Former Wisconsin Grad Student Threatened To Kill, Skin Professor's Family, Hide Flesh Inside Burger Meat: Cops

A former graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has been arrested after he allegedly sent emails threatening professors, their families and other students, officials said.

On March 10, federal officials arrested Arvin Mathur, 32, at the Detroit Metro Airport as he was trying to re-enter the United States from Europe, the University of Wisconsin Police Department said.

Officials said the suspect allegedly “made online threats against specific members of the UW-Madison community” and university police contacted federal law enforcement officials once they learned Mathur was planning on returning to the United States.

Mathur received a prestigious fellowship in 2020 from the National Science Foundation and was studying anthropology at UW-Madison. He left the university in 2021 to enroll in the Global Institute at the University of Copenhagen, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.

In a federal criminal complaint, Mathur allegedly sent threatening emails to nine people associated with UW-Madison, according to The Detroit News.

The complaint claims one of the alleged victims, a teaching assistant and fellow graduate student, stated they were “worried Arvin Mathur was fixated on him and was trying to ruin his professional reputation" and Mathur allegedly filed reports with the CIA regarding this victim, claiming he was a “Chinese operative.”

The Wisconsin Law Journal obtained some of the emails that Mathur allegedly sent, including one to an anthropology professor with the subject line: “Call the police.” In the email, Mathur allegedly writes, “If you don’t, I will show up and murder every single person that you have ever been close to."

Mathur went on to mention two of the other victims in that email, telling them to “sue me right away” and they need to “call the police and a lawyer, otherwise, I will kill their children and hide their flesh inside of their burger meat,” the Wisconsin Law Journal reported.

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In another email allegedly sent to an assistant anthropology professor, Mathur reportedly used the subject line “We are going to kill your daughters", and he threatened in the message to kidnap the professor’s daughters and “skin them alive."

Another alleged victim received an email stating, "We are going to kill your family. You are going to be kidnapped and put in a cellar. This is a threat. Call the police, otherwise you will wake up with your legs soaking in hydrofluoric acid."

Mathur has been charged with transmission of a threat to kidnap or injure, officials said.