A Japanese man who was found guilty of nine counts of murder after meeting his victims via Twitter has been sentenced to death.
Takahiro Shiraishi was arrested in 2017 after police found body parts in his flat. He was dubbed the 'Twitter killer', admitting to murdering and dismembering victims having lured them to his home after contacting them on social media.
Almost all the 30-year-old's victims were young women who had said they were suicidal. Shiraishi had lured them to his flat, claiming he would help them to die. He also offered to kill himself with them in some cases.
Between August and October 2017, Shiraishi strangled eight women and one man, all of whom were between the ages of 15 and 26, according to Japan's Kyodo news agency.
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The man he murdered was the boyfriend of one of the other victims, and had confronted him about the disappearance of his girlfriend.
On Halloween that year, police found body parts in Shiraishi's flat - which Japanese media have called the 'house of horrors' - in the city of Zama, near Tokyo.
They went on to find nine heads, along with arms and leg bones, stored in coolers around his flat.
Shiraishi was caught when the brother of one of the victims found messages from him on her Twitter account after she'd gone missing. He asked a female friend to contact him and arrange to meet him, before telling police.
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According to public broadcaster NHK, when police interviewed him, he said: "I killed them and did some work on the bodies in order to hide the evidence."
A Twitter account he opened in March 2017 was used to 'to contact women contemplating suicide, who he saw as easy targets', prosecutors claimed.
However, his lawyers said he should be charged with 'murder with consent' - a lesser charge, suggested because the victims had given permission to be killed.
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But Shiraishi then disputed his own defence, saying he killed without their consent.
The judge said that none of the victims 'agreed to be killed'.
The Straits Times newspaper reported that Naokuni Yano said: "The defendant was found to be fully responsible."
It was also noted that neighbours had revealed to investigators that they had noticed smells coming from the apartment after he'd moved there in August 2017, just when he started killing.
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He had moved from Tokyo, where he had been a scout, recruiting women for the sex industry in the city's red-light district.
The case also prompted Twitter to change their rules, which now state that users shouldn't 'promote or encourage suicide or self-harm'.
Featured Image Credit: PATopics: World News, crime, Japan