The man sitting across the table licked his lips so often, almost after every other word, that it was distracting. But with this particular person it wasn't just distracting, but very disturbing.

He is one of the world's most notorious killers, who mercilessly butchered young women before dining on their flesh - sauteed with onions and oregano, or cooked with vegetables in a stew.

Confessed cannibal Jorge Beltrao Negromonte hadn't savoured the 'succulent' taste of human flesh for at least three years - and MailOnline was about to spend the next four hours alone with him.

Confessed cannibal Jorge Beltrao Negromonte hadn't savoured the 'succulent' taste of human flesh for at least three years - and MailOnline was about to spend the next four hours alone with him

Wicked love: Bruna da Silva was 16 when Negromonte took her as his mistress after his wife Isabel was unable to get pregnant. Negromonte blames Bruna for manipulating him into murdering his victims

Satanic: Negromonte's disturbing drawing from his book 'Revelations of a Schizophrenic' shows women being murdered in horrific ways. He and his women carried out the killings in the name of their twisted cult, which aimed to bring down the world's population. Eating their victims was supposed to 'purify' their souls

Prophecy: A woman chopped into pieces in other page from his sick book. Negromonte described one killing: 'I only remember flashes. Blood spurting from her neck... then her in pieces on the bathroom floor'

This is the sick 'Sweeney Todd' serial killer who infamously baked his female victims in meat pies, then sold them to unsuspecting customers on the streets of Guaranhuns, northeastern Brazil.

The monster slayed one young woman in front of her 18-month-old daughter - then fed the toddler pieces of her mother the next day for lunch.

Negromonte, a former university professor, justified his acts by claiming the women he killed would give birth to future 'thieves and lowlifes'. His twisted belief was that by devouring their flesh he purified himself from the sin of murder.

Along with his wife Isabel Pires and younger mistress Bruna da Silva, he created a macabre cult, believing they were helping to rid the world of the ill-educated and their negative energies.

But - as he was about to reveal - behind it was also a burning resentment over his inability to have children himself. The two combined explosively to give birth to unimaginable horror.

I can't remember if we ever fried it like a steak. I did buy a mincing machine for Bruna to make minced meat, but I'm not sure if she used it. The meat would last for three or four days. We would have it for lunch and dinner until it was all gone

The remote Desembargador Augusto Duque prison in north east Brazil jail where Negromonte is serving his sentence is in Pesqueira, a poor town of dirt roads and mud-brick houses 150 miles inland from Recife, has capacity for 144 prisoners, but is currently packed with 997 criminals.

Negromonte shares a small cell with 33 inmates, who have to share just five beds.

As the serial killer was escorted handcuffed, from his cell, he was silent, his shaven head bowed. He extended a hand to me and made eye contact, his stare stony and emotionless.

Deliberate and controlled, he never raised his voice, but he was polite and often engaging, speaking with a cultured, well-schooled Portuguese which reflected his middle-class upbringing.

Even the prison guards told how Negromonte was good-natured and got on with his fellow inmates, even joking about how he had wanted a job preparing food in the jail kitchens.

But in his first ever interview from the prison where he is serving 23 years, he gave a glimpse of the evil boiling behind the cool exterior. Negromonte told MailOnline in chilling detail, why he killed, how he killed, appeared to point to more victims... and that he would kill again.

'I believe that, for people to be safe, I, Jorge, need to be in here,' he said. 'I'm here, handcuffed, in prison, but you don't hear me complaining. If I were let out, as I am today, I could do another one.'

Of his taste for human flesh, he said: 'Human meat, for me, is no different to beef. It has the same taste and the same succulent consistency. It isn't any more delicious than beef, but neither is it less delicious.

'The women would prepare the meat. We'd often cook it in a Mexican stew called carne guisada, with vegetables. Isabel would use it to make a typical northeastern dish called Macaxeira, made from cassava root, which was tasty.

'I can't remember if we ever fried it like a steak. I did buy a mincing machine for Bruna to make minced meat, but I'm not sure if she used it.

'The meat would last for three or four days. We would have it for lunch and dinner until it was all gone.'

Unholy trinity: Negromonte met his wife Isabel Pires in 1984 (left), but claimed after ten years they only shared a 'fraternal love'. Negromonte now claims mistress Bruna (right) was a witch

Horror house: Police inspect Negromonte's house in Guaranhuns, northeastern Brazil, after the trio were finally caught in April 2012

Negromonte, 54, a karate black belt, was sentenced in November 2013 for the murders of three young women, aged 17, 20 and 21.

The court heard how, along with Isabel, 54, and his lover Bruna, 27, he created a religious sect which preached population control and 'the purification of the world'.

The trio lured unsuspecting childbearing women to their deaths with offers of babysitting, before murdering them and feasting on their dead bodies in a grisly ritual. Their bones were then buried in their backyard.

The evil love triangle's barbaric crimes shocked the world when they were finally uncovered in March 2012, when residents of Guaranhuns also made a sickening discovery - that they too had unwittingly eaten the remains of victims, in stuffed meat pastries - or 'empadas' - which wife Isabel had sold on the streets.

The pain their families are suffering is only the same pain as I am suffering. I'm also feeling the pain of not having a family. I see myself as a victim, too

But, according to Negromonte, not every detail of his murders, or the motivation behind them, have been told.

He revealed for the first time how the murders were inspired by a book of satanic rituals, which taught several 'purification rituals', including the consumption of human flesh.

In another departure from his sworn statements in court, he claimed he had never intended to kill anyone and was being 'controlled' by mistress Bruna, who was a witch and had taken advantage of his psychotic 'attacks'.

And he dramatically also appeared to allude to his guilt in another woman's murder - revealing how he bribed a corrupt policeman who might have prevented the deaths of two of the women he went on to kill.

Perhaps most revealing, though, was his seething hatred of 'uneducated' childbearing women fuelled by his disappointment at not being able to father a child himself.

He recalled: 'Isabel lost one, then another one. So we went to the doctor and she started treatment, but I don't know what they did because after that she didn't even get pregnant again.

'And then you look around and there are people everywhere, uneducated people, but who are producing them one after the other.

'They don't have anything of worth to pass on to them. They come here to visit their sons. They can't even speak Portuguese properly. It disturbs me to hear people speaking incorrectly.

Hammer attack: Negromonte's second victim, Gicelly da Silva, 21, who the trio murdered in February 2012. Negromonte said: 'I walked behind Bruna and Gicelly as they went home... I remember walking into the kitchen holding a hammer, and then seeing Bruna's face, and her saying to me: "it can be now"'

The innocents: Jessica Pereira (left) was 17 and living in squalor with her 18-month-old daughter when Negromonte took her to live with them. He murdered her three months later. After murdering their last victim, Alexandra da Silva Falcao (right), the cannibals were finally caught when Bruna used her credit card

Snatch: Negromonte had registered himself as the father of Jessica's 18-month-old daughter (together above) before he killed her. She was five when they were caught and would be fed the meat of their victims

'For the government, the more ignorant people there are, the better. But I don't think it's right, they need to be stopped. They are just producing thieves and low-lifes.'

While he acknowleged God had 'done justice' by allowing him to be caught and imprisoned, he refused to say he believed his female victims were innocent, nor recognise the pain he had inflicted on their families.

He said: 'I don't know if they were innocent, I don't know for sure where they had come from, only Bruna knew that.'

And with breathtaking remorselessness, he added: 'The pain their families are suffering is only the same pain as I am suffering. I'm also feeling the pain of not having a family. I see myself as a victim, too.'

Meglomania and narcissism often go hand in hand with psychopathy. And Negromonte is no different. The former lecturer's statements repeatedly highlighted his academic qualifications and were littered with references to what he regards as his 'superior mind' and his vocation to 'educate others'.

He spoke in a condescending manner about his 'simple-minded' fellow inmates, and during the course of the interview compared himself to Leonardo da Vinci, Einstein, Roman emperor Nero, and Moses dealing with the ignorant Israelite slaves in Egypt.

For the government, the more ignorant people there are, the better. But I don't think it's right, they need to be stopped. They are just producing thieves and low-lifes

Time and again he also broke off what he was saying to show off his knowledge - but his interludes often revealed more about his own unhinged mind and his utter detachment from reality.

When describing the moment he was about to murder one of his victims with a kitchen knife, Negromonte paused to give a lesson about the various names for knives which exist in Portuguese, as opposed to the single word 'knife' in English.

And when he found himself 'between the cross and the sword' - the equivalent of the English phrase 'between a rock and a hard place' - after killing his first victim, he stopped his gruesome recollections to explain the origins of the saying.

At the same time, Negromonte was at pains to show he suffered mental illness, which he explained was how he, a good person by nature, was capable of such gruesome acts.

Declaring himself a paranoid schizophrenic, he claimed his mistress Bruna would take advantage of his 'attacks', when he would go into a trance, knowing she could incite him to commit murder.

He said: 'When I have an attack, I see shadows in human form dashing around me, and I hear voices speaking at once, telling me what to do. If someone tells me that a person is wanting to harm me, I will go for them. I have no control over what I'm doing, but other people can use me.

'It's happened here in the prison. The voices started telling me I should be here, that I should be out there teaching people. Then one of the inmates told me something about one of the guards, and I went for him. If he hadn't closed the metal door behind him at that moment, I would have killed him.

'Bruna knew she could control me. She was the one who wanted to murder the women. It was her idea to eat them, because we had broken the 7th Commandment (Thou Shall Not Kill) and needed to be purified. She convinced me to stop taking my medicines, because she knew that I would start having my attacks and then she could use me.

Middle class maniac: Negromonte was a university teacher and fitness fanatic who no-one imagined would be capable of the indescribable horrors he would later inflict on his victims

Narcissistic confession: Parts of his book, found at Negromonte's address but damaged after angry neighbours set fire to the home, spelled out the details of their crimes

Mental illness: Negromonte (his drawings above) was diagnosed with schizophrenia as a child because he told his father about two imaginary boys who ordered him to do things. The killer claims that his 'witch' mistress took advantage of his illness and ordered him to stop taking his medication before the murders

'Like it or not, if it were not for the presence of Bruna I wouldn't have done the executions. She was able to dominate me.'

Born in Recife, Jorge Beltrao Negromonte was the son of Portuguese immigrants who had moved from to Brazil from Coimbra in Portugal when his mother was three months pregnant with him.

The youngest of four brothers in a respected, well-to-do family, his father was a lawyer and his mother a university professor.

Aged seven, his parents sent him to live with an aunt to complete his schooling in Portugal because 'they thought I would get a better education there', and he returned to Brazil aged 12.

Two of his brothers went on to marry Brazilians and still live in Brazil, while the other returned to Portugal and lost contact with the other siblings.

Negromonte, who is five years younger than his closest brother, admitted he had few friends and spent most of his time talking with two young boys, one black and one white, in the back yard of his house.

He explained: 'Except that these boys didn't exist. For me they were completely real, but when my dad asked who I was talking to when I went to the back yard, I realised no-one else could see them. My father was worried and tried to find help.

'My dad thought it was spiritual and took me to a spiritist centre to try to cure me. Later, a doctor diagnosed me with schizophrenia.

'Those boys still appear to me even today. When I was murdering the last woman, Gicelly, they were tugging at my trousers trying to stop me, like they are my conscience.'

I only remember flashes. Blood spurting from her neck, her lifeless body in the bathroom, then her in pieces on the bathroom floor. I only woke up the next day and everything was already clean. The baby was in her cot. Bel and Bruna had cleaned up everything. They had buried her bones in the back yard

Negromonte said he was always the best student in his class and, aged 17, he won a place at the public state university, gaining first place in the entry exams, before he had even finished high school.

After graduating in physical education he opened a gym in Recife, and later also completed courses in business studies and education, eventually teaching students doing physical education degrees at two universities.

The fitness-obsessed instructor also achieved his certificate to teach martial arts and become a karate black belt.

According to Negromonte, he would also join a group of young activists fighting the military dictatorship, and he would travel to give speeches about democracy and human rights in open-air meetings.

In 1984 he met and married Isabel, or Bel, and for eight years they tried unsuccessfully to have a baby. Perhaps to justify his decision to take on a young mistress, Negromonte said: 'After ten years we discovered that our love wasn't a passionate love, but a fraternal love.

'By now we were living in Natal, where I was teaching physical education at the Naval Club. There was a 16-year-old girl there called Bruna who started coming to all my lessons. One day Isabel turned to me and said, "that girl fancies you".

'One day she came up to me and kissed me. I told her I would only date her if her father allowed. He was a navy sergeant. When I spoke to him he said he would rather his daughter go out with me than with any boy of her own age.'

In 2005, when Bruna turned 18, Negromonte, his wife and girlfriend moved back to Recife, where he bought a semi-detached house. There, they got to know Jessica Pereira, 17, the teenage mother of an 18-month-old baby girl, who lived in squalor near the home of Isabel's brother in Boa Viagem.

He said: 'Whenever we went there she came over to ask for milk. She had nothing and she was badly treated by her father. Isabel made contact with her and invited her to come and live with us.

'We all fell in love with her baby. I would buy everything for her, milk, nappies, her cot. She was like a daughter to me.

'But Bruna was jealous of her. She kept telling me it wasn't good for her to be there. That's when she started telling me stop taking my medicines, that I was normal, I needed to be a man and be stronger.'

Resting place: Police believe a 'tomb' had been built in the basement of their house when they searched it

Grim discovery: The bones of Gicelly Helena da Silva and Alexandra Silva Falcao, 20, were found buried in the house's back yard after their arrest

All that remains: The killers stripped their victims' bodies of any meat and only left the bones. After being taken for examination and DNA testing, they were found to belong to the two women who had disappeared

Shocking twist: The meat was baked in 'empadas', traditional stuffed pastries which Negromonte's wife Isabel sold on the street (stock image). Even the local police chief was a fan and may have eaten human flesh

On the day of her death in May 2008, Negromonte said Jessica had told them she wanted to move back with her daughter to live with her family.

He recalled: 'I went into her room to try to convince her to stay. I was already starting to have an attack and see the shadows. Bruna came down and I remember her telling me, "she can't go, she's a bad person, she has no love for her daughter".

'After that I only remember flashes. Blood spurting from her neck, her lifeless body in the bathroom, then her in pieces on the bathroom floor.

'I only woke up the next day and everything was already clean. The baby was in her cot. Bel and Bruna had cleaned up everything. They had buried her bones in the back yard.

'I asked where was Jessica. That's when Bruna said: "Don't you remember? We had to execute her so she wouldn't take the girl away, and you were the one who did all the work".

'I remember seeing her clothes and weeping. I prayed to God, "My God, I've broken a great Commandment, forgive me for everything, what do I need to do?"'

Negromonte claims he had no idea he had chopped up Jessica's body and entirely stripped it of flesh, which had been stored in the freezer.

The trio later dined on the meat which had been 'prepared with salt and oregano', according to Negromonte. Sickeningly, Jessica's daughter was also given the flesh of her murdered mother to eat.

But Negromonte claimed he didn't know what he was really eating, insisting: 'I ate it thinking it was just beef. I didn't ask any more questions.'

From that day on, Bruna began to use Jessica's identity documents and she and Negromonte acted as the girl's parents.

I asked where was Jessica. That's when Bruna said: "Don't you remember? We had to execute her so she wouldn't take the girl away, and you were the one who did all the work". I remember seeing her clothes and weeping. I prayed to God, "My God, I've broken a great Commandment, forgive me for everything, what do I need to do?"'

Negromonte only mentioned later in the interview that, during the three months Jessica lived with them, he took her with him to the city's registry office to register himself as the father of her child, suggesting the murder was premeditated.

After four years, the trio, with the young girl, moved to the coastal city of Joao Pessoa in Brazil's Paraiba state where he bought a smallholding.

After his arrest in 2012, police there began to investigate the possible involvement of Negromonte in the murder of a young woman near his former home, but a revelation he described as an 'exclusive' to MailOnline could now provide a key piece of evidence to link him with the crime.

He said: 'It was about something that happened near our home. I had gone out, but the police were searching in the undergrowth. Bruna and Isabel were in the house when the police smashed the door down.

'When I arrived home, the police chief came up to me and said, "look, we have a problem here. Either we make an agreement here, or you will all have to be arrested".

'So I gave him my smallholding, and all the furniture inside it. The problem was resolved and nothing else was said. We had to leave, so we decided to move to Guaranhuns, where Isabel's sister still lived.'

The corrupt policeman who took Negromonte's property as a bribe could have prevented the deaths of his two subsequent victims.

First, Negromonte had to sell his house in Recife, so returned there to put it on the market. He and Bruna, scared that the next owners might find Jessica's remains, dug up her bones and left them in a bag near the city's cemetery.

It was in Guaranhuns, a city of 130,000 people 100 miles inland from Recife, and notably the birthplace of former Brazilian president Lula, that the murders of young women started in earnest - and could have numbered many more if the gang hadn't been caught so quickly.

The trio create a sect, The Cartel, whose purpose was to 'save bad souls' and to prevent the world from becoming overpopulated.

The gang even sold books in the city, some of which propagated their bizarre message. One, written by Negromonte and entitled Revelations of a Schizophrenic, contained graphic images and appears to detail the murder and consumption of Jessica.

Disturbing: Composed and well-spoken, the killer licked his lips through the entire four-hour interview

Prison life: Negromonte shares a cell with 33 other prisoners at the Desembargador Augusto Duque prison, where 997 criminals are crammed into a jail with capacity for just 144. He has asked to work in the kitchen

In one chapter, he writes: 'Looking at the now lifeless body of the evil adolescent, I feel relieved.

'I grabbed some sheet metal and begin to remove all the skin and then I divide her up… we dine on the flesh of evil as a purification ritual. We bury the remains in the patio.'

But despite his previous confessions and the abundance of evidence to the contrary, Negromonte now insists he was no more than a 'subject' of his mistress Bruna, who he claims had the real thirst for blood.

Teachings in her witchcraft book, which he said was called Wicca, formed the basis of the group's belief in the purification of the soul through cannibalism, he said.

He said: 'I found the book and began to read it. Right at the beginning it said, "if you want to be a true witch, guard your virginity and only give it up to a wise man". I asked her, "are you with me because of love or because of the book?" She admitted that initially it was because of the book, but that she had learned to love me.

'All the rituals were in the Wicca book, including the one where if you break the 7th Commandment, Thou Shalt Not Kill, eating the flesh of the person you executed will purify you of sin.

'I think we ended up following the rituals that were in the book. I'm certain that if there didn't exist the influence of that book, there wouldn't exist the executions.'

Negromonte also claimed that he heard voices in his head of The Cartel, led by the spirit of Isabel's deceased father, passing on the sect's teaching.

He said: 'My own father would always tell me that Brazil was a good place, but the people made it bad. Then I met Isabel's father, who became a great friend. He was even more rigorous. He would tell me that Brazil only knew how to produce bandits and prostitutes.

'Those things stayed in my head. After he died I started to hear voices in my head, telling me things that he had ordered them to say.

'The voices spoke to me all the time. They said that everything that had happened was because The Cartel had ordered it.

He also admits that the ID cards of each of the women he murdered ended in 6 - considered an evil number by the group - and that it may have been one of the reason why the victims were chosen

'I didn't always agree with them, but I passed on everything that they told me to Bruna, and she turned into a fanatic. She wanted to do everything that were commanding.'

For the group, women who were helping to overpopulate the country - and particularly those who mistreated their children or failed to educate them properly - were a scourge on the world.

He also admits that the ID cards of each of the women he murdered ended in 6 - considered an evil number by the group - and that it may have been one of the reason why the victims were chosen.

When asked about his own religious beliefs, he said: 'I believe in positive and negative energy, and that there exists a conscious superior energy, which is God. Christ was the only human to not break any of the Ten Commandments. When he died his energy united with the energy of the all-powerful.'

Negromonte met his second known victim, 21-year-old Gicelly Helena da Silva, in February 2012, at a doctor's clinic where she was telling a group how she had become an evangelical Christian.

He said: 'I thought she could become a good friend to Bruna, so I took her number. Bruna started to call her and they had long conversations on the phone. But then Bruna told me how she had confided that she had tried to kill her son, and that she had beaten up her young nephew.

'Bruna started to hate her because she was a bad person. She would say to me, how can a Christian person do that? She started to tell me to stop taking my medicines again, knowing that it would make me have my attacks again.

'One day she asked Gicelly to come to our house. Bel went to see her sister, and Bruna went to meet the girl at the bus stop. She kept saying to me, 'you know you have to do what The Cartel says, don't you'.

'I walked behind Bruna and Gicelly as they went home. When I got to the house, I entered through the back door. I remember walking into the kitchen holding a hammer, and then seeing Bruna's face, and her saying to me: "it can be now".

'Ater that I just remember flashes, the reflection of a kitchen knife, a body, a dead person in the bathroom and the running shower.

'I came to my senses the next day, lying on the floor. I looked in the fridge and saw all the meat, already prepared, and thought to myself, "it's happened again, in exactly the same way".

'I was aware that there had been an execution, that her body had been buried in the same way. I thought, "this isn't reality, this can't be happening".'

Shockwaves: Negromonte's crimes shocked Brazil and the world after he was arrested in April 2012

Hated: Bruna da Silva and Isabel Pires arrive for the trio's trial in Olinda, Recife, in November 2013

RIP: Friends and family packed Gicelly's church, Assemblies of God, in Guaranhuns, during a final goodbye

Despite this, the family once again sat down - with the girl, now aged five - and consumed their victim's meat. Bizarrely, Negromonte again claimed he had no idea he was eating human flesh.

He said: 'It's difficult to explain, I was thinking, am I eating Giselly, but my mind was in conflict and I kept denying it thinking, no it's not, it's not.

'I asked Bruna, "who bought this meat?" and she said, "just leave it". So I didn't ask any more questions.'

Just two weeks after Giselly's murder, the group lured another young woman to her death, 20-year-old Alexandra da Silva Falcao, who Bruna got to know on the bus, according to Negromonte, and offered her a job as a babysitter.

Once again, he claimed he had no idea the girl was about to die, but in the same way as the previous murder, he said he followed her and Bruna home after she had met her at the local bus-stop, before entering the house through the back door.

She said: 'As I was following them The Cartel started speaking to me, saying "something's going to happen", and I was saying to myself that nothing was going to happen, that we were just going to give her a job as a babysitter.

'Then when I opened the door I had an attack. I remember seeing the girl's back, and me with a knife in my hand. I remember seeing the two boys, the black and white, pulling on my trousers, trying to stop me.

Then when I opened the door I had an attack. I remember seeing the girl's back, and me with a knife in my hand. I remember seeing the two (imaginary) boys, the black and white, pulling on my trousers, trying to stop me.'Then it happened just like before. Her body in the bathroom, the shower on, her body in pieces, then the meat in the freezer

'Then it happened just like before. Her body in the bathroom, the shower on, her body in pieces, then the meat in the freezer.

'Afterwards I said to Bruna, "I don't understand". She replied that Alexandra just wanted to populate the world just to make money.

'We ate the meat again. It took four days to finish it off. It was the same as before. I kept thinking, "this is human meat", then the doubts would come, "no, it's not". There was a fight within myself to accept the truth.'

Alexandra's death put an end to the gang's murder spree, after Bruna was caught on a shop CCTV using the victim's credit card, a month after she disappeared.

At first all three denied knowlege of the crimes, but later at the police station Isabel confessed to dismembering the women's bodies and burying them in the house.

Asked whether the meat was eaten by unsuspecting locals who had bought 'empadas' from Isabel, he said: 'When we were arrested, the police chief asked about the empanadas, because he used to buy them from Isabel and was even a fan.

'He asked if she'd used the women's meat in the empadas. Isabel said that if it was their meat that was in the freezer, then yes. But I had no idea about this.'

Police also discovered that two other females victims had already been picked out by the group, and that two new graves had already been dug in their house to bury their remains.

Still, Negromonte refuses to admit that he meant to murder anyone. 'I'm not the kind of person who would do bad things to anyone. My nature is to help people,' he said.

'Even now, I wake up in the morning and ask myself a question, an idiotic question because you can't turn back time: Why did I do this? Why did it happen? Everything was going well, I had everything to make my life a success.

Lock up: Negromonte's jail is in Pesqueira, a poor town of 150 miles inland from Recife, north east Brazil

'I still look up to the sky and think, this isn't real, it isn't happening.

'When I sleep, I never dream that I'm in prison. I dream that I'm with my family, with the little girl, free. I didn't do what I did out of malice. I am a person who has a problem, I need treatment.'

Incredibly, though, he refused to accept that the women he murdered were innocents, or recognise the damage he had done to their bereaved families.

When asked if he regretted his actions, he replied: 'I regret ever meeting that girl, Bruna.' And asked if he felt any remorse, he said: 'I feel remorse for having left Isabel for her.'

He added: 'I believe in the law or action and reaction. I'm here today because God did justice, this positive energy called God did justice.'

Disturbingly, Negromonte revealed that, along with a Christian pastor serving time for rape, he is creating another sect within the prison.

Sometimes I see him eyeing up a thigh or two. And now he wants to work in the kitchen, which will cause me a whole lot of work Prison director Renato Magalhaes

He said: 'We only meet on Saturdays, because that is the Lord's day. We play guitar and sing worship songs. We meet in the prison chapel and I've already preached from the pulpit. I have to speak to the inmate like Moses did to his people, because they have very little intelligence.

'I teach them about what's right and wrong, and that it is a sin to kill.'

What is he planning to do when he is finally freed? He said: 'My dream of having a family is over, I'm already too old. I want to go back to teaching lessons in physical education, administration and education.

'The only thing we have is our mind, so we've got to use it. Of course I'm not going to go back to the places I used to teach, or use my name. I'll change my name so no-one will know who I am. I want to continue helping people.'

The irony of his statements appears lost on Negromonte, who seems entirely unaware of his notoriety as one of Brazil's most infamous murderers.

As he is led away back to his cell, he is thankful for the opportunity to have some 'rare intelligent conversation'.

Disturbingly, he added: 'My energies and your energies are very similar. We have a strong connection.'

I ask prison director Renato Magalhaes what it is like having the famous cannibal as one of his inmates.