Takahiro Shiraishi, 34, was hanged for killing his young victims, all but one of whom were women, after contacting them on the social media platform now called X.
He had targeted users who posted about taking their own lives, telling them he could help them in their plans, or even die alongside them.
Justice Minister Keisuke Suzuki said Shiraishi's crimes, carried out in 2017, included "robbery, rape, murder... destruction of a corpse and abandonment of a corpse".
"Nine victims were beaten and strangled, killed, robbed, and then mutilated with parts of their bodies concealed in boxes, and parts discarded in a garbage dump," Suzuki told reporters in Tokyo on Friday.
Shiraishi acted "for the genuinely selfish reason of satisfying his own sexual and financial desires" and the murders "caused great shock and anxiety to society", Suzuki said. "After much careful consideration, I ordered the execution."
Japan and the United States are the only two G7 countries to still use capital punishment, and there is overwhelming support for the practice among the Japanese public.
Shiraishi was sentenced to death in 2020 for the murders of his nine victims, aged between 15 and 26.
After luring them to his small home near the capital, he stashed parts of their bodies around the apartment in coolers and toolboxes sprinkled with cat litter in a bid to hide the evidence.
His lawyers had argued Shiraishi should receive a prison sentence rather than be executed because his victims had expressed suicidal thoughts and so had consented to die.
But a judge dismissed that argument, calling Shiraishi's crimes "cunning and cruel", according to reports at the time.
The dignity of the victims was trampled upon," the judge had said, adding that Shiraishi had preyed upon people who were "mentally fragile".
The grisly murders were discovered in autumn 2017 by police investigating the disappearance of a 23-year-old woman who had reportedly tweeted about wanting to kill herself.
Her brother gained access to her Twitter account and eventually led police to Shiraishi's residence, where investigators found the nine dismembered bodies.
Death row
Executions are always done by hanging in Japan, where around 100 death row prisoners are waiting for their sentences to be carried out.
Most inmates are left on tenterhooks in solitary confinement for years, and sometimes decades.
Nearly half are seeking a retrial, Suzuki said Friday.
Japanese law stipulates that executions must be carried out within six months of a verdict after appeals are exhausted.
There is widespread criticism of the system and the government's lack of transparency over the practice.
In 2022, Tomohiro Kato was hanged for an attack that killed seven people in 2008, when he rammed a rented two-tonne truck into a crowd in Tokyo's Akihabara district, before getting out and going on a stabbing spree.
"I came to Akihabara to kill people. It didn't matter who I'd kill," Kato told police at the time.
The high-profile executions of the guru Shoko Asahara and 12 former members of the Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult took place in 2018.
Aum Shinrikyo orchestrated the 1995 sarin gas attacks on Tokyo's subway system, killing 14 people and sickening thousands more.
Source: Japan Today, Kyoko Hasegawa, June 27, 2025
Hanging of Zama Killer is Japan’s First Execution Since 2022
Shiraishi Takahiro became the first person to be executed in Japan for nearly three years on June 27, 2025. He murdered nine people in 2017 in Zama, Kanagawa.
From August to October 2017, Shiraishi lured victims to his apartment after getting to know them via social media. He sexually assaulted and strangled them before taking their money and dismembering the bodies. While his defense counsel initially appealed the first death sentence verdict, Shiraishi withdrew the appeal himself and the sentence was finalized in January 2021.
The execution is the first since that of Katō Tomohiro on July 26, 2022, for a 2008 stabbing spree in Akihabara, Tokyo.
Decisions about executions seem to reflect the thoughts and feelings of the minister of justice of the time.Japan’s Code of Criminal Procedure stipulates that the death penalty should be implemented within six months of the issuing of the sentence, but in fact this is almost never the case. From the beginning of 2000 to July 26, 2022, 98 death sentences were carried out. The shortest time span from sentencing to execution was 1 year, while the longest was 19 years and 5 months.
The Ministry of Justice does not clarify any of the criteria on which the decision to execute a prisoner is based. In fact, in the past it was policy to not even publicly announce that an execution had been carried out. Disclosure of information on executions and the number of those executed only began in October 1998, under the direction of Minister of Justice Nakamura Shōzaburō. In September 2007, the justice minister of the time, Hatoyama Kunio, instructed the ministry to also release the name of each executed convict and the place of execution.
Decisions about executions seem to reflect the thoughts and feelings of the minister of justice of the time. Sugiura Seiken, upon being appointed to that post in October 2005, for instance, openly declared that he would not issue an execution order on religious and philosophical grounds. Although he soon retracted the statement, amid criticism questioning his right as justice minister to refuse to carry out a duty stipulated by law, he did not end up signing an execution order during his tenure of roughly 11 months. Contrasting with Sugiura’s attitude were the cases of those ministers who signed execution orders at the rapid pace of one every few months.
Only nine people were executed from September 2009 to December 2012 under the administrations of the Democratic Party of Japan, whose justice ministers showed reluctance to carry out the penalty. Chiba Keiko, the DPJ’s first justice minister, was originally opposed to the death penalty and had been one of a group of Diet members who called for its abolition. In July 2010, however, she signed the order to execute two death-row prisoners. Chiba witnessed the executions—a first for a Japanese justice minister—and expressed her desire that they should serve as an opportunity for a national debate over the death penalty. Toward that end, she set up a study group within the ministry to consider whether it should continue. In August of the same year, Chiba opened the Tokyo Detention House’s execution chamber to the media for the first time, as well as the room it provides for prisoners to meet with religious representatives.
Eda Satsuki, who was appointed justice minister in January 2011 under the DPJ government of Prime Minister Kan Naoto, stated at a press conference soon afterward that “capital punishment is a flawed penalty”—although he later retracted the statement. In July of that year, Eda expressed his intention to not sign any execution orders for the time being since the study group on the issue established by Chiba was still meeting. That year no executions were carried out. The study group continued to meet under the next justice minister as well, but it convened for the last time in March 2012 without reaching any final conclusion, merely registering the various opinions expressed on both sides of the issue.
When Japan introduced trial by jury in 2009, members of the public became involved in capital punishment decisions. In 2017, there was a string of executions of prisoners who were petitioning for retrial. Criticism was also raised inside and outside Japan in 2018 over the execution of 13 prisoners connected to the Aum Shinrikyō cult in the space of a few weeks.
A recent high-profile case concerned Hakamada Iwao, who was sentenced to death in 1980 for the killing of four people in 1966. He maintained his innocence from prison and in 2014, Shizuoka District Court released him and granted him a retrial. The retrial began in 2023 and concluded in September 2024, with the court acquitting Hakamata after finding that investigators had fabricated evidence. The ruling came 58 years after his original arrest and 44 years after he was sentenced to death. Having been incarcerated for so many years with the death penalty hanging over him, Hakamata still has difficulty communicating with others.
This story put the spotlight on capital punishment, sparking calls for reform. A panel including lawmakers, a former prosecutor general, and a former commissioner general of the National Police Agency released a statement in November 2024 calling for a halt on executions until authorities rethink the government’s approach to capital punishment and institute fundamental changes to the system.
Decisions about executions seem to reflect the thoughts and feelings of the minister of justice of the time. Sugiura Seiken, upon being appointed to that post in October 2005, for instance, openly declared that he would not issue an execution order on religious and philosophical grounds. Although he soon retracted the statement, amid criticism questioning his right as justice minister to refuse to carry out a duty stipulated by law, he did not end up signing an execution order during his tenure of roughly 11 months. Contrasting with Sugiura’s attitude were the cases of those ministers who signed execution orders at the rapid pace of one every few months.
Only nine people were executed from September 2009 to December 2012 under the administrations of the Democratic Party of Japan, whose justice ministers showed reluctance to carry out the penalty. Chiba Keiko, the DPJ’s first justice minister, was originally opposed to the death penalty and had been one of a group of Diet members who called for its abolition. In July 2010, however, she signed the order to execute two death-row prisoners. Chiba witnessed the executions—a first for a Japanese justice minister—and expressed her desire that they should serve as an opportunity for a national debate over the death penalty. Toward that end, she set up a study group within the ministry to consider whether it should continue. In August of the same year, Chiba opened the Tokyo Detention House’s execution chamber to the media for the first time, as well as the room it provides for prisoners to meet with religious representatives.
When Japan introduced trial by jury in 2009, members of the public became involved in capital punishment decisions. In 2017, there was a string of executions of prisoners who were petitioning for retrial. Criticism was also raised inside and outside Japan in 2018 over the execution of 13 prisoners connected to the Aum Shinrikyō cult in the space of a few weeks.
A recent high-profile case concerned Hakamada Iwao, who was sentenced to death in 1980 for the killing of four people in 1966. He maintained his innocence from prison and in 2014, Shizuoka District Court released him and granted him a retrial. The retrial began in 2023 and concluded in September 2024, with the court acquitting Hakamata after finding that investigators had fabricated evidence. The ruling came 58 years after his original arrest and 44 years after he was sentenced to death. Having been incarcerated for so many years with the death penalty hanging over him, Hakamata still has difficulty communicating with others.
This story put the spotlight on capital punishment, sparking calls for reform. A panel including lawmakers, a former prosecutor general, and a former commissioner general of the National Police Agency released a statement in November 2024 calling for a halt on executions until authorities rethink the government’s approach to capital punishment and institute fundamental changes to the system.
Source: nippon.com, Staff, June 27, 2025
"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
— Oscar Wilde
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