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From the moment he met Renée Hartevelt, he was captivated. The beautiful Dutch student had come to Paris to study literature at the Sorbonne, the city’s 13th century marrow of intellectual brilliance. This cultural haven for the bright and the young had immediately drawn the academically-gifted Renée. Unfortunately for her, it had also attracted a thirty-two-year old Japanese student who had arrived in town a few years earlier, named Issei Sagawa. He lived in rented accommodation in the Auteuil’s Dauphine district, a short distance from where he had a modern literature class at the Sorbonne’s School of Oriental Studies.
Unable to get Renée, who so perfectly matched his dreams, out of his head, Sagawa formulated a plan. Travelling home on the métro one afternoon, he was thrilled to come face-to-face with the girl who had so dominated his thoughts of late. It was chance, their meeting, and Sagawa would not pass it up. Renée Hartevelt recognised him from the literature class they shared and smiled politely as he sat down beside her. The pair had their studies in common and so Sagawa used this to strike up a casual conversation. Though fundamentally shy and retiring, Sagawa knew what he wanted. For her part, the astute Renée Hartevelt recognised that behind the retiring exterior there was an obviously intelligent young man, possessed of much wit and charm.
On this occasion, their dialogue went no further than mutual academic interests, but it was an important development for Sagawa. The ice had been broken and events were warming up. He eagerly anticipated their next literature class together, where he intended to move things along. After the lecture, it was suggested by the group that they go out that evening for a meal at a local Greek restaurant. Sagawa could barely suppress his joy when Renée expressed her desire to attend. Being part of the group, the invitation was also extended to the man with the plan.
The polite and affable Sagawa had tried hard to ingratiate himself with his classmates. His eastern origins interested those in the study group who were keen to sample Japanese cuisine. Right on cue, Sagawa set a date for them all to visit his apartment, where he would prepare a special meal for them all – a dish called sukiyaki, which consisted of traditional meat and noodles. Initially they all acquiesced, including Renée Hartevelt.
When it came to the evening in question however, all but one of his fellow students failed to show. Sagawa had known that most people found him a bit odd and he considered himself to be without a single person he could call his friend, so he was hardly able to conceal his surprise and pleasure at the fatalistic decision made by Renée Hartevelt to arrive as his sole guest.
Repairing to Sagawa’s small open plan living room, the pair conversed happily about their interests, love of music and mutual studies, with Sagawa playing up to his intellectual accomplishments. Like a budding Hannibal Lecter, he convivially imparted his sophisticated classical music and culinary tastes.
In a constant state of arousal by the girl who so obsessed him, Sagawa was tempted to follow through, that very night, with the plan he had devised. Restraining him was the fact that he was unprepared for Renée showing up alone and delivering herself to him so readily. If he could somehow orchestrate another encounter, he would have her.
Inviting Renée to talk further about herself, the answer presented itself when she mentioned that she spoke three languages fluently; English, French and German. Taking into account that she was short on finances, Sagawa swooped, expressing feigned interest in learning to speak German so that he might read, in its original language, some romantic poetry he was fond of. If Renée was interested in tutoring him, he would pay for her services. She accepted. Upon her return for his first “German lesson” Sagawa thought he would strike.
When Renée arrived at his flat several nights later, as psyched up and jittery with excitement as he was, Sagawa had last-minute reservations when faced with the reality of what he was about to do. The complex and powerful fantasy world he occupied was just that, fantasy. As all-consuming as it was, it was not yet real. Though he had been here before, he was now confronted with the reality of harming somebody and could not go through with it.
When Renée left that night, another opportunity missed, Sagawa berated himself for his cowardice. His fear tied his dark passion in knots and he had lost an inner battle. A lot of killers will claim that with some of their murders they struggled not to murder a victim. In Sagawa’s case this was reversed. He found the question of whether or not to kill enormously taxing. Highly agitated, he wondered if he could go through with it the next time Renée visited. Simply masturbating was no longer enough to hold his demons at bay. He knew what he wanted; he had to do this. Next time there must be no turning back.
But next time he failed again. With Renée seated comfortably on a pile of cushions on the floor, reading passages from a book to him, Issei Sagawa moved quietly to a cupboard and took out the .22 calibre rifle he kept there. Stalking up behind the distracted girl he pointed the weapon directly at the back of her neck and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. The gun had jammed. Anxious but relieved that Renée seemed not to have heard the weapon’s dry click; Sagawa quickly returned the rifle to the cupboard and flopped down next to her, pretending to absorb the remainder of his second German lesson.
Did the intense Sagawa see the gun-jamming incident as a sign of fate, an indicator that he should not go through with his diabolical plan? Not at all. On Thursday, 11 June 1981, Sagawa again took up his rifle and again crept up behind a preoccupied Renée Hartevelt. This time he blasted a hole in the back of the young woman’s neck and watched as she collapsed forward onto the living room carpet, blood pooling around her head. Sagawa would later say he had been so shocked at the result of his actions that he fainted. Whether or not this is credible is unknown; we have only the murderer’s word that this normal human reaction occurred to him.
When Sagawa came to, he claimed to have been feeling quite ill and experienced a rather otherworldly quality as he gazed upon his beautiful companion laying dead, murdered by him, her blood all over his carpet. Sagawa says he was afraid of the corpse he had created and that this very real act of murder was a far cry from the potent sexual phantasm he had nurtured for so long. Evidently the sudden repulsion did not incapacitate him for long as his next actions were to strip the girl of all her clothing and bite down hard on her left buttock.
Sagawa next went to his kitchen and returned with the sharpest implement he could find, an eight-inch carving knife. Gazing longingly at the smooth, cream-coloured flesh which had suffused his dream world, he got down on his hands and knees to use his knife on the dead girl. Slicing through what the killer would later describe as a "thick, yellow layer of fatty tissue," he reached the red meat he craved. Slowly, as if looking through the eyes of another, he drew the knife blade back and forth, neatly severing a piece of flesh. Placing this in his mouth, he began to chew, savouring what he says tasted like raw tuna fish. As Sagawa ate, he was not surprised to learn that he had an erection. Renée Hartevelt tasted exquisite. Sliding the corpse onto it's back, Sagawa then carved a section of flesh from the upper thigh, which, lost in his ecstasy, he consumed on the spot. So aroused was he by all this, Sagawa undressed himself and had intercourse with the partially cannabilized corpse.
Momentarily spent, he experienced again the stark veracity of what he had just done, and now there was a dead body, bleeding profusely on his living room floor, which needed getting rid of. The next stage of the plan was addressed in Issei Sagawa’s tiny bathroom. Heaving the body into the bath tub he used the same knife with which he had excised some of Renée’s flesh to begin cutting off both her legs. Next he hacked away at both arms until he was able to wrench them free of their sockets. Finally he plunged his knife into Renée’s throat and began severing her head. Throughout this nightmarish task, Sagawa kept the cold tap running, to get rid of the blood.
Issei Sagawa always claimed the act of dismemberment was not pleasurable for him. Again, we have only his word for this. Certainly, a lot of sexual psychopaths who mutilate their victim’s bodies experience gratification from doing so. Sagawa’s self-confessed revulsion at his deeds did not deter him from cutting more segments from Renée’s thighs and buttocks, wrapping them in plastic and placing them in his freezer for later consumption.
Slicing off one of Renée’s breasts proved distinctly unappealing to the killer, and he was incredibly disappointed that this part of the fantasy, like the murder and dismemberment, was not as satisfying as he had imagined it would be.
Sagawa says the amputated breast resembled animal offal and constituted a “revolting lump of fat.” He would not be dining on Renée Hartevelt’s breast after all.
Issei Sagawa ventured from his flat over the next couple of days, disposing of the murdered girl’s clothing. He retained her trousers, presumably as a trophy - a personal item belonging to the victim that has significance for the offender - with which the newly initiated sex killer could relive his horrid crime.
Purchasing a couple of large suitcases, Sagawa stuffed the collection of body parts inside and sealed them. Perhaps in an effort to show that nothing untoward overshadowed his life, he accompanied fellow students on a trip to the cinema. Presumably his performance had been as effective as those given by the actors in the movie they watched, as all recalled Sagawa appearing relaxed and in robust good humour.
That same night he returned to his studio flat to eat some more of Renée Hartevelt. Taking several cutlets from the fridge, he fried the flesh in a pan, cooking it through to his liking. He says it tasted like veal, but was tough and chewy, despite his attempts to tenderise. Flavoured with salt, pepper and mustard, the meal was nonetheless highly enjoyable for Sagawa, who sat there again in a state of total sexual excitement. Each time he ate more of her flesh, his exhilaration would “peak.” He could not have enough of his new meat.
By Saturday night, Sagawa concluded that it was time to get rid of the body. The dismembered limbs and trunk were beginning to exude an unpleasant odour in the warm apartment. Sagawa took his taxi ride, got himself witnessed at the park, fled home and waited for his arrest. The rest of Renée Hartevelt was still in his refrigerator when the police came.
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