BY COLLEEN LONG and TOM HAYS

Associated Press

NEW YORK

Gilbert Valle's fantasies about cannibalizing women--in one, he said he hoped to "cook her over low heat, keep her alive as long as possible"--were described in online fetish chat rooms and emails, and authorities said he was arrested because he was taking steps to carry them out.

None of the women were harmed, although a prosecutor said some of the women said they knew Valle and that the six-year veteran had stalked at least two of them at home or work, including once in uniform in a police car in a "very intimidating fashion." Authorities said he had had lunch with one of them.

Valle's estranged wife tipped authorities off to his chilling online activity, leading to his arrest, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because the official wasn't authorized to speak publicly about an ongoing case.

Valle, 28, was held without bail in federal court on charges including kidnapping conspiracy and unauthorized use of law enforcement records. Magistrate Judge Henry Pitman called the allegations against him "profoundly disturbing."

One document found on his computer was titled "Abducting and Cooking (Victim 1): A Blueprint," according to the criminal complaint. The file also had the woman's birth date and other personal information and a list of "materials needed"-- a car, chloroform and rope.

"I was thinking of tying her body onto some kind of apparatus cook her over low heat, keep her alive as long as possible," Valle allegedly wrote in one exchange in July, the complaint says.

In other online conversations, investigators said, Valle talked about the mechanics of fitting the woman's body into an oven (her legs would have to be bent), said he could make chloroform at home to knock a woman out and discussed how "tasty" one woman looked.

"Her days are numbered," he wrote, according to the complaint.

The woman told the FBI she knew Valle and met him for lunch in July.