A Japanese death row inmate, nicknamed “Black Widow” after her used cyanide to kill her older loversHe died in a detention center at age 78, officials said Friday.
Chisako Kakehi was sentenced to death for the murder of three men. including her husbandand the attempted murder of another man about a decade ago in a case that gripped Japan.
“Her death was confirmed at a hospital on Thursday” after she was found in her cell at the Osaka detention center, a Justice Ministry official told AFP.
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The cause of death still needs to be determined, he said. Japanese media said it could be an unknown illness.
Kakehi’s death sentence was upheld in 2021, with Supreme Court Justice Yuko Miyazaki saying she had “used cyanide against the men after tricking them into trusting her as a life partner.”
“It is a calculated, cruel crime based on a strong murderous intent,” Miyazaki said.
Kakehi reportedly accumulated one billion yen (then US$9 million) in insurance payments and inheritances over a ten-year period, but subsequently lost most of the money in unsuccessful financial deals.
She mainly had relationships with older or sick men and met some through dating agencies, where she reportedly stipulated that potential partners should be wealthy and childless.
The poison was found in the bodies of at least two of the men she was with, and police reportedly found traces of cyanide in the trash at her home in Kyoto.
The deaths of their partners were not immediately investigated as police initially determined they died of illnesses, and autopsies were not performed on most.
Her arrest came only after police discovered that her youngest husband, 75-year-old Isao Kakehi, had died of cyanide poisoning. Police then began investigating the earlier cases and found a pattern.
