Solved Murders - True Crime Stories - Issei Sagawa The Cannibal Killer Who Walked Free and Became a Dark Celebrity #46

Episode Date: August 4, 2025

#horrorstories #reddithorrorstories #ScaryStories #creepypasta #horrortales #truecrime #cannibalkiller #darkcelebrity #unsolvedjustice #notoriouscriminal  Issei Sagawa's horrifying crime and subsequent release from custody exposed disturbing flaws in the justice system. Despite confessing to murder and cannibalism, he evaded long-term punishment, sparking public outrage and morbid fascination. This story dives deep into the psychology of evil, societal reactions to crime, and the unsettling phenomenon of dark celebrity.  horrorstories, reddithorrorstories, scarystories, horrorstory, creepypasta, horrortales, truecrime, cannibalism, darkcelebrity, unsolvedjustice, notoriouscriminal, infamouskiller, crimepsychology, criminaljustice, horrorhistory, gruesomestory, darkfame, criminalmind, twistedcrime, chillingtruecrime

All right, let me tell you a story so weird, so downright disturbing, it sounds like it should belong in a horror movie or some twisted crime novel. But nope, this one's real. So, buckle up, because we're diving into the freaky world of Issa Sagawa, a man whose name you might have heard whispered in true crime circles or bizarre fact lists on YouTube. And trust me, once you hear what he did, you won't forget him anytime soon. So picture Tokyo, Japan. It's 1974.

Isay Sagawa, just 24 years old back then, was a student at Waco University. He was small, frail-looking, and from the outside seemed like a quiet, unassuming guy. But man, behind that innocent facade was a seriously dark mind. Isay had these secret, sick fantasies about eating human flesh. Yeah, not just some metaphor or weird poetic longing, like, legit cannibalism. One day, he set his sights on a German woman who lived in Tokyo. The details are a little foggy, and a lot of what's out there comes from various sources with their own versions. But here's the general gist, he followed her back to her place, waited until she was asleep, broke into her apartment, and tried to cut a piece of her flesh off to eat.

Can you imagine that? Like some real-life horror show. But the woman woke up. She fought him off, screamed, and neighbors got involved. Next thing you know, cops show up and haul him away. Now, you might think, okay, this guy's clearly deranged, he's done for. But nope. In one of the many twists in this story, E say didn't even get charged with attempted murder or something fitting.

Instead, they slapped him with attempted rape. That's right. not even close to what he was actually trying to do. And get this, his dad was loaded, a big-time businessman with serious connections. So, the family quietly paid off the victim, and the whole thing disappeared. No trial, no jail time, just a big old sweep under the rug. Fast forward seven years. It's now 1981, and our guy Issei is in Paris, France.

You'd think maybe he'd chilled out, maybe gotten help, something. Nope again. Instead, he was attending the Sorbonne, a well-known university. There, he met a Dutch student named René Harderville. René was everything Isay wasn't, outgoing, confident, bright. They started hanging out. Some say she thought he was just a shy intellectual, a bit odd but harmless.

If only she knew. One day, Isay invited Renee to his apartment, under the pretense of working on poetry or literature together. He even set up a voice recorder. Yeah, he planned this. Coldly, carefully. While she was reading aloud, he shot her in the neck with a rifle. Just like that.

No warning, no fight, just bang. She dropped instantly. And what he did next was straight out of a nightmare. He started slicing pieces of her flesh off and eating them. He said later that he felt like if he consumed her, he could absorb her beauty, her energy, her confidence. It was like he thought eating her would make him more like her. He photographed the entire thing. Yeah, he documented it all.

It wasn't just a moment of madness, it was premeditated and sickeningly organized. After a couple days, when the body started to rot, he packed up what was left of her remains in two suitcases and headed out to dump them in the Bwado. Boulogne, a wooded area in Paris. But Ese, the genius criminal mastermind that he definitely wasn't, got caught. People noticed him acting sketchy, saw the blood, smelled the stench, and bam, he was arrested again. Now here's where things get even weirder. You'd think, France has him, he's caught red-handed, photos and everything, open-and-shut case, right? Wrong. He was found mentally unfit to stand trial and sent to a psychiatric hospital in France. But then, after a little while, they deported him back to Japan. You'd assume Japan would keep him locked up, yeah. I mean, the guy literally

murdered and ate someone. But no. Once in Japan, they decided he was mentally sound, sane, capable of functioning in society. And then, this is where your jaw hits the floor, they couldn't charge him for murder. Why? Because France wouldn't release the legal documents needed for Japan to prosecute him. Some bureaucratic red tape, some legal loophole, whatever it was, it meant the charges were dropped. Just, gone. Like nothing ever happened.

So guess what? Isay Sagawa checked himself out of the mental hospital and just, walked free. Yep. A free man. Just living his life like he hadn't done something straight out of a horror movie. And if you think that's the last twist, you're underestimating this wild story. Isay didn't go into hiding. He didn't vanish or try to live quietly.

Nope, he leaned into the infamy. He became a freaking celebrity in Japan. No joke. He wrote books, over 20 of them, actually. He painted, gave interviews, even starred in six. some bizarre films. Media outlets gave him airtime. And people bought it. Some treated him like some dark intellectual or misunderstood soul. It was insane. In a 2012 interview with Vice, Ease talked about how he still had fantasies but didn't feel the need to act on them. He said

things like, I'll catch a glimpse of her thigh and think, that sure looks tasty. But then he added that now, he'd rather eat Kobe beef than human flesh. He claimed the human meat didn't actually taste good, despite what he'd written before. Said he just convinced himself it would be delicious after craving it for so long. The fact that he talked about it so casually. Absolutely chilling. Oh, and if you think the world of pop culture didn't latch on to this creepy tale, think again. The Rolling Stones even referenced him in their song, Too Much Blood. The The lyrics go, and when he ate her, he took her bones slash to the Bada Boulogne. That's how infamous he became.

Today, Isay Sagawa is in his 70s, living in Kawasaki City, Japan. He walks the streets freely, just another elderly man blending into the crowd. But the truth of what he did still follows him, still creeps out anyone who hears about it. And to this day, nobody really knows why France wouldn't give Japan the proper paperwork to prosecute. him. Maybe it was a bureaucratic oversight, maybe something deeper. Either way, it left a killer, a cannibal, no less, free to live his life like nothing ever happened. So yeah, that's the story. It's one of those real-life cases that leaves you shaken. Not just because of what he did, but because of how badly the system failed. A man murdered and ate someone, got caught,

confessed, and walked free. It sounds like something out of a twisted novel, but nope. This was real life. Real blood, real tragedy, real consequences, or lack thereof. And you know what's maybe the most haunting part? Isay Sagawa never really seemed sorry. He rationalized everything, spoke about it like he was dissecting a piece of art or literature. Not like he ended someone's life in the most brutal, dehumanizing way possible. Not like he robbed a family of their daughter, their friend, their student. Just cold, clinical, creepy. Anyway, that's where we leave it.

Isay Sagawa, the man who got away with murder, literally, and then turned his monstrous act into a platform. A disturbing legend of modern true crime that continues to baffle and chill anyone who dares to look deeper. If there's one thing this story proves, it's a very thing. that sometimes, the real world is way scarier than any fiction you could dream up. The end.