Takahiro Shiraishi was executed for the killings in 2017 of nine victims, most of whom had posted suicidal thoughts on social media.

Japan executed a man on Friday who killed nine people after contacting them on social media, the first use of capital punishment in the country in nearly three years. Takahiro Shiraishi had been sentenced to death for his 2017 strangling and dismembering of eight women and one man in his apartment in Zama city in Kanagawa near Tokyo.

Takahiro Shiraishi’s victims included young women considering suicide, whom he lured to his home using social media and murdered. It was Japan’s first execution since 2022.