Japan’s Supreme Court has confirmed the death penalty for Chisako Kakehi, the so-called “black widow”. The Japanese woman has poisoned three of her lovers with cyanide to get their hands on their wealth. Local media have reported that.
The 74-year-old Japanese woman was found guilty of the murder of three men and the attempted murder of a fourth man. She was in a relationship with the three men she killed, and she was even married to one of them. She became infamous for her use of cyanide, earning her the nicknames “poisoner” and “black widow” after the female spider that devours male spiders after mating.
The decision by the Japanese Supreme Court, the country’s highest judicial body, is not subject to appeal. The ruling comes after Kakehi’s lawyers’ appeal was dismissed in 2019.
According to the Japanese public broadcaster NHK, the Supreme Court president has said the death penalty is “inevitable” because Chisako Kakehi’s “criminal responsibility” is “grave”. In Japan, the death penalty is carried out by hanging.
“She gave the men cyanide after she made them believe she was a lifelong partner. That is a calculated, cruel crime, based on the determination to kill,” the chairwoman added.
Her lawyers argued that Kakehi suffers from dementia and cannot be held criminally responsible for her actions. But the Public Prosecution Service (OM) disagreed. According to the OM, she made sure that the men first gave her up as heir to their assets and then turned them off. She targeted elderly or sick men. Some men she met through dating agencies would indicate that her potential partners should be rich and childless in her wishes.
In more than a decade, Kakehi amassed a fortune of one billion yen (about $7.6 million) in life insurance, real estate and bank deposits. However, she lost much of that fortune through risky investments. She was arrested in 2014.