By Boobesh IR
It was June 12th, 1981, in Bois de Boulogne, France. One of the most famous tourists' spots in Paris after the Eiffel Tower. It was ten o'clock at night, but the park didn't look like that. Being one of the favourite spots for couples, the place was filled with a lot of happy couples who were enjoying their night out. The cool breeze was touching their hair, the pleasant smell was prevailing over there, the clear night sky was filled with stars and the bright moonlight was falling in the place, making it a perfect romantic setting for all couples.
Despite everything going well, no one would expect this horror to happen within the next few minutes. A night that will not be forgotten by all the couples out there. The sight that will haunt them forever in their memories!
That's when a taxi stopped by the entrance of the park and dropped its passenger. The passenger was surprisingly very short, to be precise, 4ft 10, and looked like a small Asian boy. He brought with him two large luggage, which was very heavy, when the taxi driver tried taking it out.
He mockingly said to the Asian man, "Is there a dead body inside this bag? It's so heavy!" The Asian man replied back with a chuckle, "No, no. It is just my reading books." The driver was convinced with the answer, but he never expected what he said was going to be true within the next few minutes!
The short Asian man tried to carry those heavy bags inside the park, which grabbed the entire attention of all the couples. They were surprised to see such a short man carrying such heavy bags. He became the spotlight for the next few minutes until he rested his bags near a big bush. A couple thought that he was very tired to carry on and resting for a while.
Yet, as time progressed, he wasn't noticed by anyone out there, and he decided to leave the park. "Hey, man!" he heard a trembling old voice calling him. "Is this your bag?" asked the old man. "It's not mine!" he said and stormed off from the place. Waiting for quite some time, the old man decided to open the bag so that he could get some information about the owner, not knowing that he was going to see something terrifying for the rest of his life.
He screamed after seeing what was inside the bag; the couples around him came quickly to help him. But they would have regretted the decision they had made. No one goes near the bag since a strong, foul odor was coming from it. Some people, despite this odour, went near and saw a disgusting thing in it. A dead body, which had been cut into pieces and left there.
Immediately, police were called, and luckily someone from the crowd said that this bag had been kept here by some Asian who was very short, having been dropped off by a cab. Quickly, the French police acted by contacting all cab drivers, and yes, they got the cab driver who had dropped that man.
Gathering the information, they came to know that he's from Japan, whose name is Issei Sagawa. Remember this name! Remember this name! I stress this phrase because he's the one who kept that dead body in the park.
Just imagine, you are becoming a celebrity because you killed someone very brutally. Sounds impossible, right? Maybe 99.9% it's impossible, but Issei Sagawa belonged to that 0.1% of lucky people because this cruel act made him famous and attained a mini-celebrity status!
To add to this! Keep your heart strong! He wasn't punished for what he did! He's never seen how jail bars would be! He was released, saying that he was innocent!
This is the story of Issei Sagawa—a killer, a monster who was set free in the streets of Japan with the status of a celebrity!
Once the police force tracked down Issei Sagawa and his apartment, they weren't ready to face the next few minutes. The bloodstains were all over the place. On the floor, on the wall, in the kitchen, and so on. Try to keep your heart strong now, because the information I'm going to tell is very sensitive for some people. There was meat being cooked in the kitchen.
If you've guessed it, then congratulations! It isn't of any kind of meat that we eat. It is human meat. The flesh of a bloody human. There were also traces of human meat that had been eaten before! As usual, the forensic team arrived, and all evidence was collected. Parallel to this, Issei Sagawa was arrested and was brought to the cell for the investigation.
To everyone's surprise, he admitted what he had done. No beatings, no punishments! He just simply started to confess what had happened yesterday in his apartment. Little did the police know that they were going to get a shock of their life! A twist which they wouldn't have expected to be in this case! This is what Issei Sagawa confessed.
“Yesterday, she came to my home; it's Renee Hartevelt! She was such a beautiful Dutch woman. She was 25 years old, but she was much taller and stronger than I. I called her to teach me German, as she was very good at it. It wasn't the first time for her. She had come before once to my apartment for teaching German.
She always used to greet me and give a bunch of flowers to me. Then she would keep her bag aside and start singing German poems. Her voice is so soothing that anyone who hears it will fall in love with her! Even I did, but I fell in love with her cheeks. Those soft and bouncy flesh of hers! I wanted to taste it from the day I saw her. That's the reason I called her to my apartment.
Unfortunately, I failed in my first attempt. I tried pulling the trigger of the gun, but it didn't work. That day I was frustrated because I couldn't taste her flesh! However, yesterday it luckily worked, and I shot right at the back of her skull, but somehow I fainted when she took her last breath. As time passed, I slowly started to come back to reality, and I saw her lying dead on the floor.
She was even more beautiful now! I couldn't control my urges, so I had sex with her. Then came the most favourite time! Eating time! I tried eating her cheeks raw, but I couldn't tear off her skin. My teeth weren't that sharp, so I went to a nearby shop to buy a butcher knife!
I slowly started to cut her cheeks, and then her breast, and then finally her butt region. Since this was my first time doing so, I wanted memories of it. For that, I took photos as I was cutting her flesh one by one. Then I cooked her meat and I ate my first ever human meat. It was hard to chew but indeed it was the tastiest meat I have ever ate!
The body started to decompose the next day, so I decided to dispose it in the lake found in the park. Bad luck was on my side! I was caught red-handed. My brain couldn't think properly at that time, so I'm sitting here."
The police who were listening were in both shock and happiness. They were shocked because they couldn't even think of a person who was so dumb to be caught like this, but they were also happy because they could very easily close this case. However, Issei Sagawa's last statement that shook the fear out of them!
"I never wanted to kill Renee. I just wanted to eat her flesh. That's it. I regret it now for having killed her. I missed an opportunity to eat a fresh piece of a still-alive human," he said with a slight smile over his face.
Just imagine how much guts Issei Sagawa would have had to say something like this in front of many police officers. We do have dark desires within us, but it's our strong mind that stops us from doing those. Since Issei Sagawa wasn't able to control his dark desires, police suspected that he might be suffering from some form of mental disorder, which isn't a good sign!
Because even today, mentally disordered persons cannot be punished by the justice system. This was happening around 1981; then just imagine how hard the situation would have been. So, the police started their investigation into Issei Sagawa's childhood, and this is what they found.
Issie Sagawa was born on April 26, 1949, in Japan to a wealthy businessman named Akira Sagawa. He was born as a premature baby who was very tiny that he could hardly fit into his father's palm. Having lost his mother during the pregnancy, he was brought up by his father and uncle. During his childhood, he developed a medical disorder called enteritis. Thus, he was forced to take up medications and injections against his will.
Generally, all killers would have had a traumatic childhood experience, which would have transformed them into a psycho killer, but as I said before. Issei Sagawa was different from all others and will shock you. Being a single child of a wealthy businessman, he was brought up with a lot of care and affection by both his father and uncle. In fact, it is said that his father rejected the idea of marrying another woman because she might not take good care of Issei Sagawa. He had a very smooth childhood, not typical of serial killers. Just look how lucky Issei Sagawa is to have a superb dad.
If you wonder what made Issei Sagawa get to this extent? The same was going on in the minds of the police too, but they'd got the answer to it.
Issei Sagawa first experienced cannibalistic (human flesh-eating) desires during his first grade. Yes, you heard me right. During his first grade! After seeing a male's thigh during the physical education class, he got those desires. This information was later agreed by Issei Sagawa himself.
He also loved killing dogs and eating them. Yes, he loved doing that during his teenage years. At the age of 24, while attending Wako University for his master's in English literature, he followed a tall German woman home. Once everyone was asleep, he broke into the house. He didn't want to rape her. He just wanted a piece of flesh from her butt to meet his cannibalistic desires. To his bad luck, she woke up and pushed him to the ground.
Just remember that Issei Sagawa was just 4 feet 10 inches tall, a man who was very fragile, so it was very easy for the German woman to attack him. Immediately, the police were called and he was arrested for attempting to rape. Issei Sagawa was very careful not to reveal his true intentions because it might severe the case and it will make it difficult for someone to help me!
If you start wondering who will come to help him, then hear me out with close attention! His charges on an attempt to rape were dropped because his father paid a settlement to the German woman to withdraw the case. Yes, it was his father who helped him not once but twice from the police! Twice??? Be patient and continue listening.
In 1977, at the age of 28, Sagawa moved to France to pursue his Ph.D. in literature at the Sorbonne in Paris. It's said that Issei Sagawa would bring a prostitute almost every night to his home and try shooting them, but for some reason his fingers froze up and couldn't pull off the trigger. Even Issei Sagawa had a good side within him, but that doesn't make him innocent!
The case went on to the court of France, with all evidence submitted by the police. The judgement was passed, which shook the entire courtroom. It's been declared that Issei Sagawa had a mentally ill mind, so he had to be sent to a mental institution rather than to jail. The entire police force was frustrated and shocked. They were wondering what went wrong in this case.
Do you remember that I told you Issei Sagawa's father, who helped him twice from the police? The second time was in this encounter. His father bribed the lawyers of the French court, and to be on a safer side, he bribed the judge who was sitting in the chair of justice!
So, Issei Sagawa was sent to a mental institution where he spent two years of his life when his life gave him a second chance. Not just a normal chance. A golden opportunity for him to become free and roam around Japan like a celebrity! He wasn't that dumb to waste this chance. He quickly grabbed onto it.
Inuhiko Yomoto was a famous author in Japan. Knowing about Issei Sagawa's case, he went to meet him to learn about this story. He published his story, entitled "In the Fog", which was a huge success in Japan and all over the world, which earned him popularity and publicity that he doesn't deserve.
This enraged the French government because they wanted their country to be a crime-free country and having someone like Issei Sagawa in their main tourist spot Paris, downgraded their reputation on tourism.
Thus, the French government wanted to send him back to Japan. Since he had been declared mentally ill beforehand, the French government dropped the case against Renée and sealed it. But wait for the twist.
Shockingly, Japan's government declared Issei Sagawa to be mentally fit, and they wanted to put him in the prison. Since the French government dropped this case and sealed it, Japan wasn't able to get the evidence to arrest him. So, with no options left, he was set free in the streets of Japan!
This story made me believe that karma doesn't exist because having the publicity and popularity that came because of the book that was released before, he became one of the most famous guest speakers and commentators in Japan. He started to appear in movies. People too started watching these movies because of him! He also wrote manga (comics) in Japan based on his story that happened in Paris.
But everything has come to an end, right? That came to him because his damn mouth. During an interview, the interviewer asked whether even now he wanted to eat some human meat. "Yes! Probably at least one before I die, and I'd prefer a Japanese girl. “he replied with a smile on his face, looking at the female Japanese interviewer.
This was condemned so hard by the public, and I am happy that at least now the public has some senses working fine. Now, karma got to its duty to serve the punishment that Issei Sagawa deserved.
In 2005, his beloved dad died, and he wasn't allowed to attend his own father's funeral! He protested against the decision of the government, but the government came back with a funny reply: "What if you wanted to eat your own dad's flesh? So, you're not allowed!" This killed Issei Sagawa inside and made him realize his sin!
His fame vanished, and he lost all possession of his. He started to live in public housing and under human welfare benefits. He couldn't find publishers for his writing, and he struggled to find employment! In 2011, in an interview, Issei Sagawa said that being forced to make a living while being known as a murderer and a cannibal was a terrible punishment.
In 2013, Sagawa was hospitalized from a cerebral infarction, which permanently damaged his nervous system. He later lived alone and needed daily assistance, which was provided by his younger brother or from caregivers. At the time, he claimed to have regretted the obsession of eating this human meat.
Everything came to an end when he took his last breath on November 24, 2022, at the age of 73, due to complications from pneumonia.
Issie Sagawa was someone who listened to his dark desires, and despite having a dad who supported him, he failed to guide his son onto a good path. Even though luck was favouring him, karma is a real gangster from whom we can't escape. Issei Sagawa who was no exception to it!
By Boobesh IR
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