And more importantly be careful who you meet. I suspect that German members have read all about this on a regular basis but I just read about it in the Toronto Star's website.

A German computer expert confessed yesterday to killing and eating a willing victim, telling a shocked courtroom the experience was "like taking communion" in a religious service.

Armin Meiwes, 42, who lived in a former manor house in Rotenburg, some 35 kilometres southeast of this central German town, gave chilling testimony at the start of his murder trial about how his fantasy of finding someone to become "a part of me" turned real.

Meiwes, a poised, slender man wearing a dark suit and tie, described matter-of-factly how Bernd Juergen Brandes, 43, travelled from Berlin to visit him in March, 2001, after replying to an Internet ad seeking a young man for "slaughter and consumption."

In testimony so frank it drew gasps from the public gallery, Meiwes said he'd kept his victim's skull and plastic bags of flesh in his freezer. He ate about 20 kg of the flesh, defrosting it bit by bit.