Homeless cannibal eats the heart and tongue of elderly French villager after hearing voices in his head

Homeless 26-year-old murdered elderly man in southern France

Batched open 90-year-old's head with an iron rod and ripped out his tongue

He ate the tongue and the man's heart before setting the body on fire

A man brutally murdered a 90-year-old and ate his heart and tongue, blaming voices in his head, French officials said today.

The homeless 26-year-old broke into his elderly victim’s home in Nouilhan, southern France, bashed the man’s head open with an iron rod before ripping out the body parts he consumed.

The man ate the tongue and heart before burning the body and then setting fire to the 90-year-old’s house.

The former soldier is accused of ripping out the elderly man's tongue and heart to cook and eat. A plate of meat and beans was found in the victim's home in a chilling echo of the character Hannibal Lecter

The flames alerted the victim's son, who lives nearby, who discovered his father’s body, investigators said.

The event on Thursday night has shocked the little hamlet, which is home to some 200 people.

Before committing the gruesome murder, the man also attacked another villager, hitting him against a tractor .

Police finally managed to arrest the man, from the nearby village of Tarbes in the Haute-Pyrenees department, some three hours into his rampage.

The suspect is from the village of Tarbes in the picturesque Haute-Pyrenees

It has chilling similarities with the case of Ronald Poppo, the 66-year-old Florida man who had his face chewed off by bath salt-cannibal Rudy Eugene.

Rough-sleeper Poppo was attacked by Eugene, who ate 75 per cent of Poppo's face off leaving him blind and severely scarred.