Japanese serial killer suspect used Twitter account ‘hangingpro’ to contact suicidal victims
Takahiro Shiraishi’s nine victims were believed to be a man around 20 years of age and eight women
A man arrested following the discovery of nine dismembered bodies at his flat used a Twitter account with the username “hangingpro,” boasting knowledge about hanging, to get in touch with people who wanted to commit suicide, investigative sources said Thursday.
Takahiro Shiraishi is believed to have opened the account in September with a profile saying he wanted “to spread my knowledge of hanging and be a help to those who are really in pain.”
Using the “hangingpro” handle, Shiraishi replied to women who had expressed suicidal feelings on Twitter with messages such as “Let’s die together,” the sources said.
On October 6, “hangingpro” wrote: “It is not good to tell friends, family members and social networking sites that you are going to die before committing suicide.”
The post is being seen as an attempt to prevent people contemplating suicide from being dissuaded by those around them, the sources said.
Police believe that the 27-year-old unemployed man invited people who wished to die to his home in Zama, Kanagawa Prefecture near Tokyo by contacting them through Twitter, and then killed them.