The Japanese cannibal Issei Sagawa, the murderer who partially devoured a young Dutch woman, dies

The Japanese Issei Sagawa, a writer and media figure known for murdering and partially eating a young Dutch woman while studying in Paris in 1981, has died at the age of 73 due to pneumonia, according to his brother.

sagawa He died on November 24 in a Tokyo hospital, according to information published today by the Kyodo news agency.

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Nicknamed in certain spheres as the “vampire of japan”Sagawa committed the crime cannibal while studying Comparative Literature at the Sorbonne University in Paris.

The Japanese shot his Dutch teammate Renée Hartevelt in the back after inviting her to his apartment and she rejecting his proposals.

Subsequently he raped her corpse, tore it to pieces, keeping it in the refrigerator, and devoured it until a few days later he was surprised and arrested by the police while trying to dump his remains in two suitcases in the lake of a Parisian park.

Student Issei Sagawa, murderer of Dutch student Renée Hartevelt, is escorted by French policemen as he leaves the Paris Police Prefectural Headquarters June 17, 1981, after being questioned. (AFP PHOTO DOMINIQUE FAGET).

sagawathe son of an influential Japanese family, was not prosecuted for the crime after he a psychological evaluation would declare him insane.

He was admitted to a psychiatric hospital in Paris until a few months later he was repatriated to Japan.where he became a writer and a figure of media relevance.

His works include “Kiri no naka” (Between the fog, 1984), some memoirs in which he details the macabre crime and which would also be transferred to comics.

Another writer, Juro Kara, won the prestigious Akutagawa National Literary Award in 1982 for “Sagawa-kun kara no tegami” (“Sagawa’s Letters”), based on the event.

In 2019, the reminiscences of the case returned to the front line for the premiere in Japan of the documentary “Caniba”, which competed in the second section of the Mostra” in Venice in 2017.

The tape, which begins by emphasizing that “it does not intend to justify the crime”, is a succession of confessions and close-ups of the criminal, bedridden in his apartment in an obvious state of mental disturbance and assisted by his brother, Jun, with whom he converses.

Source: Elcomercio