Girlfriend of US 'face eater' speaks out: 'Rudy Eugene was a family man'

US Black American Face Eater's Girl Friend, Yovanka Bryant

A Miami woman who claims to have been the girlfriend of a man police shot to death after he refused to stop eating a homeless man's face says he was a family man.

Yovanka Bryant, 31, a single mother of three employed by an accountant, told reporters at a Miami news conference she had been dating Rudy Eugene since March of this year.

Standing by her attorney Gloria Allred, Bryant said the two read the Bible together and watched religious television shows. Denying suggestions that Eugene had a drug problem, Bryant said he was never violent towards her and that the Eugene she knew liked to play sports with her brother and cousins.

"Rudy never drank alcohol or used drugs around me. I only saw him smoke a marijuana cigarette once. One thing that I loved about Rudy is how he talked about his family; he loved his mother and his grandmother very dearly. The care that he expressed for my son, the friend he became to my brother and cousins and the man he was to me will never be forgotten. I felt safe with Rudy," she said.

Attorney Gloria Allred, best known for representing high-profile women in California celebrity cases, rejected suggestions that Bryant was planning a lawsuit or was looking for a book, movie or magazine deal.

"This is a high-profile case. She wanted to have the truth come out about her relationship with Rudy Eugene and have people understand who he was from her point of view, from her knowledge, from her experience. And that is why I am here: to help her have a voice," she said.

The Miami Herald has interviewed a woman who claimed to have a 5-year romantic relationship with Eugene. Allred told reporters Bryant was not that woman.

On Saturday May 26, a Miami police officer shot and killed a naked man they later identified as Rudy Eugene after he was found chewing on a homeless man's face on a slip road of a highway.

The US Face Eater Rudy Eugene
FRANCIS TAWIAH (Duisburg - Germany)