Human sausage in 1863 Porto Alegre (no, really! true story)

Porto Alegre has a tradition of anecdotes and storytelling, I think it stems from the cowboy heritage of sitting around a campfire in the evenings of cattle drives with little more to do than eat and tell stories. Since moving here last week I have felt an urge to tell the tale of one of its most gruesome and fantastic stories. The tale is not new it has been told countless times in newspapers and books, nor is it recent, it took place in 1863. If stripped of all details the story is as old as time: murder for profit. But this story has a twist: cannibalism.

In 1863 Porto Alegre was a small town, most of its streets were unpaved, the poor street lighting was provided by fish oil lanterns that generated soot and smelled bad. The streets a couple of blocks downhill from the noble part of town were dark, unpaved, lacking in plumbing and covered in filth. The crimes took place on one such street, Arvoredo Street.

A ne'er-do-well by the name of Jose Ramos lives in a small rented house on Arvoredo Street with a woman by the name of Catarina Palse. He is the son of a military deserter and as a child was fascinated by his father’s war stories, especially those involving the decapitation of enemies on the battlefield (a common practice in the War of the Farrapos). As a young man he stabs his drunken father to death in defense of his battered mother. He runs away to another city and is employed as a military police officer, until he is caught in the act of decapitating a prisoner in his cell. He is discharged and becomes a police informer in Porto Alegre. Catarina Palse is of German descent, born in Hungary. At the age of 12 she suffers atrocities at the hands of the invading Russian army and her family is murdered. At 15 she marries Peter Palse and they move to Brazil to escape abject poverty. Her husband hangs himself during the trip and she arrives in Porto Alegre alone. There these two damaged creatures come together and are joined the third accomplice, a butcher named Carlos Claussner.

Ramos has a penchant for living outside his means and music, he also finds a great deal of joy and satisfaction in killing people. He combines his passions and starts killing people for the money they carry. It was common at the time for people to carry most of their monetary worth in their pockets, especially when traveling for business. At first he is cautions, he cannot give in entirely to his passion for fear of being caught and hung. But Claussner, who owns a butcher shop, comes up with a brilliant plan for disposing of the bodies. He would make sausage out of Ramos’s victims and there would be no evidence left of the crime.

Given a method for impunity, Ramos goes on the hunt. One of his favorite hunting grounds is the area around the city’s public market, he looks for business travelers or wealthy women from out of town. He spends time charming his victim who is then invited to dinner at his house on Arvoredo St. The victim is served a sumptuous meal and plenty to drink. After dinner Ramos excuses himself momentarily and returns with a hatchet and a dagger. His modus operandi is to split the skull with the hatchet and decapitate with the dagger. Catarina cleans the blood stains, Claussner and an accomplice named Henrique cut the body into pieces and transport it in two wooden trunks to the butcher shop. The bodies were either transported on a hired cart or by two hired slaves.

“The butcher debones the meat and grinds it on a small machine. Seasons the meat with salt, pepper and other spices. Takes the dried whole intestine, ties one end with a string. In the open end he inserts a tube through which he inserts the minced meat. When the intestine is filled he ties the other end with a string. ” “The bones are incinerated in the butcher shop yard and the ashes discarded in the Guaiba river.” [from “O Maior Crime da Terra by Decio Freitas]

The sausages were mixed with bovine meat on a cart and sold around town. The butcher was instructed to offer the sausage at a reduced price at the homes of the president of the province, the chief of police, the bishop and other prominent citizens including wealthy merchants, the remainder was sold at the butcher’s shop. There was a high demand since not many places made sausages in town.

The night before the sausage is sold Claussner and Ramos have Catarina fry some for dinner. The rest is sold the following day. In all cases they sampled the sausage before it was sold. The butcher’s customers called it “special sausage” because they thought it was more flavorful than other sausages, and complained when none was available for sale. Sometimes Claussner would take orders for future batches.

After each murder Ramos follows an obsessive ritual. He recites a biblical psalm, eats heartily but alone, he shaves and takes a long bath. He then dresses meticulously in the finery his activities have afforded him and puts on an exaggerated amount of cologne to offset the stench of the streets. He was later called the “Perfumed Monster”. He orders a carriage and goes to the Sao Pedro theater a few blocks way. After the murders he always felt artistic and following this ritual would declare himself cleansed. The Sao Pedro theater is in the noblest part of town and there he hobnobs with the highest society. His manner of dress and address makes him welcome in that circle in spite of his low origins.

In September 1863 Claussner tells Ramos he has had enough. His customers keep commenting on the odd tasting sausage, even while finding it delicious. Claussner is afraid of getting caught and declares he will no longer participate and that he is moving to Montevideo. Ramos is afraid that once Claussner is safely tucked away in Uruguay he might rat him out with an incriminating letter to the police. So in a dark evening he goes to the Claussner’s apartment over the butcher shop and splits his skull with a hatchet while he sleeps. He chops the body into pieces and uses two of the victim’s trunks to transport it to his house on Arvoredo St. where Clausssner is buried in the yard. Ramos ransacks the butcher shop for valuables and tells everyone that he won the lottery and that Claussner moved to Uruguay and left him the butcher shop. His story becomes inconsistent and the police start to suspect foul play.

With his partner gone, Ramos is no longer able to properly dispose of his victims and the next few are buried in the yard or the basement of the house. Eventually a victim is seen entering the house and never leaving and an investigation finds Claussner and a few other bodies on his property. He is tried for those murders but escapes the noose. He is never tried for the murders of 1863 or for selling special sausage to the public. After years of incarceration he managed a sort of prison work furlough where he worked in the city’s public hospital as a nursing aid. He was known for sitting vigil with the dying. Both he and Catarina lived to be old and free and the case of the sausages was covered up by missing and poor documentation. Probably because the local elite did not want to be reminded that they had been unwitting cannibals.

Arvoredo St today is called Fernando Machado St. All of the information in this post is taken from a book called “O Maior Crime da Terra” (The Greatest Crime on Earth) written by Decio Freitas, published by Editora Sulina in 1998, out of print. Decio Freitas’ research is thorough and his book is filled with fascinating details and cultural references of the time.

This story fascinates me for a couple of reasons. It took place some four blocks from where I live and every morning I walk my dog past the same church Ramos attended every morning, and past the Sao Pedro theater he attended after each murder. Ramos, in his embittered and vengeful state preferred to sell the sausages to the upper classes of the city’s society, a very small group to which my great grandmother’s parents belonged at the time. Because their portraits have hung on a wall all of my life, their names and faces have always been familiar to me, and I was fortune to know my great grandmother personally, I feel close to them and cringe at the thought that they might have been Ramos’ unwitting clients. My great grandmother was such a proper lady… I wonder what her reaction would have been. I choose to think she never knew anything about the story.

Andradas st. one of the wealthy parts of town

Arvoredo st. a few years after the crimes

The newly build jail house, where Ramos was first sent

Porto Alegre Public Market, one of his hunting grounds. 

Matriz sq. the noblest section of town with government buildings the cathedral

Sao Pedro theater in those days (also on Matriz sq.)