Who Is The Serial Killer Who Hunted Victims Through Twitter, Murdered 9 People With 'Consent'
A man who murdered nine people after contacting them on Twitter has been sentenced to death, in a high-profile case that has shocked Japan.?
Takahiro Shiraishi, dubbed the "Twitter killer", was arrested in 2017 after body parts were found in his flat.?The 30-year-old had admitted to murdering and dismembering his victims - almost all of whom were young women he met on the social media platform.
The serial killings triggered debate over how suicide is discussed online.
More than 400 people turned up to watch the verdict on Tuesday, despite the court only having 16 seats available for the public, reported local media.?Public support for the death penalty remains high in Japan, one of the few developed nations to retain capital punishment.
Who is Takahiro Shiraishi?
Shiraishi hails from a small town in Japan who lured suicidal victims to his home before he killed and dismembered them.?The 30-year-old psychopath murdered 9 people in total.
Jobless Shiraishi grew up with his parents and younger sister up in the city of Zama in central Japan.
After graduating from high school he did a series of odd jobs including working in a supermarket and a food factory before becoming a scout for a prostitution ring.
How did he take to murdering people?
Authorities say he targeted and lured people with suicidal tendencies online, by telling them he could help them in their plans or even die alongside them.
Under one account, Shiraishi cast himself as desperate. "I want to forget everything," he wrote in an August 25 post. "I want to disappear."
The twisted murderer carried out internet searches to learn how to mutilate bodies - later buying a saw and a meat cleaver.
The discovery of plastic hand ties at his home suggested he may have kept some of his victims alive before killing them.
All but one of his victims were women aged between 15 and 26.
Earlier, when prosecutors sought the death penalty for Shiraishi, his lawyers argued he was guilty of the lesser charge of "murder with consent", claiming his victims had given their permission to be killed.
Why has he been sentenced?
Shiraishi pleaded guilty to murdering eight women and one man after horrified cops found bones and butchered body parts stashed in cooler boxes at his flat.
The Tokyo District Court on Tuesday sentenced the serial killer to death, reports the?Japan Times.
Presiding Judge Naokuni Yano described the murders as ¡°extremely vicious in crime history."
Yano ruled that all nine victims did not consent to being chopped up, and that Shiraishi was mentally fit to be held responsible for the murders.
The father of one 25-year-old victim said in court last month that he "will never forgive Shiraishi even if he dies."
How was he discovered?
The corpses were found stuffed into cool boxes inside his flat after neighbors reported a "nasty smell like sewage."
Authorities made the grisly discovery in October 2017 after investigating the disappearance of a 23-year-old woman who was last seen walking with Shiraishi.
One resident told the Japan Times at the time: ¡°I thought it smelled like sewage. It was something I never smelled before.¡±
Another neighbor claimed he¡¯d noticed a ¡°nasty smell¡± coming from the apartment from as early as August.
The severed flesh was?found covered with cat litter in a bid to hide the evidence.
