Bizarre: The story of Issei Sagawa
In the last couple of weeks, I noticed that most of the visitors to my humble blog get here after searching Google for 'Renée Hartevelt'. This is because of a post I wrote in November of 2008, in a series of articles about bad people, so I thought it would be nice to rewrite it in English.
I have some strange fascinations. One of them is that I'm interested in everything that has to do with serial killers. Believe it or not, I actually own a bunch of books on the subject, though the person this article is about is technically not a serial killer (as far as I know, he's killed once). Nevertheless, the story of Issei Sagawa is bizarre.
Issei Sagawa
At first sight Issei Sagawa looks like a friendly, albeit somewhat weird gentleman from Japan. He was born on June 11th 1949 in Kobe, Japan (you might have heard of Kobe because of the earthquake). Since he was a pretty good student, and his parents had enough money, they sent him to the world-famous Sorbonne University in Paris, to study modern literature.
Issei Sagawa, standing around 5 feet tall, and not what you would call 'handsome', was obsessed by tall European women, and in 1981 he met the beautiful Dutch (yes) female student Renée Hartevelt.
. In spite of not being attracted to Issei, Renée did go on a couple of dates with him, and when he asked her to teach him German in exchange for money, she agreed.
Things went their way for a while, but Sagawa's fantasies got wilder and wilder, especially his fantasy about eating Renée. This is of course something you don't just ask somebody you're dating, so instead he decided to shoot her in the neck while she was reading him a German poem in his apartment. After this, he started chopping her body up and eating it. A lot of people cringe at the idea, but remember that Japanese people eat sushi too, so they're used to strange foods.
For two days he ate parts of her body, but after that it started to smell a little funny in his apartment, not to mention the flies that appeared all of a sudden, so he decided it was time to clean up. With an electric knife he cut the leftovers in chunks, and stuffed everything in two suitcases he bought especially for the occasion. He took a cab to the 'Bois de Bologne', where he planned to dump the suitcases in a pond. When he noticed there were people walking around, he panicked, dropped the suitcases and ran. Suitcases with body parts in them (do not click that link while you're eating) don't lay around unnoticed very long, and soon after that the French police was looking for the owner of said suitcases. In the mean time, Sagaw was snacking on some left-overs he had saved in the fridge.
The French police is not as incompetent as you think, so two days later they payed a visit to Sagawa's residence. Soon after that, he was locked up, and was interrogated by three psychiatrists. The specialists concluded that Sagawa had a few screws loose, and chances of curing him from his mental illness were slim to none. He was brought to the Henri Colin Institution, without trial. His dad, an influential man in Japan, managed to get him moved to Japan. Back in the old country, psychiatrists came to the conclusion that there was nothing wrong with Sagawa, and he was transfered to a normal low security prison. Evidently, Japanese psychiatrists' perception of 'normal' is quite different form their French counterparts. I thought French people had strange ideas about what is normal, but apparently the Japanese can top this.
After being in prison for about 15 months, Issei Sagawa was released (thanks to his fathers money and influence, and the quirks of the French justice system). Yes, you read that right, after murdering and eating Renée Hartevelt, he was out and about after less than 5 years in prison.
Things will get more bizarre though. After what he'd done, Sagawa became a famous person in Japan, and of course you can make money off of that. He was invited for several appearances in TV shows, where he proudly tells the story of eating human flesh. He also wrote four books, of which the one describing the whole incident became a best-seller. His nickname in Japan is 'The Godfather of Cannibalism', and he seems to take pride in that.
Nowadays, he has become an artist (no pictures here, it's not even worth looking at), plays small rolls in obscure Japanese movies, and his goal in life now seems to be eaten by a woman. Personally, I hope he dies a slow and painful death.
By the way, a good read on the bizarre practice of cannibalism is this book: A History of Cannibalism: From Ancient Cultures to Survival Stories and Modern Psychopaths
He’s a sick SOB
Yeah, I read his “Confession.” I don’t care if it is a normal thing for Japanese to eat sushi. I’m not here to judge but it was disgusting. He knew it was wrong and he still did it. I guess that’s why he’s considered “insane.”
I hope he dies slowly too.
The point is that he murdered her before eating her which should be enough for someone to be sentenced to death/lifetime imprisonment.
WHY ON EARTH would he be delivered to Japan? WHY ON EARTH would they let him go so soon? AND WHY ON EARTH would they not put him in jail again NOW because he clearly was aware of what he was doing. He still is now and he is even proud of it. What the fuck is wrong with the Japanese system of justice? How can they make a bloody star of him?
Armin Meiwes, German cannibal, killed and ate his victim, too, but his victim apparently agreed on being killed. He actually came to Meiwes because he wanted to be slaughtered and eaten by another man.
Sick enough but I’d never feel sorry about the victim. I just don’t tolerate such behavior.
I do feel sorry for Hartevelt and I wonder how France and Japan can be so fucked up. Would things still go like that now? Hell, this makes me angry…
Just came across this story after reading some shit about Illuminati Satanists shutting the world down by destroying the economies and putting us all out in the streets. So, do we hunt down and shoot satanists first, or do we go after this Japanese psycho.
Japan like most other countries certainly do deliver the goods don’t they, just today in fact, news hit the streets a son of a 41 year-old father placed a plastic bag over his father’s head and suffocated him. Apparently, the father told his son that at 41 years-old he didn’t have any confidence in his ability to continue living. The son promptly murdered him after the father gave him permission.
The thing about Japan that makes these very weird murders that go on almost daily the world never hears about, is the fact you never know what’s lying dormant behind the surface of the Japanese.
No wonder the American keeps a presence here despite Japan’s disfavor?!
if you are the parents of this girl or were a friend or family member of her please send me a line at i_love_vinegar@hotmail.com
i want to bring justice, and hopefully we can work together to do so. It is sick and disgusting this happened to such a young, and beautiful girl!