Judge: Man Who Ate Mother 'Needed to Eat'

A Russian man has been given a reduced sentence because the judge said "he needed to eat" after he killed and ate parts of his mother.

The Daily Mail reports that Sergey Gavrilov received a shorter jail sentence after confessing he was hungry and needed to eat his mom because he had spent all of his money on vodka and gambling. Russia's law usually assigns 15 years in jail for those who have committed crimes like Gavrilov's, but the convict will serve 14 years and three months.

The newspaper reports that Gavrilov killed his mother by hitting her head with a brick and strangling her after she refused to give him money to spend on alcohol. He put her body on the balcony at their home in southern Russia, and then went away for two days on a gambling and drinking binge.

He returned home hungry. With no food around, he started eating parts of his mother.

Police discovered the grisly scene when they were called to the home, suspecting he had stolen a cell phone.

Last month police arrested a father in the Philippines who they say killed a boy who had been bullying his son, carved out meat on the boy's body and shared the meat with his drinking friends.