Japan executed a man on Friday who murdered nine people after reaching out to them via social media, marking the first capital punishment in the nation in almost three years.
Takahiro Shiraishi was sentenced to death for the 2017 strangulation and dismemberment of eight women and one man at his residence in Zama city, Kanagawa, near Tokyo.
He was labeled the “Twitter killer” because he reached out to victims through the social media platform. He lured girls aged 15 to 26 to his apartment close to Tokyo, killed them, and dismembered their corpses.
Justice Minister Keisuke Suzuki, who approved Shiraishi’s execution, stated he made the decision after thorough consideration, factoring in the offender’s “extremely selfish” motive for offenses that “caused great shock and unrest to society.”
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The ‘Twitter Killer’
In December 2020, Shiraishi was convicted of murdering, sexually assaulting, and dismembering nine individuals, subsequently storing their remains in his apartment located in Zama, Kanagawa prefecture, close to Tokyo.
The vanishing of a 23-year-old woman who had posted about her suicidal thoughts resulted in police finding Shiraishi in 2017, uncovering the gruesome killings. Her brother accessed her Twitter account and assisted the police in locating Shiraishi’s residence, where they found the dismembered bodies of nine individuals.
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As reported by NHK and TV Asahi, all the victims had shared their feelings online regarding a desire to end their own lives. Shiraishi reached out to them via social media using his X handle ‘hangman,’ persuading them to visit his apartment near Tokyo with the assurance that he would assist them in dying. When he reached there, he murdered them and concealed parts of their remains in coolers and toolboxes, using cat litter to mask the smell.
The highly popular mass murder case drew national attention for years and ignited discussions on the perils of social media.
Shiraishi’s lawyer first challenged the court’s ruling at the Tokyo High Court, but subsequently retracted the appeal. Consequently, NHK reported that the sentence was finalized.
First Execution since 2022
Prior to Shiraishi, a man named Tomohiro Kato was executed in 2022 for a 2008 incident in Tokyo’s Akihabara. Kato drove a rented two-ton truck into a crowd before embarking on a stabbing rampage that resulted in seven fatalities.
In Japan, the death penalty continues to have substantial public support. A government survey conducted in 2024 revealed that 83 percent of 1,800 respondents considered capital punishment to be “inevitable.”
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Japan is the only other nation besides the US that belongs to the Group of Seven industrialized economies and continues the tradition.
Although the law requires executions to occur within six months of a definitive verdict, prisoners may endure years in solitary confinement, which many believe results in psychological problems.
