The Gruesome Death Of A German Exotic Pet Owner By A Legion Of Creepy-Crawlies
Adobe StockBlack widow spiders’ venom is 15 times more potent than that of a cobra, but often the bites are so small they aren’t fatal.
If the idea of living in a tiny apartment with more than 200 spiders and lizards sounds like something out of a horror movie, then imagine the terror of walking into such an apartment only to find the occupant dead and the multitude of critters inside crawling over his body.
For German police officers in 2004, that nightmare became a reality when they entered the apartment of Mark Voegel.
And indeed, according to a report from The Courier Mail, a police spokesman described the scene as “like a horror movie.”
“Giant webs draped him, spiders were all over him. They were coming out of his nose and his mouth,” they said. “Larger pieces of flesh torn off by the lizards were scooped up and taken back to the webs of tarantulas and other bird-eating spiders.”
Voegel was reportedly described as a recluse, never inviting anyone to his small apartment in Dortmund — perhaps understandably, as police likened it to a cross between botanical gardens and the butterfly breeding ground from The Silence of the Lambs.
The spider bite that killed him came from one of his favorite pets, a black widow named Bettina. The bite was roughly 15 times more potent than a rattlesnake’s and more lethal than cobra and coral snake venom.
In addition to over 200 spiders, Voegel kept a boa constrictor and several other snakes, poisonous South American frogs, and a gecko named Helmut.
He was believed to have been dead for between one and two weeks before police found him after neighbors reported a foul smell coming from Voegel’s apartment.
In that time, a tarantula had built a nest the size of a swallow’s in one ceiling corner.
According to UPI, many of the cages and terrariums inside the apartment were left open, allowing the bizarre pets to roam free and gorge on Voegel’s dead body.
Police said that the apartment was “bathed in a weird green light.”
Alongside the spiders, snakes, and lizards that feasted on Voegel’s corpse were several thousand termites.
