Japan Executes Serial Killer

Junko Ogura and Chris Lau report for CNN:

Japan has executed a man dubbed the “Twitter killer,” who was convicted of murdering and dismembering nine people, mostly women, in the country’s first use of capital punishment in nearly three years.

Takahiro Shiraishi, 34, was hanged Friday at the Tokyo Detention House. He was sentenced to death in 2020 after pleading guilty to killing the nine people – eight women and one man.

Shiraishi was arrested in October 2017 after police searched his home in the city of Zama in Kanagawa prefecture, on the outskirts of Tokyo, to investigate the disappearance of a 23-year-old woman who had expressed suicidal thoughts on social media, including Twitter, now known as X.

Three cooler boxes and five containers were found in Shiraishi’s room, containing human heads and bones with the flesh scraped off, CNN affiliate TV Asahi reported at the time, citing police sources.

Japan can get in done in five years. The US can also, when the will is there. Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh was executed less than four years after sentencing.