A Japan man dubbed the "Twitter Killer" was sentenced to death, CNN reported Wednesday, citing confirmation from the Tokyo District Court Tachikawa branch.
Takahiro Shiraishi had pleaded guilty Tuesday to murdering and dismembering nine people in a high-profile mass murder case in 2017. Nearly all of his victims were teenagers that he befriended on Twitter. He used the name "Hangman" on the social media site.
He was arrested in October of the same year after authorities searched his home to investigate the disappearance of a 23-year-old woman who had shown suicidal tendencies on social media.
At his house, police found nine heads and 240 bones with the flesh scraped off and kept in coolers and toolboxes in his bedroom. Japanese media called it the "House of Horrors."
The 30-year old Shiraishi was a former scout for the sex industry. He lured depressed and suicidal women to his flat, offering to assist them in their wish to die and, in some instances, claimed he would kill himself alongside them.
He would then drug and rape the women before murdering and cutting their bodies into pieces. He also killed a boyfriend of one of his victims to silence him, police said.
"There's no doubt that I sliced up all the bodies in my bathroom with the intention of destroying evidence," Shiraishi told investigators, the Japanese Straits Times reported. He said he got rid of their flesh and internal organs like "garbage," but kept their bones fearing he might get caught.
While prosecutors demanded the maximum penalty of death for the gruesome act, Shiraishi's attorneys argued he was guilty of the lesser crime of "murder with consent", claiming his victims gave him the permission to kill.
Capital punishment is carried out by hanging in Japan, which has over 100 prisoners on death row.
Shiraishi eventually disputed his own lawyers' arguments and said he killed them without their consent. He said he would not appeal his death sentence.
The court has yet to set a date for Shiraishi's death.
