Japan executed a man who murdered nine people in 2017, the first time since 2022, the country has promulgated capital punishment.
Takahiro Shiraishi’s serial murders, nicknamed the “Twitter killer”, had shocked the country and triggered a debate on how suicide was discussed online.
Shuishi, then 30 years old, attracted his victims – most of them of young women aged 15 to 26 – to his apartment, before strangling and dismembering them.
The murders were revealed in October 2017, when police found body parts in the Japanese city of Zama, near Tokyo, when they were looking for one of the victims.
Warning: readers can find details in this painful story.
Shiraishi later admitted to assassinating nine suicidal victims and revealed that he had been familiar on Twitter, the social media platform now known as X.
He then told them that he could help them die and, in some cases, said he would kill himself next to them.
His Twitter profile contained the words: “I want to help people who really suffer. Please dm [direct message] Me at any time. “”
Nine dismembered bodies were found in coolers and toolboxes when police visited his apartment, which was nicknamed by the media as a “horrors”.
While the prosecutors asked for the death penalty for Shiraishi, his lawyers pleaded for the slightest accusation of “consent to consent”, saying that his victims had given their authorization to kill.
They also called for an assessment of his mental state.
Shiraishi then challenged the event version of his own defense team and said he had killed the victims without the consent.
Hundreds of people presented themselves at his hearing in verdict in December 2020, when he was sentenced to death.
The murders have also caused a modification of Twitter, which has changed its rules to state users should not “promote or encourage suicide or self -harm”.
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In the United Kingdom, you can call for free, at any time, to hear information recorded on 0800 066 066. In Japan, you can get help here.
