A New York City police officer arrested Thursday and accused of plotting to kill, cook, and eat women has ties to the D.C. area.

Gilberto Valle III, 28, was a University of Maryland College Park student who earned a psychology degree in 2006.

Officer Valle is accused of sending a number of emails and other Internet communications detailing a torture and cannibalism scheme, according to a criminal complaint. A search of his computer found he created records of at least 100 women with their names, addresses and photos, the complaint says.

Among the women identified and catalogued was one woman he met for lunch over the summer in Maryland. Some of the information came from Officer Valle’s unauthorized use of a law enforcement database, authorities said. He is a six-year veteran of the New York City Police Department.

In online conversations detailed in the criminal complaint, Officer Valle talked about the mechanics of fitting the woman’s body into an oven (her legs would have to be bent), said he could make chloroform at home to knock women out and discussed how “tasty” the woman he met with looked.

“I was thinking of tying her body onto some kind of apparatus … cook her over low heat, keep her alive as long as possible,” Officer Valle wrote in one exchange in July, the complaint says.

Court records indicate that at least 10 of the women who have been contacted by the FBI knew Officer Valle. It was unclear whether any of the other women were from the D.C. area.

University officials confirmed that Officer Valle graduated from Maryland in 2006 with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and criminology and criminal justice.

One woman who graduated from Maryland the same year and recalled having a class with Officer Valle said he was someone who seemed “disgruntled.”

“It was nothing outside of he is just the angry New Yorker playing up the angry New Yorker stereotype,” said Janel Quarless, who took a class with Officer Valle that prepared students to work as resident assistants in university housing.

Officer Valle was charged Thursday with kidnapping conspiracy and unauthorized use of law enforcement records.

• This article is based in part on wire service reports

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