'Cannibal cop' in tears as defence rests

Former New York City police officer Gilberto Valle, dubbed by local media as the "Cannibal Cop", listens as his wife Kathleen Mangan (not shown) testifies in this courtroom sketch on the first day of his trial in New York.Image from Reuters.

The New York City cop on trial for plotting to kidnap, cook and eat women shed tears as his attorneys rested their case after one day.

"Just knowing that we've finally come to the conclusion (of the trial) and that his fate is in the jury's hands" made Officer Gilberto Valle emotional, attorney Robert Baum said after court ended.

"That's a huge weight for someone to bear," Baum said.

Closing arguments were scheduled for early on Thursday (local time).

Since the trial's start last week, jurors have heard excerpts read aloud from dozens of Web chats and emails in which Valle talked with others about murdering and eating women.

Those women included his estranged wife, Kathleen Mangan-Valle.

Prosecutors have said that out of two dozen plots involving women, at least three were real.

Defence attorneys concluded their case without calling Valle to the witness stand or noted forensic psychiatrist Park Dietz, who interviewed the cannibalistic serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.

Defence attorneys had earlier shown jurors a video tour of DarkFetishNet.com, the website where prosecutors say Valle's kidnap plots were first hatched.

Jurors saw graphic pictures of mutilation, hanging corpses and profile pages for members with names like Vicious Vixen.

Banner ads were displayed throughout the site for various torture erotica websites which featured pictures of bound women and men beside lines such as "Their pain. Your Gain," and "Dead Girls Are Easy."

Earlier in the day, jurors got a brief dose of comic relief from a videotaped deposition of the creator of DarkFetishNet.com, who repeatedly compared his violent, sexual, fantasy role-play website to Facebook.