Japan hanged Takahiro Shiraishi, the man known as the “Twitter killer,” on Friday at the Tokyo Detention House. He was 34. It was the country’s first execution since July 2022.
Shiraishi murdered nine people in 2017, eight women and one man, aged between 15 and 26. He found them online. They had posted that they wanted to die, and he contacted them, telling them he could help. His profile read: “I want to help people who are really in pain. Please DM me anytime.” Prosecutors said he used a handle that loosely translates as “hangman.”
He invited them to his apartment in Zama, near Tokyo, and killed and dismembered them there.
How it came to light
Police went to the apartment in October 2017 to look for a 23-year-old woman who had disappeared. Inside they found three cooler boxes and five containers holding human remains, TV Asahi reported at the time. Media dubbed the flat a “house of horrors.”
Shiraishi admitted the killings. In court he said he had acted to satisfy his own sexual desires. He was sentenced to death in December 2020, and hundreds of people turned up for the verdict hearing. His lawyer appealed to the Tokyo High Court, but Shiraishi withdrew the appeal and the sentence became final, NHK reported.
The case also changed Twitter’s rules. The platform, now called X, amended them to bar users from promoting or encouraging suicide or self-harm.
The justice minister’s statement
Justice Minister Keisuke Suzuki said he had ordered the execution. “This case, driven by selfish motives such as sexual and financial gratification, resulted in the deaths of nine individuals over two months,” he told reporters. He said the case caused “shock and anxiety across society.” Of his decision he said: “After careful and deliberate consideration of all factors, I issued the execution order.”
The father of one victim told NHK he would rather have seen Shiraishi “spend his life reflecting on the crimes he committed, than simply losing it through death penalty.”
Japan carries out executions by hanging, and dates are not made public until afterward. Families and lawyers are usually told only once it is done. As of December 2023, 107 prisoners were waiting for their sentences to be carried out, the Justice Ministry told AFP. A 2024 government survey of 1,800 people found 83% considered the death penalty unavoidable. The last man executed, in 2022, was Tomohiro Kato, who killed seven people in Tokyo’s Akihabara district in 2008.
Sources
- Japan executes 'Twitter killer' who murdered nine
- Japan executes ‘Twitter killer’ who murdered and dismembered nine people | CNN
- ‘Twitter killer’ who murdered nine in Japan reportedly executed
- Takahiro Shiraishi
Sources
- Japan executes 'Twitter killer' who murdered nine – BBC
- Takahiro Shiraishi: Japan executes 'Twitter killer' who murdered and …
