Nov. 1 (UPI) — The search for a missing woman outside Tokyo led to the discovery of nine bodies in an apartment and the arrest of the man living there.
Takahiro Shiraishi, 27, confessed to the killings, which included eight women. He told authorities he began the killings in August.
Four of the victims were teenage girls.
Shiraishi said he met his first victim on Twitter. She met up with him with her boyfriend. Shiraishi killed the woman after inviting her to his apartment alone. When her boyfriend came looking for her later, he killed him, too.
“I invited him to my apartment and killed him,” Shiraishi told the police, “I killed nine people since I moved [into the apartment] on Aug. 22.”
He told police he met the others victims through Twitter after luring them to his apartment with offers to help them die, and he said he assaulted some of the women with the intent to rape them.
Shiraishi was known to have worked as a recruiter for a sex-related business and stealing money was one of the reasons behind the killings.
Police found severed heads and other body parts in cold-storage containers and tool boxes. The bodies displayed had multiple cuts.
Some 240 bones were found in the apartment, making the process of identification of the remains via DNA analysis difficult for police.
Shiraishi used cat litter to help reduce the odor of the deteriorating bodies.
“I couldn’t throw away the bodies out of fear for being caught,” Shiraishi told police. “There is no doubt that I tried to hide the body of the person I killed.”
“I dismembered it in the bathroom, disposing of some body parts in the garbage.”
The case was sent to prosecutors on Wednesday.
