The Twitter Serial Killer

A quaint house in a small residential area of Kanagawa, just outside of Tokyo. Here a normal-looking Japanese man of 27 years old, in 2017, welcomed nine people into that house and then went on to assault, kill, dismember, and dispose of them until finally being apprehended and being found guilty on October 1st, 2020.

Who was this man? Why did he decide to kill and dismember all his victims? How did he choose his victims? How did he get caught and where is he now?

Online Recruiting

Takahiro Shiraishi, who previously had been a scout for the red-light district of Kabukicho in Tokyo, used Twitter to recruit girls to work in hostess clubs and other sex-work type establishments.

However, in February of 2017, he was arrested for knowingly recruiting girls into prostitution but his sentence was suspended. Having ended a relationship with his girlfriend, being out of work, and not knowing what to do with his life in August of 2017, he told his father,

“I don’t know why I’m alive.”

He then turned to the idea of using Twitter once again to recruit girls. But this time instead of recruiting them for prostitution, he advertised in hopes to assist girls in suicide. He offered to teach girls how to hang themselves (one of his Twitter profiles was @hangingpro) and even offered to die together in a suicide pact.

Japan, which according to the World Health Organization had the seventh-highest suicide rate in the world in 2017 has been dealing with a variety of issues involving suicide. The increase of suicide pacts, train suicides, the much-publicized “suicide forest” and a string of cyberbullying and celebrity suicides has had the government of Japan come under fire for their handling of suicide and mental health issues.

After the murders, Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter said of the situation it’s “very unfortunate and extremely sad,” while being interviewed by NHK. Twitter also added some extra regulations on the guidelines page of Twitter including, “You may not promote or encourage suicide or self-harm.”

Luring Girls To His Home

Shiraishi was able to reach out via Twitter to vulnerable women with suicidal thoughts and lure them into his home where they could take their own life. Or at least that is what he was advertising. He often even claimed he would join them in a suicide pact. But did they give him consent or did he take advantage of their weakened states so he could sexually assault, choke and dismember them?

The Victims

According to The Mainichi Report, the first victim he found on Twitter, agreed to meet up with him but brought along her boyfriend. They all went out together but later Shiraishi invited the girl to his home alone where he killed her. When her boyfriend came looking for her later on, he killed him as well.

Shiraishi’s first victim, 21-year-old Mizuki actually left a note for her parents saying she was moving out. Investigators found Shiraishi had asked her to move in with him and asked for 500,000 from her to rent an apartment. Shiraishi received the money but had no plans to rent an apartment for her. Instead, he stole the money, strangled, and killed her in his apartment, and dismembered her body.

Following up on Mizuki, her boyfriend 20-year-old Nishinaka Shogo, who was a striving musician in a band and worked at a facility for the handicapped, went asking for her whereabouts only to be attacked and murdered by Shiraishi. He was the only male victim.

Shiraishi went on to kill seven more women ranging in ages from 15 to 26, most of whom he sexually assaulted before killing. He gave them alcohol, sleeping pills, and tranquilizers before the women were choked and assaulted. His home contained various paraphernalia like knives, scissors, a saw, rope, and awl which were used to dismember the bodies.

The father of the victim 17-year-old Akari Fuda explained his daughter,

“dreamed of becoming a manga artist, and served as a leader of a junior high school art club where she drew a picture for the front page of a school booklet.”

Other victims of Shiraishi included 23-year old Aika Tamura, 17-year-old high school student Natsumi Kubo, 25-year-old convenience store clerk Kazumi Maruyama, 19-year-old university student Hinako Sarashina and 26-year-old Hitomi Fujima, a wife and mother from Saitama who had left her job to support her husband’s transfer.

The youngest victim of Shiraishi was Kureha Ishihara, who was only 15 years old.

The Motive

Shiraishi’s victims were all young, usually students or working part-time jobs, and were all “objects of desire,” Shiraishi admitted during the interviews at the Metropolitan Police Department’s Takao police station.

During interviews, he admitted to killing the nine people but did not show any remorse or make any apologies. When asked about the murders he explained he committed the crimes to satisfy his greed for money and desire for sex.

He would rape and kill the girls and spend days dismembering their bodies for disposal. According to The Japan Times, he told police the first time he dismembered a body, it took him three days but “from the second person, I was able to do it within a day.”

When the police finally came to his door to investigate, he confessed to the killings and pointed out boxes containing various body parts including severed heads, arms, and legs. Over 240 bone parts of different bodies were found in his possession.

There were parts of victims found around the apartment in various boxes and frozen coolers with some even covered in kitty litter to lessen the smell of decomposition. He also disposed of their possessions or flesh and muscles in garbage bags which he dumped outside in the neighborhood collection area. He kept the bones claiming he was scared of disposing bones as it would increase the chances of him getting caught.

Even after pleading guilty and awaiting sentencing, Shiraishi’s greed continued as he asked to receive payment from media outlets in exchange for revealing details of his actions. He also offered to write letters or write a book if compensated, showing further disregard for the victims and their families.

His Capture

Despite having nine bodies or at least partial bodies in his apartment and having disposed of parts with regular garbage, Shiraishi was ultimately caught using online tactics.

The brother of his ninth and final victim was able to hack into her account and arrange a meet-up using a female acquaintance as bait. Along with the police, the female was able to have Shiraishi meet her and take her to his home where police confronted him and he promptly showed them the remains.

He was arrested on October 30, 2017, and almost 3 years later was finally charged guilty for his crimes. But despite his lawyers claiming he should be given a lesser “homicide with consent” sentence, Shiraishi disputes their claims and admits he, “killed without consent.” His death penalty was finalized in January 2021 and he is awaiting his execution.

Though Twitter was used to lure the girls, it was also used to catch the killer. The added regulations on Twitter as well as spreading awareness of these types of crimes will hopefully limit the chance of these types of brutal crimes in the future.

Japan is also dealing with a large population of people suffering from mental health issues and problems facing society. Shedding light on these types of crimes will help to ensure people susceptible to online harassment or deceit are not abused.

Keeping monstrous rapists and killers away from vulnerable online victims requires the support of not only governments but society in general. With empathy, understanding, and a place for these young lost souls to turn to, hopefully, killers like Takahiro Shiraishi will have a harder time preying on the weak.

This article also appears here:https://s-a-ozbourne.medium.com/the-twitter-serial-killer-of-japan-d721c0e334ac