On the evening of June 15, Sagawa dragged the heavy suitcase to a taxi, telling the driver he was moving luggage. He took a train to the Bois de Boulogne, a large public park on the edge of Paris. But he was exhausted, and the suitcase was too cumbersome to carry far. He left it in some bushes and returned to his apartment. Hours later, a park worker noticed a foul odor and flies swarming around the abandoned suitcase. Police were called. When they opened it, they found the remains of Renée Hartevelt. The contents also included business cards and a key that led investigators directly to Sagawa’s apartment.
When French police arrived, they found Sagawa sitting calmly in his room. He did not resist. In fact, he immediately confessed to everything in graphic detail, even directing them to a refrigerator where more remains were stored. He seemed almost proud, treating his confession as an academic lecture on his own pathology. Sagawa’s trial became an international scandal. His defense lawyers, led by the famous Jacques Vergès, did not argue innocence. Instead, they argued insanity. French court-appointed psychiatrists agreed that Sagawa was legally insane at the time of the crime, describing him as a “man of deranged impulses” suffering from a “cannibalistic delirium.” Under French law, if a person is judged to have been in a state of mental derangement at the time of the crime, they cannot be held criminally responsible. issei sagawa suitcase
On June 11, 1981, Sagawa invited a 25-year-old Dutch classmate, Renée Hartevelt, to his apartment for dinner. He claimed he needed her help with German translation for his studies, offering to pay her for her time. Hartevelt, an intelligent and friendly student, agreed. On the evening of June 15, Sagawa dragged
In the early 1980s, a small, unassuming suitcase became the center of one of the most bizarre and horrifying true crime cases of the 20th century. Inside that suitcase was the dismembered remains of a young Dutch woman. And the man who carried it through the streets of Paris was Issei Sagawa—a man whose name would become synonymous with a crime so grotesque that it continues to fascinate and repel the world decades later. The Crime: From Fantasy to Reality Issei Sagawa was a Japanese national, the son of a wealthy and respected family. He was a brilliant but deeply troubled student, studying literature at the Sorbonne in Paris. For years, Sagawa had harbored a secret, cannibalistic fetish, specifically focused on tall, blonde, Western women. He saw them as the ultimate object of his obsession—powerful, beautiful, and, in his disturbed mind, something to be consumed. He left it in some bushes and returned to his apartment
What followed was perhaps the most disturbing chapter of all. Sagawa became a minor celebrity in Japan. He wrote several books, including a novel titled In the Fog (which fictionalizes the murder) and a memoir, Konnichiwa, Watashi wa Issei Desu (“Hello, I’m Issei”). He contributed restaurant reviews, appeared on talk shows, gave interviews, and even served as a commentator on crime analysis. He was both reviled and morbidly celebrated—a “real-life Hannibal Lecter” who walked the streets of Tokyo.