Warning, the following contains disturbing material.
This documentary examines the remarkable case of Issei Sagawa, who walked free from prison despite having killed and eaten a young woman in the early 1980s. The film interviews Sagawa alongside police officers, journalists and psychiatrists to piece together the shocking story of his crime and his subsequent rise to become a minor celebrity in Japan.
In June 1981, police in Paris were alerted to the discovery of two suitcases containing human remains left by a small Asian man in the Bois de Boulogne park. A manhunt soon traced the perpetrator of this heinous crime Japanese exchange student Issei Sagawa. Police were shocked when the young man calmly confessed to killing his Dutch classmate Renée Hartevelt and eating her flesh. However, despite overwhelming evidence, Sagawa was declared insane and never stood trial. Within 34 months of the murder, he was returned to Japan a free man.
Today, 58-year-old Sagawa lives alone under an assumed name in a council flat outside Tokyo. He recounts his deeds in his own words, explaining how his obsessions with cannibalism began in childhood. Sagawa says that preoccupations about his frail physique led him to idolise the beauty of western women. Im very small and ugly, so I admire the beautiful existence, he says. This fascination with western women first came to the fore when he attacked a German woman in her apartment in Tokyo. Sagawa was arrested, only for his wealthy father to save him by paying his victim not to press charges.
Despite being labelled extremely dangerous, Sagawa was allowed to move to France on an exchange programme in 1977. Now surrounded by tempting western women, Sagawa at last found his target when he met Renée Hartevelt. Sagawa was deeply in love with Renée, and his love was so mad that he thought the most he could love her was to eat her, says journalist Jean-Pierre Van Geirt. In 1981, Sagawa invited Hartevelt to his apartment, shot her from behind and cannibalised her.
After his arrest, Sagawa underwent a year of psychiatric evaluation. The original report, unearthed by this documentary, records that he was over-sensitive, emotionally cold and selfsatisfied when he talked about the murder. Sagawa was deemed insane and unfit to stand trial. However, once again, Sagawas father intervened to help his son. He hired a top lawyer to convince the authorities that Sagawas confinement was a burden to the French tax payer and that he should be deported to Japan. The motion succeeded on the sole condition that he never return to France.
Upon his arrival in Japan, Sagawa was a free man but to avoid public outcry, his father placed his son in a psychiatric facility. Scarcely 18 months later, Sagawa checked himself out and has remained free ever since. Honestly, we were shocked to see him released so quickly, says Olivier Coll, the lead detective in his case. It was a miscarriage of justice, adds Patrick Duvall, author of a book about the cannibal.
Sagawa now claims to feel remorse for his crime but critics say he has exploited it to become famous. Since the mid-1980s, Sagawa has written 20 books about his deeds and appeared in countless television programmes, newspaper columns, stage shows and even porn videos.
Most shocking of all, Sagawa is free to roam unsupervised, despite admitting that he still has cannibalistic urges. My childhood desire is just the same when I see all the beautiful girls legs, he says. I want to eat, so Im not cured at all. Over time, his obsession with western women has been replaced by a lust for Japanese females. In light of these revelations, Sagawa agrees to be filmed attending his first psychiatric exam in ten years, resulting in some highly disturbing findings.
WHAT on EARTH. A free man?? I can't believe I'd never heard of this guy until now. I mean.. it's so shocking I don't even know what to think of this guy.. a free man? His family's wealth must have had something to do with this result.
Any thoughts on this? I find it amazing that this is how he makes a living now.. talking about his crime and appearing on interviews. Simply astounding.
Not that something like this is necessarily "common knowledge", but I imagine most people here have heard about him. He's rather famous, as your post said, especially in Japan.
On May 10 2010 19 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 10 2010 19 end_of_the_skype_highlighting:16 Kim_Hyun_Han wrote: this man deserves only 1 kind of death
be consumed by lions
Lions? Lions eat to survive there is nature, but this guy dont have a nature.
Now i see if you have money, a fucking good lawyer you can go away with anything...
On May 10 2010 19 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 10 2010 19 end_of_the_skype_highlighting:16 Kim_Hyun_Han wrote: this man deserves only 1 kind of death
be consumed by lions
Lions? Lions eat to survive there is nature, but this guy dont have a nature.
Now i see if you have money, a fucking good lawyer you can go away with anything...
[QUOTE]On May 10 2010 19:28 Kim_Hyun_Han wrote: [QUOTE]On May 10 2010 19:26 SoL[9] wrote: [QUOTE]On May 10 2010 19 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 10 2010 19 end_of_the_skype_highlighting:16 Kim_Hyun_Han wrote: this man deserves only 1 kind of death
be consumed by lions
[/QUOTE]
Lions? Lions eat to survive there is nature, but this guy dont have a nature.
Now i see if you have money, a fucking good lawyer you can go away with anything... [/QUOTE]
he will serve nature this way
being lion food
u know lions are in threat of extinction[/QUOTE
]what if he eat the lions? poor lions... i think he should just be shot.
It's odd. This story reminded me of the book/movie Perfume; where the main character attempts to make the best perfume from the scent of the most beautiful woman.
To be quite frank while it is rather silly that the Japanese government let him walk free, though from what I've seen of the guy he realizes that he's pretty much nuts and is pretty much harmless. All he does nowadays is draw paintings of naked women and try and figure out what made him that way. And while he probably shouldn't be walking free, he's pretty much shunned by most people. :-\
That guy! I remember reading an interview with him on MAXIM lol. He was saying something like he shot the girl with a double shotgun, eated her and then whined about the bad taste of her butt.
On May 10 2010 19:43 CharlieMurphy wrote: so I was watching this and I made this little pic just now
there's a big suite case or he has this terrorist mask?
lol, i missed the suitcase- that's one more brick. But yea, the mask. Why on earth would a cannibal need a ski mask? I would would it be hung up so prominently, hmmm.
She went voluntarily to his house? He might have been able to have a normal and healthy relationship with her afterall if he hadn't killed and eaten her, lol.
I've never heard about him either... Really like... meh, I'm too desensitized. Cannibalism is a new twist, and this man is slightly sickening... It's a shame what people will stoop to for a bit of fame these days.
Yeah, I heard about him. Seen on discovery as well.
The fact that he lives free now because he's considered mentally ill (that was the reason mentioned on discovery) does feel wrong. He can talk about it freely after all.
EDIT: I forgot it's Japan. I consider it the most disturbing and weird culture on the planet of those I know.
I guess with this huge amount of honor and self-sacrifice there has to be a bad side.
EDIT 2: I think it's either another one or they aren't mentioning other victims. I clearly remember discovery mentioned many victims.
P.S. What's the most disturbing for me is that there are people who are willing to talk to him/date him after what he has done.
On May 11 2010 05:14 flamewheel91 wrote: I've never heard about him either... Really like... meh, I'm too desensitized. Cannibalism is a new twist, and this man is slightly sickening... It's a shame what people will stoop to for a bit of fame these days.
How do you know he was trying to become famous? Psychopaths don't commit their heinous acts for attention; they enjoy the acts themselves. He's clearly a psychopath if he's willing to befriend someone just to kill her and eat her.
It's not a technical term a doctor would use (like at the end) to just call someone 'insane'. They are either mistranslating or telling him to sensationalize it. Same thing with the french authorities.
It kinda pisses me off, that they just call him 'insane' when the guy is clearly a functioning member of society with some sick fantasies. You can hardly just simply label them insane. And not only that, it lessens his crimes if you're just like; "Oh he's just crazy, he can't help it". He clearly admitted he has issues and needs help, so a rational person like that is not insane.
he was definitively not insane, his brain worked (he was even a really good literary student), he just had some fucked up fantasies like charlie says. just because he was different does not make him insane, but in this case it did make him very dangerous. I'm very suprised with all the publicity he got that he has not been murdered.
On May 11 2010 05:28 Piy wrote: A weirder cannibalism story was when that German met someone online who agreed to be eaten.
Where do you draw the line there?
If anything is weird it's that the German cannibal was sentenced to 8,5 years prison for manslaughteralthough his victim had agreed to be eaten and stood by this decision to the very end and although there is actually a law for just that in Germany(homicide upon request).
Bottom line: Shooting, fucking & eating a person in France => walk free Killing & Eating someone who actually wants it in Germany => 8,5 years
Neither one was right imho, but ffs... better lock the guy up and watch him than just let him walk free making him rich & famous along the way.
The cannibalism is of secondary concern to the fact that he committed premeditated murder. That alone should warrant either execution or life imprisonment with no chance of parole in a hard labor camp. Everything he did after the murder is minor in comparison.
WHAT on EARTH. A free man?? I can't believe I'd never heard of this guy until now. I mean.. it's so shocking I don't even know what to think of this guy.. a free man? His family's wealth must have had something to do with this result.
Any thoughts on this? I find it amazing that this is how he makes a living now.. talking about his crime and appearing on interviews. Simply astounding.
Thats astonishing. However, for me justice always means to look at a persons motives in addition to the result of his actions. Thinking that eating someone serves both parties goods definitly is sick but it shows that the crime was not done with the purpose of damaging somebody (Given that he actually thought that, couldn't figure it out from the text, or if he only did it to satify his own lust while knowing that this is only ordinary murder against the other person.). I do not think that revenge allone should determine a punishment, so I wouldn't expect a severe (relative to the crime of murder) punishment. But that he never had any sort of punishment is really strange and crazy.
The way he sells the story is the truly disturbing part for me, the fact that this works. Low quality media has such a bad influence on the world...
I remember reading about that. I was really confused when I read that he was walking free. Had to read it over again to confirm that I was not hallucinating in any way or missing minor details.
For all the people who keep on saying "Japan", its not a celebrity in the mold of Hollywood etc., but rather a kind of gross interest (like most of you probably feel towards him as well).
EPT
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