Japan on Friday carried out the execution of Takahiro Shiraishi, known as the “Twitter killer,” who murdered and dismembered nine people he met online, marking the country’s first use of the death penalty since 2022.
The 34-year-old was hanged for the killings of his young victims, all but one of whom were women, after approaching them on the social media platform now known as X. Shiraishi specifically targeted individuals who had expressed suicidal thoughts, offering to assist them in taking their own lives or claiming he would die alongside them.
Justice Minister Keisuke Suzuki described the 2017 crimes as involving “robbery, rape, murder, destruction of a corpse, and abandonment of a corpse.”
“Nine victims were beaten, strangled, killed, robbed, and then mutilated. Parts of their bodies were hidden in boxes, while others were disposed of at a garbage dump,” Suzuki told journalists in Tokyo.
