Takahiro Shiraishi, who is better known as Japan's 'Twitter Killer,' had admitted that he had killed nine people. Surprisingly, he refuted his lawyer's claim of consent killing and said that he did the right thing to kill them without consent.
In the court, 29-year-old Shiraishi did not contest the charges of killing nine people and storing their body parts in boxes. But his lawyer was seen trying to decrease his sentence and argued that victims had suicidal thoughts and gave their consent to him before they were killed. But it can be noted that the victims had bruises on their bodies and head, showing that they might have resisted the killing.
Shiraishi Boasts of Nine Murders
Shiraishi spoke about the murders in an interview with Japanese newspaper Mainichi Shimbun. Giving a different account of the cases, he said that he was ready to tell the prosecutor that he had killed them without their consent. "There were bruises on the back of the victims' heads. It means there was no consent and I did it so that they wouldn't resist," Shiraishi had told the publication.
This case came into light in 2017, when a 23-year-old woman went missing. Following the twitter messages, where she had tweeted about wanting to kill herself, police started probing Shiraishi. To their shock, they found more than 240 bone parts and dismembered body parts of the missing woman's body stored in a cooling box in Shiraishi's flat. He had used cat litter to keep the foul smell under check.
Along with murder, Shiraishi is also facing rape charges. After his arrest, he was seen boasting about his deeds as he was successful in killing nine people and the police were not able to trace him till his last murder.
Victims Expressed Suicidal Thoughts on Social Media
According to BBC, Shiraishi had killed three high school students, a female student, four women in their twenties and a man in his 20s. It is said that all these victims had expressed suicidal thoughts on social media. Shiraishi is known to have wooed them through twitter and killed them when they met him.
When he was first arrested in Tokyo, Twitter came under fire for allowing people to express suicidal thoughts and giving individuals an easy access to information of people who wanted to kill themselves. This led to a debate and Twitter made changes to its rules. Twitter declared that there will be no promotion of suicide or self harm on the micro-blogging site.
If the court accepts Shiraishi's arguments he will be awarded death penalty and will be hanged. But if the court takes into consideration his lawyers argument of consent killing, then he will face the charge of murder with consent and will be sentenced to jail term of a minimum of six months and maximum of seven years.
