Cannibal Game: A New Direction in Pick-up Artistry?

Handsome Brute: British cannibal Matthew Williams

The pick-up artist community likes to draw on evolutionary psychology for its memes and arguments. While I have some sympathy for their general perspective, it is sometimes hard to square these arguments with real-world events - as the following story illustrates:

Welsh Cannibal Matthew Williams Eats Victim Cerys Marie Yemm and then Dies after being Tasered in Homeless Hostel

The not unattractive Ms Yemm

A killer was allegedly found eating the body parts of a woman he had attacked before being shot with a Taser by police yesterday. He later died. The woman, who died of her injuries, has been named as Cerys Marie Yemm. Matthew Williams, 34, is reported to have been eating the eyeball and face of the 22-year-old woman, who died of her injuries. Police confirmed they had used a 50,000-volt Taser on Williams. Security staff at a hostel for the homeless in Argoed, South Wales, became suspicious when Williams refused to let them enter the room. They are said to have forced entry, before calling the police who knocked Williams to the ground with a Taser gun.

Ms Yemm: an eye for dangerous men

Gwent Police confirmed that the man was shot with a Taser and then arrested, and that while under arrest the man “became unresponsive”.

Williams had been released from prison two weeks ago, after serving half of a five-year prison sentence for a violent attack on his partner. Williams – who is known locally by the nickname Fifi – was staying at the former Sirhowy Arms Hotel, which operated as a bail hostel. He is said to have only just met his victim before asking her back to the hostel for a drink.

Police confirmed that Williams and his victim were known to each other.

Police were carrying out forensic tests on a silver BMW believed to belong to Williams which was parked outside the hostel. Locals have reportedly nicknamed the man “Hannibal Lecter” after the fictional cannibal character. A Gwent Police spokeswoman said:

“While under arrest, the man became unresponsive. Officers and paramedics administered first aid but he has since been pronounced deceased. We were called at 1.23am yesterday after a report that a man was attacking a woman. On arrival both the male and female were still at the location. A Taser was discharged and a man was arrested.

“The woman was located with injuries and has since been pronounced deceased.”

SOURCE: UK Independent, 6th November 2014

While deeply disturbing, the story does seem to shed important light on what women find inherently attractive in a man. Whatever else may be said of Williams, he seemed to have some pretty impressive Game skills. After all, despite living in a hostel for the homeless he was able to pick up a fairly attractive young woman for a night of fun and - well, let's leave it at that. He had been imprisoned for a violent attack on his former partner, something Ms Yemm quite possibly knew about (they were 'known to each other', after all). In addition, Williams was suffering severe mental illness prior to the attack, a result of long-term drug abuse. Indeed, he reported seeing the world as a black-and-white negative. Safe pair of hands, then...

So there we have it. A sadistic, woman-beating thug without education, intelligence or looks, dressed like the inmate of some Eighteenth Century prison hulk, living in a malodorous doss-house full of other psychotic misfits and seeing the world as a photographic negative is able to pick up a relatively attractive young girl ten years younger than himself without any problem at all. Quite the Gamer!

While I am fully aware that the Traditionalist MRAs' fixation with putting the clock back to an era that elides the inchoate vagaries of female mate-choice is deluded, stories like this sometimes make me wish such a thing were possible.

The last thing she ever saw...