Girlfriend Blames Drugs Or Vaudou For Boyfriend Behavior

Bernadette - June 1 2012, 7:05 PM

Girlfriend blames drugs, voodoo for grisly U.S. attack

Agence France-Presse May 31, 2012

A Haitian voodoo practitioner dressed as "Gede", a spirit of the voodoo, smokes during a ceremony at the national cemetery in Port-au-Prince November 1, 2010. Haitians celebrating All Hallows visit cemeteries to pay respects to the dead in a two-day national holiday that offers food, alcohol and flowers to Baron Samdi, the guardian of the dead in Voodoo.

A Haitian voodoo practitioner dressed as "Gede", a spirit of the voodoo, smokes during a ceremony at the national cemetery in Port-au-Prince November 1, 2010. Haitians celebrating All Hallows visit cemeteries to pay respects to the dead in a two-day national holiday that offers food, alcohol and flowers to Baron Samdi, the guardian of the dead in Voodoo.

Photograph by: EDUARDO MUNOZ, Reuters

The girlfriend of a U.S. man who savagely used his bare teeth to rip into another man's face in Florida said he must have been under the influence of drugs or voodoo magic, local media reported Thursday.

The naked assailant, 31-year-old Rudy Eugene, was shot dead by police in Miami on Saturday after consuming almost the entire face of his victim, a 65-year-old homeless man.

Eugene's girlfriend, who asked not to be identified, told the Miami Herald that the man who carried out the attack bore no resemblance to the gentle man she was dating, and surmised that Eugene might have unwittingly been under the influence of drugs.

"The only other explanation was supernatural - that someone put a voodoo curse on him," the woman told the daily of Eugene, who is of Haitian descent.

"I don't know how else to explain this," she said. "He was a believer of God."

Eugene's mother, Ruth Charles, also subscribed to the theory that her son was under the influence of powerful drugs.

"Everybody says that he was a zombie, but I know he's not a zombie; he's my son. I don't know what they injected in him to turn him into the person who did what he did," she said.

News reports said the victim, identified as Ronald Poppo, remained hospitalized in serious condition.

Saturday's bloody spectacle unfolded near Miami's busy MacArthur Causeway, a low-slung bridge from the downtown area to nearby beaches.

Police ordered Eugene to stop his assault, and then fatally shot him when he continued to devour the face of his victim.

Poppo reportedly lost 75 percent of his face in the attack, including his eyes, nose, cheeks and mouth.

Read more: vancouversun.com/news/Girlfriend+b...

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