Issei Sagawa, Japanese man who killed and ate Dutch student in Paris, dies at 73
- Sagawa, known as the ‘Kobe Cannibal’, died of pneumonia last month and was given a funeral attended only by relatives
- He shot Renee Hartevelt in the neck, raped her, then consumed parts of her body after inviting the woman to his home in 1981
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Issei Sagawa, a Japanese murderer known as the “Kobe Cannibal” who killed and ate a Dutch student but was never jailed, 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.
My desire to eat a woman had changed into an obligation
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.”
Another writer Juro Kara won Japan’s prestigious Akutagawa award in 1982 for his work, Letters from Sagawa, which is based on the incident.
According to his family, Sagawa had been recuperating in recent years after suffering a stroke.
Additional reporting by Kyodo
