Nov 07 (tokyoreporter.com) - Investigative sources with the Tokyo Metropolitan Police revealed on Monday that identifications are close for eight of the nine corpses found last week in the Zama City residence of a 27-year-old man who has admitted to killing all of the persons, reports the Sankei Shimbun
Identification papers and other items found in the second-floor residence have led police to believe that six of the victims include four girls --- from Saitama (aged 17 and 19), Gunma (15) and Fukushima (17) prefectures --- a woman, 25, from Kanagawa Prefecture and a 23-year-old woman from Tokyo's Hachioji City who went missing last month.
Other factors have caused police to believe that a man and woman, living together in Kanagawa, are two other victims. Police are now using a DNA analysis to identify the ninth body, which belongs to a woman.
"I dismembered the corpses in the bathroom"
On October 30, Tokyo police entered the residence and found the body parts belonging to the eight women and one man inside seven ice coolers.
Following questioning, police arrested Takahiro Shiraishi, 27, on suspicion of abandoning a corpse. The suspect told police he dismembered the bodies in the bathroom after killing the persons. "I dismembered the corpses in the bathroom," Shiraishi was quoted. "I did it as a means of destroying evidence."
Shiraishi moved into the residence in late August. Police believe the killings took place between August 22 and October 30. Among the body parts found in the coolers were skulls and other bones. Regarding the flesh and internal organs, the suspect told police, "I dumped them in the garbage."
On October 21, the parents of the 23-year-old woman from Hachioji were unable to contact their daughter. Three days later, a family member lodged a missing persons report with police. As a part of the subsequent investigation into her disappearance, police searched the residence last week.
Lured victims via Twitter
According to police, the woman from Hachioji posted a message on Twitter saying that she was seeking partners with whom to commit suicide as a group. She also is known to have corresponded with Shiraishi on at least one occasion on a site for people seeking to take their lives.
Shiraishi used Twitter to lure victims, telling persons who expressed an interest in taking their lives that he had special knowledge of death by hanging.
"Though I wrote on Twitter that I wished to commit suicide, I did not have any intention [to follow through]. It was all lies," he was quoted as telling the police, according to Kyodo News.
Prior to the crimes, Shiraishi drugged the victims with sleeping pills so that they could relax, he told police.
Shiraishi also told police that he robbed the victims, saying he stole between 500 yen and 500,000 yen. "I killed to enjoy a nice lifestyle," the suspect was quoted by police, according to TV Asahi (Nov. 6).
Update: Police have confirmed the ninth body belongs to a 26-year-old woman from Saitama, according to NHK (Nov. 6).
