Finding the trail of the killer who left the dismembered corpse of a young woman in the Bois de Boulogne was not difficult for the Parisian detective police. The court and the investigation faced difficulties. It was not entirely clear how to deal with this kind of individuals that appear from time to time in the human race.
Mr. Issei Sagawa came from Japan to France to study European literature. He was already about 30 years old. For an ordinary student at the Parisian Sorbonne, Sagawa-san was perhaps a bit old, but his family was rich, and he could afford to do what he was passionate about.
Extreme forms of love
The Japanese linguist was no less interested in European women in European literature. The small and puny Sagawa's lusts were large blondes, with whom he had no success at all. As a man of fine mental organization, Issei did not want to use the services of prostitutes of a suitable texture. Common interests and similar hobbies brought him closer to Rene Hartevelt, a student who came from Holland. However, she quickly dismissed him.
The rejected lover was terribly worried, but tried not to show it. Not noticing anything suspicious in the behavior of her acquaintance, Rene often went to Issei, who had a good tape recorder.
They wrote down poems on it, then sorting out the records, which helped a lot in their work. Cursing his inconspicuousness and awkwardness, Issei Sagawa realized that he would never be able to captivate Rene, but he could not refuse her. Could not! She was there, and every minute he madly wanted to possess Rene completely and completely. In this obsession, Issei probably didn't even notice that he had crossed a certain line. When he came to a terrible decision, he bought a carbine and hid it in the cupboard.
When Rene came to see him on June 11, 1981, Issei suggested that she record the poem "Evenings" by the German poet Becher on a tape recorder, and when the girl was carried away by recitation, he came in from behind, pulled out a carbine and shot her in the head. The effect was too strong for a nervous type like him. Seeing the convulsions of the dying Renee, Issei fainted himself. However, waking up after a while near the body of his beloved, the killer did not at all wring his hands and sob over what he had done. On the contrary! He realized with delight that now Rene would definitely not refuse him, and hastened to seize the moment, copulating with the still not cooled corpse.
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Hastily satisfying his lust, he did not quit. He no longer wanted sexual possession, but more complete possession. Taking a knife in his hands, the loving killer cut off a piece of flesh from Rene's thigh and ate it. The still warm raw meat melted in his mouth, and the taste of it drove Issei into ecstasy! After eating some more human, the cannibal cut off several pieces of meat from Rene's thigh and buttocks, put his prey in the refrigerator and, quite pleased with himself, went to his friends with whom he went to the movies.
The next two days, not at all embarrassed by the presence of a corpse in the apartment, the cannibal experimented in the kitchen, preparing various dishes from the meat of the girl he had killed. On the third day, he noticed the smell coming from Rene's remains, and only then he thought: what to do now? But I didn’t think long. After purchasing a pair of large suitcases, Issei packed the parts of his dismembered body in them, called a taxi, and took his terrible cargo to the Bois de Boulogne.
He intended to drown his suitcases in one of the two artificial lakes of the huge park, and even looked for a suitable place for this, but he was frightened off by passers-by. Noticing the people, Sagawa threw his suitcases in the coastal bushes and fled.
Bloody star
The police were soon on the trail of the killer. The Asian with two yellow suitcases was recalled by the taxi driver who was carrying him, who also indicated the address to which the strange passenger called him. In the indicated house, only Monsieur Issei Sagawa approached the suspect, in whose apartment a search was carried out, which provided indisputable evidence of guilt.
Arrested Sagawa did not deny anything. On the contrary! He willingly gave detailed testimony, striking the investigator with frankness. The unusual nature of the crime he committed and his behavior during the investigation gave rise to doubts about his mental normality. Psychiatrists, to the general relief, declared him insane. Everything was explained by the abnormality of the individual, and there was no need to delve into this abomination anymore. The criminal case was closed, and Sagawa was transferred from prison to a psychiatric hospital.
Meanwhile, the cannibal's family was busy with the extradition of the patient to his homeland. Their efforts were crowned with success. Expelled from France, Sagawa-san, upon arrival in Japan, was admitted to the Matsuzawa Psychiatric Hospital near Tokyo, where he underwent treatment. Two months later, a council of psychiatrists found him completely recovered, and a year and a half after he killed Rene Hartevelt and raped her corpse, part of which he ate, Issei Sagawa was released.
While still sitting in solitary confinement in a Parisian prison, Sagawa wrote a letter to the director named Yuro Kara, promising to give him an exclusive interview, revealing all the intimate details. They got along quite well. Based on the materials received from Sagawa, Yuro Kara wrote the documentary novel "Adoration", which received the prestigious Akutagawa Prize and was sold in a million copies.
The cannibal himself, whiling away his leisure time in dungeons, was busy describing the twists and turns of his psyche, and his opus, named by the author "In the Fog", after the book was published in Japan, became a national bestseller, on which a film was made.
Released, Sagawa gave interviews, participated in television shows, acted as a restaurant critic, published the second book "Sagawa Letters", becoming a laureate of a literary prize.
Thousands of women wrote letters to him, confessing their love to the one and a half meter freak with a terrible reputation. There were even some Sagawa fans who were ready to give themselves up to be devoured if he really wanted to. Sympathizing with the audience, he answered the fans from the TV screen that he prefers blondes … fried with fresh vegetables. Newspapers excitedly commented on these pearls of cannibalistic wit.
All attempts by the parents of the deceased girl to bring the murderer to justice were unsuccessful. In France, Sagawa, who was declared insane, could not be tried. He was not extradited to Holland, since he committed his crime in France. Bureaucratic obstacles in international jurisprudence serve as a reliable armor for the cannibal to this day.
In his old age, Mr. Sagawa got along with a European girl of the type he always liked. When Sagawa was asked during another interview if his current girlfriend was not attracted from a gastronomic point of view, he lightly joked, saying that doctors forbid him to have fatty meat due to diabetes.
Excesses of atavism
Horrific murders like the one committed in Paris by a Japanese intellectual occur from time to time in different countries. The people guilty of them are not alike at all. Common to all these fiends is the deep past of humanity, in which cannibalism was part of many cults that practiced human sacrifice.
It still sits very tightly in people and only seems forgotten. It emerges from the depths of human nature as soon as instinct turns off critical thinking. Most often and most harmlessly, this is manifested when, admiring a pretty baby, as if falling into oblivion, relatives blissfully bliss: “Ty, my sweetheart! I would just eat you! They do not control this infusion, experiencing ecstasy, expressing the highest degree of desire for the most complete physical possession, up to the dissolution of the object of love in themselves.
In ritual murder, the best were usually sacrificed, and by eating their flesh in the course of a religious ceremony, they tried to adopt some of the best properties of the victims. In the traditional religion of Japan - Shintoism - from ancient times there was a custom of kimotori, which consisted of eating the liver of a valiant enemy in order to take over from him strength and courage. During World War II, this custom was revived and actively practiced with the tacit approval of the command.
After the military and political collapse of the Japanese Empire, 30 senior officers of the imperial army, accused of performing the kimotori rite on prisoners, were brought to justice. Five of them were sentenced to death by hanging. This happened in 1947. Two years later, Issei Sagawa was born, who, having committed an equally terrible crime, was not even recognized as a criminal.
Valery YARHO
