Japan executes man convicted of murder for killing and dismembering 9 people in his apartment
Shiraishi was hanged at the Tokyo Detention House in high secrecy with nothing disclosed until the execution was done.
Police arrested him in 2017 after finding the bodies of eight females and one male in cold-storage cases in his apartment.
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Investigators said Shiraishi approached the victims via Twitter, offering to assist them with their suicidal wishes. He killed the eight women, including teenagers, after raping them, and also killed a boyfriend of one of the women to silence him.
Japan's suicide rate ranks among the world's highest. Following a recent decline, the number has climbed back this year as people were hit by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Japan's crime rate is relatively low, but it has seen some high-profile mass killings in recent years.
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New York Post
3 hours ago
- New York Post
Japan executes ‘Twitter killer' who murdered and dismembered 9 people in his apartment
A man convicted of murder for killing and dismembering nine people in his apartment near Tokyo was executed Friday, Japan's Justice Ministry said. Takahiro Shiraishi, known as the 'Twitter killer,' was sentenced to death in 2020 for the killings in 2017 of the nine victims, most of whom had posted suicidal thoughts on social media. He was also convicted of sexually abusing female victims. Police arrested him later that year after finding the bodies of eight teenage girls and women as well as one man in cold-storage cases in his apartment. 3 Takahiro Shiraishi was executed after pleading guilty to murdering nine people at his apartment in Japan. Investigators said Shiraishi approached the victims via Twitter, offering to assist them with their suicidal wishes. He killed the three teenage girls and five women after raping them. He also killed the boyfriend of one of the women to silence him. 'The case caused the extremely serious outcomes and dealt a major shockwave and unease to the society,' Justice Minister Keisuke Suzuki told an emergency news conference. He said he signed the execution earlier this week, but did not witness Shiraishi's hanging. The execution was carried out as calls grow to abolish capital punishment or increase transparency in Japan after the acquittal of the world's longest-serving death row inmate Iwao Hakamada last year. Suzuki justified the need for the execution in Japan, noting a recent government survey shows an overwhelming majority of the public still supports capital punishment, though opposition has somewhat increased. 3 Takahiro Shiraishi (C) covering his face with his hands as he is transported to the prosecutor's office from a police station in Tokyo on Nov. 1, 2017. JIJI PRESS/AFP via Getty Images 'I believe it is not appropriate to abolish execution,' Suzuki said, adding there is growing concern about serious crime. Shiraishi was hanged at the Tokyo Detention House in secrecy with nothing disclosed until the execution was done. Japan now has 105 people on death row, including 49 seeking retrials, Suzuki said. Executions are carried out in secrecy in Japan, where prisoners are not even informed of their fate until the morning of their hanging. 3 Investigators said Shiraishi approached the victims via Twitter, offering to assist them with their suicidal wishes. JIJI PRESS/AFP via Getty Images Since 2007, Japan has begun disclosing the names of those executed and some details of their crimes, but disclosures are still limited. Japan and the US are the only two countries in the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations that retain capital punishment. Japan's most recent execution, in July 2022, was of a man who killed seven people in a vehicle crash and stabbing rampage in a crowded Tokyo shopping district of Akihabara in 2018. Japan's crime rate is relatively low, but it has seen some high-profile mass killings in recent years.
UPI
4 hours ago
- UPI
Japan executes 'Twitter Killer' who murdered nine people in 2017
June 27 (UPI) -- Japan executed a 34-year-old death row inmate known as the "Twitter Killer," who was convicted of killing nine people at his apartment south of Tokyo in 2017, marking the first person to be put to death in the country in nearly three years. Takahiro Shiraishi was executed at the Tokyo Detention House, Japanese broadcaster NHK reported. The method of execution was hanging. "I ordered the execution after careful and deliberate consideration," Justice Minister Keisuke Suzuki told reporters during a press conference following the execution, the Kyodo News agency reported. Shiraishi was sentenced to death in December 2020. He was convicted of luring his victims to his apartment, where he killed nine people, eight females and one male. He was arrested in October 2017 after several dismembered bodies were found in his apartment by police investigating the disappearance of a local woman. Authorities said Shiraishi and his victim met after she expressed suicidal thoughts online. He told investigators that he targeted those who expressed suicidal ideation on social media, including Twitter, earning him the moniker "Twitter Killer." He would lure them to his apartment under the pretense that they would die together in a pact, but instead, he killed them and dismembered their bodies. Nine heads and hundreds of bones were discovered by police during a search of his apartment. Shiraishi is the first person to be executed in the Asian nation since July 2022, when Tomohiro Kato had his sentence carried out for killing seven people during a Tokyo stabbing spree in 2008. Amnesty International Japan protested Shiraishi's execution on Thursday, pointing to October's acquittal of Iwao Hakamad -- who had been sentenced to death in 1980 -- which highlighted "the deep flaws in the death penalty system" an sparked renewed debate in the country about the controversial practice. It also referenced U.N. special rapporteurs who called on the Japanese government in November to consider declaring a moratorium on executions as issues with its current system of carrying out capital punishment violates international law, including the practice of notifying death row only on the morning they are to be executed. "That Japan proceeded with this execution amid such intense domestic and international scrutiny suggests that the government has not recognized the death sentence imposed on Mr. Hakamada -- who was driven to mental collapse by decades on death row for a crime he did not commit -- as a grave institutional and systemic failure," Amnesty International Japan said in a statement. Of the Group of Seven nations, only the United States and Japan have the death penalty. So far this year, the United States has executed 25 death row inmates.
6 hours ago
Colorado funeral home owner accused of stashing bodies to be sentenced for fraud
DENVER -- A Colorado funeral home owner accused of stashing nearly 190 dead bodies in a decrepit building and sending grieving families fake ashes is set to be sentenced Friday in federal court for cheating customers and defrauding the government out of nearly $900,000 in COVID-19 aid. Jon Hallford, owner of Return to Nature Funeral Home, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud last year and faces a maximum of 20 years in prison. Federal prosecutors are seeking a 15-year sentence. He's pleaded guilty in a separate state case to 191 counts of corpse abuse. Hallford and co-owner Carie Hallford were accused of storing the bodies between 2019 and 2023 and sending families fake ashes. Investigators described finding the bodies in 2023 stacked atop each other throughout a squat, bug-infested building in Penrose, a small town about a two-hour drive south of Denver. The morbid discovery revealed to many families that their loved ones weren't cremated and that the ashes they had spread or cherished were fake. In two cases, the wrong body was buried, according to court documents. Many families said it undid their grieving processes. Some relatives had nightmares, others have struggled with guilt, and at least one wondered about their loved one's soul. Federal prosecutors accused both Hallfords of pandemic aid fraud, siphoning the aid and spending it and customer's payments on a GMC Yukon and Infiniti worth over $120,000 combined, along with $31,000 in cryptocurrency, luxury items from stores like Gucci and Tiffany & Co., and even laser body sculpting. Carie Hallford is scheduled to go to trial in the federal case in September, the same month as her next hearing in the state case in which she's also charged with 191 counts of corpse abuse. In a court filing requesting a 10-year sentence, Jon Hallford's attorneys said that 'Mr. Hallford does not disagree that his conduct was abhorrent, indecent, and caused grave harm to many.' His sentencing in the state case is scheduled in August.
