Suspect says killing spree lasted 2 months

But his motives remain unclear.

He's crazy. That's it.

I’m fairy certain this is directly across the street from my old apartment in Iriya; 1-Chome’

Seriously, wth? How many young people are there in this country looking to kill themselves? Very sick society here folks.

What a sick Individual. will his defence be, "well I only HELPED them kill them selfs i didn't do the killing" ( except the man) will he get off the murder charges?

Yeah, he is one sick puppy! However, at least the bodies should be easily identified for the familiesdue to the deaths being so recent.

I dont don’t know about this”stunned Japan” statement. I tried to talk to a few high school teachers about it today and nobody wanted to comment at all. Just because they can pretend it hasn’t happened doesn’t make it go away. It’s all over the international news today as well.

Police for now believe that Shiraishi acted alone, the Tokyo Shimbun said. But investigators are questioning whether it's possible to kill a person nearly every week without neighbors noticing sounds of altercations or screams, the Tokyo Shimbun said.

Very easy when they complain about things amongst themselves, like the issue of the stench, but don't actually do anything about it. I've noticed neighbours here ignore all sorts of distressing sounds and people.

I bet if he had put out the rubbish in the wrong bag they would have been all over him like a rash.

@ Luddite - I wanted to laugh at your last comment, but this situation is too morbid. I hope this scares at least some kids away from screwing around on social media.

Multiple rapes, murders, and abuse of corpses. If he's not a candidate for a rope swing, I don't know who is.

Shiraishi told his father around June that his life had no meaning and that he did not understand what he was living for

Well its fair to say that his life is now over! So wish granted!

nine people went missing in kanagawa, one each week for over two months, and the police couldn't connect the dots? didn't the police check their SNS profiles or do any detective work to figure out what happened to these people? the last victim's brother opened the case wide open by hacking his sister's twitter account.

Right now we don't know where those victims are from nor who they are(nothing said about DNA tests being done in the available remains(not full bodies but bones, etc).

nakanogiy01: it would produce too much paperwork.

"When investigators asked the whereabouts of the sister, Shiraishi said 'inside the cooler', pointing at it," the Yomiuri said.

Now that's what I call being matter-of-fact.

were there no family members/boyfriends (other than the one killed)/colleagues/school friends etc that might've noticed even the first person missing 2 months ago? or were they just another 'missing person' case?

might be that they were all hikki introverts living alone that no-one would notice for weeks anyway, given that they wanted suicide assistance...

Her brother managed to hack into her Twitter account, noticed a suspicious handle, and then tweeted about his sister's disappearance, major media said.

One female follower told him that she recognised the handle.

The brother asked her to contact the person, while he also reported the case to police, the Yomiuri daily said. The woman managed to convince Shiraishi to come to a train station, where investigators awaited and followed him to his house, media say.

Perhaps the police can hire the brother.

And this whole thing could have been stopped before the first victim, if government authorize pinpointing those mental issues through Twitter, or at least had access to private messages. Saying "I will help you die" should trigger twice the needed flags to arrest the person. But here it is, again.

The man is insane and does not belong in this world. But ideals of humanism tell us to try to reform him. I wonder if that is possible at all, but unless the society tries we will never know. If anything he should be spending the rest of his days in mental institution. He has already proven himself an enemy of this world, it is a tragedy but there is nothing that we can do, not anymore.

@nakanoguy01 - yeah the police had this handed to them. Very little police work involved... but I'm not going to say they couldn't connect the dots on this one without knowing whether all of the people were reported missing. We know one was but often people in big cities tend to get lost in what they are doing without keeping regular contact. I'm not saying that's what happened here, I just don't want to be calling the police useless on such little information. That said... Look out for your loved ones people!!

His neighbours did not complain aout foul smell or　weird sounds, and my neighbours called police twice in a week becuase my alarm was too loud.

When cops were at door they did not even know what to do, they just waited at my door when I came out to leave for work they were like "隣の部屋から大きい声を聞こえましたか？”

This extreme case clearly shows the tragic fate of young individuals who have failed to acquire "people-skills" and without being able to find their "ikigai" lose their way in the highly competitive, group-oriented rat-race of Japanese society. Whatever sanctions the state imposes on Shiraishi, his punishment of terrifying nights, his sleep haunted by horrifically gruesome dreams will make the rest of his life a living hell. The rope may be his only hope to escape from a life of endless torment.

But his motives remain unclear

The JapanTimes reports that stealing money was one of the reasons for the killings.

Also of note, he used to work as recruiter for a sex-related business in Kabukicho. Well......

Whatever sanctions the state imposes on Shiraishi, his punishment of terrifying nights, his sleep haunted by horrifically gruesome dreams will make the rest of his life a living hell.

I don't think this is right, actually. My understanding is that for these kids of psychopaths the exact opposite is true - they relish and treasure their kills and revisit them with fondness. That is a mindset that simply cannot be accessed and understood by the vast majority of us, and is part of the horror of this kind of event. It's pure evil.

He was busy too, one a week is a very high count.

It's simply unfathomable to the likes of me, and my thoughts are with the victims families for whom the horror is real.

I don't think that is unique to japan each, and every society has their norms and rules that members are supposed to comply with. Some can't and some can and that can depend on circumstances and more and is fluent and ever changing.

No way to predict anything unless everyone is 24/7 100% monitored and constantly reevaluated.

Tamarama.

Agreed why many keep 'souvenirs' ...

The brother cracked this case, we all need a brother who cares this much. The police had no idea until a civilian did the ground work for them. 9 people in 8 weeks? In the same area.

The cops would need search warrants, etc to do the same. So yes easier if a family member helps the cops.

Also I think the brother did most of the work prior to informing the cops who did the ip-tracing, etc that he couldn't.

It's interesting how he covers his face from the cameras, as if he wants to protect his anonymity for when this all eventually blows over. Obviously the reality that he is never getting out hasn't sunk in yet.

His ex-girlfriend was interviewed at some length on the news this evening. They were together for about six months last year. Generally he was sweet and kind but he did have a couple of creepy moments when she tried to wash the bath and walls. She said looking back on it she is glad she got out of there.

Crazy

Anyone have an ADDRESS area this happened ?

Was it in " 1 Cho'me' ? Same neighborhood as my old apartment....probably walked by this place a million times.

This is absolutely morbid and sick to the max. The USA had somebody like this - Jeffrey Dahmer, arrested just when the movie 'Silence Of the Lambs' (Hannibal Lector) came out too in 1991.  This craziness is in every culture somehow, and as for why they do it only God knows. That suspect is hiding his face in the picture because he did something disgraceful and horrible and he knows it.

Hannibal Lector is fiction may I suggest Charles Manson(sic)..

But agree otherwise those crimes can happen anywhere and have done so before.

Speaking of lucky breaks for law enforcement... just a couple of months ago in Russia another serial killer and his wife were arrested after he left his cellphone behind ( I think on a bus). Turns out the cellphone had some very incriminating and morbid pictures of him posing with victims' bodies. He and his wife had been practising cannibalism since the '90s. These sorts of crimes are shocking but they are still rare thankfully.

why he even bother to cover his face? he has no shame.

Haven't read his assessment but many guys like him are the happiest reliving their crimes, they take souvenir to help them relive it.

Don't get it myself.

He was sick man. It looks like horror film. R.I.P to his 9 victims.

If anything positive can come out of this, society as a whole should question and consider why young people would want to end their lives.

There is obviously a problem somewhere that needs addressing.

Working in a pretty diverse environment but I could not hear any comment from my Japanese colleagues about this serial killing they only say "so da ne".

My "scare tolerance" is relatively high in terms of ghost and stuff but reading news like this gives me shiver up my spine!

Feel sorry for the Landlord... now no one will buy or even rent the property going forward.

One local place dropped in rent from 120.000 to 30.000 after a suicide. Pity the landlord.

Many places go cheap if you don't care about their history.

So I hope this prompts a better response to missing person reports, it all cant be blamed on North Korea.

A western colleague here deliberately chose to live in an apartment going for seriously cheap rent. Something awful had happened there.

Hope he enjoys the many long years on death row.

WA4TKG:

look for シーバスハイム in Zama.

If you move into a place more than 20 years old there's a pretty good chance someone died in it.