Who is the 'Kobe Cannibal' who shot his friend and ate it raw?
Japanese killer Issei Sagawa, nicknamed the "Kobe Cannibal", who killed Renee Hartevelt in 1981 and ate her body in Paris, the capital of France, died of pneumonia at the age of 73.
Born into a wealthy family in 1949 in Kobe, Japan, Sagawa went to France at the age of 28 to pursue a doctorate in literature.
On June 11, 1981, he shot and killed his Sorbonne classmate Renee Hartevelt with a rifle after inviting her to dinner under the pretext of translating poetry for a school assignment.
It turned out that Sagawa, who raped the dead body of the victim, later ate some parts of the body. Describing himself as weak, ugly, and small, Sagawa claimed that by eating Hartevelt, he wanted to absorb her life energy.
Sagawa, who could not be tried in France on the grounds that he did not have the criminal capacity, was later brought to Japan and hospitalized.
Doctors, who concluded that Sagawa, who could not be tried in his country because the case file was closed in France, was healthy, explained that his sexual perversion was Sagawa's only motivation for the murder.
While Sagawa's return to his normal life after he was discharged from the hospital on August 12, 1986, caused great controversy, Sagawa, whose murder was the subject of books and movies, became a popular culture icon.
Issei Sagawa (26 April 1949 – 24 November 2022) also known as Pang or The Kobe Cannibal, was a Japanese murderer, cannibal, and necrophile known for the killing of Renée Hartevelt in Paris in 1981. Sagawa murdered Hartevelt then mutilated, cannibalized, and performed necrophilia on her corpse over several days. Sagawa was arrested but released after two years of pre-trial detention upon being found legally insane and deported to Japan. Sagawa's post-release celebrity in Japan led to international publicity.
Sagawa was a frequent guest speaker and commentator on programs between 1986 and 1997, and wrote books and commented on magazines.
Sagawa, who lost his popularity over the years due to the reactions and was hospitalized in 2013 for a brain disease that permanently damaged his nervous system, has been taken care of by his brother ever since.
The elder brother, who took care of 73-year-old Sagawa, announced that his brother died of pneumonia on November 24 at a hospital in Tokyo.