Japan has executed a man who murdered nine people in 2017, the first time since 2022 that the country has enacted capital punishment.<\/p>\n
The serial killings by Takahiro Shiraishi, dubbed the \u201cTwitter killer\u201d, had shocked the country and triggered debate over how suicide was discussed online.<\/p>\n
Shiraishi, then 30, lured his victims \u2013 most of them young women between the ages of 15 and 26 \u2013 to his apartment, before strangling and dismembering them.<\/p>\n
The killings came to light in October 2017, when police found body parts in the Japanese city of Zama, near Tokyo, when they were searching for one of the victims.<\/p>\n
Shiraishi later admitted to murdering nine suicidal victims and revealed that he got acquainted with them on Twitter, the social media platform now known as X.<\/p>\n
He then told them he could help them die, and in some cases claimed he would kill himself alongside them.<\/p>\n
His Twitter profile contained the words: \u201cI want to help people who are really in pain. Please DM [direct message] me anytime.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nine dismembered bodies were found in coolers and tool boxes when officers visited his flat, which was dubbed by media outlets as a \u201chouse of horrors\u201d.<\/p>\n
While prosecutors sought the death penalty for Shiraishi, his lawyers argued for the lesser charge of \u201cmurder with consent\u201d, claiming his victims had given their permission to be killed.<\/p>\n
They also called for an assessment of his mental state.<\/p>\n
Shiraishi later disputed his own defence team\u2019s version of events and said he killed without the victims\u2019 consent.<\/p>\n
Hundreds of people showed up at his verdict hearing in December 2020, when he was sentenced to death.<\/p>\n
The murders also prompted a change by Twitter, which amended its rules to state users should not \u201cpromote or encourage suicide or self-harm\u201d.<\/p>\n
Japan\u2019s justice minister Keisuke Suzuki, who said he ordered Shiraishi\u2019s execution, said the killer acted \u201cfor the genuinely selfish reason of satisfying his own sexual and financial desires\u201d, according to an AFP report.<\/p>\n
The case \u201ccaused great shock and anxiety to society\u201d, Suzuki said.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Japan has executed a man who murdered nine people in 2017, the first time since 2022 that the country has enacted capital punishment. The serial killings by Takahiro Shiraishi, dubbed the \u201cTwitter killer\u201d, had shocked the country and triggered debate over how suicide was discussed online. Shiraishi, then 30, lured his victims \u2013 most of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-117219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117219\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}