Ambiance

Bath Salts ruled out. Zombie Apocalypse, the Munchies and Voodoo still possibilities.

June 27, 2012 at 8:30 pm (Icepick) (Cannibalism, Zombies)

Back on June 1st I blogged about a series of cannibal attacks here there and everywhere. The first attack to hit the news had been the highly disturbing (even by cannibalism story standards) attack by Rudy Eugene upon a homeless man on a causeway in Miami. At the time bath salts, the latest drug du jour, had caused Eugene to strip off his clothes, attack another human being and eat that person’s face.

Today the toxicology results from the autopsy on Eugenewere released to the public.

The much-anticipated toxicology report released by Miami-Dade Medical Examiner Dr. Bruce Hyma found marijuana in Eugene’s system, something CBS4 News had previously reported, but no evidence of  any other street drugs, alcohol or prescription drugs, or any adulterants found in street drugs.

The report said this includes cocaine, LSD, amphetamines (Ecstasy, Meth and others), phencyclidine (PCP or Angel Dust), heroin, oxycodone, Xanax, synthetic marijuana (Spice), and many other similar compounds.

Hyma’s office specifically ruled out bath salts, a class of synthetic drugs that have been known to cause bizarre behavior and overheating of people who use them, two things that made some believe Eugene’s cannibalistic behavior could be blamed on the drugs.

So bath salts have been ruled out.

The remaining possibilities are not comforting. He could be Patient Zero for the outbreak of the Zombie Apocalypse. This, of course, is completely absurd.

Or perhaps Eugene had the worst case of the munchies ever. This is also absurd, as I’ve never heard of marijuana inducing straight-up zombie behavior before.

Voodoo is another possibility. The Miami Herald interviewed Eugene’s girlfriend and she offered voodoo as an explanation.

The man being depicted by the media as a “face eater” or a “monster” is not the man she knew, she said. He smoked marijuana often, though had recently said he wanted to quit, but he didn’t use stronger recreational drugs and even refused to take over-the-counter medication for simple ailments like headaches, she said. He was sweet and well-mannered, she said.

Eugene’s girlfriend has her own theory on what happened that day. She believes Eugene was drugged unknowingly. The only other explanation, she said, was supernatural — that someone put a Vodou curse on him. The girlfriend, who unlike Eugene is not Haitian, said she has never believed in Vodou, until now.

“I don’t know how else to explain this,” she said.

Faced with horror, the unbelievable becomes possible for those left behind. Personally I don’t believe in mysticism, so Voodoo as magic doesn’t convince me.

However, Voodoo does have its own rights and practices and herbal trreatments. I can believe that Eugene was dosed with some drug, maybe scopolamine or something similar, that wouldn’t show up on standard toxicology reports. Perhaps the labs didn’t look for the correct drug, and not looking they didn’t find the incriminating drug.

At least that’s what I hope, as the other options are both absurd and disturbing.

(Two other options exist, of course. One is that Eugene had a complete psychotic break. However, it seems that those that knew him were completely shocked by this. At the very least I haven’t heard anyone stating, “Well, Rudy was under a lot of stress and he was pretty high-strung, I knew something was going to happen….” Besides, how many people have breakdowns and start doing … this. I don’t think this hypothesis seems likely. The second option is “UNKNOWN”. That one not only encompasses everything not listed, it also creates a certain dread of its own. If we don’t know what caused Eugene to snap, we can’t be certain that it won’t happen to us.)