Issei Sagawa

Renée Hartevelt

Issei Sagawa (佐川一政, Sagawa Issei?, born June 11, 1949) is a Japanese man who in 1981 murdered and cannibalized a Dutch woman named Renée Hartevelt. After his release, he has become a minor celebrity in Japan and has made a living through the public interest on his crime.

Murder of Hartevelt

Sagawa served time in a French jail for the murder of the Dutch student Renée Hartevelt, a classmate at the Sorbonne Academy in Paris, France. On June 11, 1981, Sagawa, a 32 year old student of French literature, invited Hartevelt to dinner under the pretense of literary conversation. Upon her arrival, he shot her in the neck with a rifle while she sat with her back to him at a desk, then began to carry out his plan of eating her. She was selected because of her health and beauty, those characteristics Sagawa believed he lacked. Sagawa describes himself as a "weak, ugly, and small man" (he is just under 5 ft (1.52 m) tall) and claims that he wanted to "absorb her energy".

Sagawa said he fainted after the shock of shooting her, but awoke with the realization that he had to carry out his desire to eat her. He did so, beginning with her hips and legs, after having sex with the corpse. In interviews, he noted his surprise at the "corn-colored" nature of human fat. For two days, Sagawa ate various parts of her body. He described the meat as "soft" and "odorless", like tuna. He then attempted to dump the mutilated body in a remote lake, but was seen in the act and later arrested by the French police.

His wealthy father provided a top lawyer for his defense, and after being held for two years without trial the French judge Jean-Louis Bruguières found him "obviously" legally insane and unfit to stand trial and ordered Sagawa to be held indefinitely in a mental institution. Following a visit by the author Inuhiko Yomota, Sagawa's account of the murder was published in Japan with the title In the Fog. The subsequent publicity and macabre celebrity of Sagawa likely contributed to the French authorities' decision to have him extradited to Japan. Upon arrival in Japan, he was immediately taken to Matsuzawa hospital, where examining psychologists all found him to be sane but "evil". However, Japanese authorities found it to be legally impossible to hold him, purportedly because they lacked certain important papers from the French court. As a result, Sagawa checked himself out of the mental institution on August 12, 1986, and has been a free man ever since.



Post-release

Sagawa now lives in Tokyo and is a minor celebrity in Japan. He is often invited as a guest speaker and commentator. He has also written restaurant reviews for the Japanese magazine Spa. In 1992, he appeared in Hisayasu Sato's exploitation film Uwakizuma: Chijokuzeme (Unfaithful Wife: Shameful Torture) as a sadosexual voyeur.

Besides books about the murder he committed, Sagawa wrote a commentary book Shonen A in 1997 on the Kobe children's serial killings of 1997, when a 14-year-old referred to in the media as "Boy A" ("Shonen A") killed and decapitated a child and attacked several others.

Sagawa's story inspired the 1981 Stranglers song "La Folie",[citation needed] the 1983 Rolling Stones song "Too Much Blood", and the 2004 Human Factors Lab song "Dinner with Renee". In 2007, the avant-garde noise-metal band Gnaw their Tongues released an EP titled "Issei Sagawa," the cover of which depicts Sagawa posed with a fork and knife over what appears to be a pair of human legs.

A short film by Olivier Smolders called Adoration is based on Sagawa's story. In the same year, the TV channel Viasat Explorer released a 47-minute documentary film called "Cannibal Superstar".

In 2009, Sagawa was documented in a History Channel show titled "Strange Rituals" discussing cannibalism. The show reveals Sagawa as a freelance artist of nude paintings.



[Excerpt from In the Fog, Sagawa’s post-cannibal best-selling account of his murder of fellow Dutch student Renée Hartevelt in Paris]

11th JUNE, 1981 - ” I am amazed. She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. Tall, blonde, with pure white skin, she astonishes me with her grace. I invited her to my home for a Japanese dinner. She accepts. After the meal I asked her to read my favorite German Expressionist poem. As she reads i can’t keep my eyes off her. After she leaves I can still smell her body on the bed sheet where she sat reading the poem. I lick the chopsticks and dishes she used. I can taste her lips. My passion is so great. I want to eat her. If I do she will be mine forever. There is no escape from this desire. I arrange for her to read the poem for me once more. I lied to her. I tell her I want to record the poem on tape for my Japanese teacher. She believes. I prepare everything. The cassette recorder for the poem, the rifle for the sacrifice. She arrives on time. After drinking tea and whisky, she speaks. She smiles at me. But I know inside that I’m the strangest one of all. Her yellow sleeveless top shows off her beautiful white arms. I can smell her body. I turn on the recorder. She starts to read . She speaks in perfect German. I reach for the rifle hidden beside the chest of drawers. I stand slowly and aim the riffle at the back of her head. I cannot stop myself. There is a loud sound and her body falls from the chair onto the floor. It is like she is watching me. I see her cheeks, her eyes, her nose and mouth, the blood pouring from her head. I try to talk to her, but she no longer answers. There is blood all over the floor. I try to wipe it up, but I realize I cannot stop the flow of blood from her head. It is very quiet here. There is only the silence of death. I start to take off her clothes. It is hard to take the clothes off a dead body. Finally it is done. Her beautiful white body is before me. I’ve waited so long this day and now it is here. I touch her ass. It is so very smooth. I wonder where I should bite first. I decide to bite the top of her butt. My nose is covered with her cold white skin. I try to bite down hard, but I can’t. I suddenly have a horrible headache. I get a knife from the kitchen and stab it deeply into her skin. Suddenly a lot of sallow fat oozes from the wound. It reminds me of Indian corn. It continues to ooze. It is strange. Finally I find the red meat under the sallow fat. I scoop it out and put it in my mouth. I chew. It has no smell and no taste. It melts in my mouth like a perfect piece of tuna. I look in her eyes and say: “You are delicious.” I cut her body and lift the meat to my mouth again and again. Then I take a photograph of her white corpse with its deep wounds. I have sex with her body. When I hug her she lets out a breath. I’m frightened, she seems alive. I kiss her and tell her I love her. Then I drag her body to the bathroom. By now I am exhausted, but I cut into her hip and put the meat in a roasing pan. After it is cooked I sit at the table using her underwear as a napkin. They still smell of her body. Then I turn on the tape of her reading the German poem and eat. There is not enough taste. I use some salt and some mustard and it is delicious, very high quality meat. Then I go back to the bathroom and cut off her breast and bake it. It swells while it cooks. I serve the breast on the table and eat it with a fork and knife. It isn’t very good. Too greasy. I try to cut into another part of her body. Her thighs were wonderful. Finally she is in my stomach. Finally she is in my stomach. Finally she is mine. It is the best dinner I’ve ever had. Afterwards I sleep with her. Next morning she is still here. She doesn’t smell bad. Today I must finish cutting up her body. I have to put it into suitcases and sink it in the lake. It will be her grave. I touch the cold body again and I wonder where I should start. I start to cut off all the meat before amputating the limbs. While I cut her calf I suddenly want to taste it. I see the beautiful red meat beneath the fat. I grasp her knee and her ankle, and tear it with my teeth. It is tender. I slowly chew and savor it. After eating most of the calf I look at myself in the mirror. There is grease all over my face. And then I start to eat at random. I bite her little toe. It still smell of her feet. I stab the knife into her arch and see the red meat deep inside. I thrust my fingers inside and dig out the meat and put it in my mouth. It tastes okay. Then I stab the knife into her armpit. Ever since I saw it under her yellow sleeveless top I wondered how it would taste this good. The wonderful taste cheers me up and I devour her underarm up to the elbow. Finally I cut off her private parts. When I touch the pubic hair it has a very bad smell. I bite her clit, but it won’t come off, it just stretches. So I throw it in the frying pan and pop it in my mouth. I chew very carefully and swallow it. It is so sweet. After I swallow it, I feel her in my body and get hot. I turn the body over and open her buttocks, revealing her anus. I scoop it out with my knife and try to put it in my mouth. It smells too much. I put it in the frying pan and throw it in my mouth. It still smells. I spit it out. I go into the next room. It smell of fat, like I’ve been frying a chicken. It’s been twenty-four hours now. Some huge flies hover and buzz in the bathroom. I try to chase them away, but they came back. They swarm on her face. They seem to tell me that I’ve lost her forever. It is no longer her. Where is she? She’s gone far away. I’ve broken her. Like a child who breaks his toy. I try to use an electric knife to cut her body. It doesn’t work. It just makes a loud sound. I use a hatchet. I strike several times. It’s hard work. I strike her thigh. Her body jumps up. If she could feel, it would have hurt. Finally the thigh separates from her body. I bite it again, like I would bite a chicken leg. Then I cut off her arms. It is even harder than the thigh. I use the electric knife again. It makes a shrill sound, like the sound of her shrill voice. It works this time. Her hand still wears a ring and a bracelet. When I see her long fingers I am driven by another impulse. I use her hand to masturbate. Her long fingers excite me. When I’m finished I try to bite her finger. I can’t. I’m disappointed. I put her hands into the plastic bag along with her legs. And then I see her face. It is still quiet. She has a small nose and a sweet lower lip. When she was alive I wanted to bite them. Now I can satisfy that desire. It’s so easy to bite off her nose. As I chew the cartilage I can hear the noise. I use a knife to cut off more of the cartilage and put it in my mouth. It really doesn’t taste very good. I scoop out her lower lip with my knife and put it in my mouth. It has hard skin. I decide to eat it later when I can fry it. So I put it in the refrigerator. I want her tongue. I can’t open her lower jaw, but I can reach in between her teeth. Finally it comes out. I cut it off and put it in my mouth. It’s hard to chew. I see my face in the mirror. Her tongue entwined with my tongue. I try to close my mouth, but her tongue slips out. Finally I cut the skin off the tongue and taste the meat. I try to eat her eyes. It’s hard for me to stab into them, though it is the easiest part of her face. I can tears coming from them. It frightens me. Her eyes are all that is left of her face. It is nearly a skull. I decide to take out her stomach. When I stab under her navel a little fat appears and then I can see the red meat under the fat. I slice a piece of the red meat and put it on a plate. Then I stab into the stomach. The internal organs appear. There is a great length of rolled tubes and I find a gray bag at the end of the tubes. It must be the bladder. There is a strong smell as soon as I pick it up. I thrust my hand into her body cavity. There is another bag. It must be her womb. If she had lived she would have had a baby in this womb. The thought depresses me for a moment. I pull out the intestines. My hands sting from the digestive juices. At last I have to cut off her head. It is the most difficult thing I have to do. I cut off the meat on her neck until I can see bone, then I cut again. She still wears her necklace. I try to use the electric knife, but it doesn’t work very well. It just makes its shrill sound. So I use the hatchet. I imagine myself on the guillotine. It is surprisingly easy to cut through. With the head gone her body is now only flesh. When I grab the hair and hang up the head, I realize I am a cannibal. I put the head in a plastic bag. I separate the body and put it into two plastic bags. They are heavy. It is hard to put them into the suitcases. I am finished. It is midnight. I call a taxi. I am back home. I turn the TV and open the refrigerator. I put the dishes on the glass table. I recognize each pieces of meat. This is part of her hip and this is part of her thigh. I fry them on the stove. I set the table. There is mustard, salt, pepper and sauce. I put her underwear beside the dish. I sniff it and look at a nude woman in a magazine. I try to remember which part of her is in my mouth, but it is difficult to connect the meat with a body. It just seems like a piece of meat. I continue to eat her body until I am caught. Each day the meat becomes more tender, each day the taste is more sweet and delicious. ”

Crime Scene Photographs bellow - NOT FOR THE FAINT HEARTED