Society

Zama serial-murder suspect used Twitter to prey upon young suicidal women

Nov 02 (Japan Times) - Takahiro Shiraishi, a 27-year-old man allegedly behind one of the nationâ€™s most gruesome serial murders in recent years, preyed upon suicidal victims through twitter, offering them assistance of sorts.

But it was dark and deadly kind of help.

According to investigators, Shiraishi created an account under the username "hangingpro" with a bio that describes a desire to spread the user's supposed expertise about hanging. The profile photo shows a manga-like illustration of a young man wearing a necktie made of a hanging rope. The character's neck and wrist show scars.

The profile adds: "I want to help people who are really in pain. Please DM me anytime."

One of the account's tweets, posted on Oct. 21, discussed victims of bullying as well as those who have attempted suicide.

"Bullying is everywhere, in school and at work," the post read. "There must be many people in society who are suffering after attempting suicides, though their cases are not reported in the news. I want to help such people."

The nation --- known for its low crime rate --- continues to reel from the shocking discovery on Tuesday of nine dismembered bodies at Shiraishi's apartment the residential suburb of Zama, Kanagawa Prefecture.

The Mainichi Shimbun has reported that two of the bodies showed signs of strangulation, one had broken neck bones and another had bleeding patterns typically associated with choking.

It is the first high-profile mass murder case in the nation since last year in July when a man went on a knife rampage at a care facility for the intellectually disabled went on a knife rampage, killing 19 people

Shiraishi was arrested the same day on an initial suspicion of mutilating a corpse of unknown identity and placing it in a cold-storage container sometime between Aug. 22 and Oct. 30.

Shiraishi has said money was among his motives, telling police he took Â¥500,000 ($4,410) from one of his victims. He also admitted to assaulting some of the women with the intent of raping them, according to police.

Source: ANNnewsCH

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