Investigators now believe the victim of the gruesome murder which took place in Berlin on January 5 paid his killer €1,000 to suffocate him during a sadomasochistic sex game, the Berliner Zeitung newspaper reported on Saturday.

Carsten Srock, a 37-year-old bank manager found his killer Michael S. via the internet in 2010 and they met regularly for sex games in which Michael S. took the active role, the paper said. During these meetings Carsten had several times said he wanted to die.

Then on January 1 this year, Carsten S. told his partner he was going out and would not be back that evening. Then he withdrew €1,000 from a bank machine and travelled to his killer’s home in Marienfelde in the south of Berlin.

There, Srock handed over the money and Michael S tied him to the bed by his hands and legs. Then he tied a cloth round his eyes and taped up his mouth and nose with masking tape – becoming sexually aroused as his victim gasped for air, the paper said.

Carsten lost consciousness and was dead by the time Michael removed the masking tape. Then he laid the body in the bath and cut open the jugular vein, in the hope that would reduce the smell, according to the prosecutor.

Then he cut the corpse into pieces and packed them into a suitcase and boxes. Meanwhile he partially cooked his victim’s severed head in water order to be able to dispose of it more easily, the paper reported.

The killer kept his victim’s remains in the flat for three weeks, seemingly unable to get rid of them and sliding into despair, until he finally tried to commit suicide on January 23. Emergency services who went to help him called the police after discovering the body parts.

Prosecutors have now charged the 43-year-old unemployed Berliner with “murder for sexual pleasure.”

The case echoes that of the German cannibal Armin Meiwes, who was jailed for life in 2006 for castrating, killing and partially eating another man – who apparently wanted to die and be eaten.

The Local/jlb