Takahiro Shiraishi, a Japanese man sentenced to death for the murder and CNN of nine people, was hanged on Sunday, the Guardian and CNN reported, it was the first execution by the Japanese government since July 2022, and the first since the government of Shigeru Ishiguro took office.
White Rock covers his face in a Tokyo police car in November 2017. Image Source: foreign media reports with photos
According to the report, Yoshiyuki Suzuki, the justice minister, told reporters in Tokyo on the 27th that White Rock’s crimes included “Robbery, rape, murder… destroying the body and disposing of it”, “Nine victims were beaten, robbed, killed and then dismembered, some of the bodies hidden in boxes, some of the bodies dumped in rubbish dumps… … After careful consideration, I ordered the execution,” Suzuki said, “This case, which was motivated by selfish motives such as sexual and economic factors, resulted in nine deaths in two months-an extremely serious case that caused shock and anxiety throughout society.”
White Rock, known as the “Twitter killer” for contacting victims through social media, was arrested in 2017 on suspicion of hiding nine bodies in his home, according to reports and public sources. It is understood that White Rock lured the nine victims he contacted via social media Twitter (now known as X) to his apartment near Tokyo, where he killed them and dismembered their bodies, the victims included eight women and one man between the ages of 15 and 26. White Rock has confessed to killing and dismembering the victim in his home and says he tried to cover up the crime by sprinkling cat litter on the body after dismembering it. He also claims that he contacted suicide-prone victims on Twitter and offered to help them commit suicide, then hid body parts in a cooler in his apartment.
In December 2020, White Rock was convicted of murder, rape, dismemberment of nine victims and hiding their bodies in an apartment and sentenced to death. In Japan, executions are carried out by hanging, CNN said.
CNN noted that the high-profile mass murder case has plagued Japan for years and raised concerns about social media use.