WARNING: DISTRESSING CONTENT The spider, which one expert described as ‘the equivalent to a Pitbull’ bit the 30-year-old, loading with venom before he was feasted on by his hundreds of insect pets.
One German man met a gruesome end when his pet black widow spider bit and killed him, leaving him to be devoured by his host of other pets in his zoo-like home, including 200 insects, and lizards.
His tiny apartment was broken into by police in 2004, only for officers to find Mark Voegel dead with a multitude of creepy crawlies ravaging his body, according to a report from The Courier Mail.
The spider bite that killed him was a black widow named Bettina. The bite was roughly 15 times more potent than a rattlesnake’s and more lethal than cobra and coral snake venom.
A police spokesman said the scene was “like a horror movie.” He added: “Giant webs draped him, spiders were all over him. They were coming out of his nose and his mouth. Larger pieces of flesh torn off by the lizards were scooped up and taken back to the webs of tarantulas and other bird-eating spiders.”
Voegel was characterised as a recluse, with no one ever invited to his Dortmund home. This may make sense as police likened the flat to a cross between botanical gardens and the butterfly breeding ground from The Silence of the Lambs.
However, it was not just spiders that Voegel kept. As well as his eight-legged friends, Voegel kept a boa constrictor and several other snakes, poisonous South American frogs, and a gecko named Helmut.
Tragically, Voegel was believed to to have died between one and two weeks before police found him. Neighbors raised the alarm after they reported a foul smell coming from Voegel’s apartment.
Reportedly one tarantula had built a nest the size of a swallow’s in one ceiling corner, with UPI , reporting that many of the cages and terrariums inside the apartment were left open, hence the zoo-like Armageddon that had been unleashed in the space.
Police said the apartment was “bathed in a weird green light.” His collection also included several thousand termites. The remains of 30-year-old Voegel were found on a sofa, covered in giant cobwebs.
“Spiders were running all over him,” said a spokesman. “They were coming out of his nose and mouth. Larger pieces of flesh had been torn off by the lizards and were taken back to the webs of tarantulas and other bird-eating spiders.
“There were open cages and terrariums everywhere – all bathed in a weird green light. It was horrible.” Local expert Gabi Bayer said Voegel should never have been allowed to keep many of his pets. She added: “Some of his spiders are so aggressive they’re the equivalent of the pit-bull in the animal world.”