Warning: this article discusses graphic violence and cannibalism which some readers may find distressing.
A man who was sentenced to life imprisonment for castrating men and live streaming it for a paying audience tried to claim he had a rare condition.
Marius Gustavson will serve a minimum prison term of 22 years behind bars for his actions, with him being described as a 'lunatic' and a 'butcher' during his sentencing last year.
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A new documentary, titled The Eunuch Maker, explores the world he set up around himself and the website through which he streamed his gruesome castrations.
For several years, Gustavson would bring seemingly consensual individuals to flats and hotel rooms in London to castrate them and stream it, saying he would share the money made from the videos with his victims.
At times when an ambulance needed to be called, the Norwegian man would lie and claim that the person he had castrated had injured themselves by accident, including one time where he falsely claimed his victim had dropped a kitchen knife.
When police raided his flat, they found human body parts kept as 'trophies', including testicles in takeaway trays stashed in his freezer, and his own penis which he still kept four years after having it amputated.
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The BBC reports that Gustavson's legal team attempted to mount a defence on the grounds that he just wanted to 'put a smile on people's faces' if they, like him, suffered from body integrity dysphoria (BID), a rare condition where a person feels as though a body part doesn't belong to them and they want it removed.
However, the prosecution said that even if such a thing were true and potentially explained some of Gustavson's actions regarding his own body, including having himself castrated by someone else who was sentenced, it didn't explain everything else he did to other people.
They said: "We suggest that diagnosis - if it exists - may explain why it is Mr Gustavson acted as he did to have his own body maimed and mutilated, but does not explain why he made a lucrative business out of mutilating others."
As part of his website, the 'Eunuch Maker', he sold subscriptions where people could pay up to £100 for an annual package which let them watch the livestreams of him castrating people.
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By the time, it was shut down the website had over 22,000 subscribers and Gustavson had made around £300,000 from it.
Court documents also indicate that Gustavson sold human body parts, like human tissue, online, with a 'buy it now' referred to, while some of the body parts cut off during the castrations were seemingly cooked and consumed by Gustavson.
Speaking to LADbible about The Eunuch Maker, Marcel Theroux talked about meeting with 'voluntary eunuchs', who are people who had chosen to be castrated. He said the people he spoke to did seem to have dysphoria.
He said: "You do get a sense these are people with a terrible dysphoria who experience parts of their body as not their own, and are willing to go through a very extreme procedure to get rid of it."
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Theroux said that one of the people he interviewed for the documentary was 'someone who's been through a terrible trauma, and he identifies it with his penis'.
"They're looking for a way of resolving their conflicts, this unhappiness they feel, and it made them very vulnerable to Marius, who was offering himself as a solution," he said.
The Eunuch Maker is available to watch on Crime+Investigation and Crime+Investigation Play.
Topics: Crime, True Crime, UK News, Mental Health
Joe Harker