A Japanese death row inmate, nicknamed the “Black Widow” after her used cyanide to kill her older lovershas died in a detention center at the age of 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 lying in her cell at the Osaka detention center, a Justice Ministry official told AFP.
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The cause of death has yet to be determined, he said. Japanese media said it could be an undisclosed illness.
Kakehi’s death sentence was upheld in 2021, with Supreme Court Justice Yuko Miyazaki saying she “used cyanide on the men after they trusted her as a life partner.”
“It is a calculated, brutal crime based on a strong killing intent,” Miyazaki said.
Kakehi is said to have amassed one billion yen (nine million dollars at the time) in insurance payouts and inheritances in ten years, but then lost most of the money through failed financial trading.
She mainly had relationships with older or sick men and met some through dating agencies, where she reportedly stipulated that potential partners had to be wealthy and childless.
The poison was found in the bodies of at least two of the men she was involved with and police reportedly found traces of cyanide in the garbage of her Kyoto home.
The deaths of her partners were not immediately investigated because police initially determined they had died of diseases, and autopsies were not performed on most of them.
Her arrest came only after police discovered that her most recent husband, 75-year-old Isao Kakehi, had died of cyanide poisoning. Police then began investigating the previous cases and found a pattern.
