Issei Sagawa: Interview With a Cannibal

Issei Sagawa was a Japanese student completing an English Literature degree in Paris. In 1981, Issei Sagawa committed a gruesome crime of raping and eating her college mate Renée Hartevelt after he shot her on her head with a gun. He dismembered her body parts, packed into two suitcases and threw into Bois de Boulogne, a park on the outskirts of Paris. He spent two days eating various parts of her body while portions of her flesh stored into the fridge. He was then arrested.
According to reports, Issei uttered, “I killed her to eat her flesh,” when they raided his home. Sagawa was declared insane and unfit for trial and was institutionalized in Paris.
The French public grew weary of their hard-earned francs going to support this evil woman-eater, and Issei was promptly deported to Japan. Herein followed a bizarre and seemingly too convenient set of legal loopholes and psychiatric reports that led doctors in Japan declaring Issei “sane, but evil.”
On August 12, 1986, Sagawa checked himself out of Tokyo’s Matsuzawa Psychiatric hospital, and has been a free man ever since. This is where the real story begins. VBS met up with him to find out what he’s been up to in the 30 years since.
Part 1 – Interview with a Cannibal – Issei Sagawa

Part 2 – Interview with a Cannibal – Issei Sagawa
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