Lawyer: Prior Bat Attack Foreshadowed Cannibalism
BALTIMORE (AP) -- A victim left partially blinded by a baseball bat attack at a Maryland university now believes a cannibalism suspect in another case may have been planning to eat his organs, too, his attorney said Tuesday.
When Joshua Ceasar, 22, regained consciousness after the attack last month at a Morgan State University dormitory apartment, he saw Alex Kinyua standing over him with a knife, said attorney Steve Silverman. Days later, Kinyua told investigators that he had eaten the heart and brain of a family friend he is charged with killing at his family's home in Joppatowne, according to charging documents.
"In hindsight, knowing what transpired only days later, Josh is convinced that Alex was going to cut open his body and likely consume his organs," Silverman said. What may have prevented it was two other apartment residents followed a blood trail from the front door and stopped Kinyua before he could use the knife and he fled into nearby woods.
Campus police charged Kinyua with assault and reckless endangerment in the bat attack. Prosecutors asked a court
commissioner to refuse bail, but he was freed on $220,000 bail, according to the State's Attorney's office. Ceasar said Kinyua randomly attacked him, according to a probable cause statement obtained from Baltimore police. Witnesses told police that Kinyua attacked Ceasar with a bat, but the statement does not mention witnesses interrupting a knife attack in a back room.
Kinyua's attorney could not be reached for comment.
Kinyua was waiting with a bat wrapped in barbed wire and chains when an unsuspecting Ceasar walked through the front door of the apartment Kinyua had been sharing with Ceasar's friends on May 19, Silverman said. Ceasar was visiting campus for another friend's graduation. He lost consciousness when Kinyua cracked him on the head, fracturing his skull and shattering his left eye socket.
Ceasar is blind in that eye and doctors aren't optimistic that he will regain his sight, Silverman said.
Kinyua, 21, a U.S. citizen originally from Kenya and a Morgan student, admitted using a knife to kill and carve up Kujoe Bonsafo Agyei-Kodie, 37, before eating his organs, the Harford County Sheriff's Office said when they arrested him May 30.
The older man, a native of Ghana, had been staying with the Kinyua family for about six weeks at their townhouse in the Baltimore suburb of Joppatowne and disappeared May 25. His body was found four days later and investigators haven't given a possible motive.
Silverman said he is investigating if there were earlier signs that Kinyua was a danger.
"We are in the process of ... determining whether or not university officials should have or could have done anything in
light of what was known to them to protect students, family and friends on campus for graduation," he said. "It appears
preliminarily there were a number of indicators."
A December campus police report obtained by The Baltimore Sun states that Kinyua was kicked out of an ROTC program after he punched holes in the walls of the cadet computer lab and a military instructor referred to him as a "Virginia Tech waiting to happen."
The report said Kinyua was barred from campus until a meeting with school officials and that two officers didn't think a psychological evaluation was needed.
The university is reviewing whether officials could have responded in a different way, said Morgan spokesman Clinton
Coleman.
"At this point we believe the university did everything it should have," he said. "You always have to bear in mind that you are dealing with student issues and young people and you have to deal with each person individually."
Agyei-Kodie's sister, Irene Konadu Asante, said the family would discuss the possibility of taking legal action on Thursday, following tradition in Ghana of waiting a week after a death before holding a family meeting.
She said the funeral would be held in Ghana, "whatever it takes," but arrangements had not yet been made. When asked how her family is reacting to the horrific way in which her brother was killed, she said it is not easy.
"It's not only my family -- the way it hit the whole world," Asante said. "It's more than you can imagine."
(Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
