2017: The Twitter Killer: Nine Dismembered Bodies Found in a Freezer Near Tokyo
Takahiro Shiraishi trawled Twitter for young people who had posted about wanting to die, then invited them to his apartment in the Japanese city of Zama with promises to help them end their lives, or to die together. Between August and October 2017, he murdered eight young women and one man, the latter killed because he threatened to expose the crimes.
When one of the women disappeared, her brother searched her Twitter messages and helped police trace her movements to Shiraishi. Investigators arrived at his apartment on 30 October 2017 and discovered human remains concealed in cooler boxes and storage containers. The remains belonged to nine victims, aged between fifteen and twenty-six, whose disappearances had gone largely unconnected until the discovery.
Shiraishi admitted all nine killings and acknowledged that his victims had not consented to their deaths, despite his lawyers arguing otherwise. Sentenced to death in December 2020, he withdrew an appeal lodged by his lawyers and was executed by hanging on 27 June 2025, Japan’s first execution in nearly three years.
