A Most Disturbing Degustation: How One Man Dined on Death and Called It Fame

As told by Lady Simmertown

⚠️Trigger Warning⚠️

Content warning: This post contains factual descriptions of sexual violence, necrophilia, dismemberment, and cannibalism. Reader discretion is strongly advised.

If you are sensitive to these topics or prefer to skip explicit material, we gently suggest you retreat to a lighter post, perhaps something involving scandalous puddings or cucumber sandwiches gone rogue.

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My darlings,

I must warn you: today’s tale is no idle gossip over garden tea. It is the kind of story whispered behind gloved hands and hidden fans, too vile for the parlour and too true to ignore. It is, quite simply, one of the most horrifying intersections of appetite, privilege, and international failure ever to grace the linen of polite society.

It begins in Paris.
It ends in Tokyo.
And in between?
A rifle, a refrigerator, and a body served in courses.

Let us proceed delicately, though I fear there is no elegant way to slice through this one.

A Scholar with Appetites Unbefitting Polite Society

Issei Sagawa was born in 1949 in Kobe, Japan, frail in body, but of privileged breeding. His father was a powerful industrialist; his education was elite. By all accounts, he was soft-spoken, bookish, and utterly unthreatening. But beneath that delicate frame swirled something rotten.

By his own admission, Sagawa fantasized about eating human flesh since childhood. He made his first known attempt in 1972, when he stalked and attempted to assault a German woman in Tokyo. The incident was hushed after his family paid a settlement and ensured the charges vanished like a bad smell in a breezy room.

In 1977, he moved to Paris to study literature at the Sorbonne, because of course, he fancied himself an intellectual. What he truly studied, however, was flesh. He spent his evenings frequenting red-light districts and luring women to his apartment under false pretenses, hoping to carry out his fantasy. But, he later confessed, “my fingers froze up.”

Until they didn’t.

A Poem, a Rifle, and a Most Unholy Course

Her name was Renée Hartevelt, Dutch, radiant, multilingual, and generous with her intellect. She was kind to Issei Sagawa, perhaps too kind. She believed he was simply odd, not dangerous. On June 11, 1981, she visited his apartment in Paris, responding to his invitation to translate German poetry together.

What she didn’t know was that Sagawa had already purchased a .22 caliber rifle, and had spent weeks fantasizing about not only killing her, but consuming her.

As she sat cross-legged at his desk, reading Rilke aloud, he quietly stepped behind her and shot her in the neck.

She died instantly.

And then the ritual began.

First, he violated her corpse. This was not speculative, but confirmed by Sagawa himself, who gave interviews in which he described the act with chilling detachment. He said it was the moment he “became free” and that consuming her was “the realization of a dream.”

He then dragged her body to the kitchen, undressed her, and spent the next two days dismembering and eating her.

He began with the buttocks, slicing away pieces with a knife and pan-searing them in a skillet. He plated them with mustard and ate the meal while reading a book. He described her flesh as “soft, odorless… like raw tuna.”

He went on to consume her thighs, breasts, and face, photographing every step. He bit into her nose, attempted to eat her lips, and later said they were “too tough.”

He stored portions of her flesh in Tupperware containers in the fridge. The remainder of her body was placed in his bed and later in a closet.

Throughout, he recorded his thoughts, on tape, on film, in writing. It was not a frenzied crime. It was slow, meticulous, methodical. He treated the body not with remorse but with gastronomic curiosity.

He later said:

“I wanted her so badly. I wanted to eat her. If I hadn’t shot her then, she would have walked out and disappeared forever. I had to do it. I had no choice.”

A Suitcase Stained in Sin

When he had finished his meal, Sagawa did what many monsters do when the fun is over, he tried to hide the evidence. He packed the remaining parts of Renée’s body into two large suitcases and called a taxi to Bois de Boulogne, a quiet, wooded park in Paris.

But blood has a way of telling tales.
The bags leaked.
A passerby noticed.
Police were called.
The suitcases were opened.

Inside his flat, police discovered a scene that defied sanity:

• Human remains, raw and cooked
• Dozens of Polaroids
• A tape recording
• And the rifle

Sagawa confessed on the spot, not with guilt, but with the calm precision of a man describing his wine pairing.

Justice? Not Even Close.

One would think such a case, open, gruesome, confessed, would lead to swift and severe consequences.

But France, in its tragic softness, declared Sagawa legally insane. He was committed to a psychiatric hospital in 1983. He stayed there just over a year.

Then came the worst course yet.

His family lobbied for his return to Japan. He was deported in 1984. And within months, Japanese doctors declared him sane. But because France had sealed the court documents, Japanese authorities had no legal grounds to prosecute him.

And so, on August 12, 1986, Issei Sagawa was a free man.

No prison.
No trial.
Not even probation.

He walked the streets while Renée was buried, her family silenced by oceans and bureaucratic ink.

From Killer to Critic: A Society Loses Its Taste

If you are hoping for a final act of shame or repentance, you will be sorely disappointed.

Sagawa did not hide. He performed.

He published more than twenty books, including a detailed account of the murder (In the Fog).
He became a restaurant critic for Spa magazine.
He appeared on talk shows, starred in softcore films, and illustrated manga about his own crime.

He described himself as “the godfather of cannibalism.”
He remained openly aroused by the memory of what he did.

Japan did not shun him. They platformed him.
The public read, watched, consumed—and made him a celebrity.

Renée Hartevelt? Her name faded from headlines. Her memory was consumed by the man who had already taken everything else.

Death, Finally, But Not Justice

Sagawa lived long and free. In his final years, after suffering multiple strokes, he was bedridden and cared for by his brother.

He died of pneumonia on November 24, 2022, in Tokyo.
He was 73 years old.
His funeral was private.

He was never tried. Never imprisoned. Never made to apologize.

Renée’s family never saw a day of justice. Not one.

The Final Course

So what have we learned, dear readers?

That appetite, when paired with power and impunity, can become a weapon.
That legal systems, when tangled in red tape and national pride, can let monsters walk free.
And that in a media-saturated world, even cannibalism can become content.

Issei Sagawa did not die infamous. He died well-fed, on flesh, on attention, on books sold and cameras rolling.

And polite society?
It watched. It gasped.
And it bought the paperback.

Until the next scandal boils over,

~ Lady Simmertown