An infamous Japanese cannibal who raped, killed and ate a young Dutch student has died after he swerved spending a single day in jail for his horror crimes
Issei Sagawa, who earned himself the grim moniker of the " Kobe Cannibal " for the 1981 killing, has died aged 73.
Sagawa died of pneumonia on November 24 and was given a funeral attended only by relatives, with no public ceremony planned, his younger brother and a friend said in a statement.
The statement was issued by the publisher of a 2019 memoir written by Sagawa's brother.
In 1981, Sagawa was studying in Paris when he invited Dutch student Renee Hartevelt to his home.
He shot her in the neck, raped her, then consumed parts of her body over the course of three days.
He then attempted to dispose of her remains in the Bois de Boulogne park, where he was arrested.
Psychiatric experts deemed Sagawa unfit to face trial, and he was initially held in a mental institution in France before being deported to Japan.
There, he was ruled sane by Japanese authorities, but as the charges against him in France had been dropped, he was allowed to walk free.
Sagawa made no secret of his crime and capitalised on his notoriety, including with a novel-like memoir titled "In the Fog" in which he reminisced about the murder in vivid detail.
He also recounted details of the incident and his ongoing obsession with cannibalism in interviews and a 2017 documentary, "Caniba".
Speaking to media outlet Vice, he said he had been "obsessed with cannibalism".
"My desire to eat a woman had changed into an obligation."
His cannibalistic actions were not, however, spur of the moment.
According to reports, he said: “It’s simply a fetish.
“For example, if a normal man fancied a girl, he’d naturally feel a desire to see her as often as possible, to be close to her, to smell her and kiss her, right?
“To me, eating is just an extension of that.
“Frankly, I can’t fathom why everyone doesn’t feel this urge to eat, to consume, other people.”
“Almost every night I would bring a prostitute home and then try to shoot them from behind.
“It became less about wanting to eat them, but more an obsession with the idea that I simply had to carry out this ‘ritual’ of killing a girl no matter what."
Crime scene photos of the dismemberment meal show 12 paper plates filled with human body meat.
Rather chillingly, he described the moment he cut open the women's bottom, which he said looked like “corn” due to several layers of fat.
“The moment I saw the meat, I tore a chunk off with my fingers and threw it into my mouth. It was truly a historical moment for me,” he recalled.
“What I truly wished was to eat her living flesh.
“Nobody believes me, but my ultimate intention was to eat her, not necessarily to kill her."