News / International
Mom of Miami cannibal refuses son was a cannibal
01 Jun 2012 at 11:49hrs | Views
Eugene feasted on Mr Poppo's face for 18 minutes
The mother of the crazed cannibal who gnawed off the face of a homeless man in Miami defended him as "a good kid" Thursday and said he doesn't deserve to be remembered as a "zombie."
"He gave me a nice card on Mother's Day," Ruth Charles told CBS Miami about son Rudy Eugene. "Everyone says he was a zombie. He was no zombie. That was my son."
The woman said that she was horrified to see reports of Saturday's attack on TV and cried for Eugene, 31, who was discovered lying naked beside a homeless man on a sidewalk along Miami's MacArthur Causeway. Police shot and killed Eugene when he refused to stop eating the face of victim Ronald Poppo, 65, who was also naked.
Poppo remains in critical condition after nearly 80% of his face was chewed off, police said.
A sister of Poppo told WFOR-TV that she thought he had died years ago. He graduated from Manhattan's Stuyvesant High School in 1964.
Eugene, meanwhile, may have been under the influence of an LSD-like drug called "bath salts," according to authorities. Toxicology reports are due in about a month.
Charles told ABC affiliate WPLG that her son may have been drugged and then dropped on the causeway beside Poppo.
"When you are awake you are like a confused patient," she said. "Whoever you see, you go and fight."
An unidentified girlfriend described Eugene as a "sweet, loving gentleman," and that the attack "wasn't him, that was his body but it wasn't his spirit," CBS Miami reported
"He gave me a nice card on Mother's Day," Ruth Charles told CBS Miami about son Rudy Eugene. "Everyone says he was a zombie. He was no zombie. That was my son."
The woman said that she was horrified to see reports of Saturday's attack on TV and cried for Eugene, 31, who was discovered lying naked beside a homeless man on a sidewalk along Miami's MacArthur Causeway. Police shot and killed Eugene when he refused to stop eating the face of victim Ronald Poppo, 65, who was also naked.
Poppo remains in critical condition after nearly 80% of his face was chewed off, police said.
A sister of Poppo told WFOR-TV that she thought he had died years ago. He graduated from Manhattan's Stuyvesant High School in 1964.
Eugene, meanwhile, may have been under the influence of an LSD-like drug called "bath salts," according to authorities. Toxicology reports are due in about a month.
Charles told ABC affiliate WPLG that her son may have been drugged and then dropped on the causeway beside Poppo.
"When you are awake you are like a confused patient," she said. "Whoever you see, you go and fight."
An unidentified girlfriend described Eugene as a "sweet, loving gentleman," and that the attack "wasn't him, that was his body but it wasn't his spirit," CBS Miami reported
Source - NYDaily
