Issei Sagawa, a Japanese killer who raped, murdered, and ate a Dutch student but was never convicted, has died at 73.
Issei Sagawa, a Japanese killer who raped, murdered, and ate a Dutch student but was never convicted for his crime, has died at 73. Sagawa was infamously known as the ‘Kobe Cannibal’.
According to reports, Sagawa died of pneumonia on November 24th, and was interred in a private ceremony attended only by his relatives.
Sagawa created much controversy in 1981 when, while studying in Paris, he raped and murdered Dutch student Renee Hartevelt. He also ate parts of her body for several days after murdering her. Later, he tried to dispose of her remaining body parts in a local park. Shortly after, he was apprehended by authorities.
Despite confessing, however, Sagawa was considered unfit for trial by French authorities. Before being deported back to Japan in 1984, he also spent time in a mental institution in France.
However, upon his arrival back in Japan, Japanese authorities deemed him of sound character and claimed that his crime was an unusual aberration in character. Authorities in Japan, however, were unable to procure case files since French police had considered the case closed, leaving him to walk free.
Sagawa was infamously open about his crime, even writing a memoir titled In The Fog. In its pages, he described the murder in abject detail. In addition to speaking about the incident in multiple interviews, Sagawa also gained popularity as an erotic artist, appeared in a pornographic film, and also released a manga where he – yet again – depicted his crime in unrelenting detail.
In a 2013 interview with Vice, he said while looking at pictures of women: “I think they would taste delicious.”
