The beast on the loose: why the cannibal from Japan, who killed and ate a student 40 years ago, escaped punishment

The cannibal who killed, dismembered and ate a woman in 1981 has been living at large all this time. Issei Sagawa admitted: he dreamed of trying human flesh again. To feel the taste of human flesh was his cherished desire since his school years. In the end, he killed and ate his university girlfriend, but was never punished. The ogre still freely walks the streets of Tokyo and writes books, savoring his creepy fantasies in them. Find out why the monster was released into the wild, from our material.

(Careful! Shocking content).

Issei Sagawa realized his terrible dream in 1981. The Japanese had a special passion for Western-type women. But it wasn't sexual desire — he wanted to taste human meat.

The first victim of the maniac was Renee Hartevelt ,a student from the Netherlands, who studied with him at the University of Paris. Sagawa struck up a close relationship with the girl and invited her to his house for dinner several times. The first attempt to kill Renee was unsuccessful: the gun jammed. In the evening of the next day, the pervert fulfilled his plan.

After killing the girl, Sagawa got scared and wanted to call an ambulance, but then decided to realize his cherished dream. The cannibal raped an already dead girl, and then dismembered her and ate part of the corpse. He froze some parts of the victim's body, and packed the rest in two suitcases and took a taxi to the park, where he planned to throw the remains into the lake. But passers-by noticed that blood was oozing from the bags, and called the police.

The ogre told the police about the crime committed. He honestly admitted that he craved human flesh. Sagawa spent the next two years in a French prison, awaiting sentencing. The Japanese was found mentally insane, all charges were dropped from him, and he was sentenced to life imprisonment in a mental hospital.

Nevertheless, the maniac was deported to Japan, where he was completely released from punishment. Since the charges were dropped, the court documents were sealed, and the Japanese authorities were unable to obtain them. They had no other choice but to release the cannibal to freedom.

In 1986, Sagawa left the walls of the mental hospital and has been at large ever since. He still wanders the streets of Tokyo today. The pervert regarded his attraction to eating human flesh as a fetish. He compared it to the sexual desire that normal people experience.

The maniac dreams of trying human flesh again before he dies. The cannibal writes books in which he asks people not to consider him a monster and frankly describes his creepy fantasies.

Sagawa is not the only modern cannibal. The story of a married couple from Estonia, who also craved human flesh, stirred up the whole world in Soviet times.