(Newser)
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The Miami man shot dead as he chewed off another man's face has been identified as 31-year-old Rudy Eugene. He had a criminal record but nothing on the scale of Sunday's crazed attack, the Miami Herald finds. He was arrested on a battery charge when he was 16, and was busted seven other times between 2004 and 2009 for charges including vending near a school, trespassing, and marijuana-related offenses. He was married for more than a year to a woman who says he became increasingly violent with her.
"I wouldn't say he had mental problem, but he always felt like people was against him. No one was for him, everyone was against him," his ex-wife, who filed for divorce in 2007, tells WPLG. At Eugene's former home, a woman says the previous occupants lost the home to foreclosure last year, but Eugene would often turn up unannounced looking for mail. Eugene's victim, who lost most of his face in the attack, is fighting for his life in a local hospital, and police still aren't sure what prompted the horrific attack. They believe it could have been cocaine psychosis or an overdose of "bath salts," a synthetic drug one police spokesman likens to a potent new kind of LSD.
