The man who was arrested Tuesday after nine dismembered bodies were found in his apartment just outside Tokyo said he killed his victims soon after they fi
The man who was arrested Tuesday after nine dismembered bodies were found in his apartment just outside Tokyo said he killed his victims soon after they first met, starting in late August, police said Tuesday, adding they plan to file multiple murder charges.
Takahiro Shiraishi, 27, has admitted killing the nine, believed to be eight women and one man, telling investigators that he came to know them through Twitter and lured them to his apartment with offers to help them commit suicide, according to the police.
“I killed nine people since I moved (into the apartment) on Aug. 22,” Shiraishi was quoted as telling the police, who are trying to identify the deceased through DNA analysis, a process that is expected to prove difficult.
Shiraishi, who is known to have worked as a “scout,” or recruiter, for a sex-related business in Tokyo’s famous Kabukicho entertainment district, said stealing money was one of the reasons for the killings, noting he took ¥500,000 ($4,410) from one of his victims.
He also admitted he had assaulted some of the women with the intent to rape them.
The police found severed heads and other body parts inside cold-storage containers and tool boxes in Shiraishi’s apartment in Zama, Kanagawa Prefecture, on Monday and Tuesday.
The remains displayed multiple cuts and some of the body parts had already been reduced to bone, according to the police. Some 240 bones were found in his apartment, which is made up of one room and a small bathroom.
“I couldn’t throw away (the bodies) out of fear for being caught,” Shiraishi told the police.
He was arrested on initial suspicion of mutilating a corpse of unknown identity and placing it in a cold-storage container sometime between Aug. 22 and Oct. 30. The police reportedly believe he kept the heads and bones but disposed of the flesh and organs.
