Facts About The Kentucky Cannibal That'll Keep You Up At Night

The name "Kentucky Cannibal" sounds like it might refer to a deranged cousin of Jeffrey Dahmer, or perhaps be a perverse association to fried chicken. However, the Kentucky Cannibal actually refers to a mid-19th century American man - a frontiersman from Kentucky who had been raised by a good family, but completely lost his mind before he reached 20 years old.

His name was Boone Helm, and after he ruined his life back home and bankrupted his parents, he left everything behind to start a new life in California. While Helm would never have earned a spot on any "Most Likely To Succeed" list, no one would have imagined that he'd become a notorious old west serial killer with a penchant for human flesh.

All those charged were convicted, and Helm and the other gang members were hanged before 6,000 witnesses by the Montana Vigilantes in Virginia City, MT. Back east, the Civil War was still raging on but, that day, Helm's hanging even beat out headlines from the battlefield. As he watched one of his fellow gang members swing from the gallows, he called out: "Kick away, old fellow. My turn next. I'll be in Hell with you in a minute."

When it came time for Helm to step forward, he purportedly cried out, "Every man for his principles! Hurrah for Jeff Davis! Let 'er rip!" and proceeded to leap from the box on which he was standing before the executioner had a chance to kick it away.

You can even still pay a visit to Helm at Virginia City's famous Boot Hill cemetery.

Even though the United States was still mostly wilderness, word about the Kentucky Cannibal started to spread across the country. Helm was on the run from the very beginning of his journey, but the search for the flesh-eating frontiersman continued to heat up the closer he got to California.

He managed to make it to San Francisco, where he might have been able to continue eluding authorities, but Helm was incapable of keeping a low profile. While in the city, he killed a man who had actually provided him with shelter from the police. Helm then took off north for Oregon, where he continued his crime spree of robbing and murdering random individuals.

But by 1862, he finally ran out of luck. After he shot an unarmed man at a bar, he tried to take off again, by now feeling that he was somehow immune to justice. Then, while he was hiding from the law, he killed yet another man, who was also a fugitive, and proceeded to eat him. Not long after that, local sheriffs were finally able to apprehend Helm, and he was brought in for trial.

By the time Helm reached Idaho, he and the men who were still accompanying him had started running low on food supplies. At first, they made do by killing some of their horses and eating them. Ever resourceful, the frontiersmen also used the horses' hides to construct sturdy snowshoes; however, winter was upon them and the journey became wretchedly difficult at times.

Eventually only two men remained in the party: Helm and another man named Burton. Both were tough as nails, but slowly Burton started to weaken and told Helm he just couldn't continue on. Helm decided to leave him behind, but soon after heard a gunshot. He returned to discover (according to his version of the story) that Burton had killed himself. Unfazed, Helm then cut off Burton's legs and roasted them, eating one and wrapping up the other to take along for the rest of the journey.

While there is no official record of when exactly Boone Helm first sampled human flesh, on his journey out to California he encountered a variety of people and apparently killed many of them as it suited him. As a result, he almost always had wilderness law enforcement on his trail. At one point, he was traveling deep into the wilderness with six other men and, one evening around the campfire, confided in the men by saying, "Many's the poor devil I've killed, at one time or another...and the time has been that I've been obliged to feed on some of 'em."  But what exactly did he mean by that? Was he perhaps suggesting that since they were already dead there was no need to let all that meat go to waste?

In 1864, the law once again caught up with Boone Helm - this time in Montana and with no one left to bail him out. He'd really pushed the envelope this time by joining up with a well-known criminal gang led by Henry Plummer. Ever the showman, during the trial Helm marched up to the witness stand and kissed the Bible before he began his testimony. In addition to being a cannibal, thief, and murderer, Helm was also a notorious liar, and proceeded to perjure himself, blaming all his nefarious and disgusting activities on the other gang members.

Around 1850, Boone Helm decided to venture west to find gold in California, and he wanted to bring a travel companion along with him. So, he invited his cousin, Littlebury Shoot, to join him. Shoot was intrigued, but as the departure date drew closer, he got cold feet. Everybody knew Helm was crazy, so it probably was not the best idea to take off into the wilderness with him. So, Shoot told Helm that he was going to stay in Missouri and, as a result, Helm became so angry that he stabbed Shoot in the chest and killed him.

Helm didn't start out his life as a cannibal. In fact, his family was rather well-regarded in Kentucky. But by the time Helm was a teenager, he was known to be the sort of guy who would pick fights with other men just so that he could show off.

One of his favorite stunts was to throw a Bowie knife into the ground, then walk a short distance away, mount a horse and race at full gallop back to the knife, swing his body off the speeding horse, and grab the knife. Coming from a pioneering family, he was a solid frontiersman and fully self-sufficient - maybe even too much so. He also had some trouble with authority, and once, while escaping the clutches of a sheriff who wanted to arrest him, rode his horse right inside the courthouse while it was in session, interrupting the judge to give him a piece of his mind.

Helm was also a heavy drinker, which may have had something to do with his erratic behavior. He married while still a teenager and became notorious for abusing his young wife. His father eventually interceded when the frightened wife filed for divorce, and he agreed to pay all of the court costs. Having ruined his family's reputation, Helm decided to head west and start a new life. His family would never have guessed what this decision would lead to.

Helm came from a big family and was one of 12 children. Somehow, he managed to reach out to one of his brothers, "Old Tex," while he was incarcerated and awaiting trial. He knew that news of his being accused of stealing, murder, and cannibalism had spread across the entire North American continent, and that he would surely be hung.

Perhaps for the first time in his life he was scared - so he begged his brother to help extricate him from the situation. As usual, money talked - particularly in the Wild West. Old Tex had some money to throw in, so he went to visit all of the named witnesses in the case and paid them all off. With no witnesses or evidence, authorities had no choice but to set Boone Helm free. And, of course, he went right back to his wicked ways.

There are plenty of stories, both historical and modern, of instances when cannibalism was used as a means of survival. And there were even a few times when Boone Helm, the Kentucky Cannibal, was so desperate to survive that he resorted to that level of cannibalism; however, he was also known to pack fresh cuts of human flesh to carry with him on his travels, well ahead of any potential life crisis!

During Helm's journey to California, he had a habit of stopping in every saloon along the way. He was, after all, a fan of alcohol. And since he always robbed his victims, he had a rather steady cash flow, including gold coins, burning a hole in his pocket. Sometimes he would bring an intended victim into the saloon with him, or meet a new victim while enjoying a drink. It was a great way to target victims, since their guard was down because of the alcohol. What none of them suspected though, was that while they had come to the bar for a drink, they would wind up being on the menu!