Britain's ‘Canterbury cannibal' now living in U.S.

BLAIR, Neb. — A man who in 2014 was convicted in England of trying to eat a teenage girl has moved to the United States, and his new neighbors are not happy about his presence.

Dale Bolinger, 62, has registered as a sex offender in Blair, Nebraska, according to the state's sex offender registry. Washington County Sheriff Mike Robinson confirmed Monday that Bolinger was in the jail there, but declined to say why.

"He's here, but I cannot tell you why," Robinson told the Omaha World-Herald. "Legally, I cannot say anything."

Jail records show that Bolinger was booked into the facility on Friday, but no charges are listed. WOWT in Omaha reported that the lack of listed charges could mean he is being held on a mental health warrant.

Washington County Attorney Scott Vander Schaaf told the news station that he and Robinson have been “closely involved with the Bolinger situation.”

"We want to inform the citizens of Washington County that law enforcement and the county attorney's office know the location of Mr. Bolinger and you can rest assured that he is not a threat to the community at this time," Vander Schaaf said in a statement obtained by WOWT.

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Bolinger’s neighbors were upset to learn that the man dubbed the “Canterbury cannibal” in Britain had moved to their community. Bolinger, who worked as a nurse at Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Hospital in Margate, was sentenced in 2014 to nine years in prison for trying to meet an underage girl he had met online.

The BBC reported that Bolinger told police when he was arrested that he was interested in children as food. He also told investigators he had a computer disc that held an image of a young girl on a serving plate, an apple in her mouth.

Bolinger arranged to meet the girl in September 2012 following a period of “sexual grooming” online. The online chats were with someone he believed to be either 14 or 16 years old.

In the chats, Bolinger described the sex acts he wanted to perform on the girl and how he would kill her, the BBC reported. He bought an ax the day before he arranged to meet the girl at a train station, but the girl did not show up for the meeting.

Bolinger also admitted to other crimes, including putting a cloth soaked in cleaning fluid over a woman’s mouth in 2010 and creating fake indecent photos of children.

It was not immediately clear why Bolinger was released from prison so early into his sentence and deported.

Though he lived in England, Bolinger is an American citizen. At the time of his arrest, he had been married for more than three decades; he also has three children.

Bolinger told British authorities that he'd had cannibalistic fantasies since the age of 6, the BBC said. Psychiatrists who examined him as part of his court case found that he was not mentally ill.

The World-Herald reported that British investigators were made aware of Bolinger's activities during the 2013 case of former New York police Officer Gilberto Valle, who was convicted of plotting to kill and eat women. Valle's conviction was later overturned.

The two men chatted online about their cannibalistic fetishes, the World-Herald reported.

Bolinger moved into his Blair neighborhood earlier this month, the newspaper said. Neighbors became panic-stricken upon learning of his presence.

"It's making my heart race," Sylvia Kasper told the World-Herald. "It's scary considering I have a small daycare, and now I really have to watch and keep doors locked."

Cox Media Group