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Welcome to Theories of the Third Kind.
and that you have the sign of an upside down cross on your chest and that's the sign of a warlock you've studied satanism i never was involved in satanism but you can see i'm a musician you see the guitars and stuff and what you're gonna do when hong kong mania and the largest arms in the world run wild on you tomorrow night 7 30 p.m right here in toronto's maple leaf gardens two or three of them over there in the house and that's where i asked them who they were and what they wanted you see
For the past six weeks, we have been exploring the unknown.
placing ourselves in dangerous situations in order to unveil what truly is hidden in the beyond. We have secretly joined cults. We're walking into Bohemian Grove. Oh boy, got the wire on us. Are you watching this? Are they standing around a fire? We need to leave. We have attempted to purchase a UFO off of Facebook Marketplace. This is the address the guy gave us for the UFO. So...
We'll see how that goes. Yeah. You get to knock, not me. Hey. Hey, we're here to purchase the UFO off of Facebook Marketplace. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Come on. Let me show you. Let me show you. Come back here. Come on. Yeah. Right here, you can see it. It's got, like, silver all over it. I don't know what it's made of. It's made of some material. Have you tested it? I don't know how to work it.
Thing won't open. Done crashed into my field the other day. Thing just came down like just boom! Smacked the ground. Alright. That's a hot air balloon. That is not a UFO. We have dabbled in the dark arts. I call to thee, if anything is in this home, come out and show yourself. Oh shit. I thought we were joking around. Ah!
and we even went on a journey to track down Bigfoot. During this long journey,
The elite tried to discredit us by circulating rumors of our whereabouts, such as being abducted by aliens and replaced by artificial intelligence, or how we were kidnapped by Scientology and cloned by them in order to push a certain agenda. We are making this statement to put these rumors to rest. We seek only the truth, no matter where that truth takes us.
With this being said, Aaron and I will be returning for season 6 next week. Now to hold you over, we are going to play the first 15 minutes of the Patreon episode that we published yesterday, which is over the Kobe Cannibal.
If you enjoy this extra Patreon episode and want the rest of it, along with 170 extra episodes, then head on over to our website, theoriesofthe3rdkind.com, click on the Patreon button, and sign up to become a supporting member. Becoming a supporting member costs only $5 a month and gets you access to more than 170 extra Patreon exclusive episodes that are completely ad-free.
We will see you all next Thursday for the launch of season six. But until then, it's okay to be out of this world with your thoughts because you are not alone. Welcome to a series of the third kind. Patreon exclusive. Welcome. First off, I want to say thank you to whomever you are listening for opening your minds to receive extra knowledge nuggets each week. It means a lot to all of us and we want you to know that.
Also, before we start, since you are a Patreon subscriber, remember that you get priority in topic suggestions. So feel free to shoot those suggestions on over to us by email, or you can write us a letter and send it to our PO box. We will frame it and stick it up on the studio wall.
Not inside Dan's ass. Even though y'all said that it should happen again. Yeah, we should continue sticking it up your ass, all the notes. Yeah. Not happening. No. Sorry. All right. So this episode is about the Kobe cannibal. And by the way, it's pronounced Kobe, not Kobe. Kobe. Kobe. Rip.
And how this episode will go today is that we'll talk about who that individual was, the killing and him getting caught, the trial, and then the aftermath. Then after that, we'll go into strange facts and findings, and then talk about our own personal thoughts and theories revolving this entire story. So with that being said, let's get into today's episode.
In the 1980s, an individual committed such a horrendous act that it left the entire world in utter disbelief. Outraged, the public demanded justice. However, even after admitting his crimes, he was able to walk free. Was this individual a product of a deeply disturbed psyche driven to commit unthinkable acts of violence?
Or does his chilling narrative unveil unsettling truths about the darkest corners of human psychology and the power of money? In this exploration of a true crime enigma, we navigate a disturbing legacy in a story that continues to haunt the human imagination. This is The Kobe Cannibal.
All right, so to start this episode off today, we're going to talk a little bit about who Issei Sagawa is, about his early life, and everything that leads up to the main event. And before we start, I do want to give a warning. This episode is very, very gruesome. It is up there with one of the worst we have ever done in terms of being graphic. So yeah, here's a heads up. Okay.
So Dan, do you want to start this off for us today? So who was Issei Sagawa? Well, Issei Sagawa, aka Pang, or aka the Kobe Cannibal, was arrested in 1981 for murder and cannibalizing. But before we dive into that gruesome incident, let's first learn a little bit about the type of person Issei was, or becomes. So Issei was born prematurely on April 26th, 1949 in Kobe, Japan, to a wealthy family.
His father, Akira Sagawa, was the president of the Kurita Water Industries, and his grandfather was the editor for the Asahi Shimbun. So Ise did have a brother named Jun Sagawa, who played a big role in his life later on.
Now, with Issei being born prematurely, he was able to fit into the palm of his father's hands. So, pretty much, he ended up having some health concerns like enteritis, which was a disease of the small intestine. After many injections of potassium and calcium with saline, Issei was able to recover from it, but his health was still fragile.
As Issei got older, he developed an introverted personality. You know, he preferred to be alone with a book, which this led to him developing a stronger interest in literature. Now, when Issei was just six years old, this is when he supposedly experienced his first desire for human flesh.
Issei was in school. He was in class in first grade. And there was this boy that sat in his class. Issei looked at him and saw his thigh and was just like, oh, that thigh look tasty.
Oh, God. Now, as messed up as that is, things only seem to get worse from there. For example, his brother and him used to play a game with their uncle and father, who would pretend to be giants. His uncle and father would pick them up and then would pretend to lower them into a boiling pot to cook them so that they could eat the two of them. That's so weird. That is very weird.
This did lead to Issei to search and read fairy tales more, especially ones with people getting eaten, which his favorite story would be the Hansel and Gretel story. That's like one of my favorites, but I never liked it for the kids supposedly trying to get eaten. But oh well. Now Issei was able to progress through school pretty easily, even though he was small in stature, he was very intelligent.
He ended up graduating high school, then he attended Waco University where he would earn his master's in English literature. Now while attending this university, his urge for cannibalism started to kick into overdrive, especially for the flesh of women, foreign women. At the age of 24, Issei had a thing for foreign women, especially this German woman that he had come across.
His urge for her became too much and one day he ended up following her home. Issei waited until she was asleep and then broke into her apartment. Now Issei's plan was to quietly sneak up on this German woman as she laid there sleeping completely nude. He was then going to take an umbrella and knock her unconscious.
Afterwards, he planned to slice off a part of her buttocks and sneak away with just a small portion of flesh. How freaking odd is that? You get knocked out and you wake up and you're missing a piece of your ass. Well, guess what? It didn't go as planned. As Issei got closer to her, he accidentally bumped into her knee and it awoke her before he could bop her on the head. She ended up screaming and fighting off Issei. I mean, not like it was incredibly hard to fight him off considering he was...
you know, shortened stature. He was only four foot nine. Yeah. So he was, he was a small, small guy. Yeah. He had tiny hands too. Do you see how tiny his hands were? Oh yeah. They were super small. So Issei tried to escape, but the cops were called and they ended up arresting him.
Now, the police had no idea about Issei's true intentions, and he wasn't going to tell them that, hey, I was there not to sexually assault the woman, but I was there to actually slice a piece of her butt off so I could take it home and make myself dinner. He wasn't going to tell them that, and he didn't. So the police ended up charging him with attempted sexual assault, believing that was his intention all along for attacking the German woman while she was sleeping.
Luckily for Issei, though, he had a wealthy family. His father was able to get those charges dropped by paying a hefty settlement to the victim. So nothing really happened to Issei legally, and he went on to finish school and, of course, to get his master's degree. However, he still wanted to pursue something more.
Issei wanted to get his PhD in literature, but not in Japan. He wanted to go somewhere different. So he decided to go to a university in Paris. So in 1977, at the age of 28, Issei packed up his stuff and moved to France to attend university. Now while in Paris, Issei started to solicit sex workers every night. Not just for sex, but to try and pursue his cannibalistic desire.
Only problem was that each time he had a sex worker in his apartment, he would attempt to shoot them in the back of the head, but each time, he would claim that his fingers would freeze. He couldn't pull the trigger, and with each failure, his desire for human flesh became stronger and stronger. So fast forward four years later. In 1981, while Issei was studying in Paris, he met a tall, blonde German woman named Renée Hartveldt.
Now, Renee was 25 years old. She spoke three different languages and had a prominent future. Her goal was to get a PhD in French literature. Issei became obsessed with her. He is quoted saying, When I sat next to her in class, I fell in love immediately, and I couldn't stop thinking about the white skin of her arms and thighs. She was the perfect woman for what I had in mind, but I had to be careful and better prepare my plan.
Issei eventually made his move and asked her to teach him German. He stated that his father was a billionaire and could pay her any salary that she wanted. Of course, she accepted. Afterwards, they began to hang out more often and Issei liked her intelligence, her knowledge of paintings and European literature, and together they started to go to concerts and art shows.
Eventually, in early July of 1981, Issei invited Renée to dinner at his apartment. After dinner, he asked her to read him a poem by a German writer, in which she did.
Afterwards, she ended up leaving. As soon as she walked out of his apartment, Issei ran to the chair that she had been sitting in and sniffed it and licked it. What the fuck? Yeah, I honestly wish I was joking about this, guys, but that's pretty much what he did. Oh my god. It was at this moment that Issei swore that he would eat her.
Now, before we talk about what happens next, it is important to note that when Issei arrived in Paris four years prior, he had purchased a .22 caliber rifle for his protection. So keep that in mind as we head into this next part. So on July 11th, 1981, which was only a few days after Issei sniffed her chair, Issei invited Rene back over for some tea, in which she agreed.
Renee came over. Issei mixed a little whiskey with her tea, thinking that would make her more susceptible to his advances. I would be able to notice whiskey and tea. Yeah, they don't, I don't think they really mix that well. No. Anyway, after a few hours of talking, Issei decided to declare his love to Renee and asked her to go to bed with him, saying, You want fucky fucky or sucky sucky? He didn't say that.
Of course, Renee rejected him and explained, hey, I just want to be friends. I don't want anything more. You're a great friend. I like hanging out with you. So Issei stands up, walks around his apartment, you know, kind of feeling rejected. So Renee awkwardly sits in the chair in his kitchen. And then Issei eventually walks into the kitchen, apologizes to her, says that she is right. They should just be friends. Issei then asks her to read another poem out loud.
Renee agrees, and while sitting in the chair, she begins to read out loud the poem. Now, as she is reading this poem, Issei, who is still standing in the kitchen, walks toward an area of the kitchen where his .22 rifle is at. And this is like towards the back of the kitchen, so Renee can't see what he's doing. She thinks he's just walking around while she recites this poem.
Now, Issei grabs the .22 rifle and with Renee's back turned towards him, he aims the rifle at her and pulls the trigger, shooting her in the back of the neck. Renee continues reading for a few seconds, stops, slumps over and then falls to the ground, along with the chair that she was sitting in. Issei then realized that a lot of blood was coming out of her head, so he placed a towel under Renee's head and began to undress her.
So Issei already had this entire situation planned out in his head and which part of her body that he was going to eat first, in which he said that he was going to start with her ass. Issei said, and we quote, I thought it looked most delicious. It had to be the right cheek, not the left. The left cheek is closer to the heart and I'm scared of blood.
So instead of Issei cutting her butt cheek off and cooking it, he abruptly bit into it and stated that it was too hard for him to actually bite a piece of her butt off and that it hurt his jaw. So then he tried cutting the butt cheek off with a fruit knife, but that didn't go through the skin. At this point, Issei decided to head to the local market and purchase a curved meat knife. He took the knife back home and began slicing into her.
In his book, Issei describes the step-by-step process that he took and what it looked like. He stated that as he began cutting into her thigh, the fat came through, which he describes it as having the consistency and appearance of yellow corn. He continued cutting deeper into her, and he was able to reach the muscle and cut out two big fillets. Issei described the fillets as, and we quote, by the way, this is him eating the fillets raw right out of her.
Its flavor is that of a delicious fish, similar to sushi tuna. I had eaten nothing more delicious. So after that, Issei took his favorite parts of her, like her thigh and other pieces, and placed them into his fridge. Issei then decided to fry some of the human meat with mustard.
Now, as he was waiting for the meat to finish frying, he decided to take photographs of the mutilated corpse and ended up having sexual relations with it. So he had sexual relations with it after he started cutting it up? Yes. Not saying that there's a good thing about doing it beforehand, but that's just disturbing even more. It gets worse.
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