VIDEO: A Story of Cannibalism – Issei Sagawa

It’s always a bit scary to read about serial killers and to think about the horrible things they’ve done, but most of the times you just get a few chills down your spine, as you know they’ve been caught and most likely executed.

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What if I told you there’s a man out there who ate another human being and is now a writer, roaming free?

His name is Issei Sagawa and he is a cannibal.

According to Wikipedia, on June 11, 1981, Sagawa invited his Sorbonne classmate Renée Hartevelt to dinner at his apartment under the pretext of translating poetry for a school assignment. He planned to kill and eat her, having selected her for her health and beauty; characteristics he believed he lacked. After she arrived, she began reading poetry at a desk with her back to him. He shot her in the neck with a rifle. Sagawa said he fainted after the shock of shooting her, but awoke with the realization that he had to carry out his plan. He raped her corpse but was unable to bite into her skin, so he left the apartment and purchased a butcher knife. For two days, Sagawa ate various parts of her body, saving other parts in his refrigerator. He then attempted to dump her body in a lake in the Bois de Boulogne, but was seen in the act and arrested by French police. When he was caught, he was carrying two suitcases. Those suitcases contained the dismembered body parts of Renée Hartevelt.

Sagawa’s wealthy father provided a lawyer for his defense, and after being held for two years without trial Sagawa was found legally insane and unfit to stand trial by the French judge, Jean-Louis Bruguière, who ordered him held indefinitely in a mental institution. After a visit by the author Inuhiko Yomota, Sagawa’s account of the murder was published in Japan under the title In the Fog. Sagawa’s subsequent publicity and macabre celebrity likely contributed to the French authorities’ decision to deport him to Japan, where he was immediately committed to Matsuzawa hospital. Examining psychologists there all declared him sane and found sexual perversion was his sole motivation for the murder. Because charges in France had been dropped, the French court documents were sealed and were not released to Japanese authorities; consequently Sagawa could not legally be detained in Japan. He checked himself out of the hospital on August 12, 1986, and remained free. Sagawa’s continued freedom has been widely criticized.

Between 1986 and 1997 he was frequently invited to be a guest speaker and commentator. In 1992, he appeared in Hisayasu Sato’s exploitation film Uwakizuma: Chijokuzeme (Unfaithful Wife: Shameful Torture) as a sado-sexual voyeur. Sagawa has written books about the murder, as well as Shonen A, a book on the 1997 Kobe child murders. He has also written restaurant reviews for the Japanese magazine Spa. Sagawa can no longer find publishers for his writing and he has struggled to find employment. He was nearly accepted by a French-language school because the manager was impressed by his courage in using his real name, but employees protested and he was rejected.