Chisako Kakehi, known as Japan’s “Black Widow,” has died in detention, aged 78. Her body was discovered unconscious at the Osaka detention facility where she was held. She was convicted of poisoning five elderly lovers with cyanide. It is still unknown why she died, although one report suggests that it might be due to an unnamed illness.
Kakehi was convicted of killing three men, including her husband, and trying to kill the fourth. Her crime, ten years ago, brought on much media attention in Japan. The Supreme Court allowed her death sentence in 2021, as declared by Justice Yuko Miyazaki, that crimes committed by Kakehi were “calculated, cruel” and based upon a strong intent to commit murder. Kakehi had wooed her victims into relationships before poisoning them with cyanide once she had gained their trust. Over the course of a decade, Kakehi allegedly amassed approximately one billion yen (approximately $9 million at the time) in insurance payouts and inheritances, though she lost much of the fortune through failed financial investments. She targeted mainly elderly or ill men, some of whom she met through dating agencies. Her partners were usually wealthy and childless, as she had requested.
It wasn’t until Kakehi’s most recent husband, 75-year-old Isao Kakehi, died from cyanide poisoning that police began to investigate.
They soon discovered a pattern in the deaths of her previous partners, which led to her arrest. Traces of cyanide were found in the remains of at least two of her victims, and police also discovered cyanide in the rubbish at her Kyoto home. In the beginning, most of her partners’ deaths were blamed on natural causes because the police had not performed autopsies.
