Takahiro Shiraishi, known as the "Twitter Killer," targeted young suicidal people online, luring them back to his apartment and brutally murdering them over a three-month killing spree in 2017.
Tea Crime Documentary / YouTubeThe image of Takahiro Shiraishi released to the public following his arrest.
In the digital age, connecting with like-minded individuals across the globe has never been easier. While this interconnectedness has fueled innovation, it has also given rise to a new breed of predator — one that lurks behind screens, exploiting the very networks designed to bring people together.
Over the course of three months in 2017, Takahiro Shiraishi, a young man from Zama, Japan, used social media to lure vulnerable people struggling with suicidal ideation to his apartment.
There, he would murder, sexually assault, and dismember them. His killing spree came to an end on Halloween, when a family member of one of his victims orchestrated a sting operation.
Today, Shiraishi’s crimes serve as a reminder of the dark reality that often lurks behind anonymous screens.
Who Is Takahiro Shiraishi?
Rotten Mango / YouTubeTakahiro Shiraishi as a child.
Takahiro Shiraishi was born on October 9, 1990, in Zama, Japan. His childhood was normal by all accounts, with friends and acquaintances of his describing him as a “quiet child who was able to socialize with neighbors,” according to Radio France Internationale.
He was an average student who enjoyed sports, particularly baseball, and socialized with his friends. The only odd thing about Shiraishi, in retrospect, was his rough-housing. According to a fellow pupil, Shiraishi would play a game with his friends that involved strangling each other. On one occasion, Shiraishi even passed out.
When Shiraishi was 16 years old, his parents got divorced, and his mother moved with his four-year-old sister to Tokyo to begin a new life. The move was deeply troubling for Shiraishi, who began struggling in school. However, he managed to graduate at 18 and began a new job at a supermarket.
In October 2011, Shiraishi quit his job and pursued a completely new career in Tokyo’s thriving sex industry. He worked as a scout for parlors in Tokyo’s Kabukicho area, the city’s largest red light district. His job entailed luring young women to work as sex workers in the brothels and bars in the area.
However, Shiraishi quickly gained a reputation as being creepy and pushy, and in February 2017, he was arrested for trying to recruit young women, including some who were underage, to work for a sex shop under the false promise that they would not be forced into prostitution.
Tea Crime Documentary / YouTubeShiraishi was a partyer who previously worked as a scout for Tokyo’s red light district.
In August of that year, Shiraishi moved back to his hometown of Zama, and, seemingly bitter about his arrest and depressed about the state of his life, began down a dark path that would lead to him becoming the “Twitter Killer.”
Social Media, Suicide Pacts, And Murder
Twitter/XShiraishi’s Twitter page. He used the username @hangingpro.
Not long after moving back to Zama, Takahiro Shiraishi created several social media accounts, the most famous of which was his Twitter profile under the name “Hangingpro.”
Advertising himself as a professional hangman, Shiraishi communicated with dozens of people online who were struggling with suicidal thoughts. At first, Shiraishi bonded with others over their shared mental health struggles, but soon his motives took a darker turn.
On August 8, 2017, Shiraishi messaged Mizuki Miura, a 21-year-old nursing home nurse who posted online about wanting to commit suicide.
“Do you still want to die? I want to commit suicide, too, can I make friends with you?” Shiraishi’s message read.
Three days later, the two met up at a cafe. The two struck up a friendship, and Miura even gave Shiraishi money so that he could rent an apartment in the city. Everything was going well until Miura began speaking to another man, and Shiraishi flew into a jealous rage.
On August 22, Shiraishi knocked Miura unconscious in the apartment and sexually assaulted her. Fearing that he would be arrested, he brutally murdered her and then disposed of her body.
Fair UseThe apartment where the killings took place in Zama, Japan
The murder gave Takahiro Shiraishi a thrill unlike anything he had experienced before. High on the feeling of power and control, he sought out more victims via social media.
Only six days after the murder of Mirua, Shiraishi would lure a 15-year-old school girl named Ishihara Kureha to his apartment and commit the same heinous crimes. Three days later, Shiraishi would invite Shogo Nishinaka, a 20-year-old band member and friend of Mizuki Miura, to his apartment.
Despite telling Shiraishi that he did not want to die, Nishinaka would be drugged and murdered.
A Serial Killer Admits To His Grizzly Crimes
Kyodo NewsA list of the nine victims of Shiraishi.
For the next two months, Shiraishi would use his social media accounts to lure six more victims to his apartment. There, they would be murdered, sexually assaulted, and dismembered. All of the victims had defensive wounds, proving that they had fought back during the attacks.
In October, the brother of Aiko Tamura, the Shiraishi’s last victim, grew concerned about his missing sister and logged into her Twitter account. There, he saw the disturbing messages exchanged between them.
Another Twitter user, an unnamed woman, reached to Aiko Tamura’s brother and said she was suspicious of whoever was running the @hangingpro account. In an act of bravery, she reached to the account and scheduled a meet-up with Shiraishi. The two met at a train station, with police observing the entire interaction.
Later, when the two went their own ways, the police followed Shiraishi to his apartment. After knocking on his door, the police spoke to Shiraishi and noticed a woman’s white purse in the walkway — one that bore a remarkable resemblance to the one carried by Aiko Tamura.
When they asked if he knew about her whereabouts, Shiraishi simply replied that she was in the apartment’s deep freezer.
The jig was up, and the so-called “Twitter Killer” admitted to all of his brutal crimes outright to the police. He claimed that the motive behind the killings was largely sexual and that he committed the heinous acts because he didn’t want to face sexual rejection.
With ample evidence against him, Takahiro Shiraishi was arrested and charged with the murders of nine people on October 31, 2017.
The Fate Of Takahiro Shiraishi, The Twitter Killer
YouTubeA police officer stands guard in front of Takahiro Shiraishi’s home.
The crimes of Takahiro Shiraishi were truly an open and closed case. After his arrest, Shiraishi admitted to every grizzly detail of his crimes, and despite his defense team arguing that his victims wanted to die, Shiraishi himself admitted to the judge that “Not a single one of my victims consented,” according to the New York Times.
Shiraishi wanted to get his trial concluded as quickly as possible, stating that he would take full responsibility for the crimes and not appeal his sentence.
On October 1, 2020, Shiraishi pled guilty to nine murders. Two months later, he was found guilty and sentenced to death. His sentence was finalized in January 2021, and he currently awaits execution.
Tea Crime Documentary / YouTubeShiraishi before and after his arrest in 2017.
As for the motive behind the sudden killing spree, Shiraishi noted that struggles with his family pushed him into a dark headspace. He stated that, after having a falling out with his father shortly after he graduated high school, he had no choice but to work in the sex industry in order to keep himself afloat.
During his time in the red light district, Shiraishi claimed he grew desensitized towards illegal acts and gained the ability to use women’s insecurities against them.
“I had a hard time making up my mind to [commit murder], but I had done illegal things on a daily basis as part of my work as a scout and had internalized the idea that ‘It’s only a problem if you get caught,'” he told the court.
Later, when asked if he felt any remorse for his crimes, Shiraishi stated:
“If they hadn’t caught me,” he said, “I would regret nothing.”
After reading about Takahiro Shiraishi, dive into the story of Issei Sagawa, the Japanese exchange student who murdered and cannibalized his friend — and got away with it. Then, read about the “Monster With 21 Faces,” a mysterious Japanese terrorist organization that resorted to kidnapping and extortion to cripple the country’s candy industry — and has never been caught.
