Topic author: shy
Subject: Did Brain Surgery Turn Man into a Cannibal?
Posted on: 03 January 2006 7:20:03 PM
Message:

Suspect blames his brain surgery
Police say man's wife was cut up, cooked

The aftermath of a horrific killing in which a Jackson man allegedly dismembered his wife's body and cooked it in the kitchen of a diner they ran has the whole town wondering: Was he capable of such brutality, or was he rendered insane from emergency brain surgery?

That question could be at the crux of the trial of Kevin (Kip) Artz, whom police said they found carrying his wife Patricia's head in a box July 15, when they went to the couple's home next to the restaurant because relatives had reported her missing.

Alex Lazaroff, 18, who washed dishes at Kip's Pizza Taco House near Jackson in 1997 and remained friends with the couple, said Friday that he never saw them fight.

"He loved Pat. He loved her with all his heart," he said.

Like others, he's not sure whether to believe Artz's defense claims that he was never the same after brain surgery just weeks before the murder, "or if he had some dark side he never showed anyone," Lazaroff said.

Artz, 43, is being held without bond in the Jackson County Jail awaiting trial on charges of murder and corpse mutilation.

It was a gruesome day of testimony Thursday for the Jackson County Sheriff's Department deputies who discovered the scene.

"I recognized burnt flesh on the counter," said Sgt. Thomas Fiero, a sheriff's detective who testified in Artz's preliminary examination, according to the Jackson Citizen-Patriot. Deputy Wayne Bisard testified that on a porch next to the restaurant, he found a box with a damaged skull and cooked flesh.

Fiero said state crime lab officers sprayed parts of the house and restaurant kitchen with a chemical that reacts with blood, forming a glowing substance.

"The kitchen area was overwhelming," Fiero said of the blue glow on the floor and counters. "You didn't need the lights on."

A pathologist testified there were too few remains to determine how Patricia Artz was killed, said Kip Artz's lawyer, Joseph Filip.
Relatives also testified that there were no signs of relationship trouble for the pair, married about a dozen years. They said Artz acted strangely and was forgetful after the surgery to remove a large blood clot in his brain's right side, Filip said.