Japanese cannibal who killed and ate Dutch student in 1981 dead at age 73

A Japanese man who murdered and ate a Dutch university student in 1981 died last week. Issei Sagawa, nicknamed "Kobe Cannibal," died at the age of 73.

Sagawa was studying in Paris in 1981, just like his Dutch victim, Renée Hartevelt. On his 32nd birthday, he invited her to his house for dinner. There, Sagawa killed her by shooting her in the neck with a rifle. He then raped her corpse, and ate several parts of her body over the following three days. The cannibal was arrested when he tried to dump other parts of the body in the Bois de Boulogne park.

French doctors ruled that Sagawa could not face trial because he was mentally ill. He then was sent to a French psychiatric institution, and was transferred to a facility in Japan in 1984.

Hartevelt's family wanted Sagawa to be prosecuted in Japan "so that this killer is never released again," but the opposite happened. Because the French authorities had closed the case, their Japanese counterparts did not receive the necessary case file. Then, experts in Tokyo even declared him mentally sound, and said he had a "character defect." Sagawa was released.

The cannibal became a celebrity in Japan and made no secret of his crime. He wrote a book in which he described the atrocities in graphic detail. Sagawa has given many interviews over the years, but showed little remorse. He said eating Hartevelt was an "expression of love," and stated, "I wanted to feel within me the existence of a person I love."

Sagawa later painted nude women, appeared in a pornographic film, and drew a manga comic book that graphically depicted his crime. The Rolling Stones song "Too Much Blood" is based on his story, and another documentary was made about him in 2017.

He was ill in recent years he was and required a wheelchair for mobility. Sagawa died of pneumonia.