Last week, rapper Andre Johnson cut off his penis and testicles, then jumped out of a second-floor apartment window –all while he was high on PCP. The 40-year-old allegedly attempted suicide, and somehow survived the harrowing incident, but he won’t be getting his genitalia back.
Over the years PCP (aka angel dust ) has been at the center of crimes including cannibalism, decapitation, and more. Johnson’s unfortunate situation reopened the conversation about the powerfully hallucinogenic drug that saw a 400 percent spike in emergency room visits between 2005-2011. Additionally, as of last year PCP use has risen in the likes of Oklahoma, Connecticut, and Washington D.C.
The synthetic drug chemically known as phencyclidine, was developed in 1926 by Parke-Davis as a general anesthetic (which explains the decreased amount of pain that users tend to feel). It entered the pharmaceutical drug market in the 1950s, only to be removed 15 years later due to its strong hallucinogenic side effects, which include mental detachment, hearing voices, violence, and suicidal thoughts.
Johnson may be the most recent account of PCP-related mutilation, but he’s certainly not alone on the list of tragic incidents involving the drug. Check out seven more examples in the gallery below.
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Photo: Facebook
Chevonne Thomas
In 2012, Chevonne Thomas of New Jersey decapitated her 2-year-old son, Zahree Thomas, and stuck his head in a freezer. The mother once lost custody of Zahree for admitting to smoking weed laced with PCP.
After she killed the child, Chevonne placed an incoherent 911 call, and blamed the tragedy on her boyfriend, before she confessed. Moments after making the call, she stabbed herself in the neck and later died.
Autopsy results show that the toddler was alive when he was beheaded.
Osvaldo Rivera
Osvaldo Rivera smoked PCP before he sliced the throats of a 6-year-old boy and 12-year-old girl in Camden, N.J., two years ago. The boy died, but the girl managed to run and get help, and was hospitalized for her injuries.
Police say the young boy tried to intervene when Rivera was sexually assaulting the tween girl. In January of this year, Rivera was offered a 65-year sentence in exchange for pleading  guilty to murder, sexual assault, and other charges.
HoustonÂ
R&B singer Houston mutilated himself while he was high onPCP. In 2005, the crooner born Houston Edward Summers IV, tried to commit suicide by jumping out of a window.
His entourage stopped the attempt, but while he was locked in a room alone, he gouged his left eye out with a plastic fork. He spent time in rehab after the incident, and is said to be working on a new album.
Hilda Santiago
38-year-old Hilda Santiago’s PCP trip ended in her death in 2012. Santiago was smoking in a New York City apartment with a friend and set herself on fire in the process. According to the friend, Santiago was “so high” that she was just “standing there” while on fire.
Her death helped in the NYPD’s takedown of a PCP drug ring, led by Lamont and Bernard Moultrie (pictured). Â Santiago was one of the brothers’ many customers.
Frank Moore
Last June, Frank Moore beat, murdered, and burned his girlfriend, 31-year-old Georgette Alston. When cops interviewed Moore he had blood all over his clothes and several cuts on his body.
He told police that he was high on angel dust and had no recollection of the crime.
Angelo Mendoza Sr.
In May of 2009, Angelo Mendoza Sr. was charged with mayhem, torture, child cruelty and inflicting an injury to a child for eating his then 4-year-old son’s left eye out and damaging the boy’s right eye, while high on PCP. Angelo Mendoza Jr. told authorities “my daddy ate my eyes,” when they came to the scene.
Police arrived at the Bakersfield, Calif. home to find the elder Mendoza, who is confined to a wheelchair, was hacking away at his own legs. A judge found him legally insane, and sentenced him to a state mental hospital.
The younger Mendoza was left partially blind.
Big Lurch
Antron “Big Lurch” Singleton might be one of the most infamous PCP stories of the last decade or so. Lurch was an up-and-coming rapper who worked with the likes of Too $hort, and E-40 before a 2002 murder.
Lurch was found guilty of murdering 21-year-old Tynisha Ysais inside an Los Angeles apartment. The two had gotten high on PCP the night before, according to the victim’s boyfriend. Ysais was found with her chest cavity torn open, a blade lodged into her shoulder, and organs removed. Teeth marks were found on her lungs and face, and Lurch was found naked walking down the street chewing on her flesh, remnants of which were also found in  his stomach.
Although he doesn’t remember the incident, Lurch said in a jail house interview that his last thought was about the world ending, and that he to “find the devil, and kill the devil before the world ended.”
Despite pleading not guilty by reason of insanity, and three doctor’s concluding that he was not of sound mind at the time of the murder, Lurch was sentenced to life in prison in November 2003.  He was transferred to the San Diego’s Donovan State Prison in the Mental Delivery Program  Unit.
