HOUSES OF HORROR. Cool box and cat litter… A young man’s apartment housed the inconceivable

The Twitter killer has been rampaging through the streets of Tokyo. In November 2017, police in the Japanese capital arrested 27-year-old Takahiro Shiraishi. For two months, his house in the suburbs of the city had been transformed into a veritable house of horror in which there were nine dismembered corpses, eight of women and one of men. According to the media, the killer contacted his victims on social networks where he claimed to want to help them commit suicide. Once he found them, Takahiro Shiraishi sexually assaulted them before killing them and cutting up their bodies with a saw. When questioned by police, he confessed to dismembering the bodies of his victims, throwing parts in the trash and then sprinkling kitty litter in a bid to conceal the evidence.

A total of 240 pieces of bone belonging to nine people, including heads and limbs, were discovered inside coolers and toolboxes in his apartment. Police were taken to Takahiro Shiraishi as they investigated the disappearance of a 23-year-old woman, who had tweeted her desire to kill herself. Another resident of Tokyo managed to convince the young man to join her at a station, where investigators were waiting for him before following him to his home in Zama, a suburb southwest of Tokyo. Takahiro Shiraishi immediately confessed his crimes to the policewhile explaining to that four of his victims were teenagers and four others were around 20 years old.

What sentence was he sentenced to?

Questioned by investigators, he admitted to raping and killing his victims for sexual and financial motivation. He allegedly sexually assaulted his female victims and racked up more than $4,000 in cash within two months. During his trial, he pleaded guilty to all counts in front of the families of his victims. In court, his lawyer had argued that the women killed were suicidal and that they had agreed to let his client murder them, but the judge did not accept this defense. Takahiro Shiraishi said that while he felt bad for some of his victims, he had little remorse. “If they hadn’t caught me, he said, I wouldn’t regret anything.” Japanese justice sentenced him to the death penalty in 2021.