Issei Sagawa was a Japanese student studying literature at the Sorbonne in Paris when he did one of the most shocking crimes of the 20th century in June 1981. On June 11, the 32-year-old asked his classmate Renee Hartevelt, a 25-year-old Dutch student, to come to his apartment. He told her they would work on a poetry translation assignment. Once she was there, he shot her in the neck with a rifle and killed her right away. Over the next few days, Sagawa raped her dead body and ate parts of it. He also took photos of the body at different stages.
Four days after the murder, Sagawa tried to get rid of the body parts in the Bois de Boulogne park. He put the cut up body pieces in two suitcases, but people walking by saw blood coming out of them and called the police. Sagawa was arrested and told police everything he did right away. Even though he confessed and there was a lot of proof, French doctors said he was legally insane and could not stand trial. He was put in a mental hospital in France for two years.
