Police in Tokyo arrested a man in his 20s after discovering body parts of nine dismembered people while searching for a 23-year-old missing woman, local media reported on Tuesday.
Takahiro Shiraishi, 27, has admitted to killing the nine people, including eight women and one man, since he moved into his apartment on Aug. 22.
He admitted that he killed the victims for stealing money and that he had also attempted to rape some of the women.
He told the police that he couldn’t throw away the bodies because he was afraid of being caught.
Shiraishi was arrested on suspicion of body disposal and the police were expected to file murder charges later.
According to Japan’s public broadcaster NHK, investigators from the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department were investigating the disappearance of the young woman from Hachioji City in the suburbs of Tokyo.
The woman was reported missing last Tuesday.
The investigations led them to an apartment in Zama City near Tokyo, where Shiraishi was arrested on suspicion of body disposal.
Police suspect the dismembered body parts include those of the missing woman.
They believe the woman may have come into contact with Shiraishi on an Internet website for people with suicidal thoughts.
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A message was posted on the woman’s Twitter account on Sept. 20, according to Kyodo News, saying she was “looking for someone who will die with me.” The message said she “wants to die, but is scared of dying alone.”
Subsequent investigations revealed that she had been exchanging messages online with Shiraishi.
Surveillance camera footage also showed the pair walking together on Monday last week at Hachioji station in Tokyo, and at another station near the man’s apartment, NHK said.
During the police’s initial search of Shiraishi’s apartment they found a cooler box with the dismembered body parts of two people, local media reported.
The remains of seven other people in his apartment were subsequently found, local media quoted police investigators as saying.
Police said Shiraishi confessed to killing of the woman soon after he met her, saying he used the bath to cut up the bodies and dumped some of the body parts in the garbage.
They retrieved a saw from his apartment believed to have been used to dismember the bodies.
While some residents in the same apartment building had noticed a foul smell coming from his room since August, others described Shiraishi as being “a cheerful, kind and polite man.”
