The Famous Cannibal Who Got Away with Murder

He found the perfect woman, then ate her.

Murder and rape are usually regarded as the vilest and violent crimes a human can do to another human. The shock and reality that people can sometimes be cruel and unforgiving grow with every story in the news. But sometimes, there are crimes committed that are even more unbelievable and extreme that it’s hard to imagine they were committed by a person.

One such crime is the one committed by Issei Sagawa on a Dutch woman named Renée Hartevelt. Luckily she was shot in the back of the neck and died quickly so she did not have to witness all the things Issei did to her. Issei decided to take Renée’s corpse and sexually assault it, mutilate it, eat parts of it raw and cooked, and dispose of it in suitcases. And despite being caught a couple of days later, he was released and lives off his fame as a cannibal.

Why did Issei have such urges? Why did he pick Renée? And most importantly, how did someone who is such a danger to society get only two years of punishment before going back to his regular life? This is the story of Issei Sagawa, a cannibal who is proud of his crime, makes money from his books and television appearances, and even talks of doing it again.

In order to understand the motive and mind of Issei, first, we need to know his background and history.

Issei’s life

“When I saw this woman in the street I wondered if I could eat her”

Issei Sagawa was born in Hyogo Prefecture in Japan on April 26, 1949. He was born into a wealthy family as his father was the CEO of a water company. He was born premature and was said to be tiny enough to fit in the palm of his father’s hand. Due to his prematurity, he suffered a disease called enteritis which affects the intestines. But with treatment, he was able to overcome the illness.

Issei recalled in his childhood, his brother and him would play a game with their father and uncle involving a monster who would hunt the children and cook them in his pot. He enjoyed the game and constantly searched for fairy tales that involved being eaten by monsters, dragons, or other villains. One of his favorite stories was of the witch fattening up Hansel and Gretel so she would be able to eat them.

Smaller than the other kids, Issei was usually shy, a loner, and quiet. Despite his isolation though, he was very intelligent and did quite well in school. His parents, especially his mother pampered him quite a bit because he was so small and fragile and his father spared no expense to ensure Issei had everything he needed to succeed in life.

In junior high school, Issei started being more intellectual and was attracted to European art, literature, and culture. He especially liked the romanticism and imagery of the women. Quite different from Japanese women, he longed for the fleshy, pale-skinned women from paintings.

As he entered puberty his love for European and Western women grew and he often fantasized about sexually caressing, then eating these women. In his writings, Issei mentions a fantasy he had when he was a teenager.

“voyeuristically spying on a well-built western goddess as she showered. Then creep up on her and viciously strangle her from behind with a belt. The idea of throttling a naked woman to death was now a vital component to the illusion”

Realizing that his fantasies were not normal, he decided to seek mental help. At age 15 he called a psychiatrist but was told he would have to come in person for therapy. Issei was too embarrassed and refused. Instead, he told his brother about his cannibal fantasies. His brother listened but had nothing to say that would help Issei.

Issei also claimed during his childhood, he participated in Beastiality, fantasized about biting on classmates’ thighs, and daydreamed of white women.

Issei’s first target

As Issei progressed in age and academically, he continued to be small and stood under 5 feet tall. In university he realized his fantasies from his younger years were only getting stronger and darker, so he decided he would turn them into action. While studying at university, he decided to also take some private lessons in German.

As he interacted with the tall, beautiful girl who was teaching German, he realized he craved her; both sexually and as food. One day he followed her to her home. While she was asleep, he entered through her open window inside. He was planning to kill her and eat her but she awoke, saw him, screamed, and overpowered him leading him to flee.

This failed attempt was traumatic for Issei and he decided to finally go see a psychiatrist in person. He admitted what he had done the night before and the psychiatrist was not pleased. He considered Issei a danger to society and contacted the police.

Issei was arrested and charged with attempted rape. However, Issei’s rich father intervened, paid off the woman to drop the charges and Issei was free. Instead of dealing with his issues, his father financed Issei’s further education by allowing him to move to France to do his Ph.D. in Literature at the Paris-Sorbonne University.

Issei in France

In 1977, a 27-year-old student in France and still a virgin, Issei’s fantasies to kill and consume a white woman only grow. Surrounded by beautiful french women in revealing dresses and supple bodies were only pushing Issei to try again what he had failed to do in Tokyo.

Issei felt that if he could kill and eat just one beautiful woman, his urges would be gone and he would be satisfied. He also believed that killing and consuming a tall, white, beautiful girl would give him the power that he lacked because of his small, frail, and flimsy body.

He decided to start with prostitutes. He attempted hundreds of times to strangle or stab a prostitute while they were in the shower or had their back turned to him, but he could never go through with it. He would bring prostitutes to his home, sleep with them, fantasize about killing and eating them but ultimately would be left unsatisfied. Then he met Renée.

“I am amazed. She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. Tall, blonde, with pure white skin, she astonishes me with her grace. I invited her to my home for a Japanese dinner. She accepts. After the meal, I asked her to read my favorite German expressionist poem. As she reads I can’t keep my eyes off her. After she leaves I can still smell her body on the bedsheet where she sat reading the poem. I lick the chopsticks and dishes she used. I can taste her lips. My passion is so great. I want to eat her. If I do she will be mine forever. There is no escape from this desire.“

Renée was a Dutch, 25-year-old beautiful woman who stood at 5’ 10”, more than a foot taller than Issei. She was also at the Paris-Sorbonne University studying literature at the same time as Issei.

When Issei saw Renée, he knew he had to have her. He approached her when he saw her on the train and sat beside her and started a conversation. They had a friendly chat and became acquaintances. Issei continued to talk to her again after their lectures.

Issei was able to get a group of classmates, including Renée, to go out after classes for a meal. He had formed a study group and friendships with Renée and some other classmates. Since he was Japanese, he invited the group to visit his apartment for an authentic Japanese meal.

However, on the day of his dinner, all of the students of his study group backed out except for Renée. Because of his awkwardness and appearance, Issei was regarded as weird by most classmates but Renée was kind enough to accept his invitation and friendship.

They had a good dinner of Sukiyaki and conversed about various topics such as art, music, culture, and language. Issei had not expected Renée to come alone and wasn’t ready to attempt to murder her so instead he asked her to be his tutor in German. SinceRenée was fluent in English, French, and German, and she needed the money, she accepted. They made plans to meet again at his apartment and he would pay Renée for her lessons using the money his father provided for his life in France.

Issei’s Plan

The first lesson, when Renée arrived, Issei once again panicked and could not go through with his plan and Renée left that night after reading some German poetry. But Issei forced himself to overcome his fears and kill Renée the next time she came over.

Their next lesson, as Renée was sitting on the floor reading German to Issei, Issei took out a .22 caliber rifle he had bought for protection while in France. He slowly moved behind Renée, aimed at her neck, and pulled the trigger. But the gun didn’t fire. It was jammed. Once again failing at killing Renée, he returned the rifle to the cabinet and continued the German lesson.

Renée’s final day

On Thursday, June 11, 1981, Renée returned again to Issei’s apartment for another lesson. This time, Issei asked if he could record her voice while she read his favorite poem in German. Once again, he took out the rifle from his cabinet, aimed it at her neck, and pulled the trigger. This time the gun fired and Renée fell to the floor. Issei, so shocked at what he had done passed out.

When Issei awoke, he found the dead body of Renée lying on his blood-stained carpet.

Issei’s devouring of Renée

“I realized I am a cannibal”

Unfortunately, Renée’s murder was not Issei’s final act. It was the beginning.

The first thing he did to Renée was to strip her naked and have sex with her corpse. He then decided he wanted to eat her buttocks. He bit down hard on it but couldn’t rip the skin. So he used a butcher knife and cut into her flesh.

While having an erection, he ate her nipple, tip of her nose, and fatty buttocks all raw. He said it tasted like tuna sashimi. He then had sex with her corpse again. He moved Renée to the bathtub and continued to carve up and dismember and eat various parts of her torso, legs, and arms. He cut off muscle, meat, and fatty parts of Renée’s body and put them in bags in his freezer for later meals.

He then took Renée’s clothes and disposed of them in various areas around his neighborhood but kept her pants. He also purchased a couple of suitcases and stuffed all the body parts he didn’t want into them. He then went to the cinema with some classmates as if nothing had happened.

Later that night, he took the parts of Renée he had kept in the fridge and cooked them in a frying pan. Sometimes eating them with salt, pepper, or mustard. Despite claiming the meat was chewy and didn’t have much flavor, Issei felt sexually aroused while eating. The more he ate the more he craved.

Issei’s Capture

The suitcases filled with Renée’s remains were starting to rot and emit a bad odor so Issei hailed a taxi and headed to Bois de Boulogne, where he planned to dump the suitcases in a pond. As he left the taxi while lugging the two bags on a small trolley, a couple noticed him. As Issei was about to dump the bags in the pond, he turned as saw the couple looking at him. Panicking, he shoved the bags under a bush and ran away.

The couple approached the bags, opened them up, and notified police after finding it contained the gruesome remains of a human. The police arrived and took the bags filled with Renée’s remains to be examined by a pathologist.

With witnesses who saw Issei dump the bags as well as an investigation into the taxi cab that brought Issei to the park, the police quickly figured out the identity and location of the short, Asian man with the bags and headed to apprehend Issei.

Issei knew the police would eventually come to his house to arrest him but instead of fleeing decided to stay at home and snack on the remains of Renée that were still left in his apartment. Police finally arrived and Issei calmly confessed he had killed and eaten Renée.

Arrest and Sentencing

“The public has made me the godfather of cannibalism and I am happy about that.”

In police custody, Issei explained in detail his crime and motives. He claimed that now that he had killed and eaten a girl, he wouldn’t have to do it again. After Issei’s arrest, his father flew to France, paid for the top lawyers to represent his son, and awaited trial.

But there was no trial. Issei was held in prison for two years until Judge Bruguieres declared Issei insane and instead of a trial and prison, ordered him indefinitely to an asylum for the criminally insane.

While in the asylum, Issei wrote about his ordeal and it gained so much public interest that a famous Japanese writer Inihko Yomota came to visit Issei in France. He wrote a book called In the Fog, about Issei and published it. The book was instantly a best seller in Japan. Issei’s own writing also became famous and Issei started gaining celebrity status.

Not only in Japan but in France, Issei’s case started becoming wider known and pictures of the cut-up body of Renée were even leaked and published in a French magazine. The French government realized that keeping Issei in France would be troublesome and decided to deport him back to Japan.

Issei’s Freedom

“When I see a beautiful girl while riding the train, I feel like eating her”

Returning to Japan, Issei was taken to a mental hospital where he was examined by psychologists who all found him to be “evil” but not insane. Since there had been no trial, and the French court had sealed important papers that would be needed to charge Issei in Japan, it was impossible to hold him and Issei was released in August 1986.

Issei wrote books about his days in prison in France and other stories of his childhood. He painted nude female models, wrote poetry, did interviews for magazines, television and was even in movies.

When interviewed by Vice magazine and asked if he would ever eat another person again he said,

The desire to eat people becomes so intense around June when women start wearing less and showing more skin. Just today, I saw a girl with a really nice derrière on my way to the train station. When I see things like that, I think about wanting to eat someone again before I die. So yes, I do still harbor these desires, and I specifically want to eat a Japanese woman this time. I think either sukiyaki or shabu shabu [lightly boiled thin slices] is the best way to go in order to really savor the natural flavor of the meat.

There’s no doubt in my mind that I want to eat human flesh again, though. I mean, it’s delicious stuff. It’s widely believed that human meat doesn’t taste good, but they only spread that rumor because it’s a taboo that can’t be crossed. If people found out the truth, I’m sure that men would all start eating women. So they don’t talk about it because it will create pandemonium, but I tell you, human meat is extremely tasty.

Since Issei returned to Japan he has written over 20 books, has a website for fans of cannibalism, and has many works of art. He has turned his crime into a money maker and lived as a free and privileged man despite taking the life of a young and beautiful woman. In 2013 he suffered from a cerebral infarction, and lives at home in Tokyo alone. His brother and caregivers come daily to assist him.

And though he had support from his parents, especially financially from his father, it seems that it was the wrong kind of support. Rather than teach Issei about the importance of life and respect for women, his parents enabled him to fulfill his disgusting and gruesome habits of wanting to stalk, rape, assault, murder, and eat the flesh of women.

Had his father made Issei pay for his actions when he attempted to rape the German tutor in Tokyo, or when he was in prison in France, Issei might have learned his lesson. Instead, he became a celebrity, enjoyed spouting his views on cannibalism, and earned a living from describing his murder and subsequent eating of Renée.

The celebrity cannibal continues to live his life but hopefully, times have changed and he no longer has the spotlight he had before. Media outlets and other entertainment have distanced themselves from him and his content. Justice, unfortunately, wasn’t served in this case and Renée Hartevelt’s murderer was not punished. The silver lining in this dark cloud though is that because he is so widely known in Japan and abroad, he most likely will never be able to commit such a horrendous crime again.

If you enjoyed reading this article, here are some more stories of true crime you might enjoy: