Eaten by a cannibal

Welcome to Closer! Sign In or Sign Up

Home|

Showbiz|

Real Life|

Diets & Health|

Money Savvy|

Competitions|

Bingo|

Closer Diets|

Email Address
Password
Forgot Password?
Remember Me?

Need To Register? Click Here

New Bigger Prizes.

Join today and we will double your first deposit as well!

Back | Email to a Friend | Print | Send in Your Comment

‘My best friend was eaten by a cannibal’

Tuesday 05 February 2008

When Jenny Landfair received a phone call to say her best friend had been killed, she thought it was a sick joke.

Once you've read the story click here to join our forum discussions and let us know what you think? We want to know your thoughts. Or leave a comment at the bottom of the page.

But it really wasn’t, best pal Jana Shearer, 21, had been murdered and butchered by her evil boyfriend – who’d horrifyingly then filleted her body to cook and eat.

After cannibal Chris McCuin, 24, made his chilling phone call confession to Jenny, he calmly called the police to say he’d killed and cooked his girlfriend.

Chris McCuin

In an exclusive interview with Closer, Jenny, 23, who’d been with Jana just hours before her murder, says:

“Chris called me and kept repeating the same thing like a zombie. It was horrible. He said: ‘Jana’s dead. I’ve killed her. Jana’s dead.’ I thought it was a sick joke and told him to stop fooling around.

“I still get the creeps thinking about that conversation. I had no idea what he’d done to Jana – to think he was eating her is sick beyond words.”

Grisly murder scene

When police burst into McCuin’s house they found a grisly murder scene.

Jana’s severed ear was being boiled in a saucepan on the stove and a chunk of her flesh was found on a dinner plate with a fork dug into it.

McCuin had scattered some of Jana’s other body parts around the room before phoning the police and admitting he’d killed her.

Jana Shearer

Single mum Jenny, from Whitehouse, Texas, lived next door to Jana, and the pair were incredibly close.

“Jana was fun to be around,” says Jenny. “She had such a positive outlook on life. She told me she wasn’t serious about Chris, that it was just a bit of fun.”

Arguments on night of murder

At least once a week, Jana and Jenny met up for drinks and a gossip. The night of Jana’s murder, on 4 January this year, the friends had planned a girls’ night in.

“We were supposed to be having a girlie evening, but Chris turned up. I heard them arguing, but I don’t know what was said,” says Jenny. “That was the last time I saw her.”

Jenny Landfair

Jenny later discovered that Jana had told another friend she was planning to end her relationship with McCuin that evening because she’d discovered he had a criminal past.

He was on bail for assaulting a police officer after being stopped for drink-driving. He’d already been jailed for three years in 2003 for assault with a deadly weapon and his record stretched back to his teens, with arrests for drugs, assault, disorderly conduct and being drunk in public.

Panic call

The morning after that fateful night, Jana’s mum Stephanie called Jenny in a panic after realising Jana had not come home. Jenny went next door to her house.

She says: “While I was there, the phone rang. It was Chris. He kept on saying he’d killed Jana. I told him to stop being stupid, but he kept on repeating it. It wasn’t the sort of thing you expect to hear.”

But when Jenny and Stephanie noticed Jana’s make-up bag and phone in the house, they started to wonder if McCuin was telling the truth.

“Her make-up bag was in her bedroom, and Jana wouldn’t ever leave home without that,” recalls Jenny.
“As soon as I saw that and her mobile phone, I knew something bad had happened. It wasn’t like Jana to go off without telling anyone.”

Tortured in a garage

Police believe McCuin tortured Jana before finally killing her in his mum’s garage in Tyler, Texas. An autopsy found she had died from a massive blow to the head with a blunt instrument.

McCuin called the police and, in a “matter-of-fact” way, said he’d killed his girlfriend and was boiling parts of her.

“He led the operator to believe he may have been eating flesh, but we are not sure,” said a police spokesman at the time. “Her body is lacerated, with chunks cut out of her face and upper torso area.”

Since being charged with first-degree murder, McCuin has claimed he heard voices from God telling him to carry out the brutal slaying.

He faces the death penalty if convicted of murder, but that’s little consolation to Jenny. “Nothing will ever bring Jana back,” she says. “She was just starting out on her life. I hope McCuin rots in hell.”

WORDS: Paul Thompson

What do you think of this story? Click here to join our forum discussions. We want to know your thoughts. Or leave a comment below...