PETA’s Human BBQ Demo Becomes All Too Real

By now, you might have heard about Timothy Wayne Shepherd, the 28-year-old man who confessed last year to killing his ex-girlfriend and who is also charged with dismembering and barbecuing her—no, really.

While this story is shocking and terrible, it sounds awfully familiar. Oh, that’s right! Last week on the PETA Files, we posted an entry all about barbecuing humans! It was a demonstration to get people to wake up and “meet their meat.” In our demo, a woman had her body painted like charred flesh and lay on a mock grill while passersby gawked—forced to make the connection that those tightly wrapped, clean-looking meat packages in the grocery store once were living, breathing beings who felt pain when they were slaughtered.

In our case, the demo was thought-provoking and symbolic (flesh is flesh). In Timothy’s case … it might have been a bit too real.

We’re writing to the prison where Shepherd is being held. If he is convicted of the murder, he will receive a sentence presumably intended to prevent him from taking any more lives. Well, we certainly agree with this sentiment—and that’s why we’re asking Shepherd’s jailers to stop the cycle of senseless killing by putting him on an all-vegetarian diet. We can never bring back the young woman who was the victim of Shepherd’s crime, but we can try to prevent him from causing any more painful deaths.

Written by Amanda Schinke