The case attracted considerable media attention. On 30 January 2004, Meiwes was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to eight years in prison. Investigators searched his home, and found body parts and the videotape of the killing. Meiwes was arrested in December 2002, when a college student in Innsbruck phoned the police after seeing new advertisements for victims and details about the killing on the Internet. Arrest, trial, and conviction of manslaughter According to prosecutors, Meiwes committed the act for sexual pleasure.

Meiwes ate the corpse over the next ten months, storing body parts in his freezer under pizza boxes and consuming up to 20 kilograms (44 lb) of the flesh. The incident was recorded on a four-hour videotape. After long hesitation and prayer Meiwes killed Brandes by stabbing him in the throat, after which he hung the body on a meat hook. Brandes continued to drift in and out of consciousness before finally collapsing again. Meiwes then claims to have dragged him upstairs. Later Brandes got out of the bath and collapsed, falling into unconsciousness, due to blood loss. Meiwes then ran Brandes a bath, before going to read a Star Trek book, while checking back on Brandes every fifteen minutes, during which time Brandes lay bleeding in the bath. According to court officials who saw the video (which has not been made public), Brandes may already have been too weakened from blood loss to eat any of his penis. He then chopped the penis up into chunks and fed it to his dog. Meiwes then fried the penis in a pan with salt, pepper, wine, and garlic he then fried it with some of Brandes' fat, but by then it was too burned to be consumed. Brandes apparently tried to eat some of his own penis raw but could not, because it was too tough and, as he put it, 'chewy'.

This did not work, and ultimately, Meiwes used a knife to remove Brandes' appendage. Brandes initially insisted that Meiwes attempt to bite his penis off.

Before doing so Brandes swallowed twenty sleeping pills, and half a bottle of schnapps. The two made a videotape when they met on 9 March 2001 in Meiwes' home, in the small town of Rotenburg, showcasing Meiwes amputating Brandes' penis (with Brandes' agreement) and the two men attempting to eat it together, before Brandes' ultimate demise. Many other people responded to the advertisement but backed out Meiwes did not attempt to force them to do anything against their will. Meiwes' post stated that he was 'looking for a well-built 18 to 30-year-old to be slaughtered and then consumed.' Bernd Jürgen Armando Brandes, an engineer from Berlin, answered the advertisement in March 2001. Looking for a willing volunteer, Meiwes posted an advertisement on the website, The Cannibal Cafe (a blog site for people with cannibal fetishes). 2Arrest, trial, and conviction of manslaughter.3 Arrest, trial, and conviction of manslaughter.

Armin meiwes video stills