Mmm... tastes like chicken (Well, tuna actually.)

The "Godfather of Cannibalism" explains himself, and we try to stomach it

By: Liz Allemang

Posted: 10/26/04

Issei Sagawa is a celebrity in his native Japan. He currently pens a weekly column for a national tabloid; he is a painter (mostly nudes, focus on the female buttocks), and an actor who starred in the erotic, but artsy, The Bedroom. Those who live in East Asia see him regularly on television, most often involved in panel discussions. The Rolling Stones wrote a song about him called "Too Much Blood." He has penned several best-selling books, most recently a novel-length comic book about cannibalism, which was also the topic of his most famous work, Into the Fog, an autobiographical account detailing the obsession, murder, and consumption of Renée Hartevelt, a woman he claimed to love.

He has become a celebrity more because of human curiosity than for any skill he might possess. It doesn't matter how poor the quality of his paintings or how lacking his theatrical skill-because he is the small man who ate his beautiful friend, he will forever be examined through a voyeuristic lens. "The public has made me the godfather of cannibalism, and I am happy about that," he said. "I will always look at the world through the eyes of a cannibal."

No matter what he does, the public feels like they are able to gain insight into the mind of a psychopath by observing him. And as we too are a culture that eats up all things morbid, it is only natural to want to get a glimpse of the cannibal's realm.

"I'd love to have you for dinner"

In 1981, Sagawa moved to Paris to study at the Sorbonne. He quickly met Hartevelt, a 25-year old German who was working on her Ph.D. Sagawa asked her to tutor him in German; she agreed. The slight gent quickly fell for her: "My passion is so great. I want to eat her. If I do she will be mine forever. There is no escape from this desire."

On June 11, he invited her over to record her reading a German expressionist poem. They sat on the floor and drank tea. After making sexual advances that she declined, he turned on the tape recorder. As she started to read the poem in her native language, he crept up behind her and shot her in the head.

Though it was obvious she was dead, he continued talking to her as he undressed her and cut the tip of her breast and a piece of her nose off. "I then touched her hip and wondered where I should bite first," Sagawa revealed. Upon cutting into her buttocks he confessed, "A lot of sallow fat oozes from the wound. It reminds me of corn. It continues to ooze. It is strange. Finally I find the red meat under the sallow fat. I scoop it out and put it in my mouth. I chew. It had no smell and no taste. It melts in my mouth like a perfect piece of tuna. I look into her eyes and say 'you are delicious.'"

The disturbing mutilation continued. Using an electric carving knife, he cut off some strips of her body to be stored "for later," while nibbling on some raw pieces. He roasted her hip and served it with salt and mustard, using her panties as a napkin.

He listened to the recording she had made for him and continued to pick at the corpse. He took what was left of Renée with him to bed that night. He noted post-coitally, "When I hug her, she lets out a breath."

The next morning, noticing that the body had yet to decompose, he sampled more. He gushed about eating his way from the underarm to the elbow: "I had no idea how good it would taste."

As her remains began to fester, Sagawa exclaimed in sadness: "Flies are buzzing around her. The honeymoon is over." With a hachet he cut her up, arranging her dismembered body in several suitcases. All the while, he continued to enjoy her, removing her lip to refrigerate for later sexual gratification, detaching her hand to use to masturbate, cutting her tongue out to chew on. When the time came to decapitate Hartevelt, he grabbed her head by the hair and held it up in front of him. At this point, the truth became clear as he whispered, "I realized I am a cannibal," he admitted in Into the Fog.

Two days after dumping the suitcases in a park, police arrived at his apartment with a search warrant. Sagawa confessed to his crime, adding that he had a history of mental illness. The judge in the case decided that he was unfit to stand trial as he was delusional. Sagawa was sentenced to incarceration in the Paul Guiraud asylum. While there, he corresponded with several members of the Japanese media who sent him books about other cannibals. "I realized I am not so unusual," he acknowledged in his novel. In 1986, five years after killing and consuming Renée Hartevelt, he was a free man.

Immediately after getting released from prison, Sagawa's celebrity appeal soared. His 15 minutes of fame have spanned nearly two decades, enabling him to make a career out of his gruesome act. Sagawa said he will not commit murder or cannibalism again. In a recent interview, he quipped: "The only way I can be saved is if I am eaten by a young western woman." And while it is likely that many are tempted by the free invite to maim this fellow, paying for the airfare and being in the same room as the creep, let alone tasting his tainted flesh, sounds more like a nightmare than a dream come true.