A serial “Twitter killer" was sentenced to death on Dec. 15 for perpetrating gruesome and absolutely unforgivable acts as described by the Tokyo District Court’s ruling.

Takahiro Shiraishi, 30, was indicted on multiple counts of murder, robbery, forcible sexual intercourse and the abandonment of corpses in connection with the dismembered bodies of nine people found in 2017 in his apartment in Zama, Kanagawa Prefecture, just west of Tokyo.

After finding suicidal messages posted by the victims on social media, Shiraishi lured them to his apartment by offering to help them accomplish their desire. He sent such messages as, “I will help you (die)” or “Let us kill ourselves together” to the victims.

In this manner, he killed eight women ages 15 to 26 and one man within just two months in one of the most shocking murder cases in Japan in recent years. 

His defense lawyers tried to spare him the death sentence by arguing that the victims might have consented to be killed.

But the ruling, citing other social media posts of the victims, rejected this argument, saying, “there is no room to think” they gave such consent. The ruling also acknowledged that Shiraishi was mentally competent to be held responsible for his actions.

The defendant himself said none of the victims had consented to be killed. But the confession did not reflect any sense of regret or contrition. He expressed apologies, but only for killing some of the victims.

We want to see him show at least a modicum of willingness to try to understand the profound grief and indignation expressed by the bereft families. They were present in the courtroom under a system to allow crime victims to attend court hearings and ask the defendants questions.

He needs to face up to the horror of his acts, even it is too late.

When asked why he could continue committing such horrible crimes, Shiraishi said, “There was an environment that made it easy to approach people in distress.”

The ruling also underscored the risks stemming from widespread use of social media when it stated that the serial murder “caused a society where use of social media is the norm to suffer a great deal of shock and anxiety.”

A survey conducted in 2019 by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications found that 67 percent of the respondents had smartphones and 69 percent used social media.

Social media have gained widespread popularity as a convenient tool for communication. But they also pose risks to users.

While exchanging messages with strangers, users could develop a sense of trust and familiarity with them and this sense of trust could cause the users to become trapped in abusive relationships like those between the ruler and the ruled.

Society as a whole needs to share the recognition that social media could be a very dangerous tool when used for evil purposes. Schools and local communities should provide support to people at risk of becoming victims of social media crimes, especially the younger generation.

As the Zama killings have graphically evidenced, the need becomes ever more obvious for a system to provide effective counseling to people in distress and help reduce their mental stress.

Some efforts have been made to prevent crimes and tragedies involving social media. When people post suicidal messages online, for example, information about organizations they can turn to for counseling is first displayed.

In response to the serious murder case, the government has launched a program to subsidize counseling services using social media. It is clear, however, that more should be done.

This problem is all the more urgent this year because of the new coronavirus pandemic, which has led to a spike in suicides since summer due to economic hardships and a sense of isolation and loss.

The government has a duty to save the lives of as many people who desperately need help as possible by ensuring that they can easily find counselors, doctors and other experts who can give them proper advice.

It should tackle this urgent challenge as the top policy priority at the moment.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Dec. 17