is pretty funny reading all these posts...main thing is, it really is a scary and horrific thing that a person can do this to another. What's even worse is what that poor man went through for 20 minutes..and what he's going to have to go through the rest of his life. God - Drugs - Voodoo, whatever - who cares about the dead guy. It's a good thing he is gone. I'm feeling really sorry for the Poppo. : (
To bad they killed the voodoo face eater from Florida. He would have been the perfect cell mate for the Canadian porn star dissector. They couldn't have let them watch hockey. They would get to excited every time the broadcaster yelled , "face off in the corner ".
But whats a gay Canadian porn star to do?
Eat somebody! Eat somebody!
Better stay away from him
he'll eat youre face off Jim
Zombies of Miami again....
(Warren loved him some satire)
Given he was homeless I'm guessing his face couldn't have been that tasty. Then again maybe there were delicious treasures in that beard.
If the eater hadn't been killed. I wonder if he could have used Florida's stand your ground beef defense ?
jim Ledden-3738606
Sorry but he could not. Citizens can not use SYG or SYB as a defense against an identified police officer.
Paranoid schizophrenic rage exacerbated by drug use or withdrawal? These stories are so brief and lacking in content when they come out that you can only make guesses about them. But voodoo-please. The interesting thing that always happens is that someone always says what a nice person the killer was. How come nobody ever says "yeah, that guy was nuts and also a rotten bastard and I couldn"t stand him", why is that?
Noah body--- how come there is no "disgusting" rating in the "report this item as" box?
Hey, if one of my "neighbors" is ever arrested for murder I will be saying take that child molesting lowlife out of here. The rotten bastard approached me at the gas station one day and tried to buy my swing set---the one that he "had seen"---through the walls of my house, no doubt, because a piece of @!$%# like that would never trespass. He said that he needed it because his wife ran a daycare service. And, I hope he has bruises and cuts in his mug shot. Don't bother with the door, drag his fat ass out a very small window.
HadEnoughOfIt--Hope you told him something unpleasant.
As much as I hate to speculate, I'd say its a good bet that this guy smoked some weed laced with PCP.
Angel Dust does stuff like this to people, and its why weed needs legalizing: it would be heavily government controlled if it was, and PCP-laced weed and the psychotic attacks and behaviour it causes would become a thing of the past.
Bet you any money, that's what happened to this poor guy. Bet you.
Or you could just NOT smoke it... ya think?
@Chaos
Clinical is already pushing regs off the streets in alot of places, however this revolution will not be televised.
One cannot help but wonder whether Trayvon Martin was hopped-up on the same stuff (drugs or voodoo)?
If it does nothing else, this incident provides a clue to the both the necessity and the practicality of Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law, because (a) there definitely are some vastly frightening individuals in the Sunshine State and (b) when one of them goes berserk having a "little friend" handy looks to be the best solution when running away and hiding simply is not possible . . .
This also provides an indisputable clue to what an unarmed naked berserk can and will do, really . . .
Really! :-o
I think zombies ate your your brain dude
News flash- we don't need "Stand Your Ground". You have the right to defend yourself with a gun - it's called "self defense." SYG would make it so one guy looks at the other guy under a bridge the "wrong way" and is shot dead.
I hate it when I get put under those darn voodoo curses and eat someone's face. It really sucks.
Yet another example of the IQ-lowering population hard at work f***ing up society.
Considering certain voodoo practices allegedly involve mind altering chemicals administered to victims, it probably was voodoo.
I'd check the local pet stores to see if any Pufferfish went missing or if someone buying fish food mentioned owning Pufferfish since the tetrodotoxin found in them is famously part of the "secret list" of ingredients used in creating zombies.
Shocking...just shocking. A black man commits a crime and for once he wasn't wearing a hoodie.
"I said you eat FECES, not faces". It was just a little communication error.
Hope the old guy recovers to live out a somewhat normal life. Who could deserve such a thing?
Sickens me how in all the interviews of this savage's family, not a one of them has expressed any concern for the victim. All I hear is how this monster was a nice guy, how he bought momma a Mother's Day card, how he carried his bible. I think it's very telling. This guy came from and lived with people who couldn't give a D@^^N about anyone or anything.
If this was not so sick it would funny...
Drugs or Voodoo, my money is on DRUGS!!!
I still don't understand where are al & jessie and their outrage ??????
that's because zombies ate your brain
Maybe it was a voodoo curse it sure was not natural. Florida is like a third world nation. UGH!
The last movie he saw was 'Faceoff'
Not much fun, not interesting, because the attacker was "African American" and the victim is "white". Had it been the way around, then we would be talking about business. Revs. Jesse jackson and Al Sharpton would be everywhere leading protests, and FOX News, CNN, ABC, NBC and CBS would be broadcasting in chorus that a "monster white guy" had attacked the "Sweetest African American on Earth". That, ladies and gentlemen, is Show Business.
No, that ladies and gentleman is proof that zombies ate your brain.
By any chance, your lover is an African American?, that's the reason you are offended. Or, are you an African American yourself? Then you should know that this is reality in the USA.
There was nothing in the fridge
so I went under the bridge
Met a man named "Mike"
and decided to have a bite
His face was tasty
kind of like puff pastry
The cops wondered what I was doin'
but I just kept on chewin'
They thought I was on crack
but I really just wanted a snack
They wouldn't drop their weapons
so I went back for seconds
All's well that ends well
but "Mike" probably wants me to go to Hell."
That's hilarious
They'd also be showing pictures of him as a baby-faced 12 year old.
This is nothing like the freak that is on cnn right now!
I like the drug induced state of mind theory. I have heard (hmpt) that LSD and PCP each are able to completely fool the mind with visual and real life circumstances that would cause a person to do some crazy s--t like this. I went to big concert in 1979 and saw a warning about "Don't do the Blue Acid" being sent over the scoreboard message center at the University of Boulder Colorado stadium. Up to that point i was beginning to wonder why so many people were diving off of the high bleachers to the pavement below.
I can only imagine what the cop must have been thinking, "Don't drink the water!".
NEWS ALERT! This is a boy scout jamboree compared to what news is breaking from Canada, turn on the tube!
16 yr old Broward boy has been dating a zombie & lives to write an original song about it!
PLEASE.... notice the murderous cannibal's race: NEgRO!!!!
Right out of an episode of Grimm!!
I am just wondering if it is a combination of events.
Could this guy come from a background where he was afraid of voodoo because of childhood stories and cultural issues? And might that combine with some drug use from his past which his family either didn't know about or was unwilling to admit to knowing about... Throw in some bad trips with a voodoo / zombie theme perhaps he even watched a lot of that type of horror film and it played a part. Could he then have REALLY been carrying the bible with him every day because he was using it as a talisman to protect him from the voodoo he had come to believe to be real? One day he finished the slide down the road to nutsville and ends up chowing down on a homeless guy?