Japan's ‘Twitter Killer’ sentenced to death for killing and dismembering nine victims

Japan’s high-profile criminal dubbed as ‘Twitter Killer’ who dismembered at least nine victims, all of whom were women, was sentenced to death over 2017 serial murders on December 14. According to sources of The Japan Times, the Japanese court sentenced the 30-year-old Takahiro Shiraishi who brutally murdered and later butchered the dead bodies of the ‘suicidal people' that he met online.

The killer was charged with the first count of homicide for luring the women aged between 15 and 26 to his apartment in Zama, Kanagawa Prefecture, Tokyo, where he attacked them with weapons and stashed the pieces of their bodies in a freezer. His lawyer, however, in the criminal’s defense argued that he murdered those that consented to the killing. And therefore, he appealed to the court to order life imprisonment instead of the death penalty. 

However, the Presiding Judge Naokuni Yano ruled that the nine victims had not ‘consented’ to the killing and may not have been in a mentally sound state. But Shiraishi was mentally fit to be held accountable for the murders, the judge said in the verdict, adding that the crime was extremely ‘vicious’. While the killer pleaded guilty to the crimes, the defense lawyers presented the texts of the victims on the Twitter account that he operated that translates to “hangman” as the ‘tactic’ approval to the victims’ death wishes. 

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['Twitter Killer' Japanese account. Credit: Twitter/@teddyeugene]

Victims 'resisted'

Prosecutor, however, dismissed the appeal citing how unsafe the social media platform had become. In the trial, the Judge said that Shiraishi's testimony was false as all his victims resisted when he strangled them, and he was criminally liable. The Twitter Killer was also subjected to psychiatric testing in September 2018 and was declared mentally fit ahead of the indictment. 

According to NHK, the Twitter Killer made the account in March 2017 to contact the vulnerable women who were contemplating suicide. He saw them as ‘easy targets’ and manipulated them by promising that he would kill himself alongside the victims. His bio on his Twitter account read, "I want to help people who are really in pain. Please DM [direct message] me anytime."

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(Image Credit: AP)