Boone Helm

Boone Helm (1828 – January 14, 1864) was a mountain man and gunfighter of the American West known as the Kentucky Cannibal. Helm was a serial killer who gained his nickname for his opportunistic and unrepentant proclivity for the consumption of human flesh taken from the bodies of enemies and traveling companions. While this was usually done in survival situations, Helm sometimes took flesh in preparation for a survival situation.

Early life

Boone Helm was born in Kentucky into what was considered an honest, hard-working and respected family. Helm's family moved to Missouri when he was still a boy. Helm delighted in demonstrating feats of strength and agility, and would goad men into fights and regale others by throwing his Bowie knife into the ground and retrieving it from a horse at full gallop. In one incident that demonstrates his contempt for authority, Helm, on horseback, rebuffed the sheriff's attempt to arrest him and walked his horse up the stairs of a courthouse and into the courtroom, while circuit court was in session, and verbally harangued the judge.