Police may have arrested serial killer
JAPAN: Japanese investigators believe they may have caught a serial killer, after the dismembered remains of nine bodies were discovered in an apartment near Tokyo.
Local media reports yesterday said police had arrested 27-year-old Takahiro Shiraishi, who reportedly confessed to killing one person, dismembering the body and putting the remains in coolers covered with cat litter in his apartment in the city of Zama. There, authorities found bodies belonging to eight women and one man.
‘‘There is no doubt that I tried to hide the body of the person I killed,’’ Shiraishi apparently told police. ‘‘I dismembered it at the bathroom, disposing of some body parts in the garbage.’’
Police have not identified any of the victims. Authorities said they found the bodies while searching the apartment for a 23-year-old woman who had been reported missing last week.
Shiraishi, who was suspected to be involved in her disappearance, admitted he killed her soon after he met her. Tokyo police said the woman had posted an online search for someone to join her in a suicide pact.
Surveillance video apparently showed Shiraishi and the woman last week at the Hachioji railway station and at another station near his apartment.
Local media reported that police first found two severed heads in coolers during a search Monday in Zama, where neighbours said they had noticed a foul odour from the apartment.
Police said that body parts, some cut down to the bone, also were found in toolboxes.
A saw that authorities believe may have been used to dismember the bodies was also discovered inside the apartment.