One of the most shocking murders in recent times comes from Japan, where a man who ‘hunted’ down his victims through a social media site earned him the moniker of the ‘Twitter Killer’. His name has come up in media headlines over the past few days as court judges have concluded that murderer behind the grisly deaths eight women and one man, aged 15 to 26, between August and October 2017 is guilty of the crimes. So, who is the Twitter Killer and what happened in the days leading up to the verdict?
Who is the ‘Twitter Killer’?
Behind the moniker is Takahiro Shiraishi: a regular 27-year-old man. His glasses and neat appearance lend to the unassuming air that he carries. According to reports by SBS Australia, growing up, Shiraishi was a “quiet child who was able to socialise with neighbours” while also being someone who “didn’t especially stand out but was not a gloomy character either”. Upon graduating from high school, he worked odd jobs before earning a reputation as a “creepy” scout who would lure young women to work in clubs in Tokyo. Shiraishi was otherwise ordinary, even having had a relationship that ended in the summer of 2016, with his ex-girlfriend describing “gentle” and someone who was “never angry with women.” However, according to court statements, Shiraishi blames his falling out with his family as the reason for his string of crimes.
What did the ‘Twitter Killer’ do?
In 2017, on Halloween, police in Tokyo were investigating the disappearance of a 23-year-old woman. Upon discovering her missing, the brother of the missing woman gained access to her social media. However it was on Twitter that he noticed a suspicious user. The user was Shiraishi, using the handle ‘@hangingpro’.
Using his Twitter account, Shiraishi would lure suicidal young women into meeting him with the promise of helping them in their ‘plans’, sometimes even leading them to believe that he would die with them. Once they were in his apartment, he killed his victims “as soon as he met them” (however, it is said that plastic ties had been found at his home, suggesting that he may have kept some of his victims alive for a period of time). He would do so by strangling them and then dismembering their bodies, after having researched how to do so online and purchasing tools such as a meat cleaver and a saw.
The 23-year-old woman was the last of his victims- having murdered seven other young women and a 20-year-old man (a friend of one of his female victims who was killed while seeking her whereabouts). His victims were all aged between 15 to 26.
How were his deeds discovered?
Following the lead of the brother of the missing woman, police were lead to Shiraishi’s one-room apartment in Zama, a southwestern suburb of Tokyo. There, they stumbled upon what has been described as a “house of horrors”. As it turned out, the 23-year old woman was not just missing, she had been murered. Shiriarishi greeted the police by letting them know that they would find her stored in his freezer.
Unfortunately, that’s not all that they found. In addition to heads and 240 bone parts stored in containers, severed flesh was found covered with cat litter. According to the Japan Times, Shiraishi detailed his deeds to the police, claiming that his first time dismembering a body took him three days but “from the second person, [he] was able to do it within a day.”
Why was he given the death sentence?
In the early days of the trial, Shiraishi’s lawyers argued that he was guilty only of the lesser charge of homicide with consent as he had his victims’ tacit approval based on messages they sent to him. At the same time, they argued that Shiraishi was possibly either mentally incompetent or was in a state of diminished capacity at the time of the murders. However, according to Kyodo News, Presiding Judge Naokuni Yano said of the case:
“The viciousness of the crimes was on a level rarely seen in Japan’s history. In a society where social media is deeply rooted, they have shaken people to the core.”
With that being said, prosecutors put Shiraishi through five months of psychiatric testing. The results, on top of his own admission to having killed his victims without any consent (he told the judge, “Not a single one of my victims consented,”), led to Yano sentencing Takashi Shiraishi, the ‘Twitter Killer’ to death.
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