Eat Thy Neighbour

by Daniel Diehl

The security around the Dahmer case was like nothing ever seen in America. Everyone who went into the courthouse was ‘patted down’ for weapons and scanned electronically. The courtroom was constantly swept for bombs, both electronically and by sniffer dogs, and an 8-foot high bullet-proof glass screen protected the defendant from the hordes of people who wanted him dead. Prospective jurors were warned, ‘You are going to hear about things that you probably didn’t know existed in the real world.’ And the entire, grisly affair was to be broadcast on nationwide television.

  It was the prosecution’s intention to persuade the jury that although what he did was the act of a madman, Jeffrey Dahmer was completely sane. Ultimately, as is the case in most such trials, it would be the psychiatrists’ job to convince the jury of the accused’s state of mind at the time of his crimes. There were a wide variety of professional opinions on why Dahmer did what he did; Dr James Fox, Dean of the College of Criminal Justice at Northeastern University in Boston said, ‘If he felt at all uncomfortable about his own sexual orientation, it is very easy to see it projected on to these victims and punishing them, indirectly, to punish himself.’ It was all great theatre, but the jury did not buy any of it. After three weeks of testimony it only took the jury five hours to find Jeffrey Dahmer both sane and guilty on all counts.

  Although nothing was going to ameliorate his sentence, after being found guilty Dahmer read a four-page apology to the families of his victims. ‘I know how much harm I have caused . . . Thank God there will be no more harm that I can do . . . I ask for no consideration.’ He got none. He was sentenced to fifteen consecutive life terms without hope of parole. Had he lived so long, Jeff would have been up for release in 957 years.

  After his sentencing, Dahmer commented, ‘I couldn’t find any meaning in my life when I was out there. I’m sure as hell not going to find it in [prison]. This is the grand finale of a life poorly spent and the end result is just overwhelmingly depressing . . . it’s just a sick, pathetic, wretched, miserable life story, that’s all it is.’ Later, he commented to his lawyer, ‘. . . if I was killed in prison, that would be a blessing right now’. It was one wish that Dahmer would have granted. On 28 November 1994, while on a toilet cleaning detail with two other inmates, Jeffrey Dahmer, aged thirty-four, along with fellow inmate Jesse Anderson, was murdered by the third man on their crew, a schizophrenic killer named Christopher Scarver, who believed himself to be a new messiah.

  In 1996 the city of Milwaukee apportioned $400,000 to buy the entire contents of Dahmer’s apartment and have them incinerated to prevent anyone from buying them to create a Jeffrey Dahmer museum. All things considered, it was probably a wise move.

  Fourteen

  Sushi Dreams: Issei Sagawa (1981)

  When Issei Sagawa was born in 1949 his nation was undergoing a difficult rebirth. The Japan of honour, family values and dedication to the god-emperor had been virtually obliterated, along with Nagasaki and Hiroshima, when the USA dropped atomic bombs on those two cities in 1945. The new Japan – a nation with a morbid fascination for degrading game shows, corporate humiliation, prostitutes dressed like children and vending machines that dispense soiled women’s underwear – had not yet come into existence. Along with his nation, Issei Sagawa would experience similarly difficult beginnings leading to an equally questionable outcome.

  Although his mother had undergone a previous pregnancy without undue difficulty, Issei presented problems from the earliest stages of development. Born so premature that his father could literally hold him in the palm of one hand, Issei also suffered from anoxia: a severe, pre-natal oxygen deficiency that often causes brain damage. As a result of his delicate physical condition, Issei spent most of the first two years of his life – when most infants are bonding with their mothers – in the sterile surroundings of a hospital.

  Once he was well enough to rejoin his family on a full-time basis, everyone did their best to include little Issei in family activities. At a new year’s celebration during his third year, his father, Akira, and his uncle, Mituso, entertained Issei and his older brother with one game after another. In one of the games, Mituso pretended to be a child-eating giant while Akira took the part of a brave Samurai warrior who was sworn to protect the children. The men wrestled for possession of the boys while their small charges squealed with delight, simultaneously frightened and thrilled at the attention. At the end of the game, uncle Mituso defeated the Samurai and carried off the boys, running through the house growling and swinging them under his arms, insisting he was going to take them off to his cooking pot. It was a completely harmless bit of fun, but it affected Issei far more than it should have. Years later, Issei would recall that from that day onward he was tormented by dreams of cannibalism in which he and his brother were being cooked in a vast cauldron. The dreams began spilling into his consciousness, peppering his thoughts with images of cannibalism and human flesh, but now the roles were reversed. Rather than the helpless victim, Issei was the controlling cannibal who held sway over the fate of his prey. Flesh eating became the central focus of his inner mind and he read an endless stream of comic books and horror stories about cannibals. Eventually, as he neared puberty, the obsession took on decidedly sexual overtones. At one point, he attempted to explain his strange fixation to his brother. ‘When I was sleeping with my brother I tried to tell him that when I saw a beautiful girl I wanted to eat her. But my brother didn’t understand. He laughed, so I was very ashamed.’

  If Issei’s internal life was confused and disturbed, his external reality was not a lot better. Although he was extremely intelligent, he never fully developed physically and his health always remained precarious. ‘I got ill very often . . . [and] I was not happy at school, especially when I was a high school student. Sometimes [the other students] said something that hurt me: “You are very small” or short, or thin, something like that. It hurt me very profoundly.’ Indeed, Issei was noticeably physically different from the other boys. Even at maturity he stood just under 5 feet tall, had unusually tiny hands and feet and walked with a pronounced limp. To make matters worse, he had a high-pitched, effeminate voice. Not surprisingly, his self-image was something less than ideal and he knew he was never going to be the kind of man that women were likely to throw themselves at. Still, like Napoleon Bonaparte and Alexander the Great, Issei Sagawa was a very tiny young man with very big ambitions. While Napoleon and Alexander wanted to conquer large nations, Issei just wanted to conquer a large woman: a tall, blonde, Nordic-type woman to be specific. ‘Because I’m so short and small, I admire tall and beautiful women. I prefer white girls.’ While a lot of men want to pursue tall women, Issei Sagawa was one of the few who has ever believed that the ultimate consummation of the relationship would be to eat them. So long as he was surrounded by Japanese girls, there was no temptation to act on these morbid fantasies, but once he entered university, all that changed.

  After high school, Issei entered Wako University in Tokyo where he majored in English Literature. As an elective course, he signed up for a class in German. The professor was a tall, blonde German woman with whom Issei instantly became obsessed. ‘When I met this woman in the street, I wondered if I could eat her,’ he once told a British reporter. It was obviously a question he needed to answer, if only for his own peace of mind.

  One summer night, Issei crawled through his German professor’s window fully intent on killing and eating her. Creeping through the apartment, he found the woman asleep in bed and began fumbling around, looking for something with which to bludgeon her senseless before taking the first bite out of her body. By the time he found an umbrella, and decided it was a suitable weapon, the racket had roused the woman who began screaming and shouting. Terrified, Issei stumbled back out of the window and fled the scene. Whether or not she recognised him, or how word of the incident got out, we have not discovered, but although no charges were brought against him, Issei was sent to a psychiatrist to discuss his little problem. It did not take long for the psychiatrist
to label Issei Sagawa as ‘extremely dangerous’. What other recommendations he may have made are unknown because Issei’s father, Akira, was by now the head of Kurita Water Industries, extremely rich and extremely powerful. He engineered a cover-up and sent Issei out of Tokyo, to finish his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the University of Osaka. By 1980 Issei was living in Paris and had signed up at the Sorbonne’s Censier Institute to study for a PhD in English Literature.

  All these years, Issei had been nursing his desire to eat a tall, beautiful blonde woman. He was certain he could do it, he just needed to plan it out better than he had the last time. Now over thirty years old, Issei knew that he would have to do it soon or the urge would drive him completely crazy. He already had one of his tools in place. On moving to Paris he had purchased a .22 rifle, insisting that he needed it for self-defence. Now, all he needed was a victim. The easiest source of meat he could think of were the local streetwalkers. ‘During the day I was studying . . . but when it was dark, the obsession arrived and I went outside my apartment to look for prostitutes. Then, when I have them in my house, in my room, when they used the bidet, I tried to shoot them but I couldn’t, really couldn’t. It’s not the sense of morality or something. I don’t think so. I was scared.’

  If Issei’s quest left him unfulfilled, so did his social life at the Sorbonne. The tiny, frail oriental foreigner was almost completely ignored by his fellow students, so he was forced, once again, to retreat into a fantasy world to make friends. The newest object of his rapt attention was a 25-year-old fellow student named Renée Hartevelt. The extremely bright, Dutch beauty was everything Issei had ever dreamed about. ‘I am amazed. She’s the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. Tall, blonde, with pure white skin, she astonishes me with her grace.’ Being outgoing and kind-hearted by nature, Renée took pity on the lonely little man who sat near her in a class. Occasionally she would take time out to talk to him, sometimes in English, sometimes in French and, occasionally, he would try out his limited German on her. They talked about everything from Shakespeare to French Impressionist paintings. They even went to art exhibitions, museums and concerts together and, on at least one occasion, she invited him to her flat for tea. If Renée felt a sad sort of affection for Issei, he was completely fixated on her and devised a plan that would allow him to bring his morbid fantasy to fruition.

  Issei told Renée he wanted to hire her to tutor him in German; since his father was rich he could easily afford to pay her for her time. Like most students, Renée needed the extra money and she rather liked Issei, so she accepted. To celebrate their new arrangement, Issei invited her to his apartment for a traditional Japanese dinner.

  ‘After the meal I asked her to read my favourite German Expressionist poem. As she reads I can’t keep my eyes off her. After she leaves I can still smell her body on the bed sheet where she sat reading the poem. I lick the chopsticks and dishes she used. I can taste her lips. My passion is so great. I want to eat her. If I do, she will be mine forever.’

  The next day, 11 June 1981, Issei asked Renée to come back and reread the same piece of Schiller’s poetry, explaining that he wanted to tape it for one of his teachers back in Japan. She said she had no particular plans for the evening and that she would see him later.

  When she arrived at Issei’s rooms, he seated her on the floor, Japanese style, and brought her a cup of tea liberally laced with whisky in the hope that it would dull her senses. They chatted amiably for a while until Issei was able to bring the conversation around to his real feelings for her. He told Renée he loved her and wanted to have sex with her. Embarrassed, Renée explained that while she really liked him, her feelings were purely platonic. She didn’t want to lose him as a friend, but she really did not want to sleep with him. Resignedly, Issei shrugged his shoulders and said he understood. Then, changing the subject in an attempt to dispel the awkward silence, he suggested she read the poem again. Relieved, she was quick to agree. What happened next is best told in Sagawa’s own words. He later recounted the entire incident in his semi-novelised autobiography In the Fog and has described the event innumerable times. Like everything else that has taken place in Sagawa’s life since the incident, the book was an attempt to relive, and savour, the nightmarish events that followed.

  I turn on the recorder. She starts to read. She speaks in perfect German. I reach for the rifle hidden beside the chest of drawers. I stand slowly and aim the rifle at the back of her head. I cannot stop myself.

  I aim and I fire. There is a loud sound and her body falls from the chair on to the floor. It is like she is watching me. I see her cheeks, her eyes, her nose and mouth, the blood pouring from her head. Too much blood, her face all completely pale. I try to talk to her, but she no longer answers.

  Later, Sagawa would comment that he was amazed at how quiet Renée became after he murdered her.

  I thought I would have to call the police or the ambulance, really, but suddenly I realized [that] for my fantasy I [had] killed her.

  There is blood all over the floor. I try to wipe it up, but I realize I cannot stop the flow of blood from her head. It is very quiet here. There is only the silence of death. I start to take off her clothes. It is hard to take the clothes off a dead body. Finally it is done. Her beautiful white body is before me. I’ve waited so long for this day and now it is here. I touch her ass. It is so very smooth. I wonder where I should bite first. I decide to bite the top of her butt. My nose is covered with her cold white skin. I try to bite down hard, but I can’t. I get a knife from the kitchen and stab it deeply into her skin.

  Suddenly a lot of sallow fat oozes from the wound. It continues to ooze. Finally I find the red meat under the sallow fat. I scoop it out and put it in my mouth. I chew. It has no smell and no taste. It melts in my mouth like a perfect piece of raw tuna in a sushi restaurant. I look in her eyes and say: ‘You are delicious.’

  I cut her body and lift the meat to my mouth again and again. Then I take a photograph of her white corpse with its deep wounds. I have sex with her body. When I hug her she lets out a breath. I’m frightened, she seems alive. I kiss her and tell her I love her. Then I drag her body to the bathroom. By now I am exhausted, but I cut into her hip and put the meat in a roasting pan. After it is cooked I sit at the table using her underwear as a napkin. They still smell of her body.

  Then I turn on the tape of her reading the German poem and eat. There is not enough taste. I use some salt and some mustard and it is delicious, very high quality meat. Then I go back to the bathroom and cut off her breast and bake it. It swells while it cooks. I serve the breast on the table and eat it with a fork and knife. It isn’t very good. Too greasy. I try to cut into another part of her body. Her thighs were wonderful. Finally she is in my stomach. Finally she is mine. Finally, I was eating a beautiful white woman and thought nothing was so delicious. It is the best dinner I’ve ever had.

  Afterwards I sleep with her.

  Next morning she is still here. She doesn’t smell bad. Today I must finish cutting up her body.

  I touch the cold body again and I wonder where I should start. I start to cut off all the meat before amputating the limbs. While I cut her calf I suddenly want to taste it. I see the beautiful red meat beneath the fat. I grasp her knee and her ankle, and tear it with my teeth. It is tender. I slowly chew and savour it.

  After eating most of the calf I look at myself in the mirror. There is grease all over my face. And then I start to eat at random. I bite her little toe. It still smells of her feet. I stab the knife into her arch and see the red meat deep inside. I thrust my fingers inside and dig out the meat and put it in my mouth. It tastes okay. Then I stab the knife into her armpit. Ever since I saw [her armpit] under her yellow sleeveless top I wondered how it would taste. I had no idea it would taste this good. The wonderful taste cheers me up and I devour her underarm up to the elbow.

  Finally I cut off her private parts. When I touch the pubic hair it has a very bad smell. I bite her clit, but
it won’t come off, it just stretches. So I throw it in the frying pan and pop it in my mouth. I chew very carefully and swallow it. It is so sweet. After I swallow it, I feel her in my body and get hot. I turn the body over and open her buttocks, revealing her anus. I scoop it out with my knife and try to put it in my mouth. It smells too much. I put it in the frying pan and throw it in my mouth. It still smells. I spit it out.

  It’s been twenty-four hours now. Some huge flies hover and buzz in the bathroom. I try to chase them away, but they come back. They swarm on her face. They seem to tell me that I’ve lost her forever. It is no longer her. Where is she? She’s gone far away. I try to use an electric knife to cut her body. It doesn’t work. It just makes a loud sound. I use a hatchet. I strike several times. It’s hard work. I strike her thigh. Her body jumps up. If she could feel, it would have hurt. Finally the thigh separates from her body. I bite it again, like I would bite a chicken leg. Then I cut off her arms. It is even harder than the thigh. I use the electric knife again. It makes a shrill sound, like the sound of her shrill voice. It works this time. Her hand still wears a ring and a bracelet. When I see her long fingers I am driven by another impulse. I use her hand to masturbate. Her long fingers excite me.

  And then I see her face. It is still quiet. She has a small nose and a sweet lower lip. When she was alive I wanted to bite them. Now I can satisfy that desire. It’s so easy to bite off her nose. As I chew the cartilage I can hear the noise. I use a knife to cut off more of the cartilage and put it in my mouth. It really doesn’t taste very good. I scoop out her lower lip with my knife and put it in my mouth. It has hard skin. I decide to eat it later when I can fry it. So I put it in the refrigerator.

  I want her tongue. I can’t open her lower jaw, but I can reach in between her teeth. Finally it comes out. I cut it off and put it in my mouth. It’s hard to chew. I see my face in the mirror. Her tongue entwined with my tongue. I try to close my mouth, but her tongue slips out. Finally I cut the skin off the tongue and taste the meat.