He first met the Miami Cannibal at a flea market they were both working in in North Miami. Bowen said Eugene picked a fight with him over music and who knew more when they were working in side-by-side stores, not realizing who he had just picked a fight with.
He said: ‘I’m not scared of no one. He took his shirt off and came at me saying “I’m going to kill you!” ‘What goes through my mind? I’m a fighter.’ It was then the boxer delivered a right hook to the man and knocked him out.
Speaking of the horrific attack which shocked America, Bowen said: ‘I can’t believe a man could do that.’ His revelation comes the day after police revealed the calls from terrified members of the public who saw the violence attack against 65-year-old Ronald Poppo on the Miami highway.
But none of them mentioned the extent of the injuries from the vicious assault, or the means by which the ‘Miami cannibal’ was attacking his victim – with his teeth.
Poppo was once a student at a prestigious New York school before he became a down-and-out
Callers only reported seeing two men fighting in the shadow of The Miami Herald headquarters but did not mention seeing Poppo’s face being torn off and eaten.
‘He’s going to kill that man, I promise you,’ a female bus driver said, urging a 911 operator to send help. Poppo remains hospitalised.
The driver, who wasn’t named by authorities, described the scene as she drove by.
‘Listen, there is a n*ked man on the MacArthur Causeway,’ she said. ‘He is beating another man to a pulp – like on top of the man, beating him, the man is bleeding.’
Another caller said the two men were fighting, saying they nearly knocked over an elderly bicyclist.
‘These two bums were going at it with each other, taking up the whole lane,’ the caller said. ‘I think they were fighting or something.’
