In September 2025, terrible news about a German resident went viral on the RuNet: he allegedly kept numerous exotic animals at home, died from a karakurt bite, and his body was subsequently eaten by other pets. We have verified the accuracy of this story.
Although Russian-language media and Telegram channels reported on this tragic incident in the fall of 2025, some publications specified that the man died more than 20 years ago. For example, the RBC publication with reference to the British tabloid The Daily Mirror wrote: “In the German city of Dortmund, the owner of a private collection of exotic animals died from the bite of a poisonous spider, after which his body was eaten by other pets. <…> The incident occurred back in 2004, but received wide publicity only now, after the publication of archival materials.” It is reported that 30-year-old Mark Fegel (in other notes the spelling appears Vogel And Vogel) kept more than 200 animals in his apartment, including a female karakurt named Bettina, because of whose bite the man died. According to the publication, the deceased was discovered only two weeks later, when neighbors noticed an unpleasant smell. The body was eaten away by animals that moved freely around the apartment, and “the situation resembled a scene from a horror film.” In addition, in the article, RBC quoted exotic animal specialist Gabi Bayer - according to her, some of Fegel’s pets were very dangerous.
Additional details of the incident can be found on the website Life.ru. The publication also, citing The Daily Mirror, claims that the apartment of Fegel, whom neighbors characterized as a recluse, resembled a cross between a botanical garden and a breeding ground for butterflies from a horror film.Silence of the Lambs" It was reported that the deceased's animals were crawling out of his nose and mouth, and "large pieces of flesh torn off by the lizards were collected and carried into the webs of tarantulas and other tarantulas." They also talked about how spiders and lizards ate the body of their owner.Ren-TV", "TV channel 360", "Regnum", News.ru, "Evening Moscow", "ONT", "Public news service", RIAMO And "Public television of Russia" Similar posts can be found in "VKontakte", "Zene", Instagram* (examples here And here) and Telegram, where the channels “Ax Live"(714,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), Anton S Live** (79,000) and "Pool N3"(60,000).
The British newspaper The Daily Mirror, which was cited by many Russian-language media, told about Vogel's death from a black widow bite on September 19, 2025. In general, Russian publications correctly recounted that article, although they ignored some details. For example, according to the tabloid, due to the abundance of terrariums, the apartment was “flooded with a strange green light,” and in the corner of the ceiling one tarantula made a nest the size of a swallow. In addition, in addition to spiders, a boa constrictor and several other snakes, poisonous South American frogs and a gecko named Helmut, Vogel's collection allegedly included several thousand termites, which are used to feed such exotic animals.
Although the RuNet justified the spread of this story in 2025 by the fact that its details supposedly became known to the public only recently, in reality it was told in exactly the same way many years ago. For example, The Daily Mirror in its material refers to publication Australian edition of Sunshine Coast Daily on the website of The Courier-Mail newspaper, published back in August 2007. There the incident was described in exactly the same way as in the Russian-language media 18 years later. However, Sunshine Coast Daily clarified that back in 2004, the British tabloid The Sun reported on Vogel’s death. But that's not all - in its 2025 note, The Daily Mirror also referred to message UPI agency, which, in turn, itself referred to The Daily Mirror in 2004. In other words, more than 20 years ago, the main distributors of news in the English-language segment of the Internet were the same British tabloids, which have repeatedly been caught on publications false messages.
"Verified" found an archived copy notes that The Sun released February 27, 2004. It contains the same details and eyewitness accounts as later publications. The note also included a possible explanation for how the animals got to Vogel's body: during his lifetime, he allowed reptiles to move freely around the apartment, and spiders and termites crawled out of their tanks because the heating elements exploded and dislodged the metal covers. Moreover, The Sun even published several photographs, which, according to the tabloid, showed Vogel’s body and terrariums being taken out into the street. “An autopsy will be carried out in the next few days. However, the authorities believe that only [black widow] Bettina is responsible for Vogel’s death,” the author concluded.
The article in The Sun was written by a Berlin-based journalist Allan Hall, who has worked with many tabloids. According to his profile on the Journalist.net platform, he writes about crime, the paranormal and the Catholic Church, and also does fact-checking.
At the end of February 2011, the story of Vogel’s death again went viral on Australian resources, when it was reported told tabloid The Daily Telegraph (like The Courier-Mail and The Sun, it is part of the News Corp media holding). Then the authors of the Media Watch fact-checking program on the local ABC television channel drew attention to it. contacted with Hall. The author of the note in The Sun said that he was not the first to write about Vogel’s death: “I took this story from Bild Zeitung, the largest daily newspaper in Germany... If you say on television that I made up this story, then I will contact my lawyers...”
But the story was clearly made up by someone—or rather, most of it. ABC journalists requested comment from the Dortmund police, where the viral story was called a hoax and an urban legend. “In 2004, the body of a 30-year-old (at the time of death) man was discovered in an apartment on Tucholsky Street in Dortmund... There were terrariums with spiders in the apartment. With the exception of the above facts, everything else is fictitious...” said local police spokesman Wolfgang Wieland in March 2011. Media Watch emphasized that the surname of the deceased was not Vogel, he did not die from a spider bite, and no animals fed on his body. “Expect to read about the sad fate of Mr. Vogel again in, say, 2014. This is called “clickbait,” ABC journalists ironically predicted.
In March 2011, my investigation published and Dortmund journalist Tobias Grossekemper. He found out that Gabi Bayer, whom the tabloids presented as an expert on spiders, employee local animal protection organization Arche 90. According to Grossekemper, the woman vaguely remembers the story: she was called to rescue animals from the apartment of a deceased person, where there were terrariums, some of which were open, and spiders lived in closed ones. “Bayer has no idea if they were dangerous... She still remembers that the apartment was a bit of a mess, and, of course, remembers that there were no spiders, termites, or anyone else wandering around the apartment, let alone gnawing on anything,” the journalist wrote. The animal activist also claimed that she did not make the comments that the tabloids attributed to her.
The original source of the news, apparently, was indeed the Bild newspaper. “Verified” was unable to find a link to that material or its archival copy, however, it is the publication in this publication that both Grossekemper and Wieland refer to. The fact that The Sun and subsequently other media drew attention to it at one time is not surprising, because Bild is one of the largest German tabloids, which, like its British colleagues, sometimes distorts information for the sake of clickbait.
Thus, for more than 20 years, the media and bloggers have been retelling the almost completely fictional story of a man who died from a black widow bite and was discovered under terrible circumstances. It is based on the news of how in 2004 a man died in Dortmund who kept spiders at home. But details about the circumstances of his death and the devouring of his body by hundreds of exotic animals were made up by the tabloids.
*Russian authorities think Meta Platforms Inc., which owns the social network Instagram, is an extremist organization; its activities and symbols are prohibited in Russia.
**Ministry of Justice contributed blogger Anton Suvorkin (Anton S) to the list of “foreign agents”.
Cover photo: still from the film “Kingdom of the Spiders” (1977)
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